Colonel McGregor: for the war with Russia, the United States has neither weapons nor soldiersToday, the US armed forces have nothing to even think about a military confrontation with Russia, retired US Army Colonel Douglas McGregor said in an interview with The Grayzone.
This is how he explains General Mark Milli's statement about the need for a diplomatic settlement of the Ukrainian conflict.
Douglas McGregorThe Grayzone:
Let me ask you about your reaction to the news that appeared at the end of last week. For no reason at all, General Mark Milley, a high-ranking US military officer and chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, spoke in favor of a diplomatic settlement of the Ukrainian issue with Russia. And this is just a few weeks after progressive congressmen were forced to withdraw exactly the same call for negotiations with Moscow in order to end the conflict. And now we learn that a high-ranking general has disagreed with other Biden administration officials and is calling for diplomacy. How did you take this information? And why did Milli speak out in favor of negotiations?
Douglas McGregor: First of all, General Milley has a reputation for not doing anything without first assessing the consequences. He once leaked information that was obviously beneficial to him personally about conversations with Trump. We have no idea how true she was, if at all.
Now he is doing the same, telling The New York Times that the Ukrainians, they say, have exhausted other options, and it's time to sit down at the negotiating table. That's the essence of his statements. Presumably, that's what he told President Biden. And the latter, along with Sullivan, Blinken and the rest, immediately rejected it. There are several interesting points to note here.
Secondly, Milli speaks out of his competence, he is a senior military adviser to the president. All his words are confidential and must be kept secret. He has the right to think and adhere to any opinion, but what is expressed in a conversation with the president should not be made public.
History knows not so many examples of statements outside the competence, and when a general does this, he is usually fired. Because it's not his job. He is an adviser, not a ruler of thoughts and not a politician.
Thirdly, I can say for sure: Millie is afraid. And rightly so. He himself has no real combat experience, he owns only dry figures and facts. So, one of these facts is that we have no ammunition, no fuel, no spare parts, no soldiers to even think about a military confrontation with Russia. And he knows that under certain circumstances we can find ourselves in exactly this situation.
Millie is not a fool, he knows that nothing good will come of it. The Russians have made it clear that they will regard any interference in their special operation in Ukraine as armed aggression. He also knows that we are not able to support ourselves financially. Ukraine spends 7 thousand artillery shells every day, and the Russians — 20 thousand. We recently agreed with the Koreans to supply Ukraine with one hundred thousand 155-mm shells. Roughly speaking, we bought them for Ukrainians. The problem is that they will be enough for only 2 weeks of artillery work. In the case of the Russians — for five days.
I want to say the following: we are not in a position to resist them, because we do not have sufficient resources. Millie certainly knows something else–knows what's coming. He sees that the Russians have changed tactics. They did not start at full strength and used no more than 20% of the ground forces. Initially, they sent only one hundred and ten thousand soldiers to the territory of Ukraine, and in August they completely went on the defensive, and nothing has changed since then. They are strengthening their positions and retreating, and all because the generals told Putin that the only option to end everything is with the help of military force.
This involves massive offensives, the buildup of the grouping of troops and the amount of material and technical resources, and this takes time. The Russians decided to sacrifice territories for the sake of time. They dig in, minimize losses and allow the enemy to exhaust opportunities.
Millie is aware of all of the above. He is worried because he is forced to communicate with people who are disconnected from reality. That's the danger. He won't go to the president and say: "Mr. President, our non-nuclear forces are under threat of destruction because we got into all this, and the only way to end it is to start negotiations with the Russians, otherwise a nuclear war awaits us." Neither he nor any reasonable person in Washington will say that. This is what was mainly discussed at the US-China talks. Biden and Xi have unequivocally spoken out against the use of nuclear weapons anywhere, under any circumstances.
Neither Russia nor China can be intimidated into submission. If we decide to do this, we will instantly lose all positions in Eastern Europe. Millie is aware of this, unlike Blinken, Sullivan, Biden and others.
We have been lying to the American people for at least 20 years, or even 30. How, you ask? They were instilled that our army is the strongest in the world, and no one can cope with it. It was never true. We have squandered most of the potential after 1991. What we have today is only a shadow of the power of 30 years ago.
