The fog of war around Ukraine is positively hallucinogenic at this point. Western media is spinning stuff like child soldiers, arming grandmothers, and Molotov cocktails as some sign of victory, when this is usually the sign of impending defeat.

It brings to mind Hitler’s Volkssturm, the last ditch people’s defense of Germany.While they were certainly able to harry Russian tanks with one-shot Panzerfaustsand even assemble a few functional units, they simply had no chance against conventional military formations.

As Mark Felton said about the Volkssturm:

The effectiveness of a gang of armed civilians against an aggressive military army is minimal… Simply arming people opens them up to categories that, under the rules of war, attract violent retribution.

He also said “World War II went so badly for some nations that they sought help from civilians.” In the fog of war this is somehow spun as a good thing, when in fact it is just a sign of things going badly. Just look at these guys.

The BBC’s Jeremy Bowen is a constant hype-man for what would be frowned on in the Middle East (his actual beat). He captions this “18 year old Ukrainian volunteers off to war in Kyiv. Three days training and they will be on the front line.”

These guys wearing carrying yoga mats are completely fucked. Three days training is not enough training. That fanny pack does not have enough ammunition. Knee pads are not helpful against armored tanks.

Then there’s this kid in Canada’s Globe and Mail:

War is not just a bunch of people firing guns, it has to be coordinated. You can’t just fly into a country, walk to the front lines, and end up anything other than fucked.

I’m not even saying that children can’t destroy a tank. They can. You just end up destroying far more children than tanks. Panzerfaust armed children in Berlin were able to destroy a lot of armor, but this merely annoyed the Red Army, it didn’t stop them.

I’m also not saying that guerrilla armies can’t stop conventional forces. They certainly can. But they sustain terrible losses, often over decades. They are tools of attritional warfare, and most of the attrition is on their side.

Finally, I’m not saying that militias can’t evolve into militaries. The LTTE did in Sri Lanka, Hitler’s beer-hall bodyguards became the SA, the SS and eventually the militarily competent Waffen SS. But this happened over many years.

What I am saying is that rag-tag forces like this cannot stop a conventional military advance. And they certainly cannot counter-attack. I have no fucking clue how this war will turn out, but whatever is happening now, throwing a bunch of teenagers at it won’t roll it back. Just look at a map.

Russian troops have encircled Ukrainian military units, they have clear supply lines, and they’re a fucking army. They’re not kids with guns. While teenagers can certainly harry troops in close urban warfare, those troops can and do kill them eventually. These kids are literally cannon fodder. Yes you can hit people with these cannons, but the cannons are full of children.

This sort of ‘peoples storm’ is just a delaying tactic, and what are they delaying for? The Ukrainian ‘cavalry’ is already encircled. The West just sends them more weapons to kill themselves without putting any real troops in harms way.

The truth is that western media and people cheering child soldiers are just sick.If they’re serious, NATO would need to put boots on the ground and start World War III. Instead they’re asking young people to buy time for reinforcements that will never come.

The fact that we’re living in an era where child soldiers are cheered is a testament to this uniquely white fog of war. Ukrainians, given honorary whiteness by Empire, get all kinds of support for things considered horrific in the Congo, or Palestine, or Sri Lanka.

But you know what? These are young people just like ours. Just people, not even able to decide or do anything. They’re decidedly brave, but the adults egging them on are craven fucking cowards. Child soldiers are not a good sign here or anywhere.

Calling in children to war means the adults have already fucked up. It means, at best, a commitment to generations of war. None of this is anything to crow about. None of this is inspirational. Child soldiers don’t win wars. They just lose childhoods. This is a most terrible and tragic loss.

The inevitable follow-up is what else would you do? The first point is that a person from Sri Lanka doesn’t need to do anything about this and neither do you.

This infernal western meddling just makes everything worse. I don’t fucking know. I’ve lived through 30 years of war with child soldiers and it’s fucking hubris that these things are easily resolved. It’s imperial arrogance that White Empire does anything but make things worse.

To me I see just two directions, either peace through Ukraine effectively surrendering and negotiating, or peace through World War III and a fucking land war in Asia. If you’re asking my opinion, I’d say peace now. These kids are dying for nothing.