My short answer to the question — Yes! I received an interesting response to my request for opinions on what constitutes the “Endgame” in Ukraine from a man named Matt. Here is his analysis:
The end game is to diminish/weaken Russia. The US has determined they cannot fight and win a war against both China and Russia. The US and it’s allies have sought to pick off the weaker of the two. The longer the US bleeds out Russia, via Ukraine, the better. Not all NATO (think Germany) were onboard with the plan. Hence, NATO starts talks with Ukraine about joining. Such talk provoked a response from Russia. Blowing up Nordstream forced Germany fully on board. The US/NATO will fight Russia to the last Ukrainian. NATO weakens Russia; US clears the decks to more capably deal with China; arms manufacturers make money, and politicians skim money here and there. The way the conflict is currently postured, this can go on for some time, all of which benefits US/NATO. Last thought, the EU will need to take laboring oar on rebuild. Current projections are $1 trillion and rising. EU will need to issue bonds. Interest rates currently too high. Plus, you get into problems between the rich northern countries, and poorer southern countries ((PIGS)). The US won’t publicly announce they win by weakening Russia, by taking away a Chinese ally, and saddling Europe with a generation of debt, but that seems to be happening. What do you think?
My response — “Matt, Thank you for taking the time to write something thoughtful. I think the facts on the ground contradict you. For example, the US economy is in recession with the added whammy of inflation. Russia’s economy is growing not shrinking. It is the United States that cannot supply Ukraine with an adequate supply of artillery rounds and HIMMARs. Russia by contrast is not running out of weapons/missiles. It continues to fire and hit targets in Ukraine. It is the US that is bleeding out.
Why do you believe that the US is so strong militarily? We no longer meet recruiting goals and the military leadership is more worried about proper pronouns rather than a competent military.”
I think Matt is correct observed that the original plan of the United States and NATO was to “bleed out” Russia. The phrase, “bleed out,” refers to an arterial wound that cannot be staunched. A person with such a wound will die within four minutes if the bleeding is not stopped. Only one little problem — Russia ain’t bleeding; it is NATO and the United States that are hemorrhaging.
The Wall Street Journal published a news item this week making this very point, Europe Is Rushing Arms to Ukraine but Running Out of Ammo:
Europe, home to some of the world’s largest weapons manufacturers, is struggling to produce enough ammunition for Ukraine and for itself, jeopardizing NATO’s defense capacity and its support for Kyiv, officials and industry leaders say.
A lack of production capacity, a dearth of specialized workers, supply-chain bottlenecks, high costs of financing and even environmental regulations are putting a brake on efforts to increase output, presenting the West and Ukraine with a fresh challenge for next year.
The United States and its European allies have been deceived by their use of military force over the last 30 years. They have never had to fight a peer nation with the capability to produce all of its own military equipment that is on par with what the West relies on. They have deployed their military forces against ill-equipped, poorly trained armies that lacked air power and effective artillery and tank forces. The United States and NATO were lulled into a state of complacency.
Compounding the problem was the decision of the West to shift much of its manufacturing capability to foreign countries. American can no longer do what it did in the wake of Japan’s attack on Pearl Harbor in December 1941, when the United States switched its massive industrial base into manufacturing tanks, planes, ammunition, battleships and air craft carriers. Modern day America specializes in producing grotesquely expensive, unreliable weapons that take months and years to appear on a battlefield.
This also is an intelligence failure. It appears the CIA bought into the nonsense that Russia had a small, weak economy and would crumbled in the face of Western sanctions. A real analyst would have raised the fact that sanctions, historically, have been ineffective in forcing regime change. Cuba and Iran are primary examples. It looks like the CIA donned its cheerleading uniform, complete with Blue and Yellow pom poms, and parroted the lie that Russia could not produce the rockets, artillery shells and precision missiles to support a long war. We are ten months into Russia’s “Special Military Operation” and they continue to shred Ukraine’s troops and infrastructure like a lethal Energizer Bunny — those pesky Rooskies keep going and going.
We enter the New Year under a dark and dangerous cloud. The failure of the United States and NATO to stop Russia may lead the Western alliance to act with more desperation and recklessness. Russia, for its part, admitted as much this week and is taking steps to bulk up its forces in the event this escalates into a World War. I continue to pray for peace, but there are no Western leaders embracing that approach. They are pinning their hopes on getting rid of Vladimir Putin without taking a moment to consider that Putin’s replacement would likely be more nationalistic and less inclined to negotiate. We are living in an historic, epochal moment that likely signifies the beginning of the end of American dominance in world affairs.
I will leave you with a laugh. Looks like the former Biden nuclear official may be responsible for Zelensky’s fashion choice at his recent speech to the U.S. Congress:
Larry, so true.
“when the United States switched its massive industrial base into manufacturing tanks, planes, ammunition, battleships and air craft carriers”
It goes without saying that the US doesn’t have an industrial base except in very specialized areas (chemical), food, final assembly, and boxing while US machinists are retired (I have a 75 yr old part time machinist on my payroll – he likes keeping busy).
I think the genius’s in DC have no idea how things are made anymore.
Best wishes for you for the holiday and the world for peace in 2023.
I agree, I worked for a company that machined parts for Raytheon and GE and other defense contractors and the business has slowed over the last 15 years. I am retired but I used to stop by and talk to people. I think the defense spending is mostly corruption, as it seems we spend increasing amounts of money for much less actual hardware
Look at Biden’s cabinet as symptomatic of the decline in US leadership. Most have never produced a dime of wealth or ever been involved in making anything of value. They all have the same overblown credentials, like Blinken – social studies and law degree, government and investo-grifting in between stints in government. Same with Janet “Inflation is transitory” Yellin, Nuland same Neo-Straussian dead-ender.
Agreed. From my point of view here in Japan, this is pretty obvious. Japan lost the Pacific War because it did not have America’s industrial base.Like the US, it claimed it was winning although the war was clearly lost by 1944. Then, ironically, the Japanese who once hated the Americans became big fans: the Japanese media switched sides. In the American Civil War, the Confederacy lacked the industrial base of the North, although both sides bought weapons from the British. In the end, though, the Union’s industrial capacity allowed it produce new weapons such as the Minie ball rifle, repeating rifles, gatling guns (etc). They also used balloons for aerial reconnaissance and had the advantage of a network of standard gauge railroads. Just to name a few. Russia has an advantage in weapons and weapon production just as the Union did. And its attacks on electrical infrastructure hamper UAF logistics and mobility just as Sherman’s attacks on Confederate railroads. Putin is Russia’s Ulysses S Grant — strategically and morally. It may SEEM like nothing much is happening in Ukraine right now. But Putin is setting things up, as Grant did, to destroy the UAF. That’s early next year. When he takes the Ukraine, as he must do, to keep his promises to the Russian people, the US will pretend that nothing happened — like Afghanistan. I write about that here:
https://julianmacfarlane.substack.com/p/ukraine-endgame
This article draws a lot on Larry Johnson, Mercouris, Berletic et al.
Yes, the Russia, BRICS+, SCO, etc. members need to keep organizing and wait for the West to bleed out. But on the other hand, maybe Russia needs to deliver a final blow to the faith and confidence in the protective power of the NATO/US militaries and weapons.
Does Putin have this option or will it cause a nuclear response? I think we’re going to find out in the next few weeks.
100 percent agree.
I think there may also be something else going on for which there is historical precedent. Despite protestations to the contrary, the distribution of American-supplied weaponry to other parts of the globe may not be entirely against US interests. According to some reports a shipment of ATGMs was intercepted on the border of Colombia and Venezuela. Venezuela – that’s that country with two presidents – and all that oil. Where’s Olly North when you need him?
No Venezuela doesn’t have two Presidents. That’s an neocon fantasy. Tomorrow someone can declare himself as president of USA sitting in North Korea.
Larry, tonight the Washington Capitals Alex Ovechkin passed Gordie Howie goals record to move into #2 all-time NHL goals (802) behind Gretzky. IMO, Russia was holding off to allow the respect and enjoyment of this historic moment. So my guess is the Russian hammer will be coming down on the Ukie dead-enders in the next couple of weeks.
Correction: Gordie Howe
Call us when he can beat Tim Horton’s record of donuts served.
LOL!
I think they’ll hold off until after Orthodox epiphany, which I believe is the 21st. Christmas is on the 7th, New Year’s Eve is on the 13th, Epiphany on the 21st.
Orthodox Epiphany is the 12th day of Orthodox Christmas and falls, therefore, on 19 January. It is commonly called Крещение [kreshcheniye] in Russian and is the day when many Russian believers take the plunge through an ice-hole.
https://cdnn1.img.sputnik.tj/img/07e5/01/0d/1032613133_0:0:2731:2048_1920x0_80_0_0_c16d327645ba283ed6cbfba39064d015.jpg
I don’t have that date committed to memory and I was too lazy to look it up.
We call it vodici (like the word for water).
Yes, in Russian Крещение [kreshcheniye] means “Christening”, namely that of Christ by John the Baptist.
In Serbia we swim and dive after the holy cross that was thrown in the river by the preast.
And after the celebrations for Ovechkin last night the commenters from CIA, NED and ISW poured a sour stew on his “Putin puppet”.
We all know Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombs were not necessary to beat the Japanese. Statements and diary entries of major war dept figures make it clear Truman (and his apologists) were willing to incinerate women and children to ensure America’s (I.e. atlanticst banking cartels’) hegemony over the global resource distribution and markets.
That’s pretty ghastly. And for the first time since 1945, that hegemony is in great danger. It is facing existential risk and almost certain demise. Now who wants to argue that those who employed atomic weapons on Japan were qualitatively different politicos than the ones currently running the state department? Good luck.
Very true and almost completely forgotten, down the rabbit hole of life. Those deciders are going to be working overtime. NATO is just a bunch of arms merchants, with nothing in common with normal people.
Not analogous.. this time the elites loved ones and property will be incinerated. Russia would actually win a nuclear war too having built fallout shelters for population during cold war. Then millions of surviving Russian would cut the elites out of vaults and execute them
Both of my grandfathers were being mobilized to invade Japan. If they killed every Japanese civilian just for the pure sport of it, I wouldn’t shed a single tear.
Because you are nuts.
You sound like a sociopath. People like you belong in a strait jacket so that you can’t interact with the normal world.
Sure, except for the fact that the military government of Japan was not about to surrender and an invasion would have caused even more combat casualties to both Japanese troops and civilians alike. But that truth violates the lefty narrative so by all means “America bad!”
Not true. The US wanted to test two types of nukes, they rushed it, 3 days between bombs to make sure Japan could not surrender.
There was zero, zero need to drop two or even one of those bombs on civilians population. But the West has always been a fked up that way.
And yes soldiers die before civilians, that is the basis of civilised society. I would never have thought I should kill a bunch of women and children to save my ass in war as a soldier. Fck that shit. Those that do that. Cowards and
a waste of human life anyway.
In an alternative universe, here is a different take on why two nukes were used. US public was getting tired of the endless war. US military observed how doggedly the Imperial Army fought to protect Iwo Jima, a nothing island. They estimated losing 1 million men taking Japan. Hence the bomb was expedient even though it was a horrible choice. Two bombs were meant to make a point. What’s interesting from official Japanese archives, even after 2 bombs the Japanese Govt. Was not ready to surrender. Only when Russia invaded the Kouriles did Japan agree to surrender. This was published in the Yomiuri Shimbun 10 years ago.
Same way I see how much police is paranoid about dying in US
That’s one way to interpret why Truman decided to use nuclear bombs on Japan. Truman also had the option of a naval blockade of Japan. Japan’s primary means of distributing food was via sea born transportation. If Truman had elected the naval blockade, millions would have starved to death.
If you had to choose between slowly starving 10’s of millions of japanese men, women and children, or incinerating 10’s of thousands, or the other option invading Japan mainland, resulting in the deaths of thousands more American soldiers, which would you pick?
Those were not the only options. And the US was desperate to test the nukes before war ended and they were worried it would end before the test.
What other options are you talking about?
I wouldn’t say the US was desperate to test the bomb, as much as the US leadership wanted to end the war against Japan before the Soviets entered it. The bomb was the hoped-for solution to achieve that. The Soviet’s invaded Manchuria on 8 Aug 1945 between the atomic bomb droppings and was a major factor in the Japanese leadership making the decision to surrender to the US rather than the Soviet’s.
You answer your own question.the US did not have to drop nukes on Japan. They did it for power not necessity. They were fully aware it was not needed and would cause generational defects
Just like agent orange. Just like all the shit they use middle East.
The United States like the UK is and has always been the ugliest and most unethical of killers and war criminals.
King Leopald of Belgium was also worse than Hitler.
But people pretend these are civilised nations. In modern times no country matched the sustained savagery of the United States.
What other options?
That’s an easy one: let the Red Army destroy the Japanese Army in Korea and Manchuria.
The only reason the Japanese started the Pacific War was because the USA insisted on an oil embargo to force the Japanese to give up their stranglehold in China.
They were NOT going to give that up, so they went to war with USA and UK to sieze the oil in the Dutch East Indies.
Fast forward to 1945 and Japan was losing everywhere EXCEPT in China.
So they were willing to fight on BECAUSE they still harboured hopes that they could keep that possession, however delusional that might seem to us.
So, let the Red Army monster the Japanese forces in Asia. In only a few days they had already destroyed several Japanese armies, and would certainly have crushed all of them in very short order.
So let them.
Let them destroy any Japanese delusions about retaining a foothold in China, precisely because taking that away from them left them with nothing to keep fighting for.
Anathema for Washington, of course, much easier just to nuke ’em and then occupy the ashes.
I have read that Japan was sueing for peace – they wanted to end the war! I would have taken them up on negotiations, instead of slaughtering innocents.
In the 1990s, USA outsourced good, highly skilled blue collar jobs to Asia and Mexico, in the 2000s USA outsourced good white collar jobs- IT support, payroll, HR, accounting, etc. Now, USA is outsourcing even medical jobs – you never know who reads your medical records and in what country. US government sold decent jobs from under own people for a cheap buck, destroyed skilled workforce, deluded itself and propagandized itself to believed own BS, and threatened Russia to defeat it on the battlefield, to which Putin replied “let them try,” – now, what?
Don’t forget the loss of industrial knowledge with the loss of all those technical jobs, my guess is billions of dollars to replace. Typically once a newly graduated engineer or technician comes on board it take 2 years for them to get a feel for the processes needed to design, engineer and build a system. They also learn the feedback loop between design and manufacturing i.e. learn from your mistakes. There are IR&D projects where new engineers are placed on an IR&D project to learn the new technologies being incorporated into new systems.
Does any of this exist anymore? Yes, but no where near the levels required to pull off an industrial war like WW2.
I believe the end game has grown from Putin’s initial goals – demilitarization and de-Nazification of Ukraine – to also include permanent disengagement from the US dollar.
Getting there will be slow, because de-Nazification requires an attitude adjustment for the Ukraine civilian population. Ukraine citizens need to learn that hating your Russian neighbor is a poor choice. If Russia continues to destroy the energy infrastructure of Ukraine, that lesson will slowly sink in.
And I suppose it takes a while to build up financial systems that can’t be influenced by the US treasury.
So it will be a couple more years for Russia’s military and economic actions to have the desired effect.
“permanent disengagement from the US dollar.”
This was always a Russia China goal pre SMO and the US was very aware of it. The exclusion from swift and BIS theft are attempts to counter the move of financial global structure to the East.
As moves go it’s not a bad one because it was timed before other countries entrenched MIR Yuan and alternative currency and financial systems, eg most countries using mir have stopped due to US pressure, alot if neutral countries are not taking Russian money due to fear of US, INCLUDING China.
Once China began partial compliance with US sanctions in financial dealings with Russia that was a HUGE win for America and UK and the first step to breaking the financial system that Russia and China wanted to set up. China blinked. It should not have. But it has a lot at stake and can’t disengage from the West without huge financial consequences yet.
Russia therefore is forming closer financial relations with Iran financially with the hope of it does enough China will be able to work with it more directly and not fear Western consequences.
The best way to convince China to take a hit in stepping back from West is to economically weaken the West to such a point that China sees more viability in closer Asian and Other relationships on trade and accepts trade with West has to be risked or even sacrificed for long term security and freedom.
Therefore for China if they are going to do that they need to strike an economic blow to the West that shatters them enough to allow the alternatives to become viable.
The question there is timing.
The US has played into this potential plan by weakening Europe. Therefore while US may have wanted to weaken Russia and pick of China the reality itls that US actions have weakened Europe and positioned the east to pick off America.
How does that happen? Not fast. Too fast and America still has formidable weapons, power, influence and biological and nuke weapons and will use them.
So how?
Remember, America has made a huge mistake in killing Europe as a military and economic ally. Thereby isolating itself.
Well 3 ways:
– first economic damage to US
– second preparation of alternative systems, trade routes, markets
– third a careful study of US capacity military, biological and technological
In isolating itself and weakening its natural allies the US has instead increased its own isolation, burden and vulnerability.
To counter this the US has to rebuild Europe fast but it simply won’t be able to now.
So the chess board is
Americas King with a Queen and pawns.
Russia China with an entire back line and one or two pawns.
How will the game end?
//most countries using mir have stopped due to US pressure, alot if neutral countries are not taking Russian money due to fear of US, INCLUDING China.//
What’s your source for this claim?
Alot of neutral countries are not (not yet) taking Russian money due to fear of US.
I know, as a swiss citizen we are supposed to be neutral. But Switzerland participated in most of the sanctions against Russia. In other words, our government is more afraid of the US, then the Swiss government during the ll. World War from the NAZIS.
I don’t understand why every American thinks Russia is the weaker of the two (meaning, weaker than China). Russia is HUGE, has HUGE natural resources and not much population. Contrast that to China that has billions of mouths to feed.
China graduates 5 million STEM, US 568000, Russia 561000 STEM per year.
In the US, then end up in FIRE where the money is.
https://www.industryweek.com/talent/article/21998889/the-countries-with-the-most-stem-graduates
The STEM graduate # stuff is overdone. You cannot eat degrees and you cannot eat chips. At the end of the day, the whole idea that the industrial production will just keep on going into the sky is the same tripe capitalist America is pushing on the world. What you need is land and people who can work the land. And before you say, you can automate all of it – maybe you can but that will just increase the population to levels that will become even more dependent on machine/chips and other people’s (Russia?) resources (energy, metals…).
Soon enough we’ll be known as the United States of Agraria.
Hope you land in tall cotton.
I ask myself the same question. Russia has an excellent fighting army and excellent weapons. It also has a history of great victories, unlike China, which has never won on the battlefield. In addition, Russia has its own original view of the latest weapons. That is, Russia can develop, produce and use them. China has never been creative in the military sphere. It still tries to copy aircraft carriers and F35, thinking that these are highly effective weapons. China is a paper tiger and everyone knows it.
Populations in rest of the world still have low number of technical and scientific graduates compared to their population. For example China and India should have 5 times the number to become par with US and Europe.
On the other hand I agree with you fully on the work the land. In India and China they have the opposite problem. The farms are very very small. Still labor( at right cost) is still not available
The West has expensive solutions for very large farms there are few if any solutions for very tiny farms.
In the end the farmer is not paid enough in both the systems. This is where social engineering and industrial engineering and logistics should team up
In India the auction agents make multiple times more money than the farmer for just few hours of work, then there are wholesalers, retailers etc.
A farmer just 3 km from the city limits may sell his produce for a dollar and may make 3-10 cents profit. The consumer buys the product for 10 dollars just 3 kms away. This is where the system is entrenched and where the state needs to intervene with laws, solutions and promotion of different way of resolving the supply chain to benefit the producers.
The same happened in the West till the big Agrofarm s took over agriculture 50 years back and then they extract subsidies from govt while eliminating employment.
The good news is technology, internet, manufacturing, automation all is now going small scale and what is needed is a major push so that some of the economic activity is brought back to the land and villages and small towns so we have distributed economic activity where more number of people can have ownership and better margins.
I think the difference is the Russians will fight, I doubt the Chinese will they are already trying to sit on the fence and appease America, Never mind Russia still has India who was supported by Russia when they needed it so they will stick with Russia in their hour of need
The idea of a weak Russia is only for the media and the fools who believe it: but after the defeat of the Swedes, the French and all of Europe (and the US and UK in the shadows) under the Hitlerite flag
it is difficult to find another western rat that decides to put the bell on the Russian cat.
Furthermore, the West will not risk losing everything stolen from the world over two millennia by testing the power of Russian bombs.
Successful TV programming and pliable Americans, unfortunately.
Excellent point, Oddo. Economically, China is a powerhouse, albeit totally dependent on energy resources from outside (Russia is 100% self-sufficient).
Militarily, China will never be on par with Russia. Russia has been honing its military prowess for 1000s of years (defeated every single invader since time immemorial). Han Chinese has been subjugated again and again by outside invaders (the brits, the japanese, the Manchurians, the Mongols, etc.). They simply have a different cultural, religious, and mental setup that is not constructed to fight to the death for your Motherland.
Russians are designed and are built to fight.
So, militarily, US decided to attack the stronger of the two rivals. It is irrational. So, why they decided to do this? I think it goes back to irrational hatred of the Ashkenazi jews towards Slavs (dating back to the Khazar jewish state, which was located on the territory of the current Ukraine). Guess who has been engineering the war in Ukraine all this time:
Nuland / Nudelman (her ancestry from Khazaria)
George Soros (Ashkenzi jew, ancestry from Khazaria)
Yuschenko (same)
Kolomoyski (same)
Poroshenko (same)
Blinken (same)
I don’t include Z-Elenski into this list even though he is the same Ashkanzi jew because the guy is not a player, he is just an actor (a puppet), who was hired for nice sum of m(b)illions of dollars by other Ashkenazi jews from the US and Uki-land to play a role in a movie. He is kinda like a Sean Penn in a Harvey Weinstein movie called “President of 404 and the Proxy War with Russia”. By himself, he is nothing, decides nothing, means nothing, and does not even have control or knowledge over whether he will be allowed to live for another 50 years or just another 50 minutes.
So, this war has a significant irrational root-cause dating back to the 10th century. That’s why the US attacked Russia and not China. Huge miscalculation for the Empire, which will accelerate it’s (otherwise inevitable anyways) demise.
Interesting comment about the Khazaria / Ashkenazi connection, as khazaria is historically correct.
Less sure of your other comparison. A Russian state concept only started with Olaf 1000AD. he was being woo’d by the Baghdad caliphate, but chose Eastern Orthodoxy after visiting Byzantine Constantinople. ‘Russia’ was variously ruled by vikings, Lithuanians etc but the modern Russian landmass was created by the Mongols, Ghengis, followed by Hulagu and all of Eastern Europe was a tributary of the mongol Golden Horde around 1350, the mongols also conquered China. So the mongol empire stretched from China (Qublai Khan) to Poland. The Chinese liberated themselves around 1430 and moved their capital north to Beijing to prevent a mongol re conquest by Tamerlane.
The Golden Horde fractured and the russian tributaries established control over the former Golden Horde. Russia is the successor state to the mongol empire.
Mighty empires vied for control over china but no external conqueror. This only happened with the introduction of illegal opium by the British drug dealers around 1800, and the subsequent social decay and weakening of Chinese society and 3 subsequent opium wars leading to 40% opium addiction from which China only recovered in 1949 when the communists banned it.
30m Chinese died in WW2 fighting for their homeland. 80% of the imperial Japanese army was actually deployed against China. Sun zhu, studied in every military academy, was Chinese.
Both militaries are formidable.
However, attacking the Russia right now was seen as having has far less economic consequences than taking on the far more complex paradigm of China.
Unfortunately for the West Russia economically was tougher than they thought and most countries chose to be neutral in the conflict.
Interesting comment on the differences between Russian and Chinese military cultures. I would hypothesize that the Chinese military culture has traditionally regarded war as a means of settling internal political issues, with less emphasis on defending the national homeland from outside invaders; indeed, outsider rule (the Manchurian Q’ing Dynasty after the Ming collapse, the Mongols, the “Manchukuo” regime under Japanese rule…) has historically gained acceptance among the Chinese, even while bloody internal strife was occurring. The Opium Wars were dwarfed by the Tai Ping rebellion occurring around roughly the same time. The Kuomintang between 1930 and 1937 were more concerned with fighting the Communists than they were with resisting the Japanese, until the Japanese advances of 1937 forced them to reconsider their position regarding the Communists. Qualifier: the conflict between the Han Chinese and their Manchu rulers never went away, and the thread of Nationalist revolution is traceable from resistance to Q’ing rule based in southern China during the seventeenth century, through the Tai Ping rebellion, and the revolution of 1910.
If you’re in a fight with a group, always swing at the mouth of the group first – the rest may not join in if the mouth comes off second best. From this perspective, it makes perfect sense to go after Russia first.
There are many good comments above regarding this post. As for education, the US and rest of the West makes up for the lack of STEM graduates with an overwhelming lead in wokologists.
I think Matt was referring to the preferred end-game for the US… but it clearly is not going to happen. So yes, they will become more reckless.
one of the louder and popular voices from the other side
https://michaelmcfaul.substack.com/
Michael McFaul who boasts about lying to the Russians in previous negotiations which is exactly the reason this war is happening. The man is contemptable.
This war once again proved that the Rus cannot be beaten into submission, those who have strong historical roots cannot be and will not be beaten into submission. One way or another, with help or without help, albeit being a pawn or not, they will find a way to liberate themself from aggression who means them harms, even when the cost can be bloody and sometimes tragic, like what us Vietnamese know. Even now, there are families, especially in the middle of Vietnam, still suffering from DNA mutation caused by Dioxin (we call it chemical orange, the most blatant use of Chemical weapon against third world country), with a whole family bloodline tainted forever, children birthed with birth defect, abomination (look for it on the web). Same case can be said in Iraq, where the US used depleted Uranium tipped ammunition. While the adult maybe blamed, the future generation does not deserve to be submitted to such cruel fate.
What I’m waiting for is how much “We the People” from Europe and the United States can tolerate this charade and when the dam is broken, how will they act? We have seen the political establishment mobilized their pawn to crush the grassroots movement on the street of Paris, in some part of Germany, and in Washington as well. As ancient Greek philosophers have stated, there cannot be democracy for all, it’s all of a vain belief that the people have a choice. No, if the people choice can make a different, meaning harming benefit of the establishment, the establishment will never allow it. But to take back control and set those who will be accountable and act for the benefit for the people, the people will have to paid in blood, a river of blood. Will the citizen of the USA and the European willing to paid blood to overthrow the establishment and hang those who is responsible for their suffering?
I have always admired the tenacity and perseverance the Vietnamese exhibited during the US war of aggression. Sadly, we learned nothing from our defeat. From the battle of Dien Bien Phu and the total defeat of the french to the North Vietnamese tanks smashing the gates of the presidential palace in Saigon. Utter humiliation for the US and I hope the same thing happens here.
We are in need of serious reflection.
No, they don’t even want to think about it. They desperately want to believe all the lies. They want to believe that everything is OK because to see the truth is unbearable. The truth would destroy their feeling of security and how they view the world.
I’m sorry for the suffering. The US is a war criminal. It makes it doubly sad that current Vietnam government is entertaining close relations with the US and has not learnt from the past that the nature of the United States is to consume and destroy others.
Writ large total agreement. Russia wins this. But it will be at a cost. The insane oil and gas sanctions are going to destroy Europe in the most spectacular act of suicide I have ever seen. BUT. There are going to be shut in Russian wells. Not to mention the transport problems. Some of them in permafrost areas and they WILL not come back. After the Army I did a short stint at Oxy Petroleum, and people seem to feel that oil/gas is something that comes out of the ground when you insert a tap and turn it open. Also, Russia suffers from a demographic problem. When they won World War 2 for us and lost 27 Million men, and then entered the Western mode of not having large families? They are hurting for people. It is no coincidence that Putin signed an Act the other day making a woman with a sufficiently large family A “Mother Heroine”. With a payment of a million rubles if you have 10 children. And the above and other issues make this situation even more dangerous. Putin “wanted” to believe our Western leaders were rational. He now knows this is an existential affair being fought with homicidal lunatics. And he is in the best situation he is going to be in. Right now. And in our hubris, we think this is just fucking with people again and playing Game of Thrones. And enjoying the drone kill footage. So, Russia wins. And waits to see what China does. China has been enjoying the benefits of this with cheap Russian oil and gas. With no sanctions. But when Ukraine folds, the dealers of death will turn to Taiwan. And then China is in the crosshairs. And as a veteran this is a horrible thing to say. BUT. Until WE get 5 to 10,000 body bags back? This lunacy does not end.
And when it happens, I hope Lindsay Graham will enjoy the old traditional – rolled in tar and feathers before the tribunal.
Not a fan of Lindsey graham, but in fairness, he did serve in the military. Yes, he was in JAG, but that’s more than most of the political class can say these days.
At first when I read that “Lindsey was in JAG,” my mind changed your sentence to something near-sounding but radically different in meaning. Then I read your post a second time.
But apparently the U.S. doesn’t because it has a burgeoning (non-white) population— a sizable percentage of them coming from the third-world where the average IQ is 2 SD below the level necessary to maintain a modern industrial society.
But whatever, TPTB want to propagate the demographic decline doom narrative to facilitate the necessity of the
Great ReplacementCamp of Saintsopen borders agenda.The number of 27 million dead Russians includes Russian civilians.
I would add to all of what you said that the United States overestimated their own technology and military and underestimated the intelligence, education, fighting capacity and industrial capacity of Russia. Since the American people do not know much about history It’s easy to fool them with propaganda and lies.
USSR lost 25 or more million of its citizens. Military losses were about 10 to 12 million I believe and so majority of dead were civilians.
“He now knows this is an existential affair being fought with homicidal lunatics.”
That is absolutely the case. Oddly enough, I see in the female lunatics — Victoria Nuland, Anne Applebaum, Hillary Clinton, Samantha Power, et al. — the clearest expression of this psychopathology.
When the female lunatics of a society are somehow more obsessive in their suicidal ideation than their male counterparts, I’m not sure there is any hope. YMMV.
Question for you: shut in wells are occurring because of a short term or long term demand issue? I ask this because Russia clearly needs time to build the infrastructure to send energy East instead of to Europe. But this is a 2-5 year affair, not a decade plus one.
As for demographics: This is Zeihanian nonsense. Zeihan likes to point to China’s demographics as a time bomb; the problem I have with this is that the exact same situation – worse, if anything – could have been said for Germany, France and the UK after World War 1. Yet they were not doomed by the deaths of millions of their young men.
Demographics isn’t destiny.
Nor is your understanding of the Russian population dynamics accurate. Russia’s population went from ~100M in 1950 to ~150M in 1990. It was the Western caused “Lost Decade” that did enormous damage. Get your facts straight.
They did not lose anywhere near millions, a couple of hundred thousand at most, maybe 900k in WW1. And the UK had the Commonwealth fighting in their ranks taking far larger casualties in many places than the Brits themselves…but counting it as their own casualties.
Russia lost many millions of men. It was a much much bigger demographic issue. Add in other wars and conflicts and you get a huge hit to.a population that should be double what it is.
Wow, you really are not credible. Even wikipedia notes 15 to 22 million deaths in World War 1 with combat deaths a bit under 10 million.
UK: 887K deaths out of a population of under 19 million
France: 1.3M deaths out of a population of 40M
Germany: 2M deaths out of a population of 68M
In all of the above cases – the numbers of combat deaths were larger than the combination of both standing military and reserves prior to the outbreak of hostilities.
And in every single case – the result was a population skewed far more dramatically than China’s male/female ratio.
The problem in viewing history in today’s realities or viewing other cultures with your values is same. It gives you wrong understanding.
Till few decades back it was the norm in India to have aged parents and grand parents living with you they performed some small roles in the household and the earning generation benefitted from them and they got good care without the need to earn money in their old age.
Modern industrial society originating in Europe broke the ties of community, family to get labor for their factories. The state depended on the feudalists/ industrialists to get taxes and to be able to exploit the resources and market of poorer nations. Thus it went about systematically breaking up the guilds/ communities , families with promise of welfare state.
The eastern and African nations haven’t had so much of indoctrination nor enough wealth to Institute a welfare state exceptions being mainly Soviet Union and China.
Most of my uncles and Aunts live with their parents and in some cases with their grandparents. The expenses of the net house hold are just a small fraction of what it would have been if the households were independent. Two cases of grandparents in bed/coma for years were handled with a very tiny fraction of the cost and effort compared to a western system.
So dont expect the demographic issues to effect other countries the same way it would effect western countries.
The problem with your statement is that it is based on straight line extrapolation.
Changes and pressures change society and norms.
Your assumptions that present Western society cannot change are simply invalid.
It will change for no other reason that it must, when it has to.
Russia’s demographic problem is not to be underestimated. I suggest it is one unspoken reason behind the go-slow tactics being employed by Russia in this war.
They just got 5mn/+more people in Donbass. Lost 30k in war. Overall demographic gain.
//Lost 30k in war.//
What’s your source?
With all respect … here is a little gem from 1988. A true master of words . https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aNo6bVqlW-o
Thaaaaaaanks a lot Bill. Indeed a gem.
George Carlin was great. He was really great.
Larry, I’m sure we all agree that the West’s original aim of the Russo-Ukrainian conflict has been to economically bleed Russia and thus, regime change in Moscow. The endless sanctions, the resource hungry war machine would bleed Russia; that was the original thought. But that has not happened; Russia was expected to economically collapse, once cut off from the foreign (=West) investment or lending, so, What has happened?
The explanation lies in the lack of understanding of economics and the banking system in general, rarely found the literature in the subject. Economics is a tainted subject, politically, with a lot of misguided concepts, to say the least, based on (some) theories with no empirical evidence to back them up. For instance, it has been “recently” shown that a country does not need to borrow from abroad in order to expand investment and growth, see, e.g., Lyonnet and Werner, 2012. This goes against one of previously economic theories. Of course, this was not mainstream news, since it is inconvenient to certain powers. Therefore, Russia can survive the current sanctions, from the monetary policy perspective. That Russia is self-sufficient in many fundamentals and manufacturing is another bonus for that large country. Hence, not only the current Russo-Ukrainian conflict is an interesting “field study” from the military point of view, but also an economic one.
I’m No economist, but I’m pretty good at connecting the dots. My first observation is that we have an inflated dollar (or debauched if you prefer). Translating their economic statistics in dollars is absolutely meaningless. It’s an apples and oranges comparison because people live fine with the local currency.
My second observation is exactly what you wrote. It’s like the countries that went on the euro. The Euro is great if you want to buy BMWs from Germany. Not so great if you live in southern Italy and suddenly the cost of previously affordable everyday essentials has gone through the roof.
Russia doesn’t need anything from us, or maybe very little. Therefore, they can live without the dollar.
The US and NATO has gained more members and pushed closer to Russia.
Russia has expanded its military and is adding more military districts as well as half a million men.
NATO is weaker. Russia is stronger.Europe is no more.
Putin has dragged NATO into Ukraine where it cannot defeat the RF.
As NATO grows weaker, the US grows weaker. And the weakness is at its core: economy and weapons systems. Europe is dead.
Russia’s economy is doing very well (even under 9 tiers of sanctions). Its MIC is producing all the missiles, drones, guided ammo, radars and vehicles needed to destroy the Ukie military and counter-strike every weapon NATO can push into the war.
The West, and others, want a negotiated ending. That will never occur.
This war is about Victory, liberation, not just of Donbass and the four regions, but liberation of the globe from the hegemony of the US and the evil ideology of the corrupt West.
Most West’s institutions have to be eradicated. Nothing can be left in place, like it was in 1945, which can spawn nazism and the satanic values of the EU and Liberalism.
This war is for Civilization.
I totally agree, time has come to end the US/UK empire which has killed more innocent civilians in the name of freedom and democracy since WWII that all the other terrorist acts around the world including the African ethnic cleansing operations that they have embarked on since WWII. The west has raped and pillaged its way to world domination. When I was at school in the north of England 1950’s and 60’s we had a history book which showed an Indian prisoner tied to the front of an Howitzer and fired right through him. How did that teach me anything about how good we Brits were to the colonies. It was evil them and its evil now. I live outside the UK
Excellent comment, Natoistan! 100%!!!
“This war is about Victory, liberation, not just of Donbass and the four regions, but liberation of the globe from the hegemony of the US and the evil ideology of the corrupt West.”
Your observations are more perceptive than most of the normal Mirror Gazing predicated on the conflation of two illusions namely – “Everyone is entitled to their opinions” and “Its all opinion, so everybody’s opinion is a valid as the next person’s” which is one of the purposes of blogs.
The on-going multi-dimensional “war” – “war” always being multi-dimensional for at least the last 7,000 years, but possibly since inception not perception, although presently insufficient data is available to test the suffixed hypothesis -, is about the on-going transcendence ( a lateral process; not a linear process of emulation to achieve “victory”) of coercive social relations by social relations of co-operation for mutual purpose and benefits, facilitated with the complicity of coercive social relations and those so immersed in linear processes and projections derived there from, as a function of their reliance on beliefs, including, but not limited to their beliefs they are “strategists/smartest kids in the world”, that “endgames” are options, interacting with the necessity of “their strategic options” being restricted to linear processes to achieve their hoped for purpose which is sustainability within acceptable margins of tolerance, which are conditioned by their interlocutors despite their efforts to bury perceptions of the possibility of conditioning by their interlocutors to “memory holes” and render such impertinance sources of alienation/embarassment of various degrees in “polite society”.
Matt’s observations were insightful but I would like to respectfully point out that both Russia and China have agency in this fight, and that it is a mistake to underestimate how close their alliance is, as well as for how long they’ve been working with each other.
If DC’s strategy to deal with Russia ‘first’ and then China, it is fundamentally flawed. Why? It assumes that either or both nations will let this happen. They’re not passive observers and it isn’t their interests to allow DC to control the momentum or sequence of events.
If anything, the reverse appears to be happening – right now, Moscow and Beijing appear to have command of how this geopolitical struggle is playing out. America, on the other hand, seems to be always on the back foot, unprepared and worse, making very bad errors – whether in the Ukrainian conflict or across the geopolitical board.
The one ‘success’ the Americans can claim is making Europe even more dependant on Washington, eg by the destruction of NS1 and 2. However this success may well end up being the worst of all, especially if new leaders take over in Berlin and London with intentions to sever the alliance with DC, on the basis of how the Americans have behaved towards them in recent months.
The USA does not exist in the end times tribulation, by either annihilation or being reduced to a non global power player. The global shift in power is to the East, that is where the final act will play out, Revelation, TBA.
derek- i will respectfully disagree with you on this.
check out george washingtons vision which is about as end times as it gets . The USA i believe will exist to the end quite prominently as it is the ultimate prize to capture by the commie reds who have been trying to do everything to destroy it since it was founded . i could get into scripture but will leave it at this for know.
https://www.twopercentsurvival.com/george-washingtons-vision
respectfully,
ralph
:O
“commie reds”
What an unthinking sheep-like usage. Are you still living in the 1950’s?
I think the current impotence of the Globalist American Empire is a consequence of the incompatible dual strategic objectives of the trans-national financialists who are the power behind formal (fake) democratic authority in the West. First, they have been steadily implementing the Morgenthau Plan (deindustrialization) not just on Germany but on the entire West, especially what used to be the most powerful European-heritage country, the United States. Second, they have used the Western financial system, coupled with international trade agreements, to spread networks of control over national political structures in most other countries. However, this trade/financial system that acted in part as carrot for co-optable local elites (giving them a stake in the success of the larger globalist system) was always backed by the stick of threat of military intervention.
Either the globalists consciously considered objective 1 more important or they just didn’t think through when the tipping point of ‘success’ in objective 1 would begin to undermine capability to achieve objective 2, or maybe they are just dumb enough not to understand that military power rests upon (is a function of) industrial power. Regardless, I don’t see any way for them to hold on to what they had 10 years ago. The more they try, the more eyes are opened and the more angry their unwilling subjects become. I fully expect tyranny in the Eurosphere which may last decades but after which the evil of transnational financialism of the sort practiced since the early 1970’s will be a standard chapter in world history textbooks.
Who knows, maybe the worst case scenario is coming by the end of this decade.
The decision of leaving the West (something that Gonzalo Lira warned by october 2021) is very difficult, and the worst picture looks so distant and unreal, but is something that should be considered very carefully.
Consider this:
http://johnhelmer.net/the-us-signals-readiness-to-launch-nuclear-strike-against-russia/
https://www.unz.com/mwhitney/putin-has-misread-the-west-and-if-he-doesnt-wake-up-soon-armageddon-is-upon-us/
Good stuff The data doesn’t yet indicate the US Economy is in contraction nevermind recession Not yet. Cheers.
It has always been amazing to me how gullible majority of the population is. Everyone reads the same government BS “economic news” about “GDP growth”, “recession is not in yet”, “employment is up by X%”, etc.
All these metrics are created for sheeple. There are only several physical metrics that anyone with some critical thinking needs to observe:
1) Nominal economic growth (minus BS of about 15-20% injected into it by BEA, which they “scientifically” dubbed “imputations”)
2) minus Actual Inflation (not the one BEA is goal-seeking every month to produce for politicians the “right number” since 1995 “Boskin Commission”, but the ACTUAL inflation)
3) true Employment – how many people are employed, and how many able-bodied persons decided to abandon employment
4) How much of the economy is producing “Marketable goods” and how much of it is “Service economy” (i.e. mostly gambling, massages, and haircuts)
5) how much MORE debt the economy has loaded up to eek out the “growth”
On all 5 of these I can tell you the US has been a disaster since the 1980s.
1) Real GDP (as in “physical” stuff, not the fiat-bubble denominated) has been in decline: nominal GDP growing at 3-4%, minus TRUE inflation (calculated using the pre-Boskin / pre-Geenspan invented shenanigans) running at 6-8% – hence physical GDP declining at 2-4% each year since the 1980s
2) % of people who are 18-60, able-bodied, and employed, has been declining since the 1980s, especially among White Men
3) About 20% of the US economy produces stuff that anyone else in the World would care about (food, stuff, some services, such as software), the rest is “services” (I will scratch you back for $50, then you will scratch my back for $50, and boom, we have just added $100 in GDP!)
4) Debt: went from $1.6 trillion in 1970 to $91 trillion in 2022. For every $4 of new debt, GDP is up by $1!!!
But yeah, otherwise, since the highly respected US gov “economists” said there is no “recession” hence everything is great! nothing to worry about!
A quick, off-the-cuff comment, not necessarily topical: Maybe asking what the West has gotten right, and why, would be more enlightening than focusing on its failures. No matter how idiotic your enemies are, it never pays to underestimate them.
“end of American dominance in world affairs”. American dominance is a flash in the pan compared to British dominance, and if America falls Russia will still have to contend with Britain. I know it’s not a popular opinion, but I’ll keep saying it.
And though it seems extremely unlikely, may peace on Earth, goodwill toward men prevail. Peace to all you readers out there, even the trolls and shills.
Intel Slava Z reported many months ago that Poseidon was designed for London. Just sayin’
Sheesh! Britain was done in 1918, and it’s been downhill ever since. Don’t mistake some residual malice, embodied in MI6, for any real capacity.
“They are pinning their hopes on getting rid of Vladimir Putin without taking a moment to consider that Putin’s replacement would likely be more nationalistic and less inclined to negotiate.”
Exactly. It’s beyond comical at this point, the continued obsession in the West with Putin as the hyper-aggressive strongman who is not only bent on world domination, but even worse, a leader of who, every now and again, throws a wrench into the gears of the precision machinery known as the “rules based” global order.
The reality is, Putin’s coalition sits in the center between a right wing that wants more state control of industry and a return to traditional Russian values, and a left wing that wants more state control of industry and a more equitable distribution of the historically obscene amounts of wealth the nation is continually off-shoring.
Both wings are demanding more soveignty (!), to better protect the Russian Federation from the evils of the neo-liberal globalist agenda, the right believing that the greatest threat lies in the fact that this agenda is both woke and green, and the left that this agena is rapacious and pathelogical and hellbent on the destruction all nation-states, including their’s.
Both want to aggressively fight this evil, and if that means mother Russia must crush Ukraine tomorrow and leave nary a rump state behind, so be it.
Either way, given these political circumstances, it is difficult to imagine the West plucking a Boris Yeltsin type from out of the crowd to lead an “organic” color revolution, one that will not only overthrow the current Russian government, but will also have the power to sub-divide the nation into parts to better fascillitate the selling of it to the highest private bidders.
re: bleeding Russia white
Today, Col. Macgregor put Russian SMO combat dead at between 30 and 35 thousand. Sounds about right. Should these numbers be cause for concern if you are Russia? I don’t think so, especially given the fact that more than half of the fallen were not of the Russian Army.
When the Russian Army disappeared in April, I thought, well, there she goes, but the good news is, it can now go rest and recuperate and do whatever it is that armies do when they are nowhere near the battlefield.
What I did not expect, was the proxie forces this army left behind to do the fighting for them, would actually blead the enemy white all by themselves, so white in fact that when the Russian Army returns, and I do believe it will at some point before the universe contracts upon itself, it should have a relatively easy go of it.
Note: Another shoutout to the Armies of the Donbas! Should they be ranked ahead of the Spartans? Hell yeah. In the end, the Spartan’s record in battle was at best, only slightly above .500. The LDNR on the other hand, despite a few draws, is still, undefeated.
I have seen other figures that put the losses at around 15 thousand. Figure is based on known reported Russian losses of around 7 thousand plus estimated losses by Donetsk and Lugansk militaries. These two still seem to be not fully integrated. Wagner and Chechens are technically part of Russian military.
Wagner technically is illegal organization, as the prescence of private military contractors in Russia is forbidden by law.
This does not stop Wagner from sharing Russian bases, using or borrowing their equipment, or accessing the the Russian Federation’s public health system when they get a case of the sniffles.
Or Russian battlefield aid stations, for that matter, when they are grevously wounded fighting the Ukraine army up close and personal – as they have been doing since the beginning of this SMO.
It’s a wink, wink kinda thing I believe, this relationship between Wagner and the Russian General Staff. Wagner lives to fight, and Russian generals say, “Oh do you now? Ok, how ’bout fighting street by street for the next several months, and capture for us this place called Bakhmut.”
Hopefully they are all in line to receive a tidy bonus at the end of this contract, because they deserve it, whether they take the city or not.
You’re right. Why the Chechens should be so enthusiastic about this expedition is a bit of a mystery. But there they are and they seem to be enjoying it.
So do Wagner, at least on the surface. I guess victory is it’s own motivator.
The original Donbas armies have a more tragic aura: the guys who found themselves victims of political back stabbing, had to leave their civilian life behind to man trenches in the name of self defence. But they have a strong motivation,are grateful to Putin and have list any remaining sympathy for their erstwhile fellow countrymen. Commander Givi is a good example, larger than life charismatic fellow with no previous experience, a Donbas “Campesino”.
*its (let’s keep it correct 😆)
No mystery. First, Kadyrov owes his power to Putin. Second, after the second Chechen war Putin has made sure that Chechnya has been developed. Third, this is the Chechens’ chance to prove threat they are truly Russian by repaying the favor of the second Chechen war. Fourth, there’s a proud, Caucasian warrior tradition.
In the late 90’s and early 00’s, Russian racism towards Chechens was extensive. Between the Chechen gangs that ran many (perhaps most) markets and two wars where a lot of Russian boys died. Add in some serious terrorism.
But this Chechnya is the one that one, that still hunts terrorists. These are the Chechens of my first paragraph. And they are becoming fully integrated as Russians. That Russians in Mariupol would be grateful to here Chechen being spoken. That the news should Chechens rescuing babushkas and babies. That old men would ask for Akhmat flags. This is something barely imaginable a decade ago.
I’ve read that Wagner and the Chechens don’t get along great, probably because a lot of Chechen war vets are in Wagner.
Chechnya is 100% on board because they suffered for years and witnessed first hand just how evil the CIA and their proxy fake Islamists are. You are already at a level where you should read up on that and eliminate a gap in your knowledge. The Beslan school massacre with 200 dead was done by these proxy terrorists, and we know because it was outside Chechnya I believe similar horrors happened all over Chechnya, smaller massacres but more of them. At one time, I was impressed that Chechen women were among the terrorists at the Moscow theater, ready to die. But recently I learned why Russians say these women were ready to die. They had been raped by the fake Islamists, so in Chechen society, their lives had become worthless and they were ready to die regardless. We know the fake Islamists in other regions have done worse, so “Yes, I believe the Russian claims.”
Also, I challenge the idea that Kadyrov “owes” anything to Putin. Kadryov talked down the heretical Islamists and led the military struggle in Chechnya. When Putin became President, within hours he flew down to Grozny to meet with Khadyrov. Both Muslim Khadyrov and Orthodox Christian Putin believe in a powerful and just god, and see the need to protect their people as a sacred obligation. My guess is that Khadyrov and Putin learn from each other.
The picture at the end made my day.
I just watched a show by The Hover Institute, Goodfellas. Filmed back in May. Worth watching just to show what a complacent and delusional group of “experts” The Hover Institute fields.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FZ09BqDkfWI
Backfired?
The list is long, multi dimensional and economically embarrassing. The striking of the foreheads against brick walls shall continue until the stolen luggage is returned.
If the State Dept and their clown show cross the boarder the meat grinder will go into over drive. Then watch the civil wars erupt everywhere while Russia and the Cossacks dance for their newly anointed Tsar. He will of course sit at the table and negotiate a gentleman’s end to it all.
Trust the US “One Stars,” there will be no nuke war, I do.
If the “Coalition of the Willing,” with not attack North Korea, let’s all forget about attacking Russia and China and India and Iran plus every sanctioned off country on the planet. Include American citizens who buy Russian gold( China wants it) LOL.
US funding GoF research for years inc Covid, US Pandemic planning introducing the Lockdown concept early to mid 2019, Military Games in Wuhan October 2019, US came 35th, when has that ever happened before? Covid starts in Wuhan 2019 to 2020, Press report 2 stories, Bat virus/wet market and Careless Chinese GoF management, anyone who disagrees is punished/suppressed.
Covid goes on to be a very useful political tool
Are these events a coincidence?
This.
https://m.vk.com/@580896205-putin-shoigu-talk-at-meeting-of-the-board-of-the-ministry-of
The endgame, Larry, on the geopolitical chessboard that I see — and your blog has been most helpful along with the “game” analyses provided by other patriots (Douglas Macgregor, Scott Ritter, John Mearsheimer, David Stockman and others) — is the collective West led by the US is trapped in a zugzwang (a position arrived on the chessboard when the player having legal moves to make cannot make any that will not worsen its position in the game vis-a-vis its opponent). The US cannot, and will not, having brought itself recklessly into zugzwang due to sheer hubris, profound lack of introspection, and burdened with “karma” of its past actions, resign and retrench, and is now terrified that the Clownworld of its making with itself as the chief Clown will crash as a result and that the consequences may be unimaginable for those responsible. The flip side of this situation of the US in zugzwang is that the US is also ripe for a revolution for the restoration of the republic that has been dismantled by the Deep State, of which the founding fathers had warned and the latest warning came from Eisenhower. With or without Trump the DC swamp members of the Deep State are skating on a very thin and cracked ice. Rational players in a zugzwang position would resign instead of wrecking themselves in a gotterdammerung on the real world chessboard. Here one can recall Hitler in his end days in the bunker willing and awaiting his regime’s gotterdammerung. All the talk in American/Western media of Putin being Hitler is a projection, since the Biden administration is the neocons’s dream fulfillment of their Hitlerite ambitions and actions. So, we are in a dangerous endgame situation with US wobbling between utter recklessness, going nuclear, and the neocon Biden administration crashing with the thin cracked ice breaking, as pressures from the American people mount with them in increasing numbers awakening to the insanity surrounding them.
On the other hand Putin and the RF on the geopolitical chessboard is providing the rest of the world in real time a grandmaster’s demonstration of how to move its pieces in a space-time coordination of offensive and defensive moves that have trapped the imagined unipolar hegemon in a zugzwang. For Putin enforcing a checkmate now would be counter-productive as it would trigger the US into what Putin must avoid that would immensely humiliate the US to recklessly go nuclear. Putin’s endgame, unlike that of the US under the neocon influence, is to help move the world away from unipolarity to multipolarity within which RF’s own survival is best secured, as is that of China, India, and the rest.
So, I believe, the US in zugzwang works well for Putin. The longer the Biden administration squirms in this state of zugzwang the more effective should grow the strength of the American revolution for restoration of the republic and its eventuality grows nearer. Ukraine has been the gambit pawn of the US neocons, and it is been effectively neutered and Putin can remove it from the board when the timing of removing it would be most favourable in setting in motion the reactions that should help liberate the US from the clowns running the show in DC.
Putin is not a monomaniac like the clowns of the Deep State, such as Senator Lindsey Graham. In thinking and acting in a situation of the greatest strategic challenge to his country ‘s and his own survival Putin has proven he is one of the greatest statesmen in our time and will go down in history in the same sense as was demonstrated by JFK during the Cuban missile crisis. Not unlike Czar Alexander II coming to the assistance of Lincoln and the Union during the Civil War, Putin’s role in defeating the US-proxy war against Russia in Ukraine will also be throwing a lifeline of support to the American people liberating themselves by bringing down the Deep State. Indeed, Putin is an ally of people struggling against the tyranny of the woke ideology and its enforcers in the collective West.
Salim Mansur, very well put together.
Anything planned is now long out of control. The embers of Nationalism are glowing and from there, rational argument dies at the whim of a “news story” or the loss of an internet connection.
I feel the best that the US can hope for is that Putin remains in power.
If not, things get bad in Europe and really bad for main street USA.
The US is at war with Russia. Think about that!
Just because the bombs are not yet falling does not mean that the fuse is not burning. It is, actions have been taken that will produce a response.
The opportunity for diplomacy is reducing, either by accident or design. It does not really matter.
Ukraine is a guy playing a piano with his dick.
The problem we have is the two full orchestras both fully tooled up and playing different tunes.
What comes after Ukraine is the real problem and that question maybe coming up quicker than you think!
Very well summed up. There are many levels of which Ukraine is only one.
Very well put, Sir. I agree fully with this assessment.
I have the same view of Putin. I tend to compare him to Alexander I more than to Alexander II, although I see how that comparison works too. Alexander I fought Napoleon over a multi year period in a long term chess game. For a large part part of that, Russia stood alone against nearly all of Europe. Then Alexander orchestrated the coalition with Austria and Prussia that won the victory that saw Russian troops in Paris by 1814. It was a military, diplomatic and logistical triumph. Putin is orchestrating a similar victory, albeit he is not seeking to project troops across Europe, I believe.
Overall, I think history will see him as the greatest Russian leader since Peter The Great and Catherine The Great. On his watch, Russia recovered from near destruction in the 90s, domestic welfare has undoubtedly improved and he is now battling for survival. Future Russian history will probably rank the Battle of The Donbass with the Battle of Poltava in terms of importance.
The end game is to diminish/weaken Russia. The US has determined they cannot fight and win a war against both China and Russia. The US and its allies have sought to pick off the weaker of the two.
If I were the US and its allies’ military analyst, I would have picked China as the weakest link among Russia-Iran-China trio. Of the three, Russia is the strongest nut to crack followed by Iran and then China, by a wide margin. The west has numerous tools in hands to easily checkmate and subjugate China without firing a shot. Iran has a relatively strong military although maybe defeated using a combined force of NATO with at least two million very resolute well equipped troops on the ground, of course that’s if Russia/China don’t support Iran. However, fighting Iran would lead to some huge long-term troubles beyond anybody’s liking. It’s only Russia which enjoys continental power and spirit strong enough to change the current casino capitalism world order into the new Eurasian one. Also the biggest problem is Russia just can’t be defeated given its enormous potential for a nuclear response.
“The west has numerous tools in hands to easily checkmate and subjugate China without firing a shot.”
This Brit would disagree. (1:44)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4-XDxCb92X4&t=106s
“We’re doomed” he says at the end of the vid. Too funny.
In 1929 the us was the big exporter. In Great Depression us suffered far more than Europe as not just domestic but also most export jobs were lost.
Today China is the big exporter, with large economic surpluses which it is not saving but investing in belt/road projects. This makes their economy vulnerable to sanctions in the short term. Imo China is late in shifting from an export based economy to a rich pop with modest export surpluses.
Imo they should boost wages and social support, child care to encourage babies and old age security to discourage saving and property investment, such that Chinese workers can afford to buy what they produce. Imo this is more important than more belt/road because it would remove a major vulnerability while reducing western standard of living. This could be funded in the near term by progressively higher export taxes, first of critical commodities, which exports inflation to the west as lack of labor means the west would be unable to replace what they previously imported until other suppliers were found. It will take time to shift production elsewhere. But for now these changes will be more difficult as opening up has brought in the plague… and, like the us, there gas been no emphasis on improving ventilation systems, shocking considering transmission is through the air.
Otoh Russia has, goaded by sanctions since 2014, over the past decade shifted from a modest net importer to substantial net surpluses, both by import sub and by exporting critical commodities, not least food and fuel. Imo the western prejudices were unable to consider Russia has lifted itself from the 1991 collapsed economy to a powerful, self sufficient country over 30 years. Interestingly, cia said in 1988 that ussr would last 50 years, and around 2018 considered russia ‘just a gas station’. Russia does have a shortage of manpower, they need to keep the plague at bay.
Imo the west picked the wrong victim. Russias success in the war is lighting hair on fire in dc. Western leaders have been making bad decisions for decades as they follow donors orders, they seem to be irrational and frustrated. Dangerous times.
I always joke around that we have a government of the banksters, by the banksters and for the banksters. But the root of all humor is truth. We’ve spent the last 40 years ensuring their well-being and taking our eye off the ball. We’ve deindustrialized to cut costs, inflate the stock market and to play financial manipulation games. And one of the reasons we’ve had to do this is because we continually run deficits and destroy the dollar. That’s not what drives things in Russia or in a real economy.
Kinda sums it all up nicely.
If humanity survives this Banksters shit show, in a hundred years time no one will believe it was possible to destroy a nation with so much so quickly.
I wonder if they will have learned by our repetitive mistakes?
Without Russia and China, we wouldn’t even be able to have that sweet and cushy life we have now. Someone has to do real work to make things happen.
Most people are to blind to see it. Electricity comes out of the socket and food comes out of the supermarket. That is what they think is happening and generally how things work. Idiocracy is comming.
Nationalism denotes putting ones nation first…..the economic interests that control most if not all of capital on Earth are not confined to any one Nation and therefore have no real vested interest in any one Nation. They are only interested in the protection of their investment of capital and the best return is in War…. financing both sides seems to be the norm.. The endgame is not an endgame but a continuous cycle of conflict and war….. neverending game. As a side note..Convid was a Globalist initiated PSYOP against the world to initiate regime change in the United States and to usher in a totalitarian state and new digital currency tied into an injection….the globalists want an all controlling powerful authoritarian State and this goal is synonymous with the CCP…UN ….WEF etc….I suspect Russia is about to be ambushed by the Dragon in the East….and the potential end game from Russian standpoint is not the same as the Rothschild Military Industrial Complex. The Chinese people dropping dead in the streets from SARS-COV-2 and Pelosi flying to Taiwan are all theatre….the Democrats and CCP have the same goals….
“Matt’s” disconnect has its origins in the conflation of money and wealth. The West has developed an enormous and enormously complex financial system that holds the rest of the world in bondage.
It looks wealthy, but in real terms it’s a consumer, and historically consumers have a relatively short half-life. Wealth is things, and the producers’ day will always eventually come ’round again.
The much rued off-shoring of the West’s manufacturing wasn’t simply greedy factory owners making a quick buck. It was first and foremost the only way the USD could maintain its reserve currency status, which in turn provided the best/only way the elites at the tip of the Western pyramid could control the world. By controlling the issuance of currency, they could control the production of wealth and so remain at the tip of the pyramid regardless of who was doing the actual producing.
Here is an analysis from back in 2017 by the Awara Group. “The Russian Economy 2014 – 2016, the Years of Sanctions Warfare” looks at the first round of post-Maidan sanctions and how they failed to have their desired effect.
https://www.awaragroup.com/blog/russian-economy-2014-2016-the-years-of-sanctions-warfare/
Why anybody thought they’d have a different effect today is nothing more than the inability to look beyond the conflation of money and wealth. Even back then, imports accounted for only 7.2% (PPP)of the Russian economy, meaning it produced ~93% of what it consumed and making it “… the most self-sufficient and diversified economy in the world.” Continued import replacement has since reduced that further. Russia’s foreign trade is a matter of want rather than need. If it doesn’t need to buy, it doesn’t need to sell. Ergo, economic sanctions can’t get traction. Simple really. So simple that the high priests of Western voodoo finance missed it.
The only thing missing from the above economic formula is the requisite hard power to defend its ability to continue generating wealth and to control that wealth after it’s been produced. As it turns out, Russia’s ability to produce stands it particularly well in developing and maintaining a hard power advantage. After 4 1/2 mos of watching Russian munitions raining down on Ukraine, the world’s oldest think tank finally noticed. https://www.rusi.org/explore-our-research/publications/commentary/return-industrial-warfare . The Return of Industrial Warfare? Return? Had it ever gone away? No. The West got infatuated with the shimmer and gloss of high finance, as if it had a life of its own. Meanwhile, real wealth generation and the resulting real power went where it was understood and appreciated.
“Bleeding Russia” is just a side goal and no longer an “important objective” for NATO.
The primary objective of NATO, just like most politicians, is primarily just to sit and collect $$$. This is why the US is only spending chump change (~60-70 billion annually) on all of this (with probably a good chunk of that coming back to the politicians in the form of kickbacks too), which seems to be enough to successfully back Russia into a little corner (forcing it to play some last-ditch “war of attrition” or whatever) as well too.
Of course, should Russia actually start coming out of its corner and make significant gains in territory, the US will just push on its EU lapdogs harder to force Russia back into its corner once again (and so, the whole quagmire + Ukraine money-laundry shall simply continue once again)…
Boring!! Get new material.
Lol well to be fair the author and content of this blog repeat themselves even many times more //
Around the beginning of WW 2, the aluminum producers simply could not see a way to profitably increase output sufficient to make all those airplanes. FDR eventually knocked some sense onto them, IIRC by help Renyalds to expand. Of course Biden will not do anything so radical, but the next administration (if there is one) probably will.
The time has probably come for Germany to pay for World War I and World War II.
Really? Germany has started WWI? Germany was an obstacle in the way of the old empire. It was threatened and forced into the second WW. They got involved into WWI by manipulation too. Same is happening with Russia now.
US is again about to go bankrupt and all of the sudden there is an war in Europe and the US can sell their weapons and gas/oil to them for premium prices. Odd, don’t you think?
History is not that black and white like people are being told. Truth is the first victim in a conflict. That is not just some phrase.
Mr. Johnson- i believe what you discussed is like the 1980`s in reverse with russia and the usa exchanging positions.
In the 1980`s reagon put the russian military into an arms race that they could not compete with back when the usa still had its industrial base. They also did an economic war by collapsing the price of oil which hurt russia badly.After 1989 when russia fell and the usa thought that russia was done for good the deindustrialization of the usa began in ernest and the military was put into the middle east to complete the project for a new american century starting with iraq and afghanistan. «In the meantime under the clintons with NAFTA ( Hilary wore the pants) the deindustrialization of the usa moving industry to mostly china and mexico accelerated. If russia would have been kept down to inbetween 2nd and 3rd world status by the oligarths who took over there ;the new american century project would have probably had a successful conclusion with the fall of syria and iran with the USA ruling the roost with a petrodollar nobody would have dared challenge. China would have been the only country the USA would have worried about having to complete regime change if needed. A military required to fight an equal peer would not have been needed since the only possible enemy China could have probably have been kept in check by nonmilitary means.
In the meantime kiev and moscow would have become the new babylon berlin ;a playground for the desires of the elite ; a show that alexander mercoulis refers too the odd time.
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt4378376/
The thing that gummed up the works was the restoration of russia on both an ecomomic and spiritual level by Mr. Putin beginning when he took over in 1999. This was a slow process. The 1st 10 years was where russia kept their heads down while the usa was preoccupied by 911, 2nd Iraq war and the forever war in afghanistan. In the meantime under poppy bushs son and then obama the deindustrialization of the usa continued to accelerate and the usa became a service economy`dependent on consumerism(ie. buying allot of stuff we do not really need from walmart) . Allot of goverment jobs at the county,state and federal level were created to help fill the void but these jobs just generate paper and bureaucracy while generating nothing positive for the economy except for debt and goverment dependence.
John Travolta as Jack Stanton in Primary Colors
John Travolta played a faux Bill Clinton and he decided to tell the truth. That was 1998 and it doesn’t seem that we’ve learn much since then.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sgXclrh-TpU
In the meantime in 2014 the west under nuland did the coup in the ukraine and ineffect the ukraine became the unofficial 51st state under the leadership of the current us president. At this point in time russia really stepped in to gum up the works by taking back crimea and supporting the 2 breakaway republics in the donbass. In 2015 they intervened in syria to prevent the takeover of that country which then protected the final domino of the new american century project iran. I believe know if hillary would have taken over in 2017 the moves against russia that began after biden took office in 2021 would begun 4 years earlier.
In this respect trump gummed up the works by focusing on china and essentially leaving russia alone. Much to the chagrin of the new american century proponents northstream 2 which germany under merkel for her own reasons wanted according to alexander mercoulis was built which would remove any dependence on the usa for europe for anything(one reason why merkel had to go) . Trump was in favor of reindustrializing the usa and not into the climate change agenda which does not make sense if russia , india and china are not a part of it.. In these respects i will give trump credit . He has a business ideology much like the russians and china; and not a saul alinsky marxist ideology which the supporters of obama, clinton and biden have. By leaving russia alone for 4 years Trump gave them time to built up their economy and military to become sanction proof as russia had to have known that when the new american century folks took over the USA again at some point in the future the game would be on again.
When biden got his 81,283,361 million record votes from cyberspace to become the next president immediately the focus went from china to russia and the final complete deindustraliztion of the usa using the climate change green agenda which is totally impractical to implement due to the limitations of the technology they plan to use. In addition some scientists think we are heading into a mini ice age would means we need all the energy we can get. «If Biden and associates wanted to actually compete militarily with russia; trumps plan to reindustralize the usa would have been needed to be kept in place and the green agenda shelved until russia was defeated. Since the new american century folks run on ideology and not common sense ;this they cannot do since they want their cake and be able to eat it also.
According to some the plan is know to deindustralize europe and bring their industries to the usa while keeping the climate change agenda in place on both continents. this will end in tears for obvious reasons.
This will probably turn some people off but ;from a biblical point of view i believe that russia and to some extent china are being used by the Creator to chastize the USA at this point in time. When you look at history when an empire and yes the usa is a world empire with its military bases everywhere becomes as corrupt as we have become with alternative lifestyles the law of the land; the Creator uses other nations and empires to judge and overthrow these nations. In turn when these nations become corrupt they are overthrown by somebody else not yet as corrupted as they are . Some examples are Israel over the midianites, Assyria over the 10 northern tribes of israel who got into baal worship , babylon over assyria, persians over babylon, spartans over athens because they got weak behind the ears, alexander the great over persians, germanic tribes over the roman empire and it might be a stretch the usa over russia in the 1980`s although it was an economic conflict and not open warfare due to the nuclear threat.
In summation even if you are not religious at all there are certain laws of nature which always assert themselves; whether we like it or not. I live in the countryside and when you look at nature the strongest genetics survives unless there is intervention by man. In gardening i have learnt that insects tend to destroy the weakest plants 1st. We like to think we are superior to nature ; but we are not especially if you take an honest look at history. the one TV series out there that shows this is yellowstone.
we are in the same position as we put russia in 1989 and it is our fault. »we forgot how we became a great nation the world envied and it will take allot of pain to get it back. I am from canada but i regard out countries as essentially the same . We were both founded by the same type of people with a pioneering spirit and what happens to you down there will happen to us up here or vice versa.
There is a saying; good times breed weak men and women; hard times the opposite. Russia in the 90`s went through very hard times and as a result since they survived as a nation the people in charge know are a hardened tough lot. This is the opposite of the USA. In time if russia replaces the USA as the preeminent country on earth; they will with the good times probably fall again under the same influences that have brought down the USA.History does tend to repeat itself.
If this is a little rambly; sorry about that. i do not claim to be totally correct about the above; these are just my opinions and i strongly encourage people to think logicaly , research and draw their own conclusions. i did not bring the pandemic into this because it is not the topic of Mr. Johnsons article.
Merry xmas
Respectfully;
ralph
“We forgot how we became a great nation the world envied and it will take allot of pain to get it back.”
NASA astronaut Don Pettit: “I’d go to the moon in a nanosecond. The problem is, we don’t have the technology to do that anymore. We used to, but we destroyed that technology and it is a painful process to build it back again.”
Yup, people still believe America landed on the moon and somehow forgot how to do it.
It is always a mistake to depend on god to be on your side – whatever side that is. History is crammed full with people who went down to ruin while holding on to a believe that “God is with us”.
God is not there to take sides.
US and Nato representatives have stated for quite some time, that they want to weaken Russia and even to break it up into smaller pieces. This “wish” was neither hidden nor realistic. Russia is aware of it’s importance to the western cabal. Russia is by far the resource richest country in the entire world. And it is very well armed to defend its territory, its people and culture.
US/Nato have miscalculated this whole conflict on every level. They even admitted publicly that they cannot support Ukraine the way they did before, simply because they themselves are bleeding out. Again, this is not a hidden fact! We can’t tell for sure if Russia has similar problems. Considering the actions of the Russian military leadership and their strategy, it seems they have sufficient equipment/manpower to go on. Official Russian outlets suggest similar statements. Nato’s pivot to a PR-war shows everyone the cope and desperation of the western block clearly loosing the conflict. Minor victories of Ukraine forces or Nato-coordinated counterattacks have little to no significance to the final outcome. Russia has to learn from those incursions into it’s territory and move along accordingly. That is what I see they do anyway.
Moreover, western weapons have failed terribly against Soviet/Russian ones. The west, in fact, is only capable of mass-murder of mostly peaceful, unarmed and defenseless people from underdeveloped countries. You don’t need an utterly overpriced (and still full of bugs and problems) F-35 or B-21 for that. Those military “tools” are not even capable to threaten a modern country like Russia or somehow give the US an edge in a military confrontation. Real weapons with some significance are not in the arsenal of the west. Best example is the US made Swichblade drone in contrast to the Russian Lancet or KUB-BLA drones. Switchblade is made to kill people, while the Russian drones can take out tanks. Next example is the Russian SU-57. What this aircraft is capable of is simply not imaginable by the western block.
What can a SU-57 do that a F-22 can’t ?
SU-57 is way maneuverable. Look at the videos showing how it is circling it’s own vertical axis in midflight.
So far Nato was not able to detected SU-57 in any sorties they performed inside Ukraine.
But since Top Gun 2 we all know that Maverick can shot them down with an outdated F-14 tomcat 🙂
F-22 is old technology – can’t take software upgrades – has very poor availability e.g one sortie per plane per week in Syria. Su-35’s in Syria (which are a generation below Su-57’s) could detect F-22’s, while F-22’s could not detect them. See Military Watch Magazine for more detailed info .
Beginning to think that it’s not a bit of graft and kickbacks here and there, but that is really the whole point now. Look at the various such schemes the dems have run through blm and ftx, plus hunter biden’s graft in Ukraine and elsewhere. These are the Rhodes milner mandarins whose city of London overlords know nothing if not how to pocket 8 to 10 digit figures no matter which way the political / military wind blows
I have often wondered the results if the Americans or NATO were to put official boots on the ground in Ukraine and Russia were to immediately send a message to the White House in the form of a Kinzhal or Zircon missile straight into the Ellipse in President’s Park which lies directly between the White House and the Washington Monument.
Most I think would first imagine an immediate nuclear retaliation by the States. But I wonder if that is reality – though I am certain many in the USA would certainly argue for it.
Trouble is, it would be such a shock to the entire country and its ruling elite that such a thing was even possible that I think cooler heads might actually prevail – kind of like a quick, hard slap in the face of a hysterical person brings them back to reality. America has never been faced with an enemy who could casually strike with such precision to any point in the USA, even an area of the most protected real estate on the continent.
What could be the social, political and emotional impact on the nation of such an audacious act?
Someone pointed out (SF) that the triangular box with US Flag folded 13 times, that Pelosi presented to Zelenskyy at the Congress his week, is solemnly reserved for funerals!
Sure looks like a gigantic funeral!
And then Pres. Biden :
“This guy is ready to give his life for his country.”
Capiche?
Put another way : “Here’s your money, you are a gone bunny” .
Nazi sweater at that. Did no one point out the symbol?
love the luggage stealing joke.
The icon of the American way of life, McDonald’s with its omnipresent M, was introduced into Russia during the nineties. During the Western barrage of sanctions this unmistakably American presence with ‘M’ was withdrawn from Russia in 2022. But all the venues where the Big Macs used to be sold & consumed have been taken over by the Russian franchiser, who provided the Russian McDonald’s restaurants with hamburgers and all the other McDonald’s stuff. The franchiser didn’t change any of the products but only exchanged the ‘M’ for a truly Russian name. Nowadays the sales of this rebranded Russian (but still identical) McDonald’s are even higher than during the heydays under the American ruled order. The Russian youth applauds this Russification and doesn’t seem to miss the ‘M’ at all. Now tell me, who is ‘bleeding out’ here?
The same goes for car brands. Nissan and Renault left Russia. A Russian carmaker reintroduced the Moskvitch car brand and has reopened the factory with help of Chinese investors. The Russian car market has been flooded by Chinese car brands after the Western car makers left. Again, who is ‘bleeding out’ here?
In the West there exist a magical belief in the irreplaceability of their ‘superior’ brands. Soon Indian producers of Western clothes brands will take over the Russian market with jeans that are identical with the jeans that the Russian youth has been accustomed to. Only the brand sign is different. When all the Western clothes brands have their manufacturing of clothes outsourced to Türkiye, India or Bangladesh, it is only a matter of time and there will appear Turkish, Indian & Bangladesh clothes brands on (first the Russian and after that on the) Western markets. First they will seem identical, but soon they will develop their own brand-identity.
Most of the Western brands have reduced themselves to a mere label (like ‘M’) and rely on the invincible superiority & irreplaceability of this Potemkin village window shield. Well, good luck with this magical make-belief.
What can be said? We now live is a state where talking about the realities slapping us about invites surveillance and an abiding antipathy of state authorities . We are not the defenders of freedom and liberty because we have become the enemies of what is true. Without Truth no other virtues can be maintained or preserved, nothing built upon a foundation of Lies can stand…
The western monetary system is collapsing and Putin and Xi know it. The West is Crumbling & Putin Knows it. “We are looking at the beginning of World War III. In order to pull off this Great Reset, they needed to remove Trump, Putin, and Xi in hopes of then subordinating both China and Russia to the New World Order with the United Nations in control.”
“We live in very interesting and dangerous times. The Climate Change people have pushed that the world has only 7 years left and the Neocons have usurped this agenda to make their dreams come true. These Neocons are a government within a government. They operate under their own rules and are not subject to oversight. “What is unfolding is that the arrogance of the Neocons and their personal hatred of Russia and China has run its course. They are now setting in motion the decline and fall of the West. A crisis is unfolding. They simply NEED war to cover up the collapse of Keynesian economics and the monetary system of borrowing endlessly with no intention of paying anything back.
hey think they really can defeat both China and Russia and the Build Back Better with a new Bretton Woods. All I can say is they are seriously wrong and they will only create World War III, they will lose, and the financial capital of the world will shift to China.
“That has been the forecast of our computer for decades now and instead of listening, they try to defeat it. “What 2032 represents is the complete collapse in government precisely as we saw with the American Revolution which brought the downfall of the monarchy. This was the birth of republics once again and we will move back to a new form of government that may be hard to visualize. The current system of socialism is collapsing.” We are on the path to 2032. We need to start thinking about what new form of government we must create. Our current version will collapse by 2028.” This is all needed because the monetary system is collapsing and we have reached the end of the road of fiscal mismanagement of borrowing every year, running deficits under socialism to bribe voters. But they are reaching the capacity to sell their debt. As interest rates rise, nobody wants long-term debt. The only way to escape this debt crisis is to create war. That will be the excuse to default on all the debt and start all over again, hopefully with a reduced population.
“We are looking at a sovereign debt default. This is what’s going on. This is why Biden will spend whatever he wants because he knows he doesn’t have to pay it back. Eventually, this is what’s going to happen. This is Schwab’s agenda.”
“2023 will be the year from Hell.” “Civil unrest will only get worse” this year, and he is predicting we will have full blown war next year” They need war as the excuse for the defaults of all the government debt.” This is Klaus Schwab’s ‘Great Reset.’ They know they have a serious problem. rand scale. There is no way it can sustain itself, and we are looking at Europe breaking apart.”
Europe is the problem. . . . The crisis in banking will start in Europe. . . . The debt is collapsing. They have no way to sustain themselves. The debt market over there is undermining the stability of all the banks. You have to understand that reserves are tied to government debt, and this is the perfect storm.
The situation for many will only deteriorate from here. I wish I could provide a more optimistic forecast, but I must go off what the models state rather than my own hopes or opinions. Again, the World Bank is now acknowledging that food and energy will become scarce. “Those who understand what is really taking place and that we are on the edge of global defaults post-2024 are not likely to take these vaccines. Hence, they are really trying to prevent movements that will overthrow governments. Just like communism fell in 1989, our Western economies will collapse, and they cannot prevent it. It will not necessitate massive civil unrest. People are not buying their long-term debt anymore, and when they cannot keep funding this insanity, they will collapse of their own accord. This is not some child’s game of blowing bubbles. We live in the real world.”
We are confronted by a real crisis called the Great Reset, which is an attempt to end capitalism as we know it. The crisis is that socialism is collapsing and to keep it going the governments have been borrowing endlessly with no intent of paying anything off.
The objective here is to eliminate paper money so they can just extract whatever taxes they want. The Bank of International Settlement (BIS) has plainly stated that they want digital currencies so the government can control what you are even allowed to spend YOUR money on.
“The Global Identity Project is designed to shift the global economy away from private ownership and into what the WEF calls an “access model” where you own nothing but rent goods and services from the world’s billionaires and billionaire corporations,”
Most do not realize the western system is actually collapsing as we speak as the west can no longer sustain themselves and need war to cover up the collapse which they lose badly.
Absolutely agree. I think these wars are a symptom of a very deep financial and governance sickness in the West that has lived on debt based fiat for 60 years.
My only hope is that Russia will stand in the way of the Great Reset and that people will see that there is at least one country in the world that is worth living in.
I am old enough to remember the Berlin wall and the escape from East Germany attempts. Hard to believe we are heading into a time where Europeans are going to be looking enviously at Russia and considering has best they can escape there.
China is not stupid. They know this plan too and that they are next. If Russia win was in question they’d move heaven and earth to support Russian war effort. And no one can come within sniffing China’s industrial capacity.
I also agree Larry, poster exaggerates USA’s “success” just the opposite really. NATO is fracturing. USA bleeding out allies. Ukrainans will run out of men before “years” of war can even take place.
NATO/USA can not fight a war. I don’t even worry about this. People don’t want to die for the Western regime’s neoliberal agenda. The military is woke now & no longer exemplifies peak masculine culture. Best chance USA has of success is a dirty bomb and somehow convince rest of world to sanction Russia too.
Will NATO last long enough to find out?
Where are the logical sources of Food and Energy for Europe? Not the US of A.
Resuming supplies requires logical thinking; and logical thinking says Russia will only sell to non-NATO members.
NATO will not bleed Russia out, Russia will starve and freeze NATO out.
It’s a paradigm shift before next winter!
This seems to me to be another 30 years war. Long term as the demarcation line moves west, Is it likely the US plan is to crush the German middle and working classes, funnel as many refugees there as possible, destroy the Greens and restart the Ruhr based war machine? Only this time without French resistance but instead with their full support. And with American shareholder blocks taking over and directing German engineering expertise.
And while the war is in sitzkrieg, stealthily and slowly move troops from the Western Hemisphere without triggering missile strikes from Russia while they try to catch up with the east on hypersonic missiles?
Meanwhile, China sits back and plays the role of Richelieu in the conflict. Not having to invest much resources in the conflict until the end.
The Anglo strategy toward the continent as a naval power has always been to build up the 2nd strongest power. In a battle for Mckinder island, the hope is to move east, Balkanize Russia and fight the current strongest power on the continent which is China. i think, this will fail as the 21st century favors land power over Sea.
I will point out that ammunition is fundamentally an encapsulation of energy. Whatever the specific explosive used, there is a core requirement of energy input. 1 kilogram of TNT is bit over 1 kWh (1.162).
Now let’s do the math: if Russia is shooting 20,000 shells a day, and 1 shell has 10.8 kg of TNT, then you need a minimum of 251 MWh just to replicate the energy of the TNT. You need the energy to mine, refine and cast the shell casing. You need energy to create the primer.
The EPA has an interesting document on the explosives manufacturing industry:
https://nepis.epa.gov/Exe/ZyNET.exe/2000I4WR.txt?ZyActionD=ZyDocument&Client=EPA&Index=1976%20Thru%201980&Docs=&Query=&Time=&EndTime=&SearchMethod=1&TocRestrict=n&Toc=&TocEntry=&QField=&QFieldYear=&QFieldMonth=&QFieldDay=&UseQField=&IntQFieldOp=0&ExtQFieldOp=0&XmlQuery=&File=D%3A%5CZYFILES%5CINDEX%20DATA%5C76THRU80%5CTXT%5C00000002%5C2000I4WR.txt&User=ANONYMOUS&Password=anonymous&SortMethod=h%7C-&MaximumDocuments=1&FuzzyDegree=0&ImageQuality=r75g8/r75g8/x150y150g16/i425&Display=hpfr&DefSeekPage=x&SearchBack=ZyActionL&Back=ZyActionS&BackDesc=Results%20page&MaximumPages=20&ZyEntry=1&slide
Note on page 5, Table 1 the amounts of inputs consumed by the US explosives industry in 1971:
coal: 547000 short tons
distillate & fuel oil residue: 267,500 bbl (barrels)
natural gas: 198 km3 = 198 bcm
purchased electric energy: 630.3 GWh
Total energy: 8.4 TWh equivalent.
To put this in perspective: the entire US electricity consumption in a day is about 10.77 Twh
It isn’t clear to me that Europe can even access, much less afford, the energy to supply Ukraine with ammunition.
First of all I truly want to thank you Larry for putting out this blog sans paywall. I’m a housepainter and every penney counts, specially round Xmas! I discovered this and the ‘Vineyard of the Saker’ about the same time through the GatewayPundit. I’ve been following all of you sense Nov 2020. As far as being a consumer of ‘news’ for us Kulaks at the deck level the above sites are as ‘trustworthy’ as I am capable of extending my ‘beliefs’ in the present psy-op which to be honest, is not very far. ESPECIALLY with the CIA connections of you and the Hoft bro’s. Color me extremely jaded with anything resembling ‘truth’. I feel like Pilate, “what is truth?” This latest ‘challenge’ of yours for the comments section is brilliant for all the armchair generals and, well here am I! I was not going to comment initially but, alas, I’m a sucker for ‘begging the question’ fallacies. Here goes: The endgame is the west does not survive it’s current formation with this fourth turning ends, which in my estimation will be in the latter part of the 2020’s or early 2030’s. What rises from these ashes will be a world dominated by a mixture of eastern and 2040 window values. Anybody not ‘following’ to the utmost due diligence in discerning the elephants on the hotizon will be stomped. As Mario Puzo said ‘ Fools Die’. Short term for Ukraine in 2023 is they’ll wind up a rump, EU and NATO will implode to irellavant status, America will be in the throes of economic turmoil and propably martial law, WEFer’s will unleash another bio weapon if they cant clack off a nuke somewhere in the west. Unless Jesus returns I dont see any savior for America, and I dont blame him for not wanting to come and save our sorry ass for the sins of ‘we the people’. As a former Assemblies of God minister thats a hard thing say, let alone believe! I’m a former minister because I would not go along in lockstep with the government shutting down and pushing jabs. The demonic cowardice at every level of whats considered elite leadership in western society is the only truth I am willing to agree with, and it is quite shocking to behold. People who will not stand for anything will fall for everything, and rightfully so! My two cents.
I bet Dunkin’ Donuts has the record.
Let’s start with the endgame: yes, it is to weaken Russia.
At a minimum. Some of the neocons have more ambitious goals, like co-opting its elites (current or future generations) to serve as sort of “junior partners” in a system to achieve other aims: control of RF’s natural resources, extraction of its wealth, using RF against China, etc.
Now, LJ believes that the strategy (or is it tactic?) of provoking RF to invade Ukraine [see, for instance, the famous cable from McCaul to Rice, or the 2019 RAND report, “Extending Russia”] has backfired in that it is weakening the US and EU instead.
That might be the case, but I think LJ is focused on the wrong thing: nation-states and political groupings (US, UK, EU) versus groupings of individuals; namely, the Straussian neocons and their disciples/allies/aiders & abettors.
These folks, who Bush 41 once referred to as “the crazies in the basement”, don’t care about the weakening of the US. They do not hold allegiance to any nation-state. They are immensely wealthy and powerful, and only care about wealth, power, and control (for the sake of control). They are truly sociopaths.
So from their point of view, nothing has backfired, or at least not yet: the longer that dollars flow into arms manufacturers coffers, the better it is for them.
The other key thing to realize is that for the neocons/disciples, this is a *multi-generational* project.
If they cannot “weaken” RF or co-opt its elites in one generation, no problem, they will keep on at it. Children born today will be leaders of nation-states 50-60 years from now. They will target them, literally from kindergarten. Through the internet, through NGOs, through “mentors” (i.e., talent-spotters) at the US/UK/EU universities to which the young adults will be awarded full scholarships, through things such as the World Economic Forum (WEF) Young Global Leaders Forum, the Rhodes Scholarship, the Ditchley Foundation, and so many others.
They. Will. Never. Stop.
Ever.
There are some in Russia, China, India and other countries that recognize this. In my view, though, these countries have yet to develop a comprehensive strategy for dealing with the *multi-generational* aspect of the threat.
The former head of India’s external intelligence agency has written two books: The Unending Game, and The Ultimate Goal. The title of the first book refers to the “game” of espionage, and the never-ending competition among nation-states for relative/absolute/positional advantage.
As with the “game” of espionage, I believe that the “endgame” of weakening Russia, or China, or any other state, actually has no “end” – it will be never-ending. This is because the neocons and their allies/disciples understand fully well that there are those who know what they want, and will seek to oppose them.
This “game” will never end. You can’t kill/eliminate an idea. There will always be sociopaths who are drawn to extreme wealth, power and control.
The only way to counter the threat is to maintain a very strong military, and maintain full control of the *education* system in one’s country: from pre-kindergarten through post-tertiary levels of education, and through family, children and young adults must be taught about their country’s history, civilization, values, ethics, etc. Of course, they should also be exposed to thoughts and wisdom from other countries and civilizations.
Matt came up with what he thought could be the US-EU-Ukraine axis endgame. Though I agree with you in your disagreement with Matt, you, Larry, did not come up with what would be an endgame for Russia and its allies. At least not in the grand strategic sense that Matt approached the issue. Military advantage for Russia in Ukraine will have tremendous effects on geopolitics and the international economy world wide. An optimum endgame for Russia may mean trading some aspects of control/territory in Ukraine for broader benefits, such as breaking or loosening the US-EU axis, cementing closer relations with countries like Turkey, Saudi Arabia, UAE, and the BRICS countries. It would be interesting to see that side of the endgame addressed in some detail.
Totally agree with Larry. Yes, the conflict was provoked by the US to bleed Russia and more, depose Putin! But it is only making Russia more resilient internally, as evidenced by yesterday’s announcement of military reinforcement to a force greater than that of the US. And externally as the great pivot of a multipolar NWO. If this is the US idea of a weaker Russia, the US and NATO are having as much success in Ukraine as they do in Afghanistan. The best Washington and the wider West can do now is pray that it outlasts Afghanistan! And yes, if we are talking about any major intelligence failure, it was mainly from the CIA. And just listen to Petraeus raving. That he should be compulsively admitted with Brandon to a nursing home!
Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to Larry!
“response to my request for opinions on what constitutes the “Endgame” in Ukraine from a man named Matt. Here is his analysis:
The end game is to diminish/weaken Russia. ”
Belief in “endgames” often underpins the illusion of sustainable”winning” which facilitates lateral processes rendering believers complicit in their own transcendence.
That was the case in regard to the practices of “colour revolutionary missionaries” in Russia during the 1990’s.
This continues to enjoy a half-life in the imaginings/interpretations of some who misguidedly believe that their imaginings are valid, rendering imagined opportunities for them and their sponsors to attempt reiterations of Massadas for future ideological purposes with the complicity of believers, particularly when at least the wiser members of the Banderistas are not so naive and will be less affected in the hope of continuing utility through other vectors, including but not limited to portraying the sponsors as “saviours” of the remnants of “freedom fighters”.
This has been part of the “failsafe” options of the wiser Banderist members before 2014, since the joint venture of “regularising relations” by the assassination of Mr. Bandera in Munich left “messy loose ends” capable of encouraging schisms.
The doubling downs of fools and opponents often have utility for those with facility, and therefore should be welcomed.
Hey all…I think it’s pretty clear that the likely way forward is ESCALATION–on both sides.
Consider this:
– US-NATO cannot let Russia prevail
– Russia cannot let US-NATO prevail
– Biden tells Zelensky the US will support him “as long as it takes”
– Putin announces that he increasing Russian military strength
– I disagree that the US Military is spent…the US maintains a fully capable Air Force and Navy that can inflict a lot of a pain…they are poorly led (at the strategic level) I’ll concede that…but US war fighting largely hinges on control of the skies and seas and the US is good at it
“We enter the New Year under a dark and dangerous cloud”…spot on brother.
Put your seat belts on and hold on tight kids…daddy Biden’s been drinking again!!!
Merry Christmas!
US Air Force and Navy can indeed inflict a lot of a pain, to a country without state-of-the-art anti-ship and anti-air capabilities. Now you know why USSR/Russia have been investing heavily in those things (and not in aircraft carriers). China have upped their game in last two decades too, as a part of their Taiwan gambit.
You’re absolutely right on the anti-aircraft/anti-ship technology…I am not saying that the US would not suffer casualties but if we’re talking a peer-to-peer conflict e.g. US vs. Russia there will be high casualties on both sides…I pray it does not get to that level but it’s not looking cheery in 2023.
Yes high on both sides…maybe. However there is this to consider; Russian anti-ship and anti-air missiles have a far greater range than their opposite targets.
They can reach out and touch the enemy whereas the enemy can not do so as successfully.
The casualties IMO will be the same ratio as in Ukraine now; 10 to 1, much likely more.
You say “Russia’s economy is growing not shrinking.” What’s your evidence? Putin himself says Russia’s GDP will decline 2.5% this year – http://en.kremlin.ru/events/president/news/70170
GDP is going down, but tangible item production is increasing.
Think iPhones and Louis Vuitton vs. military production.
That’s true about GDP, which is not a true measure of economic strength. But what evidence is there that “tangible item production is increasing”? Electronics? Heavy industry? Russia has been heavily burdened by a liberal economic mindset during the Putin years.
The number of missiles/rockets/shells/bombs/mines/drones/bullets/arrows used is tangible evidence. Even Zelensky complains about it. Russians have been running out of everything since March, and still keep on going. I guess the heavy burden of a liberal economic mindset during the Putin years was not heavy enough.
People keep focusing on electronics; electronics are a very thin wedge in the real world economy.
The real economy is building things:
1) Military hardware and consumables: tanks, planes, shells, missiles. Both hardware and consumables further intake enormous amounts of raw materials: energy, metals etc.
2) Food. Russia is growing more food than ever.
3) Fertilizer. A significant amount of the natural gas that Europe isn’t consuming, is getting converted to other things. Some for the items in 1), fertilizer is another way to store natural gas.
4) Import substitution. Russia is making more and more of the items it used to import: from cheese to cars to planes.
As for “Russia has been heavily burdened by a liberal economic mindset during the Putin years” – this is utter bollocks. Putin’s thesis when going to grad school was “going back to the basics”: using Russian energy to rebuild its place in the world. The “liberalization” of Russia occurred in the 1990s under US/European consultants and oligarch looters; import substitution was put in as a policy by Putin literally years ago – admittedly significantly as a result of sanctions.
Using GDP as a measure of economy is what got The West in this mess in the first place. They thought that Russian economy was on par with Italy.
At a certain point the West will realize that sanctions and other measures are not hemorrhaging the Russians. At which time West may decide to directly intervene in Ukraine most likely by Poles into Western Ukraine–hoping at least to stop Russians militarily by them using large number of their missiles on the Poles. There will be a new phrase. Fight the Russians to the last Ukrainians and Polish soldier.
Time to reread Thucydides
And study the debate undertake the Sicilian Campaign
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sicilian_Expedition
Because that’s where we are headed.
It’s been evident sanctions backfired for months.
Actually, Russia is economically more like the U. S. @ the start of WWII.
A huge resource base under utilized, with solid manufacturing know how that is now directed at a consensus national goal.
Interestingly, Russia has about ten million more people than the U. S. had in 1940.
And, the consensus, political support for Putin & the Russian government is at roughly 75%, which might be a little lower than in the U. S. after the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor in 1941. But a solid working consensus… people feel good working in the defense industries as doing their patriotic duty… much as was true for the U. S. during WWII.
In other words, neocons have awakened “the sleeping giant.”
No rationing, either, unlike the U. S. during WWII which had significant rationing.
This war cabal… neocons, neoliberals, and warhawks have screwed the pooch.
Yes, neocons have the First Amendment right to speak their peace…??? (WAR), but they have no right to be in power in government… neocons need to be held accountable… they need to be frog marched out of their government offices shoe box in hand with the rest to follow.
In the aftermath of this debacle (if there is a ‘aftermath’) Congressional hearing must be had to hold to account the cabal which got us into this debacle.
They betrayed the American People by this 30 year plan to “Regime Change” Russia & dismember it because they never told the Sovereign, the American People, their secret plans (if you looked hard it could be discovered, there was no debate… in deed, Congress has never had an open debate in chamber on this plan.
No, it was presented as a fait accompli with anybody opposed or even just questioning being considered unpatriotic.
Let us hope the U. S. doesn’t push this war into something that can’t be recovered from because the cabal know that to lose is for them to be at a minimum cast into political darkness or at maximum thrown into prison.
In the larger picture, politics is grounded in economics. Geopolitics is based on geoeconomics. From this perspective, US hegemony means control of the world’s resources, which implies subjugating the large resources holders, Russia, China, Brazil, Indonesia, India, and the African continent — that is, most of the Global South and east — while keeping Europe in state of vassalage. This is the principal dynamic of this. The rest is just details, e.g., hybrid warfare as a means to this end.
The stakes could not be higher — world domination and economic supremacy (read unprecedented power and wealth). Will the US risk nuclear winter for this? It’s already playing the brinksmanship card. It might be unplanned, but who can tell where events will lead. The US elite is apparently willing to take the chance in view of the stakes.
This dynamic is the prism through all else on the world stage must be viewed in terms of the present state of the world system, which is now in flux. “The Great Game” continues on the global chessboard with the US the successor to the British Empire. The US elite is fully invested in this, as are the rivals of the US. It is a fight to the finish. Either the US continues to control the world system by imposing a world order based on the US making the rules to its advantage, or a new world order emerges.
This game is now in full swing and could devolve into a kinetic WWIII complete with nuclear weapons. Ukraine is just an iteration of this process that has been going on for hundreds of years. Now the colonies are getting restless and even many of the vassals are shaky.
Outcomes are uncertain for epistemological reasons (known unknowns) and ontological reasons (unknown and unknowable unknowns).
(This is an edited and expanded version of something I posted at Mike Norman Economics @blogger yesterday.)
I agree with much of your piece, but the jury is still out about China’s intentions.
Yes, they have infiltrated us and penetrated us in many ways.
That can be reversed without going to war.
In deed, staying away from kinetic war against China is the best way to kick out the infiltration & penetration… without going to WWIII.
There is a faction in China that wants to hit hard at perceived enemies. (and may even believe they can survive nuclear war.)
There is a faction in China that wants to ‘get along with the West’ Co-existence is possible with mutual respect & reciprocal treatment… and allowances for local differences… to be discussed collegially… with room for disagreement.
Actually, it’s more complicated than that.
But I think we should appeal to the faction that wants to ‘get along with the West.’
At the same time protect & guard against such practices that we can thwart within our territorial borders… and in our trade practices where globalists within our own midst agreed to such trade practices… that can be changed via the legislative process through our own democracy.
Sir, I will not take a black pill of it’s them or us.
There needs to be a peaceful transition to a multi-polar world.
I believe it can be done.
A peaceful & prosperous world hangs in the balance… or a dystopian nightmare of dog eat dog… that ends in disaster for humanity.
Peace & good will.
All true, and I fully agree with your analysis. But then what? Is it enough to just document our decline and pat oneself on the back for an accurate appraisal of what ails us? How do we get ourselves out of this mess before Brandon starts WW3 or engineers a financial collapse of the West? Why not use some of that brain power on devising potential solutions? Methinks focusing solely on a grassroots persuasion campaign is not going to cut it. We can and should do better.
So where did all the nazis in Ukraine come from?
They were there since WWII, laying low and waiting for their time to come (with the support of CIA, of course).
I would check the background of those brilliant advisors who proposed this grand idea to bleed Russia dry. Their intentions could have been the exact opposite — to bleed the U.S. You have to be blind on both eyes, completely deaf, crippled in every other sensory capacity and above all clinically stupid (if not downright criminal) not to realize that Russia today is not what it was after the Bolshevik Revolution, Civil War, Red Terror, WW I , WWW II…– easy prey. The way the conflict in Ukraine has been unfolding on the battlefields, it seems like it’s been set up as “Afghanistan” for the West — with the intensity just enough to lock the West into it (with its service-based economies and self-insufficincies when it comes to resources and industrial production) and exhaust it there, exploiting its hubris, in full view of the rest of the world…… Nothing beyond that. There will be no fall of Kiev and all this triumphalist nonsense, but a blackhole..
Unfortunately, I have to agree with you, it’s too bad. “Projection” seems to be a hallmark of our current government, they want, so they say, to see Russian broken up into easily managed and exploited regions, I suspect that will actually be the USA over the next decade.
C’est que les Etatsuniens et les Européens s’imaginent, dans leurs rêves les plus FOUS, que le remplaçant de Poutine (à la suite de la … “défaite” de la Russie et la chute de Poiuitne) pourrait être … SERAIT … NAVALNY … leur “créature” … le “Zelensky” russe … c’est-à-dire un VENDU … ou … Khodorkovski, l’ESCROC de Ioukos, réfugié à Londres …
RÊVEZ … RÊVEZ … RÊVEZ !!!
https://www.statista.com/statistics/246420/major-foreign-holders-of-us-treasury-debt/
If China were to sell the 970 billion in US treasuries into the market…. the BRICs were to develop a gold backed trading scheme..
…that’s game over for the US dollar, correct? The selling of the treasuries would require the fed to print a ~ trillion ..which would cause the US to burn down in hyperinflation..correct?
China needs the trade or they will have civil unrest problems in the urban areas. If China collapses then Russia loses a major customer.
India is attempting not so much neutrality, but survival. Needs all trades..including US.
Don’t you think that if the US air force and our very capable Navy assets engaged Russia, we would quickly be in nuclear war? New York City and the DC/Maryland/Quantico would be nothing but a sheet of smoldering smoking glass….. as would be Moscow, London…and down the line…
“If China were to sell the 970 billion in US treasuries into the market…. the BRICs were to develop a gold backed trading scheme..…that’s game over for the US dollar, correct? The selling of the treasuries would require the fed to print a ~ trillion ..which would cause the US to burn down in hyperinflation..correct?”
Not necessarily. In a simplistic scenario of China attempting to sell all at once, the bid would drop and so the actual cost in USD to acquire the securities would be less than than the face value of the debt. In addition, the US could deploy various flavors of financial chicanery to sterilize / buffer against the immediate negative effects of such a move. I know that your question did not ask about the likelihood of such move; however, in my opinion any move by China to dump USTs is more likely to be done indirectly in exchange for commodities like oil or gold rather than on the open market because China can then trade paper for real value and make the paper someone else’s problem.
The end game:
First, imo there will be no negotiation. There are precedents, Russia still has no treaty with Japan following ww2. And the us would be acknowledging defeat, which it would not do, just like the afghan 20-yr war.
Russia is not in a real hurry as long as Ukraine continues to throw troops against artillery. This will stop, electric production will continue to be degraded, the exodus will empty Ukraine with most going to eu thru Poland while Kharkiv residents will go to Russia.
There’s a rumor Poland is mobilizing 300k troops. If so and they invade west Ukraine they will be dealt with just as Ukraine was, except they won’t have the benefit of fortifications. Such an invasion might delay the liberation of the remaining 4 Russia-leaning oblasts, but I anyway doubt Poland would invade.
As the fighting ends or shifts to west Ukraine, Odessa, Kharkiv and the other 2 oblasts lying in between would be liberated, a large (300km?) no-man’s land buffer monitored by drones/satellites with little power/transport available. It would be empty. With Kiev unlivable the capitol would move to the west, citizens to eu.
The west, certainly us, will likely continue sanctions, but guerrilla ops would be daunting, likely die down fairly quickly. Eu will be distracted by their limited access to energy and waves of refugees from Ukraine, Africa and the Middle East, and may fall apart. Le Pen might finally win French pres. Us will pivot to China.
But will nato survive? Might some nato countries wish to revive trade with Russia, and will Russia be willing to trade with any nato country? Russia will still have serious security issues wrt nato even if it ‘wins’ in Ukraine. Will the baltics want to remain in nato? Will Scandinavia still want to join after Ukraine defeat and, if so, will Russia allow it? Many questions remain.
“A lack of production capacity, a dearth of specialized workers, supply-chain bottlenecks, high costs of financing and even environmental regulations”….the globalisation chickens come home to roost. The US had once chance post war via ‘Project Socrates’ to arrest the technological decline bust old Bush threw that all away. If the Chinese and Russians imitate Socrates there will be no coming back for the US.
” If the Chinese and Russians imitate Socrates there will be no coming back for the US.”
It is unlikely that they will drink hemlock or have difficulties finding others inviting them to share meals.
I just spoke with some old friends and we ended up gaming out the ‘stand way back and let the chicken bones fall on the floor’ future possibilities to this.
A bit of a redneck think tank but without the class.
After much Guinness and input from a few Countries on both sides of the pond.
We concluded that the the most likely outcome of Ukraine in the long term is:
The return of Taiwan to China without a shot being fired.
Cheers, Merry Christmas all.
I think you are right about Poland. The invasion of Ukraine means that Poland has declared war on Russia and is risking its own statehood. Russia will not be ceremonious. It will wipe out Warsaw, and instead of one vanished country 404 there will be two. What will the US do? Wash its hands of it, as usual. The neocons just want money. They won’t risk their lives.
nukes on Japan. Gen LeMay was not impressed with the effect of the nukes. His low altitude firestorm bombing of Japanese cities was much much more devastating. Analysis, however, has shown the most effective measure was the aerial mining of the interior waterways. But the man of steel (Stalin) was the most impressed, in fact the bombs were dropped for his benefit, to dissuade him from the imminent Soviet invasion of the northern island of Hokkadio and the planned invasion of Turkey through Armenia. The Soviets could have wound up with the Straits.
That was always a Russian dream all the way back to the Russ investments of Constantinople and a yuuge sticking point between the Czar and Napoleon and one of the factors ultimately upending their alliance. If the Russians hadn’t dropped out of WW1, the straits would have been one of their war prizes.
American nuke monopoly also persuaded the Soviets to abandon their Persian outpost which threatened the Iranian oil supply.
A little know fact is that the delivery mechanism for the nukes cost more than the Manhattan project.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_B-29_Superfortress
Not only did the Soviets have a yuuge nuclear project helped along by foreign sympathizers, they took the B-29 replication project from captured allied aircraft (which they refused to return) just as seriously.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_B-29_Superfortress#Soviet_Tupolev_Tu-4
The Soviets got out of Austria upon a guarantee of neutrality. They offered Germany the same deal. Unification upon a guarantee of neutrality, but their allied partners refused. We would have been living in a different world.
This will end in a nuclear exchange started by NATO unless all nations from NATO decide to so a coordinated attack then Russia may well do it. The USA and NATO prefer to end it all as opposed to negotiations with Russia and losing their joint hegemony. I do not want to type this, but once cornered and knowing the loss is imminent, they will lose destruction of an unimaginable scale. I worked with nukes I know what they can do. The worst part is the fallout afterward billions will die from it. Contrary to our media and politicians talking about winning an exchange, we will all lose.
M. K. Bhadrakumar put an interesting view up today at India Punchline. In his view, this is much bigger than Ukraine, bearing out my comment above (24 December 2022 at 12:27).
Ukraine war tolls death knell for NATO
HAS NATO’S STRATEGY TO BLEED RUSSIA BACKFIRED?
Why should this hope be different?
Have they learned something?
(Apologies for the stream of consciousness nature of this comment.) I think the sentiment that the US has hollowed out its industrial base to the point that it is impotent to return to viable wartime production is inaccurate. Whilst on a relative basis to, say, WW2, the US industrial base is a shadow of its former self, it still retains a robust enough base to mass produce the types of cheap weapons systems that would appear to be where warfare is headed, to wit: drones, stand-off weapons systems (rockets, artillery) and other semi-autonomous UCAV/UAV systems.
The US’ bloated weapons programs are the baseline churn for the MIC and politicians, and those are really all about the flow of money. It would not be insurmountably difficult, were the US to truly go a wartime footing, for companies like GM, Ford, Boeing, Patrick Industries, Caterpillar, John Deere, IBM, Dell, Plastikon Industries, Bracalente, etc. (not to mention the standard cabal of defense contractors) to switch to mass production of what are effectively low-cost, disposable weapon systems that, deployed en masse, would ensure the war is prolonged in advancement of wearing down Russia.
From Statista: “In 2021, the auto industry in the United States produced approximately 9.17 million motor vehicles. The figures include passenger cars, light commercial vehicles, heavy trucks, as well as buses and coaches.” Imagine if the US moved just 10% of that production to making “technicals” and other platforms that were designed for speed and volumetric payload delivery. Heck, maybe Elon can even make them self-driving 😉
Broader picture, I don’t think it is in the US interest to have this war end quickly. It needs this war to help reset the imploding monetary order in its favor. Just like post-WW2, if the US can rewind Europe’s clock to 1945 and further entrench Europe’s dependency on the US then maybe the US can contain the damage that will result from the continued rise and consolidation of the alternative sphere being crafted under Russia/China.
What I have not yet squared is how the US successfully escalates the war to engulf greater Europe/NATO without getting itself directly dragged into combat, because at that point once everything becomes fair game for targeting the whole mess becomes out of the control of the elites, which is something I think they will work hard to avoid.
Absolutely
The sanctions were touted aggressively, mainly by Biden and Blinken even before the war, as the key to US strategy. In a virtual blink of an eye, they backfired catstrophically. Russia is more independent. The ruble is stronger. Dollar hegemony is facing its greatest threat ever.
Now Russia is on a serious war footing, unlike February. With its massive, and rising, petroleum profits, I expect an increase in military production to match the call-up of 300K reserves a few months ago. Russia just announced a seemingly small increase in its defense budget. But Russia can do more with ten billion dollars than the MIC does with 200 when it comes to fighting something like a land war, in Asia.
Do our leaders read anything but their own propaganda?
Larry – You sure about the luggage side of things ??? Didn’t he fly from Pooland to the US on a military transport plane hence negating having to do baggage claim at a commercial airport ??
One can pray for peace all one likes.
In International Relations Theory is it not taught that there is any higher authority, a myth that the population is expected to buy into while the leadership acts as it suits them.
Matt’s analysis is one of intent. The US-NATO-UK & Vassal Allied States’ Proxy War on Russia Via The Ukraine failure is ultimately a failure of The West’s Geo-Political Success Paradigm that for hundreds of years relied on the pillaging of weaker states. A massive projection indeed to think that Russia, possibly China too, adhered to these expectations.
Herein chronicled their intents and their failures. In this Proxy War, God Favours Russia . . . https://les7eb.substack.com
“a failure of The West’s Geo-Political Success Paradigm”
All paradigms and other linear constructs are transcended; interpreted by those immersed in linear constructs as “failing” and hence they attempt to “rectify this failure” by a “modified linear construct”, since lateral processes are constant whose variables include, but are not limited to, trajectories and velocities and hence attempted rectification by “modified linear constructs” are constantly transcended by/within variable trajectories and velocities.
“In International Relations Theory (the above) is not taught “… but the above in varying degrees are taught in all sciences – Mr. Kuhn’s tome misrepresented as “The Structure of Scientific Revolutions” published in 4 editions in 1962, 1970, 1996, 2012 by The University of Chicago Press framed in “paradigms” and its derivatives “paradigm shifts” consistently being used by others as an attempted sleight of hand in hope of synchronising perceptions of science with “International Relations Theory” and other contextually useful belief systems.
This was consistently challenged/peer reviewed from 1962 onwards and these challenges were addressed in part by Mr. Kuhn’s postscript of 1969 which can be found on pages 173 to 208 of the 2012 edition of “The Structure of Scientific Revolutions”, following scientific practice of acknowledging previous lack of knowledge since science is a lateral process necessarily embracing doubt and dismissing omniscience.
In terms of “Game Theory” Mr. von Neumann never rigourously adhered to “scientific practices” as a function of the political contexts of his activities, as was/is also the case with “International Relations Theory”.
“The United States of America” – a network of coercive practices/processes not confined to a “nation state” – at and from conception/inception has always been at war with science to some degree, since degrees of reliance on beliefs/certainties have always been required for sustainability in modulated forms within “acceptable” levels of tolerance ( continued immersion in linear constructs) of “The United States of America”, a process which accelerated from 1969 onwards in part due to Mr. Kuhn’s 1969 postcript to “Structures of Scientific Revolutions”, but more significantly by contexts facilitated by interacting multi-vectors in lateral processes within which Mr. Kuhn and billions of others participated, which were partly perceived by “The United States of America” so ” hence they attempt(ed) to “rectify this failure” by a “modified linear construct” including “lies”, since lateral processes are constant whose variables include, but are not limited to, trajectories and velocities” facilitating their increased complicities in their own transcendence.
In summary “The United States of America” is a “cargo cult”.
IMO.. not an intelligence failure; a political failure. It has been many years since actual intelligence guided our foreign policy. Those over 50 Senior US intelligence “experts” offered the latest proof of this by claiming the HRC paid, dossier BS as “Russian Disinformation” .. The CIA/FBI knew by early 2017 that the whole think was BS. The senior leadership of the “intel” agencies are concerned about their control via political partisanship and post USG careers as highly paid mouth pieces for major media outlets. It is no accident that hundreds of CIA, FBI, State Dept, etc employees were/are on the payroll at Twitter, FB, Google, etc …. they were not doing “intel”; they were controlling the political party in power (Democrats) messaging …
Larry,
Well said. I would add another point related to the financial situation. Tom Luongo rightly has been pointing out for a year that Jerome Powell has been tasked by the majority of the commercial banks in the US with going to war with Davos and the ECB over Climate Change and their push for war with Russia. The Fed has taken by control over interest rates in the US from London (i.e. LIBOR rate) and now has been relentlessly pushing up interest rates. Your reader Matt thinks that they are “too high”. Matt obviously was born in or after the time when Paul Volcker was the head of the FED and also has a flawed grasp of the legal role of the Fed and of economics. When inflation is high, the primary role of the Fed is to stabilise prices. Real inflation and even the official inflation, which is pushed through all sort of hedonic algorithms to artificially push it lower, is still above 7%. Under Paul Volcker, interest rates were pushed up to 20%. At present, we are at 4.5%. Jerome Powell’s statement two Wednesdays ago was no less hawkish at 4.5% than his statement at Jackson Hole in August before he raised rates by 75 basis points to 3.25% in September. As Warren Buffet aptly stated, “Only when the tide goes out do you discover who’s been swimming naked.”. We are about to discover that Europe and many sectors of the US economy are swimming naked. They make nothing of real value and their life support is predicated on ridiculously low interest rates (i.e. well below the inflation rate). Matt is deluding himself if he thinks that Europe can continue this for some time. First of all, their whole cost basis for what industry they have (primarily in Germany) has been destroyed. Liquified Natural Gas costs 3X the price that they were paying for Russian pipeline gas. Second the overall debt to GDP ratio in the EU is at 88%. That involves most of the main economic countries in Europe save for Germany who is the most severely affected by the cutoff of Russian pipeline gas. What you will see over the next year is that most European countries will not be able to store gas at a reasonable cost during the summer months and that industries and households across Europe will be severely affected by being cutoff from Russian resources. What you have is not the US bleeding Russia, but instead a uniquely Russian form of Chinese Water Torture. (i.e. Grinding down the Ukrainian military/NATO mercernaries while minimising its losses while allowing Europe to destroy itself through its own sanctions). When there is no more Ukrainian forces (i.e. eastern slavs – which is why this is really a civil war) to fight and the US has no ability to supply Ukraine or anyone else with overpriced, poor quality military hardware in a timely manner and they have destroyed their primary market for selling goods and hardware in Europe, what is the US political leadership going to do and tell the US public?
To clarify further, the debt to GDP ration means that countries at 90% are doomed to become insolvent. This includes France, Italy, Spain and the United Kingdom. Who is going to buy EU bonds? How are they going to pay the coupons? They don’t have any money. As well, even the ECB cannot sustain commercial banks in Europe. The US has the vestigial benefit of still being considered the reserve currency for now. The euro doesn’t benefit from that status. And as they cut themselves off from purchasing materials from Russia, the costs of goods will go up as they are obliged to print more money to try and survive. As well Europe in general shows little to no innovation, manufacture little to nothing and have no raw materials. And this is whom the US wanted to lock in as a dependent customer!?! You cannot make it up.
“You cannot make it up.”
In significant part some did with the complicity of those so naive to think they are the “deciders” since they have “playbooks/paradigms/”big data” and big schlongs.”
Annie from Magdeburg didn’t make it up and it was almost certainly true apart from the fodder. However it was only true one time, lateral or not, it was made to be destroyed. Page 62 from the cookbook in 1980 was wrong, no amount of heat would keep it souffléed. It did collapse.
“Annie from Magdeburg didn’t make it up”
I have not had the opportunity of testing your assertion with your “source”, but like many others she may have been/is complicit by being so naive to think they are the “deciders” since they have “playbooks/paradigms/”big data” but not necessarily big schlongs.
I have had opportunities of testing hypotheses outlined in MirrorGazers says
26 December 2022 at 14:44 to validate the veracity of:
“In significant part some did with the complicity of those so naive to think they are the “deciders” since they have “playbooks/paradigms/”big data” and big schlongs.” although like you I did not fully outline my references and sources as a function of my purposes which I also did not specify, to which you responded by your speculations contained in Pontrilas says
26 December 2022 at 16:19
thereby illustrating the hopes contained in Mr. Rove’s “We are an Empire” observations whilst others did not, illustrating that you are included in “complicity of those so naive to think they are the “deciders” .
The interactions between those who did make it up in significant part and others facilitated and continues to facilitate the ongoing lateral process of the transcendence of others with their complicity, although those being transcended may seek to blame the occurences on others who may have “left the cake out in the rain” and/or didn’t follow the playbook.
Thank you for your co-operation in illustrating one of the utilities of blogs.
You are more than welcome.
annie was never naive to think they are the “deciders” or illustrating the hopes of others, either with or without the “others” knowing. the fit, form and Function that People expected was not of that time. it was not always LaDonna Adrian lol. maybe the message you take as their complicity is completely missed, often twas what was not sent that was the call to action and still may be is.
Do not worry too much about your speculations of what they did/do say or not.
The conformation is the silent pause.
RE : “Pontrilas says
28 December 2022 at 00:42
“The conformation is the silent pause.”
“The United States of America” has interpreted confirmation as/by the silence, thereby limiting other interpretations such as acquiescence by coercion is the contextual causation of silence, encouraging/facilitating opportunities of transcending “The United States of America”to others with complicity of “The United States of America” as force multiplier, described by some as a strategy of Aikido.
One example of this strategy was/is the continuing war in Iraq including Mr. Bush’s declaration of Mission Accomplished from an aircraft carrier sitting slightly offshore.
Thank you for your continuing cooperation as coathanger in futherance of aiding the transcendence of “The United States of America”.
You can’t win a war in Ukraine wile paying token money mostly to DoD & DoS NGOs and diverting ordinances to Africa and Middle-East. 5% of the total goes to some buyback of old soviet stocks in Eastern-Europa at most and only a third of it is gonna be provided on the actual front-line … and we don’t even talk about when , how , how much.
ROI might be massive for lots of people but what about effective yields ?
How much dollars is a dead Russian costing right now ?
Turns out offshoring your industry, destroying your health and education systems, and turning your military into a hugbox makes your nation weaker.
Who knew?
A) Put sanctions on European – Russian trade.
Truth is, most of Europe would be better of allied to Russia than USA. The economy is more complementary, culture more compatible, and Russia is weaker than USA which would give maybe allow for a European revival.
B) Regime change in Russia, long term putting the American heel on Chinese neck
USA / British Empire defeated Napoleon by control of the seas and refusing France access to world markets. USA / British Empire defeated Germany in two world wars by control of the seas and refusing Germany access to the world markets. The same tactic is only possible against China if Russia is made subservient to the Anglo Empire. Because otherwise China has unlimited raw materials.
So Ukraine escalation is a half success. And viewed from a 1914 or 1937 or 1989 perspective, the Anglo Empire has expanded its domain mightily eastwards, even if it does lose most of Ukraine. So it is not so bad. Or would not be so bad, if the world was the same as in 1914 or 1937. But it is not. The industrial method is out of the bag, completely mastered by east Asia. So long term, I see decline and failure of Anglo Empire. But that might be because the position is impossible, rather than actual strategic mistakes.
Putin cannot and will not allow this Ukrainian show to continue ad infinitum. That could “bleed” Russia on one hand, or on the other allow the U.S./NATO into the region militarily, which would be a real mess.
Hence I believe that Putin and his folks decided they needed to end the thing tout suite, ASAP, which we will soon see when the ground FINALLY freezes (could the weather controller at HAARP be keeping eastern Europe warm?).
“Putin cannot and will not allow this Ukrainian show to continue ad infinitum.”
Ad infinitum is a construct akin to infinity which are both synonyms of I-don’t-know since the denominators are zero.
Hence ” I believe that somewhere in the darkest night a flower grows.”