When a system’s core strength is finance, information control, and alliance management, not production or manpower, then this sort of warfare is the only game left.
You can’t out-produce Russia or China anymore, you can’t sustain a long fight, so you hollow the fight out. Assassinate the scientist, blow the refinery, fund the “activist.”
The South Caucasus example is spot on. And it’s not just the pipelines and corridors, tho those matter hugely. It’s also about who names the churches, who trains the judges, who builds the airports.
Armenia’s being gutted in plain sight because it stopped being useful to the right people. That’s what “sovereignty” gets reduced to now.
I love a good Darrin Waller article. It’s good to see what the crazies are saying. “Israel running out of interceptors” while Iran was running out of generals. Chalk a win up for Iran, right? Probably fair now I think of it, Iran can appoint 30 million more generals, while it is unlikely that Israel can ever build 30 million more interceptors.
Anyway, Armenia was a funny one. They had an alliance with Russia after all. If we can’t put out produce Russia and china, if Russia has all but won in Ukraine, why did Russia fail to honour its treaty obligations to Armenia?
The doctrine of deniable, attritional warfare certainly fits the emerging strategic landscape—where industrial weakness, overstretched commitments, and nuclear deterrence push Western powers toward covert escalation rather than open conflict.
It's also a form of warfare that could easily be turned against those trying to wield it. How cohesive is the US/UK or Azerbaijan? What if Russia and Iran decide to smash the chessboard and rollover Azerbaijan? What's the Royal Navy going to do if BP's assets get seized?
The question then becomes when will the other side adjusts to the "new rules". It becomes the moral dilemma do you decend to the leval of your immoral enemies. Not just killing their leaders and sabotaging critical infrastructure but going after their women and children. This has definitely been a Western specialty.
Georgia seems to be smartening up and learning from its recent experiences with western-facilitated regime change attempts, but the empire works tirelessly. Pinpointing Armenia as a place to watch makes a lot of sense
What I find curious about this discussion is the implicit assumption that unconventional warfare is the prerogative of only the losers of more conventional wars.
What is not considered is the possibility that the victor in a conventional war, having won, won’t then itself resort to these same asymmetric tactics in order to clean up the dross, i.e. those defeated by more conventional means. Why wouldn’t they? Why should it not be the case that two can play the unconventional game?
When a system’s core strength is finance, information control, and alliance management, not production or manpower, then this sort of warfare is the only game left.
You can’t out-produce Russia or China anymore, you can’t sustain a long fight, so you hollow the fight out. Assassinate the scientist, blow the refinery, fund the “activist.”
The South Caucasus example is spot on. And it’s not just the pipelines and corridors, tho those matter hugely. It’s also about who names the churches, who trains the judges, who builds the airports.
Armenia’s being gutted in plain sight because it stopped being useful to the right people. That’s what “sovereignty” gets reduced to now.
I love a good Darrin Waller article. It’s good to see what the crazies are saying. “Israel running out of interceptors” while Iran was running out of generals. Chalk a win up for Iran, right? Probably fair now I think of it, Iran can appoint 30 million more generals, while it is unlikely that Israel can ever build 30 million more interceptors.
Anyway, Armenia was a funny one. They had an alliance with Russia after all. If we can’t put out produce Russia and china, if Russia has all but won in Ukraine, why did Russia fail to honour its treaty obligations to Armenia?
The doctrine of deniable, attritional warfare certainly fits the emerging strategic landscape—where industrial weakness, overstretched commitments, and nuclear deterrence push Western powers toward covert escalation rather than open conflict.
It's also a form of warfare that could easily be turned against those trying to wield it. How cohesive is the US/UK or Azerbaijan? What if Russia and Iran decide to smash the chessboard and rollover Azerbaijan? What's the Royal Navy going to do if BP's assets get seized?
The question then becomes when will the other side adjusts to the "new rules". It becomes the moral dilemma do you decend to the leval of your immoral enemies. Not just killing their leaders and sabotaging critical infrastructure but going after their women and children. This has definitely been a Western specialty.
Georgia seems to be smartening up and learning from its recent experiences with western-facilitated regime change attempts, but the empire works tirelessly. Pinpointing Armenia as a place to watch makes a lot of sense
What I find curious about this discussion is the implicit assumption that unconventional warfare is the prerogative of only the losers of more conventional wars.
What is not considered is the possibility that the victor in a conventional war, having won, won’t then itself resort to these same asymmetric tactics in order to clean up the dross, i.e. those defeated by more conventional means. Why wouldn’t they? Why should it not be the case that two can play the unconventional game?