Letter from Georgia.
"One plus One equals Three
After a nightly pyjama party yesterday with my guards, TG, and her guards, in the grand ballroom at the hotel we are staying at, it is time to muse about on todays two nice pieces of news that fell on the wayside.
It was a nice pyjama party, complete with candlelight and jazz playing on the sound system we had hijacked. Quite a bit of wine might also have been imbibed.
Okay, I am not making the case better for not having gone insane now am I? Bad mathematics and pyjama parties? Well, the pyjama party is maybe partially a sign of a bit of insanity and letting go of some steam, but the math is correct, at least from a military standpoint.
Good News a Deaux
As per usual you will find these two things relegated to short notices in the media, and Punderati is to busy with their dooming and glooming to even notice. So, I guess it is up to me to explain how much niceness they entail.
Let us begin in the country with cows, cheese, watches, chocolate and alps. I am obviously talking about the most impressively stubborn and neutral country of them all.
The Swiss President has initiated the process of nudging their neutrality a fraction towards less strict. This comes in the form of opening the procedure to allow sales of Swiss made arms to countries that will then transfer it to Ukraine.
This might sound minute indeed, but it is bigger than it sounds. Switzerland has a surprisingly large arms industry, and quite a bit of dual-purpose industry that can rapidly convert to arms manufacturing.
They are also having a fairly large stockpile of all sorts of useful things that they might part ways with. And, on top of that they are in the middle of the process of changing out a lot of their own equipment to the latest stuff, so they have a lot of used kit that is perfectly useful for Ukraine, but that they currently can’t sell.
Obviously they are not doing this from the kindness of their heart, they are solidly out for a quick buck here, but money is not the issue for EU, we have more Peruvian Sols to spend than we can find weapons for anyway.
And at this stage of the war, I do not need to explain that even 100 Armoured Vehicles, a bunch of Air Defence systems, and a bunch of shells, would make for one heck of a difference for Ukraine now that Russia is slowly losing their combat power.
In and of itself this would have been big and newsworthy since it is literally going to shorten the war with a month, or even more. Even as a Pastafarian I might utter a small Amen here…
Next News
The operating system Next is making a return… oh, no? Well, if that is not the news, what might be?
Let us begin in Russia and Pyongyang. They ****ed up. Momentously and on a both Historic and Cosmic Scale.
It turns out that North Korea are in violation of the Korean Armistice Agreement (KAA). At least enough that South Korea deems this to be the case, and nobody in their sane mind is going to involve the UN for an arbitration about if this is indeed the case.
South Korea has so far refused to sell or send arms to Ukraine, since this would be a violation of the KAA. Neither side is to sell arms or send troops to another country that is at war. Yes, North Korea has sold arms to Russia, but the South Koreans did not truly find this enough to change their stance.
And, in a way South Korea started as they sold 500K shells to the US to their stockpile, so that US could then send other 500K shells to Ukraine without dropping below their stockpile threshold. And after the North Koreans sold weapons and munition directly to Russia, NK has sold another 300K to Europe.
Anyway, North Korea directly becoming an ally and partner with Russia in a new Mutual Defence Alliance flipped things around a bit, and when North Korea started sending troops, it unshackled South Korea.
After EU Combined, US and China, South Korea has the fourth largest Arms Industry on the face of the planet, and it is as high-tech as they come. This is though not the most important part; they are sitting on the world’s largest remaining stockpiles of NATO compatible munitions and heavy ordinance.
Nobody truly knows how much they have, but the US believe that they are sitting on North of 20 million 155mm shells. If even half of that is true, and we can get our hands on even 20 percent of that it is a Eureka on top of my small amen.
Add to that that they are constantly producing 1 million shells per year to replace their stockpile alone, and another half a million to sell to non-warring customers, you get the picture.
And there’s so much more they can deliver either directly, or out of production lines. They are probably the only country on the planet truly ready for a large industrial war on the planet at this point in time.
South Korea is sending a delegation of officers and other officials to Kyiv to talk directly. And with them are experts on North Korean fighting techniques etcetera that will help instructing Ukraine on how to most effectively combat North Korean soldiers.
With them comes 200 defected North Korean soldiers to further polish the Ukrainians on how to most effectively whack their former countrymen. The defected North Koreans are part of a secret special forces group in South Korea, and they themselves requested to go.
Conclusion
For Ukraine getting access to two huge industrial arms powerhouses this late in the game just can’t be exaggerated. And it is even likely that South Korea will directly transfer to them weapons as gifts, at least partially.
But most important is their stockpiles becoming available short term, long term is also important obviously. The reason why the stockpiles are important is that the Western coffers are bone dry at this point, Ukraine is now fighting on direct deliveries from factories, mostly in Europe.
This is why we never saw those promised 7 Patriot Batteries delivered, there’s just not enough missiles being produced to feed them. The US is struggling even to feed those that are in Ukraine already.
Instead, a decision was made to send more NASAMS (Norway), IRIS-T (Germany) and SAMP/T (Italy & France) batteries, we are producing enough of those for now, and more factories have started recently.
Also, we have a Trump sized problem looming over us, and the risk is quite high that EU + Friends will have to carry the entire weight in the near future. So, a bit of future proofing was decided. This is also why there was some pressure on Switzerland, nah… let us be honest, we hurt their wallet by cancelling orders, and that they listened to.
But Russia and North Korea F***ing up? That was a true boon, because that unlocked South Korea. They literally waved with a huge honking red flag in front of the South Koreans.
The sun indeed rises in the East. So, how did this become 3?
Sitting on top of a volcano in Iceland the world changed and Zelenzkyy got the backing he needed for his peace plan from the 5 Nordics. The 3 Baltics will obviously follow, but the important part was the Nordics, financially and militarily they are the strongest in Europe if counted as a single unit.
Exactly what this entails is not for me to tell yet. But it is far reaching and will be made public at a later stage. Suffice it to say that it regards weapons, weapons technology, money, political pressure (public and informal).
Let us just say that he was also informed that the ultimate is assuredly on the table now. What that is will become clear in a while. I am sorry if I sound cryptic here, but needs be. Just count on Putin not being happy soon.
How now did this be 1 + 1 = 3? Nordics are formalistic and legalistic. We want a law enabling us to belt the living **** out of someone. And, North Korea gave us a UN Mandate, nay Two, on a silver platter, especially since South Korea says so.
And while at it Sweden dunked up a second power move. “Sweden does not recognise the illegal election in Georgia. Sweden is therefore cancelling all cooperation with the illegal government of Georgia and is cancelling all economic ties with the illegal government, at the same time Sweden is investing 25M€ in the democratic civil society of Georgia”.
This dropped like a nuclear bomb from a diplomatic standpoint. Other EU nations started to follow quickly enough, especially in the Nordobaltic region. Enough to put an insane pressure on EU to do something. Conversely this was music to Momsie’s ears. And this leads me to…
Personal
Having borrowed TG on her vacation was a true boon. But, all good things must come to an end, and the poor thing only has 1 week left, so she is going for a coffee with Momsie, and then she is off to a secluded house somewhere this week (courtesy of the aforementioned matriarch).
I get to slog the week in Brussels doing some reporting and coercing, and then I’m off back home. The units I have in place in Armenia can manage themselves for the time being. I might have to go back in the not-so-distant future, with a tad of luck the election in Georgia will be redone but managed by an international election committee and with beefed up security.
There might also be a bit of a numbers edition in regards of Russian economy later this week, but for now toodles. "
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