The Stan R. Mitchell report for 3/4/22.
Discover more from The View from the Front. By Stan R. Mitchell.
The Stan R. Mitchell report for 3/4/22.
Happy Friday, everyone! Hope everyone has survived their week okay and that you’re looking forward to the weekend.
Before we begin, please note that many email services such as Gmail have been “clipping” my emails. If you want to see the entire thing, including the motivation and wisdom, scroll to the bottom and click “view entire message.”
With that administrative note out of the way, let’s begin.
Things have mostly slowed down (and bogged down) in Ukraine.
And I’m seeing a couple of different arguments being presented out there in the defense analyst world.
On the one side are folks saying Russia won’t likely win, even in the short term.
You can see that in the video below, where General McCaffrey argues that the defenders in cities will have all the advantages, while the Russians will have to go “block-by-block.” This will devour Russian infantry, he said, while unfortunately also proving devastating to the Ukrainian population. (He also discusses why a no-fly zone is a no-go, even mentioning something I hadn’t considered: ground-based Russian anti-air missiles. Of course, all of us have talked about the Russian planes in the air as well.)
But there’s a flip side point being made out there in the defense world, as well. An argument that Russia will eventually take the cities and ground that it wants.
I think Ian Bremmer described it perfectly in his newsletter, which I’ll quote down below.
Despite Ukrainians’ formidable resistance and Russia’s initial battlefield underperformance, much of east and south Ukraine will surely fall to Russian control in the coming weeks. Moscow’s numerical and material superiority is too overwhelming.
Make no mistake, though: Russia may “win” the battle for Ukraine, but it has already lost the war. President Vladimir Putin’s grave miscalculations have resulted in a geopolitically feebler Russia, an emboldened Ukraine, an invigorated West, an economy in shambles, and heightened political instability.
As I stated in my last newsletter, Russia will try to pummel the Ukrainians into submission. They’re going to knock out all services in each of the cities, and it’s still winter over there. (With current temperatures dropping down to the twenties at night.)
Here’s the deputy mayor of Mariupol discussing the targets Russians are striking.
It’s certainly increasingly clear that Russians aren’t expecting what they’re getting in terms of this invasion. I concur with every fact stated below.
And while mud is doing amazing things for Ukraine…
… the Russians have mostly locked up the land bridge in the south.
Three final items before we leave the topic of Ukraine.
First, America isn’t pinpointing targets for Ukraine’s military. (I think this is smart from the standpoint of preventing escalation, but like all of you, I sort of wish they would. But we can’t. And we shouldn’t.)
Second, we really shouldn’t assassinate Putin, as Sean Hannity suggested. And as tempting as that thought can be. It would violate U.S. laws, international laws, and it could backfire by removing American legitimacy and turning the Russian people against us. Remember, we’re not even at war with Russia.
Steven Fish, a political science professor at the University of California at Berkeley, said in the article linked above: “If the Americans assassinate Putin, they will make him a martyr at home rather than allowing his cult of lies, impunity, arrogance, egomania, and inhumanity to undo him. … We need to leave the honor of taking Putin down to the Russian people, who do not want this war and have already begun to turn against him.”
The third and final point is that this war will be won and lost with these people:
And these people:
And for Americans and the rest of the world, this is the ultimate answer (in addition to arming the Ukrainians).
And with that, let’s move on. I promised myself we wouldn’t spend the entire defense portion of the newsletter on Ukraine this time.
Let’s move on to some tech news:
You’ve heard the rumors for some time… Now, I present to you what many have feared but struggled to conceptualize.
Here’s more about drone swarms… They’re literally coming sooner than you can imagine. (Hat tip: Agnes Helou @agneshelou27.)
And there’s been more about lasers of late, and what role they may play.
Finally, in tech news, there was this, which still just defies comprehension…
One other news note, you may remember me writing we had lost an F-35, near China, which we were desperate to retrieve so that they wouldn’t have access to loads of our secrets and technology.
That has now been successfully achieved, with them retrieving it from 12,400 feet deep?! (I can’t even imagine fishing that deep with a deep-sea rig.)
Finally, let’s end with some motivation and wisdom.
(I found this SOOOO inspiring. Click on the image and zoom in…)
That’s it for this edition. As a reminder, please be kind and endeavor to love your fellow Americans. We need to pull this country together, and that starts with all of us.
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Semper Fidelis,
Stan R. Mitchell
P.S. Don’t forget to check out my books. I’ve written a CIA/Marine sniper series, a detective series, a private investigator series, an action-packed Western, a leadership/biography book, and two realistic war novels: one about World War II and one about Afghanistan.
About me: I am a proud vet and moderate, who wants to unite this country. I’m also a proud independent author, who used to own a small weekly newspaper for nine years that was probably (in hindsight) too generous on pricing to my advertisers and too lenient on my collection terms (I’m honestly just almost too nice). I also sought to downplay controversy, understate headlines, and never create panic, all of which is a terrible way to sell newspapers (but a responsible way for a media outlet to act). Looking back, it’s clear I had (and have) a big heart and that I wasn’t made to be some kind of cut-throat business executive. It’s this same streak in me that prevents me from signing any book deals, even big ones. I just don’t trust ruthless business executives at the big publishers. And even if I did, that very same company that I trusted could be bought and purchased overnight. Sorry, but I’ll pass on that. The truth is that while I’ve relented and signed some distribution deals, such as the one I did with Audible for my Nick Woods series, I’m just not willing to be owned by any of the big publishing houses. If I want to speak out on China? I will. If I want to send free books to military members? I will. (And I have.) I don’t ever plan to be owned by some New York publishing house. (The only person I answer to on this earth is my wife and I plan to keep it that way.) My success to this point has been made by doing it the right way: gaining one new reader or one new subscriber at a time. So join me on my journey. Let’s build a community of like-minded Americans, who believe in this country and in our fellow citizens (even those on the other side of the aisle). People who believe in small businesses and independent dreamers on their own journey, whether it’s owning a small farm or staying autonomous in their creative fields. And when it comes to politics? No name-calling. No screaming. Just honest discussion and a genuine search for the truth. In the end, we truly all want the same: good government, unity throughout our land, and ethical leadership.
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And if you want to know just a tad more about me and my journey, there’s this: Writers are crazy, and I’m crazier than most.
The facts about Stan R. Mitchell:
BACKGROUND
— Prior infantry Marine, who earned the rank of Sergeant and a Combat Action Ribbon in 1997.
— 10+ plus years in print journalism, 20+ years of creative writing.
— Super picky reader, who hates slow-moving books. Also super ambitious, with his sights set on the very top of the fiction world. (See this article: Writers are crazy, and I’m crazier than most.)
ACCLAIM
“Mitchell’s writing style is sharp, snappy, cinematic, and impacts with the trauma of a hollowpoint to the head.” — Author Mark Allen
SUCCESS
Mitchell tackles his writing with skill that will blow you away. He’s sold 70,000-plus copies and had thousands of reviews on Amazon and Goodreads. Plus, all of his books average 4+ stars on Amazon.