🇷🇺🇺🇦 A Russian fighter in a VAZ-21099 dodges a Ukrainian FPV drone at the last moment and continues moving.

🇷🇺🇺🇦 Arrival of an FPV kamikaze UAV on a Ukrainian Armed Forces pickup truck with personnel.

🇹🇼 🇺🇸 🇨🇳 Deterrence in Taiwan Is Failing

“My gut tells me we will fight in 2025,” U.S. Air Force Gen. Mike Minihan wrote in a January memo to officers in the Air Mobility Command. The memo, which promptly leaked to reporters, warned that the United States and China were barreling toward a conflict over Taiwan. The U.S. Defense Department quickly distanced itself from Minihan’s blunt assessment. Yet the general wasn’t saying anything in private that military and civilian officials weren’t already saying in public.

Beijing is reaping the rewards of a multidecade buildup focused on the ships, planes, and other platforms needed to project power into the Western Pacific; the “counter-intervention” capabilities, such as anti-ship missiles and sophisticated air defenses, needed to keep U.S. forces at bay; and now the nuclear capabilities needed to enhance China’s options for deterrence and coercion alike. The scale and scope of these programs are remarkable. Adm. John Aquilino, Davidson’s successor at Indo-Pacific Command, said in April that China has embarked on “the largest, fastest, most comprehensive military buildup since World War II.” As a result, the balance is changing fast. By the late 2020s, several recent assessments indicate, Washington might find it extremely hard to save Taiwan from a determined assault.

Modern combat remains a matter of mass. Recent investments aside, the United States reportedly lacks enough anti-ship missiles and other munitions to blunt the first Chinese attack, let alone keep fighting after a few days or weeks of high-intensity combat. Amphibious ships, attack submarines, and other critical platforms are all too scarce. Rapidly surging production of any of these capabilities is difficult, thanks to decades of disinvestment in the defense industrial base—and because even now, defense spending is roughly as low, relative to GDP, as at any time since World War II. As aging ships, planes, and submarines are retired in the late 2020s, in fact, U.S. firepower in the Western Pacific will decline, just as China’s current military reforms reach fruition. The Pentagon is working hard to address the China challenge, but it is still a long way from closing the window of vulnerability that is opening up.

https://foreignpolicy.com/2023/09/08/us-military-deterrence-china-taiwan-war-east-asia/

https://archive.ph/Yx2Kf

🇷🇺🇸🇾 The Syrian Ministry of Defense publishes a two-minute clip of artillery, missile and air strikes on militant positions in Jebel al-Zawiya in the south of Idlib province. The video shows the arrival of concrete-piercing bombs in underground shelters dug by terrorists in the hills over many years.

🇷🇺🇺🇦 4 Russian Airborne Forces soldiers captured 11 Ukrainian Armed Forces soldiers who were hiding in a dugout.

🇱🇻🏥🚫The Ministry of Health of Latvia of Latvia once again draws attention to the fact that there is a lack of funding for hospitals, with over 8 million euros needed to cover the tests done on patients within the first half of 2023 alone. Increased numbers of patients due to Covid-19, introduction of new technologies, and an aging population have all been listed as reasons for this increase in costs.

Controversies over the healthcare provided in Latvia have been very common lately, with services being restricted for people with Russian citizenship, and/or residency permits alongside it, Hospitals raising the alarm bells over debt, and possible bankruptcy. The situation's extent keeps growing clearer with every day, and as it stands, the proposed 40 million euros meant to assist the medical industry does not seem to be enough, especially when one considers funding to be just one of many issues that plague the field.

A video published on social media, by a man moving between Belarus and Latvia gives insight into the possible extent of the problem, and the differences between the two neighbors. In the video, he states:

💬 — "Making an appointment with a doctor in Latvia takes approximately six months [...] this is if you pay 5, 6, or 7 euros per visit, but if you have 80 or 100 euros, then you can make an appointment with a doctor faster, for example in a month [...] Why is that? because in Latvia there are not enough doctors and nurses."

💬 — "Don’t get sick in Latvia, you can go to Minsk to get sick. [...] If my back hurts, I pick up the phone, call and after 2-3 hours, the next day at most, I go to a neurologist for 15 euros, as a foreigner, yeah. [...] This is not six months. For six months a person simply does not live to see medical help in Latvia."

🇷🇺🇺🇦 Arrival of FAB-500M62 with UMPC behind the backs of Ukrainian Armed Forces military personnel in the Zaporozhye direction. After this, the walking step suddenly turned into a fast run.

🇺🇸📉 Default rate on credit card loans from small lenders is now higher than:

Dot Com bubble
Financial Crisis
C-19

Buckle up.

- Game of Trades

🇺🇸📉 Since the pandemic, electricity prices in the US are up a staggering 31%.

In 2022, the US saw the largest annual increase in electricity spending on record.

The average US monthly electricity bill is now ~$140.

- The Kobeissi Letter

🇺🇸🇺🇦 "Current American strategy is not working well."

▪️ "The conflict is developing into a war of attrition, and...that favors Russia. Moscow has more people, more resources and more territory than Ukraine."

▪️ "Worse, Ukrainian forces can make progress only by attacking prepared Russian defenses. If you are in a war of attrition but you have to keep hurling your forces at well-entrenched, well-defended enemy positions, you will burn through your reserves faster than your opponent."

▪️”If Americans conclude that Mr. Biden’s Ukraine strategy will produce what political scientist Max Abrams calls a forever war with a side order of nation building, support for Mr. Biden’s war policy is likely to collapse well before Russia throws in the towel."

- Wall Street Journal

🇺🇸🇺🇦 To the last Ukrainian…

🇺🇸🇨🇳🇷🇺 “The U.S. could find itself in a near-peer conflict with an adversary like China and Russia “tomorrow,” Air Force Secretary Kendall said in a livestreamed event—and the department is “not as [ready] as we could be, by a significant margin.”

- Air and Space Forces

🇺🇸🇪🇺🇺🇦 Slowly by slowly realism steps back in.

'The West must prepare for humiliation'

- Richard

🇺🇸🇪🇺🇺🇦 “Now, polls in both Europe and the US show public support for military aid to Kyiv dropping away, with one recent survey indicating that less than 50 per cent of Americans are in favour of additional funding. This at least partially reflects sluggish progress in Ukraine’s counter-offensive, which has seen only limited gains so far.

Western military analysts and the media built expectations that, this summer, Kyiv would repeat its striking victories of last autumn at Kharkiv and Kherson. Now, people are wondering how much bang they are getting for their buck, and whether the significant investment made by their countries will ever achieve anything concrete.”

- Telegraph