July 18 — Day 1240 — continued
Really, This Is Embarassing — Even US Military Propaganda is Amateur and the American Taxpayer is Funding That As Well!
I’m sure that most of you saw the July 10 video in which the US Defense Secretary Pete Hesgeth performs in the role of door-to-door drone salesman; his pitch is that the US military will “unleash” American drone production knowhow by “arming” US military units with money and — I assume — people and time so that they can all develop their own drones, thereby bypassing the fossilized Pentagon arms contracting process and if anyone wants a link I’ll send it to you, but really, Hesgeth’s flim-flam man pitch and the bit where he grabs his defense department paper from a hovering drone and theatrically signs it was all over the news, you don’t need me to see that.
I was in Europe at the time and Hesgeth’s little act did not play well in European mainstream and security media. Basically, he was reported as a goof ball fanatic Christian with a possible drinking problem, struggling to stay in the good graces with Donald J. Trump.
From the Ukrainian point of view:
- Anyone trying to impress anyone by grabbing a piece of paper dangling from a drone is about 10–15 years behind actual drone capacity in actual war. It’s like loading one of those World War Two mainframe computers in a train box car, with all the fuses and tubes and switches and cooling fans and cable, and then looking someone with a smart phone in his pocket in his face, and telling him how clever you are, you have discovered mobile computing.
- In a good 10 seconds of the video, Hesgeth’s face is impossible to see because the drone operator decided to hover his aircraft between Hesgeth and the recording camera. The gibel and the drone camer are pointing at Hesgeth. As a guy who has flown drones and done camera work, this is either evidence the US military drone operator couldn’t control his aircraft and blocked out the face of the screen talent (and the producer decided it wasn’t worth re-recording), or that the Pentagon public outreach team thought it was quality video to park a drone inbetween the stand-up talent, and the viewers.
- Not once does Hesgeth use the standard term dating back for more than a century when anyone has talked about American advances in aviation, to wit: “American Ingenuity”. A US Secretary of Defense talking about drone inovation and unable to connect the dots to American Ingenuity — for which no less than the Wright Brothers were responsible for making a popular phrase — astounds me. It’s like talking about a hamburger patty to a US audience and deciding “juicy” wasn’t an appropriate adjective.
Image of the obvious historical US Army hero most widely known for battlefield technical inovation: Sergeant Curtis Culin, inventor of the “Rhino Plow” attached to Sherman tanks during WW2. Hesgeth’s missed opportunity to invoke Sergeant Culin is the kind of messaging error pros see and how they identify amateurs.
For reference, here is the Chinese government engaging in public messaging about drones, obviously this is state propaganda. The military one officially is PRC army TV reporting honestly on a typical exercise conducted by 76th Combined Arms Army “somewhere in the north of China”:
I’ve added a still of some tough-looking Chinese infantry with dog-bots suspiciously similar to Boston Robotics products, for reference.
The US messaging countering this, is Pete Hesgeth pulling a piece of paper off a string attached to a drone? It’s laughable.
More Patriots For Ukraine — But When?
As I write this (Thursday-Friday), it appears that President Trump has decided to try and frighten Vladimir Putin by “releasing” Patriot missile systems for sale to Ukraine, possibly because his wife Melania told him to do it, possibly because Pete Hesgeth cut off all aid to Ukraine and didn’t tell Trump about it, possibly because Trump just feels comfortable talking to Friedrich Merz (whose background is mega-corporate law and whose English is distinctly better than Trump’s). Image of Trump and a Patriot system borrowed from the Ukrainian internet.
It certainly isn’t because of Trump’s concerns about dead Ukrainian citizens and blow-up Ukrainian building following Russian strikes; the July strike numbers above make pretty clear Russia has been blasting Ukraine for some time and somehow the White House was able to suffer through it and not particularly attempt to prevent the Russians from dropping more explosives on Ukrainian cities.
I’m like everyone else: I really have no idea what the actual US White House plan for delivering Patriot missiles systems to Ukraine is. Most of you will have seen the news reports that the US national leadership, and major allies like Germany had no idea or plan for Trump’s declaration that he was fed up with Vladimir Putin blasting Ukraine so he was going to give Ukraine more air defense capacity.
My best guess based on reading the news is that Germany is committed to donate two Patriot systems to Ukraine and buy replacements new from the US, while Norway will finance another system, not clear from where exactly. The “Norwegian” system appears to have been originally planned to go to Switzerland but the Americans changed their mind, after saying they were done supplying Ukraine with weapons they have now announced that Patriot systems destined for Switzerland would go to Ukraine, and be paid for by European states. It’s not at all clear how many of the “Swiss” systems (five on order, supposedly delivery from 2026–28) might be diverted to Ukraine.
LATE ADDITION: German media on Friday one Patriot fire unit, which was supposed to go to Switzerland will go to Ukraine and Germany will pay for it. It’s still being built and it won’t be delivered for at least six months. Possibly, the Budeswehr could turn over ANOTHER Patriot system, but that is up to Germany.
In other words, the White House’s pretty promise of releasing Patriots is a possible fix effective at best in Feb. 2026.
Pretty much anyone owning real estate in Ukraine will tell you that the problem with Patriots is not the number of systems Ukraine has or does not have in the field, as much as interceptor missiles to launch, because the missiles are ridiculously expensive and slow to manufacture. German production of interceptor missiles supposedly is going to come on on line in 2026 as well.
The upshot is, although Trump said lots of weapons were ready to go and would reach Ukraine “in days”, he said he would end the war in 24 hours. For the medium term, all the White House is offering Ukraine to protect itself from Russian ballistic missiles, is words and promises of weapons deliveries the US isn’t paying for.
If we look at the White House rhetoric on its Russia policy, the party lines is the US is going to hit Russia with some really, really nasty sanctions. Vladimir Putin, meanwhile, is on the record that the Russian army intends to win the war and capture all of Ukraine it wants (for now) by the middle of September.
The Russian response to Trump’s promise about arms to Ukraine — which the rest of the world can only see as a commitment Trump could reverse himself at any moment if he thought he could benefit from it — has been predictable. The Kremlin is saying they’ve heard it before, they are not impressed, the economy is strong, Ukraine is losing, the Russian army is loyal and happy to take crushing casualties forever and ever. Medvedev today blogged that the long-range attacks are going to intensify.
I know the Republican internal dialogue about being tough and how America decides what happens, but, Trump is dealing not with a Republican moderate without a lot of campaign cash and worried about re-election and getting “primaried”. Donald J. Trump is in a contest of nerves with the Kremlin.
My prediction, unless the Russian economy implodes or the Russian army mutinies in the next 50 days, and I’m not expecting either of those developments that quickly, then the Kremlin is going to call Trump’s bluff. Russia will keep attacking.
The US may send some Patriot missiles but no new systems will come for at least six months. This is assuming Secretary Hesgeth doesn’t torpedo emergency deliveries of more interceptor missiles behind Trump’s back — which based on past performance seems always possible — then perhaps by the end of July or early August we might see some, but only some, Russian ballistic missiles intercepted again until the Ukrainians again run out of Patriot missiles. But right now, clearly, the Ukrainians are out of that ammo.
The main lesson here is that Trump said the US would help protect Ukrainian cities from Russian bombardment, in practical terms, aside from whatever individual missiles Secretary Hesgeth deigns to allow the Ukrainians to have, no America isn’t doing anything like that.
A critic of the White House might say this is MAGA pretending to take immediate action to protect Ukrainian women and children, while actually throwing Ukraine under the bus. Again.
And a Bonus for Those Who Read to the End
I’ll close with an interesting graphic, it shows defensive position length and density, built by Russia in Ukraine, by region. The total figure is about 8,800 kilometers. Most people estimate the front in this war at 1,200 kilometers. For reference, I read that on the Western Front in World War One, front line trenches stretched about 640 kilometers, but, total trenches including secondary and communication lines was about 40,000 kilometers. By those numbers the Russo-Ukraine War is not the same as the Western Front World War One; the front is twice as long and trench density is about five times less.
With you on the assessment of D.C. ineptitude.
Long on hot air, short on substance.
After clear demonstration of solid pro-Putinism, and months of disgusting arm twisting attempts to arrange Ukraine’s surrender, any apparent new found “get tough on Russia” stance is likely little more than optics.
Why fifty days? If trump really wanted the Russian war to end; sanctions, and or his personal favorite tariffs, would have been immediate. Yes, Putin will call his bluff. At the end of trump’s fifty days, he’ll say he’s very disappointed and he will make a decision and announcement in two weeks.
"and so people who are saying “The Russo-Ukraine War is Like WWI” really don’t know what they’re talking about."
Agreed 👍