for a nation arrogance isn't a winning hand and larry johnson shows you some evidence;

I know. History does not repeat, but it sometimes rhymes. After watching recent Western actions in Ukraine and listening to increasingly belligerent American threats directed at China, I am seeing eerie parallels with the Battle of Borodino. What?? How is the French pyrrhic victory in the epic battle with Russian forces on the 7 of September 1812, near the village located west of Moscow, relevant to the current situation in Ukraine and China? Let me explain.

The Battle of Borodino was the apogee of Napoleon’s reckless attempt to conquer Russia and set the stage for his ensuing defeat — French losses in securing their “victory” at Borodino, left them decimated and unable to finish the war they started. Napoleon and his commanders hunkered down in Moscow for a short period but then, with the onset of an early winter, realized they faced annihilation if they stayed and chose to try to return to France. They lacked the logistics to sustain themselves in a zone of conflict. The long, deadly retreat from Moscow, marked the nadir of the French military in that campaign, having entered Russia with an army of 600,000 men and escaped with only 16% of the force still intact. Losing 500,000 soldiers is not a recipe for victory.

Here we are more than 200 years since that debacle and the French are back on Russian territory (yes, the land we call Ukraine today was Russian territory in 1812). I guess the French are no longer big on teaching history. They have lashed themselves to a doomed Ukrainian military and are once again facing off against a larger Russian army fighting on its home turf. And what is it that the French will “teach” the Ukrainians? What experience do the French have in fighting with combined arms against a technological peer? The answer is, “NONE!” The last time the French could claim some sort of victory, was November of 1918, as Germany surrendered to the allies to bring a conclusion to World War I.

But it is not just the French who are foolishly choosing to escalate the war with Russia, the United States and many of the NATO countries also are openly encouraging Ukraine to use Western supplied missiles to strike inside Russia, disregarding Russia’s warning that this is a redline. The West is learning disabled. It ignored Vladimir Putin’s warnings over the last 17 years (as well as CIA Director Bill Burn’s cable from 2008) that Ukrainian membership in NATO was a redline for Russia. Failure to heed that warning culminated in the Special Military Operation of February 2022.

Putin now is warning the West that Ukrainian strikes inside Russia is another redline that will be met with a Russian military response. It is deja vu all over again, most of the West is ignoring Putin’s admonition. While the missiles the West is supplying — i.e., Himars, ATACMS, Storm Shadows and Taurus — have limited range (the Taurus can travel the farthest, an estimated 300 miles), it is still a gross violation of Russia’s sovereignty. I will reiterate the point I made in an earlier article, if Russia supplied missiles to Mexico that were then used to hit targets inside the United States, the American people would demand retaliation. Why in the hell do Americans indulge the fantasy that the Russians won’t care? Total madness.

When men like Ted Postol, Stephen Bryen and Doug MacGregor are expressing open alarm over the rhetorical and physical escalation by the West towards Russia, you know you have entered a zone of enormous danger. I know all three men, and they are not given to emotion or wild predictions. Yet, in this current situation, they are genuinely frightened by what they are seeing. I share their fear..............more........