Ce n’est qu’en comprenant et en prenant au sérieux les avertissements nucléaires russes que nous pourrons exclure le risque que des armes nucléaires entrent en jeu.
Le G7 et la « Conférence Bürgenstock » suisse qui a suivi peuvent – rétrospectivement – être compris comme une préparation à une guerre prolongée en Ukraine. Les trois annonces phares du G7 : le pacte de sécurité ukrainien de 10 ans ; le « prêt ukrainien » de 50 milliards de dollars ; et la saisie des intérêts sur les fonds russes gelés – faites-le valoir. La guerre est sur le point de s’intensifier.
Ces prises de position visaient à préparer le public occidental aux événements. Et en cas de doute, la belligérance acharnée à l’égard de la Russie qui émergeait des dirigeants des élections européennes était assez claire : ils cherchaient à donner une impression claire d’une Europe se préparant à la guerre.
Qu’est-ce qui nous attend alors ? Selon le porte-parole de la Maison Blanche, John Kirby :
« La position de Washington à l’égard de Kiev est « absolument claire » :
« D’abord, ils doivent gagner cette guerre ».
«Ils doivent d’abord gagner la guerre. Donc, numéro un : nous faisons tout ce que nous pouvons pour nous assurer qu’ils puissent le faire. Puis, lorsque la guerre sera terminée… Washington aidera à construire la base militaro-industrielle de l’Ukraine.
Si cela n’était pas clair, l’intention des États-Unis de prolonger et d’étendre la guerre en profondeur en Russie a été soulignée par le conseiller à la sécurité nationale, Jake Sullivan : « L’autorisation pour l’Ukraine d’utiliser des armes américaines pour des attaques transfrontalières s’étend à n’importe quel endroit [d’où] les forces russes sont présentes. traverser la frontière ». Il a également affirmé que l’Ukraine pouvait utiliser des F-16 pour attaquer la Russie et utiliser les systèmes de défense aérienne fournis par les États-Unis « pour abattre des avions russes – même s’ils se trouvent dans l’espace aérien russe – s’ils sont sur le point de tirer dans l’espace aérien ukrainien ».
Les pilotes ukrainiens ont-ils la latitude de juger « l’intention » des avions de combat russes ? Attendez-vous à ce que les paramètres de cette « autorisation » s’élargissent rapidement – jusqu’aux bases aériennes d’où décollent les chasseurs-bombardiers russes.
Comprenant que la guerre est sur le point de se transformer radicalement – et extrêmement dangereusement – le président Poutine (dans son discours devant le Conseil du ministère des Affaires étrangères) a détaillé comment le monde était arrivé à ce moment charnière – qui pourrait s’étendre aux échanges nucléaires.
La gravité de la situation elle-même exigeait de faire une offre de « dernière chance » à l’Occident, qui, selon Poutine, ne signifiait « pas de cessez-le-feu temporaire pour que Kiev prépare une nouvelle offensive ; il ne s’agissait pas non plus de geler le conflit » ; ses propositions concernaient plutôt l’achèvement définitif de la guerre.
« Si, comme auparavant, Kiev et les capitales occidentales refusent, alors en fin de compte, c’est leur affaire », a déclaré Poutine.
Pour être clair, Poutine ne s’attendait presque certainement pas à ce que les propositions soient reçues en Occident autrement que par le mépris et la dérision avec lesquels elles ont en fait été accueillies. Poutine ne ferait pas non plus confiance – un instant – à l’Occident pour ne pas revenir sur un accord, si un accord était conclu dans ce sens.
Si tel est le cas, pourquoi le président Poutine a-t-il fait une telle proposition le week-end dernier, si l’on ne peut pas faire confiance à l’Occident et si sa réaction était si prévisible ?
Eh bien, peut-être devrions-nous rechercher la poupée Matriochka intérieure, plutôt que de la fixer sur l’enveloppe extérieure : l’« achèvement final » de Poutine ne sera probablement pas réalisé de manière crédible par l’intermédiaire d’un intermédiaire de paix itinérant. Dans son discours au ministère des Affaires étrangères, Poutine rejette les dispositifs tels que les « cessez-le-feu » ou les « gels ». Il recherche quelque chose de permanent : un arrangement qui a des « jambes solides » ; celui qui a de la durabilité.
Une telle solution – comme Poutine l’a déjà laissé entendre – nécessite la création d’une nouvelle architecture de sécurité mondiale ; et si cela se produisait, alors une solution complète pour l’Ukraine serait une partie implicite d’un nouvel ordre mondial. C’est-à-dire que le microcosme d’une solution pour l’Ukraine découle implicitement de l’accord macrocosmique entre les États-Unis et les puissances du « Heartland » – fixant les frontières en fonction de leurs intérêts de sécurité respectifs.
Cela est clairement impossible aujourd’hui, alors que les États-Unis, dans leur mentalité psychologique, sont coincés dans la guerre froide des années 1970 et 1980. La fin de cette guerre – l’apparente victoire américaine – a jeté les bases de la doctrine Wolfowitz de 1992, qui soulignait la suprématie américaine à tout prix dans un monde post-soviétique, ainsi que « l’élimination des rivaux, partout où ils peuvent émerger ».
« Parallèlement à cela, la doctrine Wolfowitz stipulait que les États-Unis… [inaugureraient] un système de sécurité collective dirigé par les États-Unis et la création d’une zone de paix démocratique ». La Russie, en revanche, a été traitée différemment : le pays est tombé hors des radars. Elle est devenue insignifiante en tant que concurrent géopolitique aux yeux de l’Occident, à mesure que ses gestes d’offres pacifiques ont été repoussés – et que les garanties qui lui avaient été données concernant l’expansion de l’OTAN ont été perdues.
« Moscou ne pouvait rien faire pour empêcher une telle entreprise. L’État successeur de la puissante Union soviétique n’était pas son égal et n’était donc pas considéré comme suffisamment important pour être impliqué dans la prise de décision mondiale. Pourtant, malgré sa taille et sa sphère d’influence réduites, la Russie persiste à être considérée comme un acteur clé dans les affaires internationales ».
La Russie est aujourd’hui un acteur mondial de premier plan dans les domaines économique et politique. Pourtant, pour les couches dirigeantes des États-Unis, l’égalité de statut entre Moscou et Washington est hors de question. La mentalité de guerre froide insuffle toujours au périphérique la confiance injustifiée que le conflit ukrainien pourrait, d’une manière ou d’une autre, entraîner l’effondrement et le démembrement de la Russie.
Dans son discours, Poutine, en revanche, s’attendait à l’effondrement du système de sécurité euro-atlantique – et à l’émergence d’une nouvelle architecture. « Le monde ne sera plus jamais le même », a déclaré Poutine.
Implicitement, il laisse entendre qu’un changement aussi radical serait le seul moyen crédible de mettre fin à la guerre en Ukraine. Un accord émergeant du cadre plus large de consensus sur la division des intérêts entre le Rimland et le Heartland (dans un langage à la Mackinder) refléterait les intérêts de sécurité de chaque partie – et ne serait pas obtenu au détriment de la sécurité des autres.
Et soyons clairs : si cette analyse est correcte, la Russie n’est peut-être pas si pressée de conclure les affaires en Ukraine. La perspective d’une telle négociation « globale » entre la Russie, la Chine et les États-Unis est encore loin.
Le problème ici est que la psyché collective occidentale n’a pas été suffisamment transformée. Traiter Moscou avec la même estime reste hors de question pour Washington.
Le nouveau discours américain est qu’il n’y a pas de négociations avec Moscou pour l’instant, mais cela deviendra peut-être possible au début de la nouvelle année – après les élections américaines.
Eh bien, Poutine pourrait surprendre à nouveau – en ne se jetant pas sur cette perspective, mais en la repoussant ; estimant que les Américains ne sont toujours pas prêts à engager des négociations pour une « fin complète » de la guerre – d’autant plus que ce dernier récit coïncide avec les discussions sur une nouvelle offensive en Ukraine qui se profile pour 2025. Bien sûr, beaucoup de choses sont susceptibles de changer au cours des prochaines années. année.
Cependant, les documents décrivant un nouvel ordre sécuritaire putatif ont déjà été rédigés par la Russie en 2021 – et dûment ignorés en Occident. La Russie peut peut-être se permettre d’attendre la fin des événements militaires en Ukraine, en Israël et dans le domaine financier.
Quoi qu’il en soit, ils suivent tous la voie de Poutine. Ils sont tous interconnectés et ont le potentiel d’une vaste métamorphose.
En clair : Poutine attend que soit façonné l’esprit du temps américain. Il a semblé très confiant tant à Saint-Pétersbourg que la semaine dernière au ministère des Affaires étrangères.
La toile de fond des préoccupations du G7 concernant l’Ukraine semblait être plus liée aux élections américaines qu’à la réalité : cela implique que la priorité en Italie était l’optique électorale, plutôt que le désir de déclencher une véritable guerre chaude. Mais c’est peut-être faux.
Lors de ces récents rassemblements, les russophones – notamment Sergueï Lavrov – ont largement laissé entendre que l’ordre était déjà tombé pour la guerre avec la Russie. L’Europe semble, aussi improbable soit-elle, se préparer à la guerre – avec beaucoup de discussions sur la conscription militaire.
Tout cela va-t-il s’effondrer après un été chaud d’élections ? Peut être.
La phase à venir semble susceptible d’entraîner une escalade occidentale, avec des provocations à l’intérieur de la Russie. Ces derniers réagiront vivement à tout franchissement de (vraies) lignes rouges par l’OTAN, ou à toute provocation sous fausse bannière (désormais largement attendue par les blogueurs militaires russes).
Et c’est là que réside le plus grand danger : dans le contexte de l’escalade, le mépris américain envers la Russie constitue le plus grand danger. L’Occident affirme désormais qu’il traite la notion d’échange nucléaire putatif comme un « bluff » de Poutine. Le Financial Times nous apprend que les avertissements nucléaires de la Russie « s’épuisent » en Occident.
Si cela est vrai, les responsables occidentaux se méprennent complètement sur la réalité. Ce n’est qu’en comprenant et en prenant au sérieux les avertissements nucléaires russes que nous pourrons exclure le risque que des armes nucléaires entrent en jeu, à mesure que nous gravissons les échelons de l’escalade avec des mesures de représailles.
Même s’ils affirment croire qu’il s’agit de bluff, les chiffres américains exagèrent néanmoins le risque d’un échange nucléaire. S’ils pensent qu’il s’agit d’un bluff, cela semble reposer sur l’hypothèse que la Russie n’a que peu d’autres options.
Ce serait une erreur : la Russie peut gravir plusieurs étapes avant d’atteindre le stade de l’arme nucléaire tactique : contre-attaque commerciale et financière ; fourniture symétrique d’armes avancées aux adversaires occidentaux (correspondant aux fournitures américaines à l’Ukraine) ; couper la distribution des branches électriques en provenance de Pologne, de Slovaquie, de Hongrie et de Roumanie ; frappes aux postes frontaliers munis de munitions ; et s’inspirer des Houthis qui ont abattu plusieurs drones américains sophistiqués et coûteux, désactivant ainsi l’infrastructure américaine de renseignement, de surveillance et de reconnaissance (ISR).
It is only by understanding and taking the Russian nuclear warnings seriously that we may exclude the risk of nuclear weapons coming into play.
The G7 and the subsequent Swiss ‘Bürgenstock Conference’ can – in retrospect – be understood as preparation for a prolonged Ukraine war. The three centrepiece announcements emerging from the G7 – the 10 year Ukraine security pact; the $50 ‘billion Ukraine loan’; and the seizing of interest on Russian frozen funds – make the point. The war is about to escalate.
These stances were intended as preparation of the western public ahead of events. And in case of any doubts, the blistering belligerency towards Russia emerging from the European election leaders was plain enough: They sought to convey a clear impression of Europe preparing for war.
What then lies ahead? According to White House Spokesman John Kirby:
“Washington’s position on Kiev is “absolutely clear”:
“First, they’ve got to win this war”.
“They gotta win the war first. So, number one: We’re doing everything we can to make sure they can do that. Then when the war’s over … Washington will assist in building up Ukraine’s military industrial base”.
If that was not plain, the U.S. intent to prolong and take the war deep into Russia was underlined by National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan: “Authorization for Ukrainian use of American weapons for cross-border attacks extends to anywhere [from which] Russian forces are coming across the border”. He affirmed, too, that Ukraine can use F-16s to attack Russia and use U.S. supplied air defence systems “to take down Russian planes – even if in Russian airspace – if they’re about to fire into Ukrainian airspace”.
Ukrainian pilots have the latitude to judge ‘the intent’ of Russian fighter aircraft? Expect the parameters of this ‘authorisation’ to widen quickly – deeper to air bases from which Russian fighter bombers launch.
Understanding that the war is about to transform radically – and extremely dangerously – President Putin (in his speech to the Foreign Ministry Board) detailed just how the world had arrived at this pivotal juncture – one which could extend to nuclear exchanges.
The gravity of the situation itself demanded the making of one ‘last chance’ offer to the West, which Putin emphatically said was “no temporary ceasefire for Kiev to prepare a new offensive; nor was it about freezing the conflict”; but rather, his proposals were about the war’s final completion.
“If, as before, Kiev and western capitals refuse it – then at the end, that’s their business”, Putin said.
Just to be clear, Putin almost certainly never expected the proposals to be received in the West other than by the scorn and derision with which they, in fact, were met. Nor would Putin trust – for a moment – the West not to renege on an agreement, were some arrangement to be reached on these lines.
If so, why then did President Putin make such a proposal last weekend, if the West cannot be trusted and its reaction was so predictable?
Well, maybe we need to search for the nesting inner Matryoshka doll, rather than fix on the outer casing: Putin’s ‘final completion’ likely will not credibly be achieved through some itinerant peace broker. In his Foreign Ministry address, Putin dismisses devices such as ‘ceasefires’ or ‘freezes’. He is seeking something permanent: An arrangement that has ‘solid legs’; one that has durability.
Such a solution – as Putin before has hinted – requires a new world security architecture to come into being; and were that to happen, then a complete solution for Ukraine would flow as an implicit part to a new world order. That is to say, with the microcosm of a Ukraine solution flowing implicitly from the macrocosm agreement between the U.S. and the ‘Heartland’ powers – settling the borders to their respective security interests.
This clearly is impossible now, with the U.S. in its psychological mindset stuck in the Cold War era of the 1970s and 1980s. The end to that war – the seeming U.S. victory – set the foundation to the 1992 Wolfowitz Doctrine which underscored American supremacy at all costs in a post-Soviet world, together with “stamping out rivals, wherever they may emerge”.
“In conjunction with this, the Wolfowitz Doctrine stipulated that the U.S. would … [inaugurate] a U.S.-led system of collective security and the creation of a democratic zone of peace”. Russia, on the other hand, was dealt with differently—the country fell off the radar. It became insignificant as a geopolitical competitor in the eyes of the West, as its gestures of peaceful offerings were rebuffed – and guarantees given to it regarding NATO’s expansion forfeited”.
“Moscow could do nothing to prevent such an endeavour. The successor state of the mighty Soviet Union was not its equal, and thus not considered important enough to be involved in global decision-making. Yet, despite its reduced size and sphere of influence, Russia has persisted in being considered a key player in international affairs”.
Russia today is a preeminent global actor in both the economic and political spheres. Yet for the Ruling Strata in the U.S., equal status between Moscow and Washington is out of the question. The Cold War mentality still infuses the Beltway with the unwarranted confidence that the Ukraine conflict might somehow result in Russian collapse and dismemberment.
Putin in his address, by contrast, looked ahead to the collapse of the Euro-Atlantic security system – and of a new architecture emerging. “The world will never be the same again”, Putin said.
Implicitly, he hints that such a radical shift would be the only way credibly to end the Ukraine war. An agreement emerging from the wider framework of consensus on the division of interests between the Rimland and the Heartland (in Mackinder-esque language) would reflect the security interests of each party – and not be achieved at the expense of others’ security.
And to be clear: If this analysis is correct, Russia may not be in such a hurry to conclude matters in Ukraine. The prospect of such a ‘global’ negotiation between Russia-China and the U.S. is still far off.
The point here is that the collective western psyche has not been transformed sufficiently. Treating Moscow with equal esteem remains out of the question for Washington.
The new American narrative is no negotiations with Moscow now, but maybe it will become possible sometime early in the new year – after the U.S. elections.
Well, Putin might surprise again – by not jumping at the prospect, but rebuffing it; assessing that the Americans still are not ready for negotiations for a ‘complete end’ to the war – especially as this latest narrative runs concurrently with talk of a new Ukraine offensive shaping up for 2025. Of course, much is likely to change over the coming year.
The documents outlining a putative new security order however, were already drafted by Russia in 2021 – and duly ignored in the West. Russia perhaps can afford to wait out military events in Ukraine, in Israel, and in the financial sphere.
They are all, in any event, trending Putin’s way. They are all inter-connected and have the potential for wide metamorphosis.
Put plainly: Putin is waiting on the shaping of the American Zeitgeist. He seemed very confident both at St Petersburg and last week at the Foreign Ministry.
The backdrop to the G7’s Ukraine preoccupation seemed to be more U.S. elections-related, than real: This implies that the priority in Italy was election optics, rather than a desire to start a full-blown hot war. But this may be wrong.
Russian speakers during these recent gatherings – notably Sergei Lavrov – hinted broadly that the order already had come down for war with Russia. Europe seems, however improbably, to be gearing up for war – with much chatter about military conscription.
Will it all blow away with the passing of a hot summer of elections? Maybe.
The coming phase seems likely to entail western escalation, with provocations occurring inside Russia. The latter will react strongly to any crossing of (real) red lines by NATO, or any false flag provocation (now widely expected by Russiam military bloggers).
And herein lies the greatest danger: In the context of escalation, American disdain for Russia poses the greatest danger. The West now says it treats notions of putative nuclear exchange as Putin’s ‘bluff’. The Financial Timestells us that Russia’s nuclear warnings are ‘wearing thin’ in the West.
If this is true, western officials utterly misconceive the reality. It is only by understanding and taking the Russian nuclear warnings seriously that we may exclude the risk of nuclear weapons coming into play, as we move up the escalatory ladder with tit-for-tat measures.
Even though they say they believe them to be bluff, U.S. figures nonetheless hype the risk of a nuclear exchange. If they think it to be a bluff, it appears to be based on the presumption that Russia has few other options.
This would be wrong: There are several escalatory steps that Russia can take up the ladder, before reaching the tactical nuclear weapon stage: Trade and financial counter-attack; symmetrical provision of advanced weaponry to western adversaries (corresponding to U.S. supplies to Ukraine); cutting the electricity branch distribution coming from Poland, Slovakia, Hungary and Romania; strikes on border munition crossings; and taking a leaf from the Houthis who have knocked down several sophisticated and costly U.S. drones, disabling America’s intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) infrastructure.
En 2017, la revue américaine The National Interest a publié un article au titre révélateur : « 5 raisons pour lesquelles la Russie et la Chine pourraient ne pas pouvoir couler un porte-avions américain ». L’auteur de l’article discute en détail de ces raisons. D’ailleurs, tous ces éléments vont de soi.
La première s’est avérée être (le croyez-vous ?) que « le porte-avions américain est grand et rapide. . . » Le deuxième – « il a de nombreuses armes. . . » La troisième raison – « c’est bien défendu . . .». La quatrième raison – « il agit avec prudence. . . » Et enfin, le cinquième – « les technologies militaires américaines sont les meilleures au monde ». . .».
Voilà une collection de clichés propagandistes simplistes que la machine de propagande américaine enfonce dans la tête de l’homme ordinaire occidental. Il est important de comprendre que The National Interest n’est pas un papier « jaune » ; il s’agit d’une revue analytique qui est censée proposer des publications responsables et professionnelles.
Un cercueil grand et rapide avec une hélice
Regardons de plus près la manière dont l’auteur de l’article – expert et analyste politique – explique à ses lecteurs pourquoi les porte-avions américains sont invulnérables et insubmersibles. . .
OK, la première thèse. L’avion américain transporté est en effet grand et rapide. Il dispose de 25 ponts ; sa hauteur maximale est de 80 mètres ; il déplace 100 000 tonnes d’eau et peut transporter 70, voire jusqu’à 90, avions de différents types.
Malheureusement, un petit détail vient gâcher ce joli tableau : une grande cible est plus facile à atteindre ! Mais les Américains ne peuvent tout simplement pas réduire la taille de leurs porte-avions. La raison est simple : ils sont incroyablement chers. Les porteurs doivent être fabriqués dans des dimensions aussi énormes, tout simplement parce que s’ils sont plus petits, il en faudra davantage. La flexibilité de la flotte américaine de porte-avions augmenterait dans ce cas, mais le prix monterait en flèche.
Jugez par vous-même : un porte-avions moderne coûte aux États-Unis environ 13 milliards de dollars (c’est le prix du tout nouveau « Gerald Ford »), et l’aile aérienne du porte-avions (la version Navy du F-35) basée sur le porte-avions coûte 7 milliards de dollars supplémentaires. .
De plus, il y a les navires du « Carrier Strike Group » – plusieurs navires de guerre lance-missiles, des destroyers équipés du système de combat Aegis et des sous-marins d’attaque furtifs. Ainsi, un de ces groupes coûte aux Américains environ 50 milliards de dollars ! Et d’ailleurs, ces 50 milliards de dollars ne pourront jamais aller aussi vite que l’affirme « l’expert » de l’intérêt national. . .
Mais en Amérique, personne ne se soucie de ces détails.
L’auteur n’hésite pas à déclarer : « Les porte-avions se déplacent constamment lorsqu’ils sont déployés à une vitesse pouvant atteindre 35 milles par heure – assez vite pour distancer les sous-marins – il est difficile de les trouver et de les suivre.
Moins de 30 minutes après avoir été repéré par des ennemis, la zone dans laquelle un transporteur pourrait opérer s’est étendue à 700 milles carrés ; après 90 minutes, il s’est étendu à 6 000 miles carrés ».
Cela semble génial, mais en réalité, aucun porte-avions américain ne peut atteindre cette vitesse. La vitesse maximale qu’il peut maintenir – pendant une durée limitée – est de 30 nœuds. Le mot clé ici est temps LIMITÉ.
Voyons qui fournit de telles ordures analytiques aux revues américaines sérieuses. Qui est ce fantastique « expert » américain qui n’a aucun problème à tromper ses lecteurs ? Il s’agit de Loren Thompson, directeur des opérations du Lexington Institute, une organisation bien connue, soit dit en passant. Il est également directeur adjoint du programme d’études de sécurité à l’université de Georgetown, où il a enseigné la stratégie à des étudiants diplômés et a donné des conférences à la School of Government de l’université Harvard.
Nous ne pouvons que deviner quel genre de stratégie cet expert en réflexion stratégique a enseigné à ses étudiants. Je pense que l’on peut apprécier la qualité des responsables gouvernementaux formés sur la conférence de cet illustre « expert ».
Mais revenons aux raisons pour lesquelles nous ne pourrons jamais couler un porte-avions américain.
Les deuxième et troisième raisons, selon Thompson, sont qu’un porte-avions américain « possède beaucoup d’armes et peut se défendre. . .» Qui aurait pu le penser ? Vraiment, on sent tout de suite qu’il a affaire à un vrai professionnel qui va au fond du sujet.
Un porte-avions est en effet chargé d’armes. Thompson, cependant, ne semble pas comprendre qu’il s’agit d’armes offensives et non défensives. Un transporteur est totalement incapable de se défendre ! La défense aérienne et la défense contre les sous-marins devraient être assurées par les navires qui les accompagnent.
Loren Thompson dit que ces navires sont nombreux et bien armés, et c’est pourquoi un porte-avions ne sera jamais coulé. J’ai presque peur de rappeler qu’une attaque contre le porte-avions ne sera pas non plus menée seule !
À l’époque soviétique, tout un régiment d’avions Ty-22 armés de missiles avait été désigné pour détruire un porte-avions américain. Cela signifie quelques dizaines d’avions. Plus des sous-marins armés de missiles de croisière. Plus d’autres moyens d’attaque et de destruction à la disposition de notre Marine.
Comme l’histoire nous l’enseigne : il y a 70 ans, pendant la Seconde Guerre mondiale, la présence d’un grand nombre de navires d’accompagnement n’a pas empêché les Japonais de couler de nombreux porte-avions américains. En deux ans, de 1942 à 1944, ils réussirent à en couler jusqu’à 11 ! Nous devrions penser que les armes offensives ont considérablement progressé depuis cette époque.
Par exemple, le chasseur-intercepteur Tu-22 M3 (bombardier armé de missiles supersoniques longue distance – ndlr). Ces avions de l’époque soviétique sont en cours de modernisation en profondeur, et l’équipement de ces machines nouvellement modernisées Tu-22 M3M comprendra notamment des missiles antinavires de nouvelle génération X-32. Pour une raison quelconque, ils sont rarement mentionnés dans la presse, mais ce sont des missiles fantastiques. Après le lancement, ils parcourent jusqu’à 40 km et volent à une vitesse presque 5 fois plus rapide que le son. Après avoir atteint la cible, ils descendent dessus presque verticalement.
Aujourd’hui, la marine américaine ne possède aucune arme, même de loin, proche dans ses caractéristiques de notre X-32. Les Américains ne disposent pas non plus d’un système de défense aérienne capable d’intercepter ce missile.
C’est pourquoi la quatrième raison qui, comme l’affirme The National Interest, rend l’ennemi incapable de détruire les porte-avions américains, est particulièrement importante. Quelle est cette raison ? Oh oui, ils « ne prennent pas de risques ». Quand, peut-être, vaudrait-il mieux ne pas quitter la base et aller au large du tout ? C’est tellement plus sûr.
Mais si vous êtes là-bas. . . Prenez des risques ou non, mais sur le chemin vers la zone de conflit avec notre marine (dans l’Atlantique Nord, par exemple), les avions américains devraient traverser des détroits, des canaux étroits, où, naturellement, nos sous-marins et d’autres forces passeraient. attendez-les et, selon les coutumes russes, accueillez-les avec du « pain et du sel » de missiles de croisière assaisonnés de torpilles, de mines et de bombes. . . En tout cas, l’accueil traditionnel russe pour les porte-avions sera assuré !
Que vous soyez prudent ou non, vous ne pouvez pas arriver de Jacksonville, une base de la marine américaine sur la côte est des États-Unis, à nos côtes (par exemple, dans la zone de responsabilité de la Northern Navy avec ses bases de Mane sur la péninsule de Kolsky) en contournant plusieurs canaux et détroits étroits bien connus.
Les Américains eux-mêmes, pendant la guerre froide, ont construit des barrières anti-sous-marines à ces endroits dans le but d’empêcher nos sous-marins d’accéder à l’Atlantique. Les exemples les plus connus sont la barrière le long de la ligne Cap Nord – île Medvezhyi (Ours) et entre l’Islande et les îles Féroé.
La dernière et cinquième raison de l’invincibilité des porte-avions américains est, selon Loren Thompson, la plus grande réussite de son approche experte-analytique. La raison est un fait évident pour tout Américain : les Américains sont généralement les meilleurs au monde et possèdent les meilleures technologies, y compris militaires. Cependant, ce n’est pas exactement un fait. Par exemple, les technologies russes en matière de missiles de croisière antinavires sont nettement meilleures que celles de leurs homologues américaines. Tous ceux qui savent quelque chose et ont appris quelque chose le savent. Les experts militaires accordent une attention particulière aux missiles hypersoniques russes de nouvelle génération.
Des alarmistes clairvoyants
Les Américains ne semblent pas obéissants à la raison, mais certains de leurs alliés s’en montrent plus ou moins capables. Ainsi, les médias britanniques ont récemment créé une véritable hystérie au sujet du nouveau missile russe « Zircon ».
Le premier à tirer la sonnette d’alarme fut le journal britannique The Independent. Il déclarait : « Il est impossible d’arrêter le « Zircon ». Même les systèmes de défense aérienne les plus récents, encore à venir, seront capables de détruire une cible seulement à une vitesse maximale de 3 700 km/heure, alors que le « Zircon » peut atteindre 6 000, voire 7 400 km/heure. »
Le Daily Star a développé davantage le thème des effrayants Russes : « La Russie produit des missiles mortels capables de détruire toute la Royal Navy en un seul coup. Un représentant du ministère britannique des Affaires étrangères estime que le «Zircon» russe, capable d’emporter une tête nucléaire, change complètement les règles de la guerre en mer. Nos porte-avions ne pourraient tout simplement pas être déployés là où les Russes disposent de ces missiles. . .»
Un autre journal britannique, The Mirror, poursuit sur le même ton alarmiste. Il écrit : « Le missile russe se déplace à une vitesse deux fois plus rapide que la vitesse de la balle du tireur d’élite. Il peut envoyer les navires les plus avancés au fond de la mer. Les experts affirment que notre marine n’a aujourd’hui aucune défense contre cette arme terrible. L’apparition du « Zircon » dans l’arsenal russe rend inutiles nos deux porte-avions, coûtant chacun 7 milliards de dollars ».
Le Daily Mail a ajouté l’accord final à ce chœur paniqué :
« La Russie a créé un missile de croisière invincible qui se déplace à une vitesse de 4 600 milles à l’heure et est capable de détruire un avion britannique d’un seul coup. Ce missile mortel « Zircon » peut être lancé depuis des transporteurs terrestres, maritimes ou aériens.
Il parcourt 155 milles en 2,5 minutes. Son apparition vide de sens l’idée même des groupes de porte-avions, et nous n’avons tout simplement rien pour y résister.»
Les Américains pourraient bien sûr espérer que notre « Zircon » constitue une menace exclusivement pour les porte-avions britanniques. Indépendamment de ce qu’ils pensent, les faits disent le contraire : toute tentative de la marine américaine de tester dans des conditions de combat réelles si les Russes peuvent ou non couler leur porte-avions se terminera très probablement très mal pour les États-Unis d’Amérique.
The mutiny has arisen because many in the West see only too clearly that the western ruling structure is an illiberal mechanical ‘control system’.
I have been writing for some time that Europe (and the U.S.) are in a period of alternate revolution and civil war. History warns us that such conflicts tend to be extended, with peak episodes which are revolutionary (as the prevailing paradigm first cracks); yet which, in reality, are but alternate modes of the same – a ‘toggling’ between revolutionary peaks and the slow ‘slog’ of intense cultural war.
We are, I believe, in such an era.
I also have suggested that a nascent counter-revolution was slowly gathering – one defiantly unwilling to recant traditionalist moral values, nor prepared to submit to an oppressive illiberal international order posing as liberal.
What I had not expected was that the ‘first shoe to drop’ would occur in Europe – that it would be France that would be the first to break the illiberal mould. (I had thought that it would break first in the U.S.)
The European MEP election outcome may come to be viewed as the ‘first swallow’ signalling a substantive change in the weather. There are to be snap elections in Britain and France, and Germany (and well as much of Europe) is in a state of political disarray.
Have no illusions though! The cold reality is that western ‘Power Structures’ own the wealth, the key institutions in society and the levers of enforcement. To be plain: they hold the ‘commanding heights’. How will they manage a West edging towards moral, political and possibly financial collapse? Most likely by doubling-down, with no compromise.
And that predictable ‘doubling down’ will not necessarily be confined to fights within the ‘Colosseum’ arena. It will certainly impinge into high-risk geo-politics.
Undoubtedly, U.S. ‘structures’ will have been deeply disconcerted by the European election portent. What does the European anti-Establishment mutiny imply for those Ruling Structures in Washington, especially at a time when all the world sees Joe Biden visibly wobbling?
How will they distract ‘us’ from this first crack to their international Structural Edifice?
Already, there is U.S.-led military escalation – ostensibly connected to Ukraine – but whose objective clearly is to provoke Russia into retaliation. By incrementally escalating NATO violations of Russia’s strategic ‘red lines’, it seems that the U.S. hawks seek to gain the escalatory advantage over Moscow, leaving to Moscow the dilemma of how far to retaliate. The western élites do not fully believe the warnings from Moscow.
This provocation ploy might conceivably offer either a crafted image of the U.S. ‘winning’ (‘staring down Putin’), or alternatively, come to provide a pretext to postpone U.S. Presidential elections (as global tensions spike) – thereby giving the permanent state time to get its ‘ducks in lined up’ to manage an early Biden succession.
This calculus however, is contingent on how soon Ukraine implodes either militarily, or politically.
An earlier than expected Ukraine implosion might become the staging for a U.S. pivot to the Taiwan ‘front’ – a contingency that already is being prepared.
Why is Europe in mutiny?
The mutiny has arisen because many in the West now see only too clearly that the western ruling structure is no liberal project per se, but rather is an avowedly illiberal mechanical ‘control system’ (managerial technocracy) – that fraudulently poses as liberalism.
Clearly many in Europe are alienated from the Establishment. The causes may be multiple – Ukraine, immigration or falling living standards – yet all Europeans are versed in the narrative that history has bent to the long arc of liberalism (in the post-Cold War period).
Yet that has proved illusory. The reality has been control, surveillance, censorship, technocracy, lockdowns and climate emergency. Illiberalism, even quasi totalitarianism, in short. (von der Leyen took things further recently, arguing that “If you think of information manipulation as a virus, instead of treating an infection once it has taken hold… it is much better to vaccinate so that the body is inoculated”).
When then, did traditional liberalism (in the loosest definition) turn illiberal?
The ‘about-face’ came in the 1970s.
In 1970, Zbig Brzezinski (who was to become National Security Adviser to President Carter) published a book entitled: Between Two Ages: America’s Role in the Technetronic Era. In it, Brzezinski argued:
“The technetronic era involves the gradual appearance of a more controlled society. Such a society…dominated by an élite, unrestrained by traditional values…[and practicing] continuous surveillance over every citizen…[together with] manipulation of the behaviour and intellectual functioning of all people… [would become the new norm].”
Elsewhere he argued that “the nation-state as a fundamental unit of man’s organised life has ceased to be the principal creative force: International banks and multinational corporations are acting and planning in terms that are far in advance of the political concepts of the nation-state”. (i.e. Business cosmopolitanism as the future.)
David Rockefeller and the power brokers around him – together with his Bilderberg grouping – seized on Brzezinski’s insight to represent the third leg to ensuring that the 21st century would indeed be the ‘American Century’. The other two legs were control of oil resources and dollar hegemony.
Then followed a key report, Limits to Growth, (1971, Club of Rome (again a Rockefeller creation), which provided the deeply flawed ‘scientific’ underpinning to Brzezinski: It predicted an end to civilization, owing to population growth, combined with depleting resources (including, and especially, depleting energy resources).
This dire prediction was imputed to say that only economic experts, tech experts, leaders of multinational corporations and banks had the foresight and technological understanding to manage society – subject to the complexity of Limits to Growth.
Limits to Growth was a mistake. It was flawed, yet that did not matter: President Clinton’s adviser to the UN Rio Conference, Tim Wirth, admitted the error, yet cheerfully added: “We have got to ride the global warming issue. Even if the theory is wrong, we will be doing the ‘right thing’ in terms of economic policy”.
The proposition was wrong – but the policy was right! Economic policy was upended, based on faulty analysis.
The ‘godfather’ to the further pivot to totalitarianism (apart from David Rockefeller), was his protégé (and later, Klaus Schwab’s ‘indispensable adviser’), Maurice Strong. William Engdahl has written how “circles directly tied to David Rockefeller and Strong in the 1970s birthed a dazzling array of élite (private-invitation) organizations and think tanks”.
“These included the neo-Malthusian Club of Rome; the MIT-authored study: ‘Limits to Growth’,and the Trilateral Commission”.
The Trilateral Commission however, was the secretive heart to the matrix. “When Carter took office in January 1976, his Cabinet was drawn almost entirely from the ranks of Rockefeller’s Trilateral Commission – to such an astonishing degree that some Washington insiders called it the ‘Rockefeller Presidency’”, Engdahl writes.
Craig Karpel, in 1977, also wrote:
“The presidency of the U.S. and the key cabinet departments of the federal government have been taken over by a private organization dedicated to the subordination of the domestic interests of the United States to the international interests of the multi-national banks and corporations. It would be unfair to say that the Trilateral Commission dominates the Carter Administration. The Trilateral Commission isthe Carter Administration”.
“Every key U.S. Government foreign and economic policy post, since Carter, has been held by a Trilateral”, Engdahl writes. And so it continues – a matrix of overlapping membership that is little visible to the public, and which very loosely may be said to have constituted the ‘permanent state’.
Did it exist in Europe? Yes, branches across Europe.
Here lies the root to last weekend’s European ‘mutiny’: Many Europeans refuse the concept of a controlled universe. Many are defiantly unwilling to recant their traditional ways of life or their national allegiances.
The Rockefeller Faustian bargain of the 1970s had one narrow segment of the American ruling cadre seceding from the American nation to occupy a separate reality in which they disassembled an organic economy to the benefit of the oligarchy, with ‘compensation’ coming only from their embrace of identity politics and the ‘just’ rotation of some diversity into corporate executive suites.
Looked at in this way, the Rockefeller deal can be viewed as a parallel to the South African ‘arrangement’ that ended Apartheid: the Anglo-élites held onto economic resources and power, whilst the ANC, on the other side of the equation, got a Potemkin façade of their taking political power.
For Europeans, this Faustian ‘arrangement’ degrades Humans down to identity units occupying the spaces between markets, rather than markets being the ancillary to an organic human-centred economy, as Karl Polanyi wrote some 80 years ago in The Great Transformation.
He traced the turmoil of his era down to one cause: the belief that society can, and should, be organised through self-regulating markets. For him, this represented nothing less than an ontological break with much of human history. Prior to the 19th century, he insisted, the human economy had always been “embedded” in society: it was subordinated to local politics, customs, religion and social relations.
The converse (Rockefeller’s technocratic illiberal cum identity paradigm) leads only to the attenuation of social bonds; the atomisation of community; to the lack of metaphysical content and thus to an absence of existential purpose and meaning.
Illiberalism is unfulfilling. It says: You don’t count. You don’t belong. Many Europeans evidently now get it.
Which somehow takes us back to the question of how the western strata will react to the nascent mutiny against the International Order that has been accelerating across the globe – and which has now surfaced in Europe, albeit with diverse colorations and some ideological baggage.
It is not likely – for now – that the Ruling Strata will compromise. Those who dominate tend to fear existentially: Either they keep dominating, or they lose all. They see only a zero sum game. Each side’s status becomes frozen. People increasingly meet only as ‘adversaries’. Co-citizens become dangerous threats, who must be opposed.
So, consider the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Leaders in the U.S. ruling strata comprise many zealous supporters of a Zionist Israel. As the International Order starts to crack, this segment of structural power in the U.S. is likely to be uncompromising too, fearing a zero-sum outcome.
There is an Israeli narrative to the war and a ‘rest of world narrative’ – and they don’t really meet. How to arrange things? The transformative effect of seeing ‘others’ differently – Israelis and Palestinians – presently is not on the table.
That conflict has the potential to get much worse – and for longer.
Might the ‘Ruling Strata’ – desperate for a certain outcome – seek to fold (and try to conceal) the horrors of this west-Asian struggle within a wider geo-strategic war? One in which greater multitudes become displaced (thus dwarfing a regional horror)?
The Swiss “peace” kabuki came and went – and the winner was Vladimir Putin. He didn’t even have to show up.
None of the Big Players did. Or in case they sent their emissaries, there was significant refusal to sign the vacuous final declaration – as in BRICS members Brazil, India, Saudi Arabia, UAE and South Africa.
Without BRICS, there’s absolutely nothing the collective West – as in The Hegemon and assorted vassals – can do to alter the proxy war chessboard in Ukraine.
In his carefully calibrated speech to diplomats and the leadership of Russia’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Putin delineated an incredibly restrained and strategic approach to solve the Ukraine problem. In the context of the Hegemon’s escalatory green light – actually in practice for several months now – for Kiev to attack deeper into the Russian Federation, Putin’s offer was extremely generous.
That is a direct offer to the Hegemon and the collective West – as the sweaty T-shirt actor in Kiev, apart from illegitimate, is beyond irrelevant.
Predictably, NATO – via that epileptic slab of Norwegian wood – already proclaimed its refusal to negotiate, even as some relatively awake members of the Verkhovna Rada (Ukraine’s parliament) started discussing the offer, according to Duma Chairman Vyacheslav Volodin.
Moscow sees the Verkhovna Rada as the only legitimate entity in Ukraine – and the only one with which would be possible to reach an agreement.
Russian UN representative Vasily Nebenzya cut to the chase – diplomatically: if the generous proposal is refused, next time conditions for starting negotiations will be “different”. And “far more unfavorable”, according to Duma Defense Committee head Andrei Kartapolov.
As Nebenzya stressed that in case of a refusal the collective West will bear full responsibility for further bloodshed, Kartapolov elaborated on the Big Picture: Russia’s real target is to create a whole new security system for the Eurasian space.
And that, of course, is anathema to the Hegemon’s elites.
Putin’s security vision for Eurasia harks back to this legendary speech at the Munich Security Conference in 2007. Now, with the steady advance of an irreversible multi-nodal (italics mine) and multi-centric new system of international relations, the Kremlin is pressing for an urgent solution – considering the extremely dangerous escalation of these past few months.
Putin once again had to remind the deaf, dumb and blind of the obvious:
“Calls to inflict a strategic defeat on Russia, which has the largest arsenal of nuclear weapons, demonstrate the extreme adventurism of Western politicians. They either do not understand the scale of the threat they themselves create, or they are simply obsessed with the belief in their own immunity and their own exclusivity. Both can turn into a tragedy”.
They remain deaf, dumb and blind.
A proposal that does not solve anything?
A fiery debate is raging in informed circles in Russia about Putin’s proposal. Critics blast it as a capitulation – forced by selected oligarchs and influential business circles, adverse to an “almost war” (the preferred motto) that keeps postponing the inevitable decapitation strike.
Critics argue that the military strategy is totally subordinated to a political strategy. And that would explain the serious problems in the Black Sea and in Transnistria: the political center of power refuses to conquer the number one economic/military target, which is Odessa.
Additionally, Ukraine’s weapon supply chains are not being properly interrupted.
The key critical point is “this is taking too long”. One just needs to look at the example of Mariupol.
In 2014, Mariupol was left in the control of nazi-banderista gangs as part of a financial deal with Rinat Akhmetov, the owner of the Azovstal works. That’s a classic case of oligarchs and financiers prevailing over military objectives.
Putin’s generosity, visible in this latest peace offer, also elicits a parallel with what happened in Dara’a in Syria: Russia also negotiated what looked at first like a peace deal. Yet Dara’a remains a mess, extremely violent, with Syrian and Russian soldiers at risk.
It gets really tricky when the current proposal only asks NATO not to be encroached in Kiev; but at the same time Kiev will be allowed to have an army, based on the (aborted) April 2022 negotiations in Istanbul.
Critics also argue that Putin seems to believe that this proposal will solve the war. Not really. A real de-nazification campaign is an affair of decades – involving everything from full demilitarization to eradicating focuses of extremist ideology. A real cultural revolution.
The current escalation already is in tune with the orders given by the rarefied plutocracy who really runs the show to messengers – and operatives: nazi-banderista gangs will unleash a War of Terror inside Russia for years. From Ukraine territory. Just like Idlib in Syria remains a terror-friendly environment.
The Odessa file
Putin’s strategy may be on to something that escapes his critics. His wish for a return of peace and the re-establishment of sound relations with Kiev and the West has got to be a ruse – as he’s the first to know that’s not gonna happen.
It’s clear that Kiev will not willingly cede territory: these will have to be conquered in the battlefield. Moreover NATO simply cannot sign its cosmic humiliation on the dotted line, accepting that Russia will get what it is demanding since February 2022.
Putin’s first – diplomatic – objective though has already been met. He has clearly demonstrated to the Global Majority he’s open to solve the dilemma in a serene atmosphere, while discombobulated NATO keeps shrieking “War!” every other minute.
The Hegemon wants war? So war it will be – to the last Ukrainian.
And that brings us to the Odessa file.
Putin, crucially, did not say anything about Odessa. This is Kiev’s last chance saloon to keep Odessa. If the peace proposal is rejected for good, Odessa will feature in the next list of non-negotiables.
Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, once again, nailed it: “Putin is patient. Those with ears will hear, those with brains will understand”.
No one should expect working brains popping up across the West. Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban has confirmed how NATO is planning massive installations in Poland, Romania and Slovakia to “coordinate transfer of weapons to Ukraine”.
Add to it the epileptic slab of Norwegian wood stating that NATO is “discussing” bringing their nuclear weapons to a state of combat readiness “in the face of the growing threat from Russia and China”.
Once again Old Stolty gives away the game: note this is all about the Hegemon’s paranoia with the top two “existential threats”, the
Russia-China strategic partnership. That is, the leaders of BRICS coordinating the drive towards a multipolar, multi-nodal (italics mine), “harmonic” (Putin’s terminology) world.
Stealing Russian money is legal
Then there’s the blatant theft of Russian financial assets.
At their sorry spectacle in Puglia, in southern Italy, the G7 – in the presence of the illegitimate sweaty T-shirt actor – agreed to shove an extra $50 billion in loans to Ukraine, funded by the interest on Russia’s frozen and for all practical purposes stolen assets.
With impeccably twisted logic, Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni – whose hairdressing and wardrobe revamp conclusively did not apply to her brains – said that the G7 “will not confiscate frozen assets of the Russian Federation”; “we are talking about the interest that they accumulate over time.”
As financial scams go, this one is a thing of beauty.
Essentially, the main customer (the Hegemon) and its instrument (the EU) are trying to mask the actual theft of those “frozen” Russian sovereign assets as if this was a legal transaction.
The EU will transfer the “frozen” assets – something around $260 billion – to the status of collateral for the American loan. That’s the whole thing – because only the income deriving from the assets would not be enough as collateral to secure the loan.
It gets even dicier. These funds will not leave Washington for Kiev; they will remain in town to the benefit of the industrial-military complex churning out more weapons.
So the EU steals the assets, under a flimsy legalese pretext (Janet Yellen already said it’s OK) and transfers them to the U.S. Washington is immune if everything goes wrong – as it will.
Only a fool would believe that the Americans would give a sizable loan to a de facto country 404 with a sovereign debt rating in the abyss. The dirty job is assigned to the Europeans: it’s up to the EU to change the status of Russia’s stolen/”frozen” assets to collateral.
And wait for the ultimate dicey gambit. The whole scheme concerns Euroclear, in Belgium – where the largest amount of Russian funds is parked. Yet the decision on this money-laundering scam was not taken by Belgium, and not even by the EUrocrats.
This was a Hegemon-imposed G7 decision. Belgium is not even part of the G7. Yet in the end, it will be the EU’s “credibility” as a whole that will go down the drain across the whole Global Majority.
And the deaf, dumb and blind, predictably, are not even aware of it.
Two European Thorns in the Empire’s Side: Rightist Orban and Leftist Fico (and Look What Happened to Him)
Hungary’s prime minister, Viktor Orban may be a far-right politician, but he also opposes the west’s proxy war in Ukraine and that, much more than his extreme conservatism, is what infuriates imperial henchmen. The European Union is in a constant snit over Orban, because every time that organization turns around, he blocks funds or weapons to Kiev. Another war opponent is leftwing Slovakian prime minister Robert Fico – and we all know what happened to him. On May 15, he was shot five times. The attempted assassination failed, but he’s still recovering; and his fate was used by an EU official, Oliver Varhelyi, who warned the Georgian prime minister, Irakli Kobakhidze, that if Georgia approved a foreign agents’ bill, something Washington and Brussels vehemently oppose – since it interferes with a Georgian color revolution and opening a second front against Russia – he should bear in mind what happened to Fico. Varhelyi claims his remark was taken out of context. Ho, ho!
This alleged attempted intimidation of the Georgian prime minister comes at a time of great tensions between the EU and Georgia. So no surprise that Kobakhidze would charge that what Politico May 23 predictably tarred as “his increasingly authoritarian government,” was basically receiving EU threats and faces “abusive blackmail” from the west. Indeed, the U.S. has already imposed sanctions on dozens of Georgian officials. “In my conversation,” Kobakhidze wrote on Facebook, “the European Commissioner listed a number of measures Western politicians can take after [Georgia passes] the transparency law and…[the Commissioner] said ‘look what happened to Fico, you should be very careful.’” If that doesn’t sound like a threat to you, you need to doublecheck your grip on reality.
In this context of western war-on-Moscow insanity, Washington regards countries like Georgia, Hungary, Slovakia, Serbia and Moldova as chess pieces it must either eliminate or bring to its side via color revolutions, lawfare, sanctions, other financial extortion, electoral chicanery or outright meddling in those nations’ internal affairs. Perhaps not chess pieces, because Washington doesn’t play a strategic game like chess. Let’s just say, the imperial view is that these countries are weaklings to be bullied.
Such bullying comes in a bleak landscape of ever more dangerous escalation between two superpowers, the U.S. and Russia, escalation that could lead to nuclear war. Perceiving this mad peril, the third superpower, Beijing, recently weighed in, announcing that it would support Moscow militarily. So much for the Beltway hallucination about driving a wedge between China and Russia, in order first to defeat the latter then the former, a delusion the hubristically over-confident United States never bothered to conceal but instead shouted from the rooftops early on in the Ukraine War. You’d think this Sino-Russian publicly proclaimed defense pact would convince Washington’s rulers that their hyper-aggressive belligerent approach has failed, so it’s time for diplomacy. You’d think that, but you’d be wrong.
The 40- and 50-somethings ruling the roost at the state department and who form a despotic cadre of neocon government advisors have little experience of the terrors of the cold war and evidently less realistic grasp of what a hot one would mean – 90 million dead Americans in the first few minutes and tens of millions more shortly thereafter. These so-called leaders are a lethal, planetary menace. And don’t look to Donald “Fire and Fury” Trump for salvation: He recently proclaimed he’d bomb Beijing and Moscow. If one of these two presidential candidates, Trump or Biden, doesn’t come to his senses fast, humanity’s ranks could soon be thinned to those who had the foresight and money to build bomb shelters.
The Biden gang’s insane journey toward Atomic Armageddon is all the loonier, because these hacks seem to forget that in a nuclear war there are no winners. Even if the fanatics at, say, the neocon Institute for the Study of War convince the white house to attempt to destroy all Russian nuclear command and control centers, it is pointless, as Moscow knows. That’s because Russia has a “dead hand” nuclear launch system. In the very unlikely event that the west decapitates the Kremlin, the nukes launch automatically at Europe and the United States, even if Russian leadership is all dead.
That the psychopaths in supposed institutes and think tanks in Washington might advocate such a move is simply an argument to end their influence. But Biden has assembled a globally lethal bunch of neocons to run foreign policy, no surprise from the president who greenlit the bombing of the Nordstream pipeline. However, they now play a terrifying game, pushing as close as possible to Moscow’s red lines. A no-fly zone in western Ukraine? F-16s for Kiev? Western boots on the ground in Ukraine? Any of these would be an end-times disaster. Yet feckless, reckless Biden has shown repeatedly that what he swears never to do one month, he implements a few months later. In short, given the war-mongers he packed the white house with, he’s not to be trusted with humanity’s fate.
Leaders like Fico and Orban come right out and say the west is crazy for war. But such honesty is not allowed. Nor is it permitted to utter the truth that Moscow was massively, deliberately provoked into invading Ukraine, a provocation that the west cultivated for nearly a decade, starting with a 2014 CIA-backed neo-Nazi putsch in Kiev. And Biden was one of the most gung-ho Ukraine-in-NATO boosters. Now, as Kiev (with American satellite surveillance and targeting) damages the Russian early warning nuclear defense umbrella, what will Washington say if this leads – as enough such damage could – to an atomic holocaust? That Moscow’s launch was unprovoked? If so, Beltway survivors, if there are any, will be shouting into the wind: because hundreds of millions of humans will already be dead and five billion others will soon follow them into the grave, via nuclear winter.
Meanwhile, the west’s provocations never cease, be they immense or small. The latest less gigantic one involves Serbia, a country bullied by NATO for its perceived pro-Russian stance. This latest insult was the Germany- and Rwanda-backed UN designation of Serbia as having committed a genocide, when in fact many others (Croats, for instance) committed mass atrocities during the 1990s Balkans fighting. But the most egregious bullying of Serbia dates back to 1999, when NATO bombed Yugoslavia – a country that, in its previous communist incarnation, was much hated by covert fascists in the west.
Why? Because Yugoslavia was long led by former WWII partisan Josip Tito, a wily and seriously far-left ruler; and not only did western crypto-fascists despise leftists, they also detested their own erstwhile allies – the anti-Nazi partisans. How else to explain Allen Dulles’ first post-war act as OSS head, namely hunting down partisans in the forests of Europe, partisans who had fought alongside the west against Hitler? Those communist or Jewish or anti-fascist partisans were simply too unbowed to be trusted. Instead, the U.S. preferred to deal with and protect former Nazis, like the 1500 Nazi scientists that it imported to NASA in the U.S. in Operation Paperclip.
Back in the present, here and there glimmer faint signs of rationality from Washington, namely Biden’s recent remark that Ukraine won’t join NATO or his comments to ABC News June 6 that American weapons must not be used against the Kremlin. The former has been obvious to the realists who heard Moscow’s furious retort to the 2008 western vow to put Kiev in NATO – nyet means nyet. But the U.S. Empire is not led by realists. It’s led by a very unfortunate combo of neo-con fanatics and wishful thinkers, whose grip on the nation’s steering wheel must be shaken, because they ignore those faint common sense road signs and thus speed us all toward a crash.
The plutocracy believes that afterwards they can buy the whole thing for a pittance while flies are still laying eggs in European carcasses.
So Le Petit Roi in Paris was predictably crushed in the European polls. He has called parliamentary snap elections, dissolving the Assemblée Nationale in an act of blind, puerile revenge on French citizens, de facto attacking French institutional democracy.
That doesn’t mean much anyway, because the lineaments of “liberty, equality, fraternity” have long been usurped by a crass oligarchy.
The second round of these fresh French elections will be on July 7 – nearly coinciding with the British snap elections on July 11, and only a few days before the slow-burning urban catastrophe which will be the Olympics in Paris.
Paris salons are ablaze with intrigue on why the little Rothschild stooge with a Napoleon complex is throwing all his toys out of the pram now because he’s not getting what he wants.
After all what he really craves is to become a “War President” – together with the Cadaver in the White House, Starmer in the UK, Rutte in the Netherlands, the Toxic Medusa von der Lugen in Brussels, Tusk in Poland, without having to answer to the French people.
It’s nearly certain that Le Petit Roi will be facing the real prospect of becoming a lame duck President who needs to obey a right-wing parliament; Elysée Palace chatter already joined the circus, conveying the impression he might resign (that was later denied). Still, if Le Petit Roi runs off to war on Russia no French citizen will follow him, least of all the – pitiful – French army.
Bigger things though are in play. Following the – auspicious – game-changing messages to the Global Majority coming out of the St. Petersburg forum last week, anchored on openness and inclusiveness, the BRICS 10 meeting of Foreign Ministers in Nizhny Novgorod carried the baton early this week.
Foreign Minister Lavrov stressed three key points:
“The countries of the Global South no longer want to be dependent on the double standards of the West and its whims.”
“Everyone knows that the BRICS countries already serve as the locomotive of the world economy.”
“We [at the BRICS FMs meeting] stressed the need for consistent efforts to create a new world order, where the equality of independent states will be the key.”
Now compare it with the shrinking G7 meeting later this week in Puglia in southern Italy: the same old song, from a “tough new warning” to Chinese banks (“Don’t do business with Russia or else!”) to vociferous threats against the China-Russia strategic partnership.
And last but not least, extra plotting to skim interest from the massive, frozen/stolen Russian assets with the intent of sending them to country 404; the Toxic Medusa itself announced that country 404 will receive €1.5 billion of the income from stolen Russian assets from the EU in July, 90% of it to buy weapons.
As for U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Kurt Campbell – the man who invented the defunct “pivot to Asia” during Harpy Hillary Clinton’s tenure in the early 2010s – he had already advanced that Washington will sanction Chinese companies and banks over Beijing’s relations with Russia’s military-industrial complex.
False flags and perfect symmetry
By several metrics, Europe is about to implode/explode not with a bang but an agonizing whimper anytime within the next few months. It’s crucial to remember that the snap elections in France and Britain will also coincide with the NATO summit on July 11 – where Russophobia-fueled warmongering will reach paroxysm.
Among possible scenarios, some kind of false flag to be squarely blamed on Russia should be expected. It could be a Franz Ferdinand moment; a Gulf of Tonkin moment; or even a USS Maine before the American-Spanish war moment.
The fact remains that the only way these “leaders” across NATOstan plus their lowly MI6 agent in a green sweaty T-shirt in Kiev will survive is by manufacturing a casus belli.
If indeed that happens, a date can be advanced: between the second week of July and the end of August; and certainly no later than the second week of September.
October will be too late: too close to the U.S. elections.
So be prepared for the Summer of Living Dangerously.
Meanwhile, The Bear is not exactly hibernating. President Putin, before and during the St. Petersburg forum, elaborated on how “symmetric” Moscow’s response will be to attacks by Kiev using NATOstan missiles – already ongoing.
There are three NATOstan members which are supplying missiles with a range of 350 km and more: U.S., UK and France.
So a “symmetric” response would imply Russia providing Global South nations with advanced weaponry – capable of causing serious damage to nodes of the Empire of Bases.
And here are the top candidates to receive these weapons – as extensively debated not only on Russian TV channels but also in the St. Petersburg forum corridors.
West Asia: Iran (which already has them); Syria (badly needs them); Yemen; Iraq (would be very helpful to Hashd al-Shaabi) and Libya.
Central, Northeast, Southeast Asia: Afghanistan, Myanmar (these two were present in St. Petersburg) and North Korea.
Latin America: Cuba, Venezuela and Nicaragua (just look at the current Russian foray in the Caribbean).
Africa: Central African Republic, Congo, Ethiopia, Somalia, Southern Sudan and Zimbabwe (just look at Lavrov’s recent African tour).
Mr. Zircon says hello
And that brings us the jolly matter of a Russian naval force hangin’ out in the Caribbean, headed by the hypersonic missile-armed frigate Admiral Gorshkov and the Kazan nuclear submarine.
The indispensable Andrei Martyanov has noted how the Gorshkov “carries 32 Onyx, Zircon, Kalibrs and Otvet. These are the most advanced and deadly cruise missiles in history, with a serious combat pedigree. Kazan, which is Yasen-class SSGN carries also 32 VLS and, in addition, has 10 torpedo tubes which can shoot not just torpedoes.”
Well, this naval force is obviously not there to launch WWIII. Martyanov explains that “while both can strike all of the Eastern seaboard of the U.S. and Canada, they are there not for that reason. God forbid if it comes to real WWIII there are plenty of Bulavas, Avangards, Sarmats and Yarses to deal with this horrifying business. No, both Gorshkov and Kazan are there to show that they can reach any combat ship or strategic sea lift vessel carrying any military combat set from North America to Europe in case of some nutjob deciding to try to survive a conventional war with Russia in 404.”
What’s even more intriguing is that after spending time in Havana, the naval force will remain in the Caribbean for a series of exercises – and will be joined by other Russian Navy vessels. They will remain in these waters until the end of The Summer of Living Dangerously. Just in case some nutjob has fancy ideas.
Meanwhile, the possible escalation towards Hot War in Europe proceeds unabated, with NATO via its epileptic slab of Norwegian wood radically changing the established rules of proxy wars with one nonsense outburst after another.
The Armed Forces of Ukraine (AFU) are already capable, via NATO, to destroy both military and civilian Russian assets – oil storage, airports, energy facilities, railway junctions, even concentration of troops.
Everyone and his neighbor will be waiting for the “symmetric” responses.
For all practical purposes the crucial decision has been made by the rarified plutocracy which really runs the show: force Europe into war on Russia. That’s the rationale behind all the rhetorical kabuki about a “military Schengen” and a New Iron Curtain from the Arctic through the Baltic chihuahuas all the way to rabid Poland.
The plutocracy actually believes that afterwards they can buy the whole thing for a pittance while flies are still laying eggs in radioactive European carcasses.
Il y a une grande différence entre « ne pas gagner » et « perdre » une guerre. Dans le cas de l’Ukraine, « ne pas gagner » signifie que le président Zelensky et ses collaborateurs à Washington choisissent de rechercher un règlement négocié qui permettrait à la Russie de conserver le territoire qu’elle a conquis pendant la guerre tout en répondant aux modestes exigences de sécurité de Moscou. (Remarque : l’Ukraine doit rejeter toute intention d’adhérer à l’OTAN)
D’un autre côté, « perdre » la guerre signifie que les États-Unis et l’OTAN continuent sur la même voie qu’ils suivent aujourd’hui – en injectant des armes mortelles, des entraîneurs et des systèmes de missiles à longue portée en Ukraine – en espérant que l’offensive russe soit progressivement affaiblie afin que l’Ukraine puisse prédominent sur le champ de bataille. Cette voie alternative – qui équivaut à un « vœu pieux » – est la voie qui mène à la « perte » de la guerre.
Contrairement au scénario « ne pas gagner » la guerre, « perdre » la guerre aura un effet catastrophique sur les États-Unis et sur leur avenir. Cela signifierait que Washington n’a pas été en mesure d’empêcher une incursion militaire russe en Europe, qui est la principale raison d’être de l’OTAN. Cela remettrait en question l’idée selon laquelle les États-Unis sont capables d’agir en tant que garant de la sécurité régionale, rôle dont ils jouissent depuis la fin de la Seconde Guerre mondiale. La perception d’une défaite américaine face à la Russie déclencherait inévitablement une réévaluation des relations de sécurité actuelles conduisant à la dissolution de l’OTAN et, très probablement, de l’UE également. En termes simples, perdre la guerre serait un désastre. Voici comment le Colonel Daniel Davis a résumé la situation la semaine dernière :
“Nous ne pouvons pas laisser la Russie gagner.”
J’ai entendu cela tout au long de plus de deux années de guerre. Mais voici ce que je dis : si vous continuez sur cette voie, en ignorant toutes les réalités dont nous parlons, non seulement la Russie gagnera, mais nous perdrons. Et je vous assure que si vous pensiez que c’était une mauvaise chose de « laisser Poutine gagner » – ce qui signifie avoir un règlement négocié dans lequel Poutine se retrouve avec un territoire avec lequel il n’a pas commencé la guerre –… Mais si vous dites cela – parce que je ne le fais pas. Je ne veux pas que cela arrive, je vais continuer à me battre – cela implique que vous pensez que vous pouvez gagner. Mais si vous ne parvenez pas à gagner, le résultat probable est que vous perdrez encore plus, et c’est ce qui va vraiment nuire à notre crédibilité, car imaginez si l’ensemble des forces de l’OTAN s’avérait incapable d’empêcher la Russie de gagner ? Aujourd’hui, notre crédibilité est bien plus endommagée que si un règlement était négocié Colonel Daniel Davis, You Tube
Ainsi, même si « ne pas gagner » n’est pas la solution parfaite, il est largement préférable à « perdre », ce qui saperait gravement la crédibilité de l’Alliance, éroderait considérablement la puissance de Washington en Europe et obligerait les États-Unis à repenser leurs plans de projection de puissance en Asie centrale. . (pivot vers l’Asie) En bref, une défaite américaine face à la Russie en Ukraine serait un coup dur porté à « l’ordre fondé sur des règles » et au dénouement du siècle américain.
L’enjeu est donc considérable pour les États-Unis. Malheureusement, il n’y a pas de véritable débat dans les cercles d’élite du pouvoir sur la meilleure voie à suivre. Et c’est parce que la décision a déjà été prise, et cette décision est étroitement liée aux vues maximalistes exprimées dans un article du Conseil atlantique intitulé « L’OTAN à 75 ans : l’avenir de l’Alliance réside dans la victoire de l’Ukraine contre la Russie ».
L’OTAN marquera son soixante-quinzième anniversaire le 4 avril en tant qu’alliance militaire la plus réussie de l’histoire. Cependant, son avenir en tant que moyen de dissuasion crédible face à l’agression réside désormais dans le succès ou l’échec de l’invasion injuste et brutale de l’Ukraine par la Russie.
Les dirigeants alliés ont sans ambiguïté lié la sécurité de l’OTAN à cette guerre. Les sommets de l’OTAN ont condamné à plusieurs reprises l’invasion et exigé que la Russie « retire complètement et sans condition toutes ses forces et équipements du territoire ukrainien ».
Et la rhétorique s’est intensifiée. Le président français Emmanuel Macron a récemment qualifié la guerre d’« existentielle » pour l’Europe. « Si la Russie gagne cette guerre, la crédibilité de l’Europe serait réduite à zéro », a déclaré Macron…
Si le prochain sommet de Washington veut inspirer une confiance continue dans la crédibilité de l’OTAN, et donc dans son avenir, alors l’Alliance doit prendre des mesures pour placer l’Ukraine sur la voie claire de la victoire…
Les dirigeants alliés doivent soutenir sans ambiguïté les objectifs de guerre de l’Ukraine, c’est-à-dire une reconstitution territoriale totale jusqu’aux frontières de 1991. Tout ce qui est en deçà de cela constitue un signal désillusionnant pour l’Ukraine et un encouragement pour Poutine à poursuivre son invasion. L’OTAN a 75 ans : l’avenir de l’Alliance réside dans la victoire de l’Ukraine contre la Russie, atlanticcouncil . org
Je le répète : les dirigeants alliés doivent approuver sans ambiguïté les objectifs de guerre de l’Ukraine, c’est-à-dire une reconstitution territoriale totale jusqu’aux frontières de 1991. Tout ce qui est en deçà de cela constitue un signal désillusionnant pour l’Ukraine et un encouragement pour Poutine à poursuivre son invasion.
Comme nous l’avons dit plus tôt, cette vision maximaliste des objectifs de l’OTAN n’est rien d’autre qu’un vœu pieux. L’UAF anémique ne va pas chasser l’armée russe d’Ukraine ni gagner la guerre. Néanmoins, les points de vue ci-dessus sont partagés par la grande majorité des élites de politique étrangère qui n’ont pas ajusté leur pensée pour qu’elle corresponde aux pertes sanglantes de l’Ukraine sur le champ de bataille. Voici davantage d’extraits d’un article d’opinion des Affaires étrangères :
L’administration Biden et ses homologues européens n’ont pas réussi à articuler la fin de cette guerre. Trois ans après le début du conflit, la planification occidentale continue d’être stratégiquement arriérée : aider Kiev est devenu une fin en soi, séparée d’une stratégie cohérente visant à mettre un terme à la guerre.
Mais la « théorie de la victoire » présentée par Zagorodnyuk et Cohen pour remplacer le malaise stratégique dans lequel se trouve l’Occident est, remarquablement, encore plus dangereuse et mal conçue que le statu quo. Les auteurs appellent la Maison Blanche à soutenir sans réserve les objectifs de guerre de Kiev : à savoir expulser toutes les forces russes des frontières ukrainiennes de 1991, y compris la Crimée, soumettre les responsables russes aux tribunaux pour crimes de guerre, obtenir des réparations de Moscou et fournir à l’Ukraine des « arrangements de sécurité à long terme ». En d’autres termes, l’Occident ne doit s’engager que dans la défaite totale et inconditionnelle de la Russie sur le champ de bataille.
Comment l’Ukraine, avec son armée en difficulté, sa démographie en déclin et son économie entièrement dépendante des apports de capitaux occidentaux, peut-elle accomplir cette noble tâche ? En faisant toujours la même chose, mais à plus grande échelle. La nouvelle théorie de la victoire ukrainienne est la même que l’ancienne théorie conservatrice américaine
Ce que nous essayons de démontrer, c’est que ce type de pensée délirante est pratiquement universelle parmi les élites américaines en matière de politique étrangère, dont aucune n’est prête à accepter la réalité fondamentale sur le terrain. En conséquence, il n’y a aucune chance que l’administration Biden corrige son cap ou tente d’empêcher un affrontement direct entre les deux adversaires dotés de l’arme nucléaire, l’OTAN et la Russie.
Alors, comment une personne raisonnable aborderait-elle le conflit actuel en Ukraine ?
Ils chercheraient un moyen d’y mettre fin le plus tôt possible tout en infligeant le moins de dégâts possible au camp perdant. Voici ce que le professeur Mark Episkopos de Marymount avait à dire dans le même article ci-dessus :
Les dirigeants occidentaux auraient dû articuler depuis longtemps une théorie cohérente de la victoire, une théorie qui s’attaquerait aux compromis et aux limites auxquels sont confrontés Kiev et ses partisans plutôt que de les balayer dans la poursuite d’objectifs maximalistes sur le champ de bataille, de plus en plus détachés des réalités sur le terrain. Cela ne signifie pas se résigner à une capitulation inconditionnelle de l’Ukraine. Cependant, cela exigera que les décideurs politiques reconnaissent qu’il n’existe aucune voie viable menant à une défaite inconditionnelle de la Russie et qu’ils adaptent leur réflexion sur la fin de la guerre en conséquence. Il n’est pas trop tard pour mettre fin à la guerre dans des conditions garantissant la souveraineté de l’Ukraine tout en faisant progresser les intérêts américains. L’Occident dispose toujours d’une influence considérable sur et en dehors du champ de bataille, mais la clé pour exercer efficacement cette influence est d’abandonner enfin le concept de victoire à somme nulle qui a empêché les dirigeants de se tourner vers une approche plus pragmatique et stratégiquement plus agile. La nouvelle théorie de la victoire ukrainienne est la même que l’ancienne théorie conservatrice américaine
Conclusion : un accord peut être conclu qui minimisera les dommages globaux causés aux États-Unis et à l’Ukraine, mais il appartient aux diplomates américains et aux élites de la politique étrangère d’identifier les domaines de terrain d’entente afin de parvenir à un accord qui évitera une catastrophe encore plus grande. .
Le problème avec la recommandation du professeur Episkopos est qu’il s’agit d’une suggestion raisonnablement raisonnable, ce qui signifie qu’elle sera rejetée d’emblée par les faucons de guerre qui fixent la politique. Même aujourd’hui, les dirigeants américains sont certains que la guerre peut être gagnée s’ils font preuve de prudence et appliquent une force militaire plus brutale. Cela devrait faire l’affaire. (ils pensent)
C’est le genre de raisonnement erroné qui anime la machine de guerre américaine. Les élites politiques croient honnêtement que si elles adoptent pleinement une platitude ridicule comme « Nous ne pouvons pas perdre », la réalité de la supériorité de la puissance de feu, de la main-d’œuvre, du soutien logistique et de la capacité industrielle russes disparaîtra dans les airs et la nation « exceptionnelle » prévaudra. encore une fois. Mais cela n’arrivera pas.
D’accord. Alors, que va-t-il se passer ?
Pour cela, nous nous tournons vers l’analyste militaire Will Schryver et vers un article récent sur Twitter :
Il faut comprendre que les États-Unis et l’OTAN ne pouvaient pas rassembler, équiper, envoyer et soutenir ne serait-ce qu’une douzaine de brigades de combat compétentes pour engager les Russes en Ukraine.
Réalisez-vous ce qui arriverait aux 50 000 soldats de combat de l’OTAN – dont aucun n’a JAMAIS connu une guerre de haute intensité – s’ils étaient soudainement envoyés, avec un leadership et une coordination nécessairement déficients, sur le champ de bataille ukrainien ?
Ils seraient impitoyablement massacrés. Saigner la bête, Will Schryver, Twitter
« Impitoyablement massacré » ? Cela ne semble pas très prometteur.
La France a néanmoins déjà annoncé qu’elle enverrait des formateurs militaires en Ukraine, et d’autres suivront certainement. Dans le même temps, des armes plus meurtrières, notamment des missiles à longue portée et des F-16, sont déjà en route et seront probablement utilisées dans un avenir proche. Mais est-ce que cela aura de l’importance ? La fourniture de nouvelles armes et de troupes de combat inversera-t-elle la tendance et empêchera-t-elle l’effondrement de l’armée ukrainienne ? Voici à nouveau Schryver :
Pourquoi les Russes devraient-ils s’opposer à ce que les États-Unis et l’OTAN envoient davantage de leurs maigres stocks de missiles balistiques à courte portée et de missiles de croisière à longue portée ? Les taux de réussite des missiles ATACMS et Storm Shadow ont été épouvantables et diminuent régulièrement avec le temps. Ils n’ont aucune signification stratégique. Et la capacité de réapprovisionnement est effectivement nulle !
Pourquoi les Russes devraient-ils s’opposer à ce que les États-Unis et l’OTAN envoient un escadron – ou même cinq – de F-16 désuets en Ukraine ? Oui, bien sûr, ils seraient pilotés par des « volontaires » de l’OTAN, et ils pourraient même remporter une poignée de « succès » surfaits et éphémères au début. Mais s’ils tentent réellement d’organiser des sorties sérieuses au-dessus du champ de bataille ukrainien, les vieux F-16 dotés d’une logistique et d’un maintien en puissance inadéquats auront une durée de vie comptée en HEURES seulement. Saigner la bête, Will Schryver, Twitter
Schryver a-t-il raison ? Ces éventuelles frappes de missiles à longue portée sur des cibles en Russie seront-elles simplement des attaques à coups d’épingle que Poutine ignorera pendant que ses troupes continuent d’écraser les forces ukrainiennes le long de la ligne de contact de 800 milles ? Et Poutine devrait-il saluer l’introduction de « troupes terrestres » des États-Unis et de l’OTAN en Ukraine pour faire face à l’armée russe ? Cela permettra-t-il réellement de mettre fin plus rapidement à la guerre ? Voici Schryver une fois de plus :
Au rythme où se déroule toute cette débâcle en Ukraine, pratiquement toute la puissance militaire basée en Europe… va être considérée comme « inefficace au combat » pendant au moins une décennie, et probablement plus. Si j’étais les Russes, je considérerais cet objectif comme le summum bonum (« Le plus grand bien ») à atteindre à la suite de cette guerre, et je serais réticent à interrompre les Maîtres de l’Empire alors qu’ils sont en train de le remettre. pour moi sur un plateau d’argent….
Donc, si j’étais Gerasimov, je dirais : « Amenez-les ! Saigner la bête, Will Schryver, Twitter
La fureur suscitée par l’utilisation de missiles à longue portée fournis par l’OTAN (et le déploiement de F-16 et d’entraîneurs français) ne fait que détourner l’attention du fait incontournable que l’OTAN sera vaincue par les forces armées russes si elles entrent en guerre. Ainsi, un homme sage rechercherait un règlement négocié maintenant avant que les choses ne deviennent incontrôlables. Mais ce n’est pas ce que font nos dirigeants, en fait, ils font exactement le contraire et intensifient à chaque instant la situation.
Examinons donc les faits d’un peu plus près. Découvrez cette analyse récapitulative réalisée par les pros de War on the Rocks :
Lorsqu’on lui a demandé il y a deux semaines lors d’un témoignage devant la commission sénatoriale des services armés si l’armée était « indisposée » par un adversaire quelconque, le chef d’état-major de l’armée américaine, le général Mark Milley, a répondu : « Oui… ceux d’Europe, vraiment la Russie. Nous n’aimons pas cela, nous n’en voulons pas, mais oui, techniquement, [nous sommes] dépassés, désarmés sur le terrain.
Compte tenu de l’agression russe en Ukraine, ce témoignage donne à réfléchir. Mais est-ce exact ? Malheureusement, oui : près de deux ans de jeux de guerre et d’analyses approfondis montrent que si la Russie devait mener une attaque d’avertissement de courte durée contre les États baltes, les forces de Moscou pourraient se diriger vers la périphérie de la capitale estonienne de Tallinn et de la capitale lettone de Riga en 36. à 60 heures. Dans un tel scénario, les États-Unis et leurs alliés seraient non seulement en infériorité numérique et en armement, mais également en infériorité numérique.
Dépassé en armes ? (Les Russes) disposent de blindages, d’armes et de capteurs beaucoup plus avancés et, dans certains domaines – comme les systèmes de protection active pour se défendre contre les missiles guidés antichar (ATGM) – sont supérieurs à leurs homologues occidentaux.
Au-delà des inconvénients d’être en infériorité numérique, en marge et en armement, une multitude d’autres problèmes aggravent le problème. Premièrement, les alliés de l’OTAN et l’armée américaine apporteraient une aide immédiate limitée pour compenser ces désavantages. Les alliés européens ont suivi l’exemple américain en réduisant le blindage et en optimisant leurs forces restantes pour des missions « hors zone » comme l’Afghanistan. Ainsi, la Grande-Bretagne poursuit ses projets de retrait de ses dernières troupes d’Allemagne, tandis que l’Allemagne réduit ses effectifs.
Cela montre que – malgré les fulminations délirantes des généraux de fauteuil à la télévision par câble braillant d’infliger une « défaite stratégique » à la Russie – cela n’arrivera pas. La Russie a l’avantage dans pratiquement tous les domaines en termes de puissance de feu, de main-d’œuvre, de préparation au combat et de matériel. Ils disposent également d’une capacité industrielle inégalée en Occident. Voici comment Schryver l’a résumé :
Il n’y a pas eu d’augmentation significative de la production d’armements dans l’Occident collectif, et il n’y en aura pas de si tôt. L’Europe a été effectivement démilitarisée, et les États-Unis sont gravement épuisés et effectivement désindustrialisés….
En dehors de la population désespérément propagée des soi-disant « démocraties occidentales », personne au monde ne croit que la Russie semble « douce » à l’heure actuelle. Au lieu de cela, ils se rendent compte que les Russes ont complètement déjoué les plans de l’empire et révélé sa faiblesse…
L’Occident n’a aucun avantage. L’OTAN est une coquille vide…. Je suis totalement convaincu qu’une force expéditionnaire de l’OTAN en Ukraine serait massacrée AU MOINS aussi complètement que l’AFU l’a été, et très probablement BEAUCOUP PIRE, et BEAUCOUP PLUS RAPIDEMENT…. Will Schryver, Twitter
Le voilà en noir sur blanc : l’Occident « désindustrialisé » est une coquille vide qui n’a aucune chance de l’emporter dans une guerre terrestre interarmes avec la Russie. Malgré cela, Washington est déterminé à poursuivre son plan insensé qui rapproche le monde de l’Armageddon tout en semant la ruine du peuple américain.
There is a vast difference between “not winning” and “losing” a war. In the case of Ukraine, “not winning” means that President Zelensky and his handlers in Washington choose to pursue a negotiated settlement that would allow Russia to keep the territory it captured during the war while addressing Moscow’s modest security demands. (Note—Ukraine must reject any intention of joining NATO)
On the other hand, “losing” the war means that the US and NATO continue on the same path they are today—pumping lethal weapons, trainers and long-range missiles systems into Ukraine—hoping that the Russian offensive is progressively weakened so Ukraine can prevail on the battlefield. This alternate path—which amounts to ‘wishful thinking’—is the path to “losing” the war.
Unlike the “not winning” the war scenario, “losing” the war will have a catastrophic effect on the United States and its future. It would mean that Washington had been unable to prevent a Russian military incursion into Europe which is NATO’s primary raison d’etre. It would challenge the idea that the US is capable of acting as the guarantor of regional security which is the role the US has enjoyed since the end of WW2. The perception of a US defeat at the hands of Russia would unavoidably trigger a re-evaluation of current security relations leading to the dissolution of NATO and, very possibly, the EU as well. Simply put, losing the war would be a disaster. Here’s how Colonel Daniel Davis summed it up just last week:
“We can’t let Russia win.”
I’ve heard that throughout the entire 2-plus years of the war. But here’s what I’m saying: If you keep going down this path—ignoring all the realities we keep talking about—not only will Russia win, we’ll lose. And I assure you if you thought it was bad to ‘let Putin win’—which means having a negotiated settlement in which Putin ends up with territory he didn’t start the war with—…But if you say that—because I don’t want that to happen, I’m going to keep fighting—that implies you think you can win. But if you can’t win, then the likely outcome is that you lose even more, and that’s what’s really going to hurt our credibility because, imagine if the whole force of NATO was shown to be unable to stop Russia from winning? Now our credibility is damaged far worse than having a negotiated settlementColonel Daniel Davis, You Tube
So, while “not winning” is not the perfect outcome, it is vastly superior to “losing” which would severely undermine the Alliance’s credibility, greatly erode Washington’s power in Europe, and force the US to rethink its plans for projecting power into Central Asia. (pivot to Asia) In short, a US defeat by Russia in Ukraine would be a serious body-blow to the “rules-based order” and the denouement of the American Century.
So, there’s a lot at stake for the United States. Unfortunately, there is no real debate in elite power circles about the best way forward. And, that’s because the decision has already been made, and that decision hews closely to the maximalist views articulated in an article at the Atlantic Council titled “NATO at 75: The Alliance’s future lies in Ukraine’s victory against Russia”
NATO will mark its seventy-fifth anniversary on April 4 as history’s most successful military alliance. However, i ts future as a credible deterrent to aggression now lies in the success or failure of Russia’s unjust and brutal invasion of Ukraine…..
Allied leaders have unambiguously bound NATO’s security to this war. NATO summits have repeatedly condemned the invasion and demanded that Russia “completely and unconditionally withdraw all of its forces and equipment from the territory of Ukraine.”
And the rhetoric has escalated. French President Emmanuel Macron recently described the war as “existential” for Europe. “If Russia wins this war, Europe’s credibility would be reduced to zero,” Macron said…
If the upcoming Washington summit is to inspire continued confidence in NATO’s credibility, and thus its future, then t he Alliance must take action to place Ukraine onto a clear path to victory…
Allied leaders must unambiguously endorse Ukraine’s war objectives—that is, total territorial reconstitution back to the nation’s 1991 borders. Anything short of that is a disillusioning signal to Ukraine and encouragement to Putin to sustain his invasion. NATO at 75: The Alliance’s future lies in Ukraine’s victory against Russia,atlanticcouncil.org
Repeat: Allied leaders must unambiguously endorse Ukraine’s war objectives—that is, total territorial reconstitution back to the nation’s 1991 borders. Anything short of that is a disillusioning signal to Ukraine and encouragement to Putin to sustain his invasion.
As we said earlier, this maximalist view of NATO’s objectives is nothing more than wishful thinking. The anemic UAF is not going to drive the Russian Army out of Ukraine nor are they going to win the war. Even so, the views above are shared by the vast majority of foreign policy elites who have not adjusted their thinking so that it corresponds to Ukraine’s bloody battlefield losses. Here’s more from a Foreign Affairs op-ed:
The Biden administration and its European counterparts have failed to articulate their endgame for this war. Three years into the conflict, Western planning continues to be strategically backwards—aiding Kiev has become an end in itself, divorced from a coherent strategy for bringing the war to a close.
But the “theory of victory” presented by Zagorodnyuk and Cohen to replace the strategic malaise in which the west finds itself is, remarkably, even more dangerous and ill-conceived than the status quo. The authors call on the White House to come out in full-throated support of Kiev’s war aims: namely, ejecting all Russian forces from Ukraine’s 1991 borders including Crimea, subjecting Russian officials to war crimes tribunals, extracting reparations from Moscow, and providing Ukraine with “long-term security arrangements.” Put differently, the West must commit itself to nothing short of Russia’s total and unconditional battlefield defeat.
How is Ukraine, with its battered military, collapsing demography, and an economy entirely reliant on Western cash infusions, to accomplish this lofty task? By doing more of the same, but on a larger scale. The New Theory of Ukrainian Victory Is the Same as the Old,The American Conservative
The point we’re trying to make is that this type of delusional thinking is virtually universal among US foreign policy elites none of whom are prepared to accept the fundamental reality on the ground. As a result, there is no chance that the Biden administration will make a course-correction or make any attempt to prevent a direct clash between the two nuclear-armed adversaries, NATO and Russia.
So, how would a reasonable person approach the current conflict in Ukraine?
They’d look for a way to end it ASAP while inflicting as little damage as possible on the losing side. Here’s what Marymount Professor Mark Episkopos had to say in the same article above:
Western leaders are long overdue in articulating a coherent theory of victory—one that grapples with the trade-offs and limitations confronting Kiev and its backers rather than sweeping them aside in pursuit of maximalist battlefield objectives that are increasingly detached from realities on the ground. This does not mean resigning oneself to Ukraine’s unconditional surrender. Yet it will require policymakers to acknowledge that there is no viable pathway to Russia’s unconditional defeat and to shape their thinking around war termination accordingly. It is not too late to end the war on terms that guarantee Ukraine’s sovereignty while advancing U.S. interests. The West still has substantial leverage on and off the battlefield, but the key to wielding this influence effectively is to finally abandon a zero-sum framing of victory that has prevented leaders from repairing to a more pragmatic, strategically nimble approach. The New Theory of Ukrainian Victory Is the Same as the Old, The American Conservative
Bottom line: A deal can be made that will minimize the overall damage to the United States and Ukraine, but it’s up to US diplomats and foreign policy elites to identify areas of common ground so an agreement can be reached that will avoid an even bigger catastrophe.
The problem with Professor Episkopos recommendation, is that it is an imminently reasonable suggestion which means it will be dismissed out-of-hand by the warhawks who set policy. Even now, US powerbrokers are certain that the war can be won if they just throw caution-to-the-wind and apply more raw, military force. That ought to do it. (they think)
This is the kind of flawed reasoning that drives the US war machine. Policy elites honestly believe that if they fully embrace a ridiculous platitude like “We can’t lose”, that somehow the reality of superior Russian firepower, manpower, logistical support and industrial capability will vanish into thin air and the “exceptional” nation will prevail once again. But that’s not going to happen.
Okay. So, what will happen?
For that, we turn to military analyst Will Schryver and a recent post on Twitter:
It… must be understood that the US/NATO could not assemble, equip, send, and sustain even a dozen competent combat brigades to engage the Russians in Ukraine.
Do you realize what would happen to 50k NATO combat troops — none of whom have EVER experienced high-intensity warfare — if they were suddenly thrust, with necessarily deficient leadership and coordination, into the Ukraine battlefield?
They would be mercilessly slaughtered. Bleeding the Beast, Will Schryver, Twitter
“Mercilessly slaughtered”? That doesn’t sound very hopeful.
Even so, France has already announced that it will send military trainers to Ukraine, and others will certainly follow. At the same time more lethal weaponry, particularly long-range missiles and F-16s are already en route and will likely be used sometime in the near future. But, will it matter? Will the provision of new weapons and combat troops turn the tide and prevent the collapse of the Ukrainian army? Here’s Schryver again:
Why should the Russians object if the US/NATO sends more of its scant stockpiles of short-range ballistic and longer-range cruise missiles? The success rates for ATACMS and Storm Shadow missiles has been abysmal, and steadily decreases with the passage of time. They are strategically meaningless. And there is effectively zero replenishment capacity!
Why should the Russians object if the US/NATO sends a squadron — or even five — of antiquated F-16s to Ukraine. Yes, of course, they would be piloted by NATO “volunteers”, and they might even achieve a handful of overhyped and fleeting “successes” in the early going. But if they actually attempt to mount serious sorties over the Ukraine battlefield, old F-16s with inadequate logistics and sustainment are going to have a life span numbered in mere HOURS. Bleeding the Beast, Will Schryver, Twitter
Is Schryver right? Will these prospective long-range missile strikes on targets inside Russia merely be pinprick attacks that Putin will ignore while his troops continue to crush Ukrainian forces along the 800-mile Line of Contact? And should Putin welcome the introduction of US/NATO “ground troops” into Ukraine to face the Russian army? Will that actually bring the war to a swifter end? Here’s Schryver one more time:
At the rate this whole Ukraine debacle is going, essentially all European-based military power… is going to be attrited to “combat-ineffective” for at least a decade, and probably more. If I were the Russians, I would view that objective as the summum bonum (“The highest good”) to be achieved as a result of this war, and I would be loath to interrupt the Masters of Empire while in the process of handing it to me on a silver platter….
So, if I’m Gerasimov, I would say, “Bring ’em on! Bleeding the Beast, Will Schryver, Twitter
The furor over the use of NATO-provided long-range missiles (and deployment of F-16s and French trainers) only diverts attention from the inescapable fact that NATO is going to be defeated by the Russia Armed Forces if they enter the war. So, a wise man would pursue a negotiated settlement now before things get out of hand. But that is not what our leaders are doing, in fact, they are doing the exact opposite and escalating at every turn.
So, let’s examine the facts a bit more thoroughly. Check out this summary analysis by the pros at War on the Rocks:
When asked two weeks ago in testimony before the Senate Armed Services Committee whether the Army was “outranged” by any adversary, U.S. Army Chief of Staff General Mark Milley said: “Yes … the ones in Europe, really Russia. We don’t like it, we don’t want it, but yes, technically [we are] outranged, outgunned on the ground.”
Given Russia’s aggression in Ukraine, this is sobering testimony. But is it accurate? Unfortunately, yes: Nearly two years of extensive wargaming and analysis shows that if Russia were to conduct a short-warning attack against the Baltic States, Moscow’s forces could roll to the outskirts of the Estonian capital of Tallinn and the Latvian capital of Riga in 36 to 60 hours. In such a scenario, the United States and its allies would not only be outranged and outgunned, but also outnumbered….
Outgunned? (The Russians) have much more advanced armor, weapons, and sensors, and in some areas — such as active protection systems to defend against anti-tank guided missiles (ATGMs) — are superior to their Western counterparts….
Beyond the disadvantages of being outnumbered, outranged, and outgunned, a slew of other issues compounds the problem. First, NATO allies and the U.S. military would be of limited immediate help offsetting these disadvantages. European allies followed the American lead by cutting armor and optimizing their remaining forces for “out-of-area” missions like Afghanistan. Thus, Great Britain is continuing with plans to withdraw its last troops from Germany, while Germany has reduced its army from a Cold War level of 10 heavy divisions to the equivalent of two.
But it’s not just the numbers here that matter. The United States and its partners have also steadily reduced the infrastructure necessary to support any kind of substantial deterrent or defensive effort in Europe. Today, there are no U.S. division or corps headquarters forward-based on the continent, nor any Army aviation, engineer, and associated logistics brigades….
Russia fields perhaps the most formidable array of surface-to-air missile (SAM) defenses in the world. Operating from locations within Russian territory, these SAMs far outrange existing defense-suppression weapons and present a credible threat to U.S. and allied airpower that would be costly and time-consuming to counter….
Today NATO is indeed outnumbered, outranged, and outgunned by Russia in Europe and beset by a number of compounding factors that make the situation worse….
A war with Russia would be fraught with escalatory potential from the moment the first shot was fired; and generations born outside the shadow of nuclear Armageddon would suddenly be reintroduced to fears thought long dead and buried. Outnumbered, Outranged, and Outgunned: How Russia Defeats NATO,War On The Rocks
What does this analysis show?
It shows that—despite the delusional fulminations of armchair generals on cable TV braying about inflicting a “strategic defeat” on Russia—it’s not going to happen. Russia has the edge in virtually every area of firepower, manpower, combat-readiness and material. They also have the industrial capability that is unmatched in the West. Here’s how Schryver summed it up:
There has been no meaningful increase in armaments production in the collective west, and there won’t be anytime soon. Europe has been effectively demilitarized, and the US is severely depleted and effectively deindustrialized….
Outside of the hopelessly propagandized populace of the so-called “western democracies”, no one in the world believes Russia looks “meek” at this point in time. Instead, they realize the Russians have completely defeated the empire’s plans and exposed its weakness….
The west has no advantage whatsoever. NATO is an empty shell…. I am utterly convinced a NATO expeditionary force in Ukraine would be massacred AT LEAST as comprehensively as the AFU has been, and quite likely MUCH WORSE, and MUCH MORE RAPIDLY…. Will Schryver, Twitter
There it is in black and white: The “deindustrialized” West is an empty shell that has no chance of prevailing in a combined-arms ground war with Russia. Even so, Washington is determined to proceed with its lunatic plan pushing the world closer to Armageddon while bringing ruin on the American people.
Le président russe Vladimir Poutine est arrivé à Pékin pour un voyage de deux jours le 15 mai 2024 et a été accueilli avec un accueil rouge par le président chinois Xi Jinping. Les deux dirigeants ont promis une «nouvelle ère» pour la relation Russie-Chine, s’inscrivant sur leur «partenariat sans limites» frappé juste avant l’invasion de l’Ukraine en 2022 en Russie. En tant que premier voyage étranger de Poutine depuis sa réélection en mars, la visite a présenté sa stature durable et la Russie au milieu de la guerre en Ukraine.
Malgré les élections de la Russie en 2024 marquées par la répression systémique de partis alternatifs sérieux et de candidats et des décennies de déclarations effrontées sur la démocratie «gérée» de la Russie, Poutine a capturé 87% des voix par une participation des électeurs record. Even with some self-censorship and a slight drop in approval, the Russian public still largely backs the war, despite a largely static frontline, the severance of ties with Europe, declines in living standards, and the deaths and injuries of hundreds of thousands of Soldats russes. Le nombre stupéfiant de victimes se reflète en Ukraine, une nation que Poutine et de nombreux Russes considèrent comme une nation fraternelle et la culture mère de la Russie.
En revanche, le soutien domestique américain aux guerres en Afghanistan et en Iraqbegan refuse considérablement quelques années après le début des conflits, et les prédictions d’un effondrement du soutien public russe à la guerre ont émergé peu de temps après son début. Pourtant, bien que les coûts de la guerre de la Russie en Ukraine continuent de dégénérer et cela semble loin d’être conclue, plusieurs raisons ont obligé les citoyens russes à continuer de soutenir la guerre et le président qui l’a initié.
L’opposition à la guerre en Russie est confrontée à des défis uniques qui ne sont pas rencontrés aux États-Unis, mais convaincre une population que la guerre est inévitable est essentielle pour tout gouvernement de soutenir un effort de guerre. Le Kremlin a formulé les actions militaires de la nation comme un noble combat pour sauver les Russes ethniques et les russes dans l’Ukraine d’un régime fasciste à Kiev – un récit qui résonne avec de nombreux Russes et l’histoire du pays pendant la Seconde Guerre mondiale. La mise en évidence des restrictions croissantes sur la langue russe en Ukraine favorise ce message, tandis que l’excuse de la Russie qu’ils répondaient aux cris pour obtenir de l’aide en Ukraine fait écho à leur invasion de Tchécoslovaquie en 1968. Les médias russes décrivent également leurs forces comme minimisant les victimes civiles, car l’Ukraine est accusée d’avoir ciblé des civils en Russie, et l’incapacité de l’Ukraine à organiser des élections prévues en 2024 a été utilisée pour remettre en question la légitimité du président Zelensky.
En dépeignant l’Ukraine comme la culture mère de la Russie, Poutine a jeté l’invasion à travers une lentille historique et patriotique. Le conflit est considéré comme une question intérieure de réaffirmation de la domination russe sur la patrie ancestrale qui a donné naissance à la langue russe, à la religion et aux origines politiques, contre un gouvernement ukrainien illégitime qui occupe actuellement le pays. Le nationalisme russe peut être rallié en invoquant l’unité ethnique, le patrimoine territorial et la nécessité de rectifier la séparation de l’Ukraine de Moscou, ce qui facilite la réduction de la souveraineté de l’Ukraine.
La Russie a également dévié ses violations de la Charte des Nations Unies contre la non-agression en se décrivant comme un parti lésé, contraint la guerre par l’Occident dirigé par les États-Unis et ses états vassaux, le sentiment reflété dans les sondages nationaux et soutenus par des chiffres notables comme la Slovaquie principale de la Slovaquie Le ministre Robert Fico, qui en janvier 2024 a déclaré que l’Ukraine était sous le contrôle total de Washington. Le 1er mai 2024, une exposition d’armes, de véhicules et d’équipements occidentaux capturés depuis le début de la guerre a ouvert ses portes à Moscou – un peu comme Kiev en mai 2022 qui montrait des équipements russes capturés. Le Kremlin relie tout à la guerre, y compris la récente attaque par Isis à Moscou. En revanche, le public américain a de plus en plus commencé à croire que les dirigeants américains les avaient induits en erreur dans la guerre contre le terrorisme, en particulier la guerre en Irak, ce qui aurait pu être évité.
Le soutien des Russes à la guerre s’est manifesté comme l’aboutissement de décennies de «mobilisation patriotique» qui a eu lieu depuis le premier mandat de Poutine. La culture du sentiment nationaliste, omniprésent dans les médias, la culture et la politique, s’est considérablement intensifié depuis l’invasion. L’identité russe est de plus en plus liée au besoin existentiel de protéger les Russes à l’étranger, de protéger la Russie de l’OTAN et de renforcer le statut de la Russie comme une grande puissance.
Préparer et instiller la confiance dans la capacité des forces armées russes à maintenir un conflit majeur est en cours depuis des décennies. Russian forces engaged in counterinsurgency operations in Russia’s restive region of Chechnya in the 2000s and supported a limited conflict in support of two restive regions in neighboring Georgia in 2008. Subsequently, Russian forces seized Crimea from Ukraine in 2014 and supported a limited conflict in support of La région frontalière réalisée de l’Ukraine avec la Russie. En 2015, ils ont lancé une opération militaire majeure pour sauver le président syrien Assad en 2015. Avec le succès relatif en Syrie, l’escalade importante du conflit de la Russie en Ukraine en 2022 n’a pas été une surprise. Cela contraste avec les défaillances perçues des interventions militaires occidentales au 21e siècle, ce qui fait que la confiance intérieure dans les militaires américains diminuait ainsi que l’ampleur des opérations militaires.
Pour atténuer les préoccupations intérieures résultant de la séparation des liens historiques de la Russie avec l’Europe, ainsi que de la distanciation par d’autres pays pour se conformer aux sanctions occidentales, Poutine s’est lancée dans une série de voyages étrangers pour montrer la résilience de la Russie. Les visites au Bélarus et à d’autres anciens États soviétiques en Asie centrale et au Caucase ont contribué à stabiliser son influence régionale. Les visites en Iran, en Arabie saoudite et aux Émirats arabes unis ont servi à démontrer l’influence durable de la Russie au Moyen-Orient, tandis que la Russie a également accueilli des dizaines de dirigeants étrangers du Sud mondial, ainsi que ceux de la Hongrie et de l’Autriche.
Cependant, les liens de la Russie avec la Chine forment sa relation bilatérale la plus cruciale. Malgré le déséquilibre du pouvoir, la visite de Poutine en Chine a réaffirmé la relation stratégique de Moscou avec Pékin. La capacité de la Russie à affronter les États-Unis et à collaborer avec d’autres grandes puissances offre une assurance qui a effacé une grande partie de la douleur du déclin géopolitique qui a accompagné l’effondrement soviétique.
Moscou vise également à contrer toute supériorité morale par l’Occident en Ukraine en mettant en évidence le soutien de Washington et Kiev à Israël depuis le 7 octobre. et élargir l’attrait de la Russie aux Sud mondiaux. À la suite de l’expulsion par le gouvernement nigérien des troupes américaines en mai 2024 et de l’invitation des forces russes, des images de troupes russes entrant dans la même base aérienne où le personnel militaire américain était stationné a souligné la lutte affirmée par la Russie avec les ambitions géopolitiques de l’Occident et plus larges.
En outre, les citoyens russes ont été protégés des répercussions économiques de la guerre par le biais de carburant subventionné, de nourriture et d’autres ressources essentielles. Les réserves substantielles d’or et étrangères de la Russie ont contribué à financer la guerre et ont empêché la volatilité des devises prolongés, tandis que l’imposition de prises sur les sociétés étrangères qui envisagent de quitter la Russie ont dissuadé de nombreuses entreprises occidentales de quitter ou de les avoir obligées à payer des coûts importants.
Les principaux partenaires économiques de la Russie, surtout la Chine et l’Inde, ont contribué à maintenir la stabilité des exportations et des importations de la Russie. Les sanctions occidentales n’ont pas également paralysé l’économie russe, car empêcher les ressources russes d’atteindre les marchés mondiaux entraînerait une augmentation des prix.
De plus, le public russe a également été largement épargné par la dévastation. Les attaques ukrainiennes en Russie se sont principalement limitées aux petites évasion dans les régions frontalières et aux attaques contre les installations d’énergie et de transport, et les forces ukrainiennes sont toujours liées à l’utilisation d’armes occidentales. Les attaques de sabotage en Russie ont également augmenté, mais la situation est gérable.
Contrairement aux citoyens ukrainiens, aucun civil russe ne s’est engagé avec force à se battre. La mobilisation partielle de 2022 a appelé les réservistes, tandis que les modifications récentes apportées aux lois ont signifié que la Russie a été plus facilement en mesure d’offrir des contrats généreux aux conscrits annuels peu de temps après la fin de leur formation. Par rapport aux vidéos de conscription forcée en Ukraine, les médias russes peuvent affirmer qu’il n’utilise que des bénévoles et ceux qui font déjà partie des forces armées.
Les soldats russes blessés, ainsi que les familles de soldats russes décédés en service, reçoivent une indemnisation substantielle. Bien que le paiement soit souvent retardé, les antécédents de la plupart des soldats russes signifient que ces fonds peuvent changer la vie. L’utilisation de prisonniers dans des opérations militaires particulièrement périlleuses a également protégé des soldats russes réguliers, Ukraine uniquement en considérant cette pratique plus tôt cette année.
Néanmoins, des dizaines de milliers de soldats russes ont été tués et des centaines de milliers de plus gravement blessés. Cela teste l’hypothèse des victimes, qui stipule que la volonté du public de rester engagée dans une intervention militaire diminue à mesure que les victimes montent. La guerre de 10 ans de l’Union soviétique en Afghanistan a vu 15 000 soldats soviétiques tués et a finalement contribué à la chute du pays, tandis que la guerre en Irak profondément impopulaire a vu 4 500 décès de soldats américains et a vu la popularité de l’administration Bush diminuer considérablement.
Sans aucun doute, le gouvernement russe déforme les personnalités officielles. Pourtant, il est crucial de contextualiser les pertes de la Russie en Ukraine dans le contexte de l’histoire récente. La pandémie Covid-19 a remporté plus de 400 000 vies russes, dépassant de loin les victimes en Ukraine.
En outre, l’estomac du public russe face à de telles pertes importantes peut être influencée par le grand nombre de décès de russes éminents depuis le début de la guerre. Dans les médias russes, la guerre et ses répercussions ont montré que même les individus les plus influents du pays peuvent être tués et faire en sorte que leurs actifs contribuent à un sentiment de sacrifice collectif au milieu du conflit.
Au milieu du chaos de la guerre, des dizaines d’oligarques russes et de figures politiques ont été tués dans des circonstances suspectes à la fois en Russie et à l’étranger, dans un établissement public des scores, de l’opportunisme et de la punition du Kremlin pour la désobéissance. Un jour après que les forces russes sont entrées en Ukraine, le corps d’Alexander Tyulyakov, un cadre supérieur de la sécurité d’entreprise de Gazprom, a été retrouvé accroché dans son garage. Ravil Maganov, président du conseil d’administration du géant du pétrole russe, Lukoil, serait tombé d’une fenêtre de l’hôpital de Moscou en septembre 2022. En décembre, l’homme d’affaires Vladimir Bidenov est décédé de problèmes cardiaques à l’hôtel Sai International en Inde – deux jours plus tard, son associé associé et Le député de l’Assemblée législative de l’oblast de Vladimir, Pavel Antov, est tombé par la fenêtre du même hôtel.
Bien que la mort d’oligarques et de politiciens puisse offrir un certain réconfort aux soldats russes ordinaires servant en Ukraine, il y a également eu une perte importante de responsables militaires de haut rang. Certains, comme le lieutenant-général Vladimir Sviridov, ont également été tués dans des circonstances suspectes. Cependant, la nécessité pour les responsables militaires russes de haut rang de rester à proximité des lignes de front, en raison d’une structure militaire de décision plus descendante et du risque d’écoute électronique des conseillers ukrainiens et occidentaux, contribue à leur taux de victime plus élevé.
Parallèlement à des centaines d’autres décès de haut niveau, la Russie a confirmé que sept officiers généraux avaient été tués en Ukraine d’ici 2024, Ukraine affirmant que plus de 14 avaient été tués au début de 2023. La dernière fois qu’un général américain a été tué au combat, c’était en 2014 lorsqu’un militaire afghan a ouvert le feu sur le personnel de l’OTAN à Kaboul; Avant cela, aucun général américain n’avait perdu la vie au combat depuis la guerre du Vietnam. Avec cette toile de fond du sacrifice et de la solidarité parmi les élites russes, l’effet «rallye-rallye» peut se maintenir plus longtemps que prévu.
Les Russes semblent croire que le temps et la démographie sont de leur côté. Selon un sondage de mars 2024 du Russia’s Levada Center, après des décennies d’émigration, la part des Russes exprimant le désir de déménager à l’étranger a atteint un record, en partie en réponse à beaucoup de ceux qui souhaitent partir. Néanmoins, Finion, une société de déménagement basée à Moscou, a déclaré que 40 à 45% des Russes qui ont fui à l’étranger étaient depuis revenus, motivés par des facteurs tels que la réduction des travaux à distance, les problèmes de visa, les craintes de conscription réduites et le désir général de retour.
Et tandis que des dizaines de milliers de soldats russes ont péri, ainsi que des milliers de Russes ethniques dans des régions occupées de l’Ukraine, des millions de personnes vivant dans les territoires occupés ont déjà été incorporées dans les 144 millions de citoyens préexistants de la Fédération de Russie. À l’inverse, l’Ukraine, avec 37 millions de personnes avant la guerre, a fait face à une population exode aggravant déjà la démographie.
Au début de 2024, le sentiment dominant était que la Russie avait gagné un fragile supérieur. La victoire, bien que potentiellement pyrrhique, semble de plus en plus probable, si elle est défini sans danger, en Russie. Pourtant, alors que le conflit s’éloigne, soutenu par une économie russe de plus en plus dirigée vers la guerre, la poursuite de la victoire peut décliner alors que les victimes et les autres coûts montent. Les angoisses du Kremlin se concentrent désormais sur les pays occidentaux, dirigés par le Royaume-Uni, la France et la Pologne, permettant à l’Ukraine d’utiliser des armes occidentales en Russie, ce qui ramener la guerre aux civils russes et aux infrastructures internes.
Tout en projetant une image de sang-froid au public, les tensions mijotent incontestablement dans le Kremlin. Les estimations concernant la capacité de la Russie à maintenir la guerre dans son état actuel oscillent généralement environ deux à trois ans. Pourtant, un soutien inébranlable à Poutine, associé à l’absence d’alternatives viables, peut étendre indéfiniment son fort engagement personnel à la guerre. Alors que la Russie semble capable et déterminée à poursuivre la guerre, son avenir incertain continuera de tester l’enthousiasme tacite du public russe.
La volonté de Poutine de poursuivre la guerre est considérée comme quelque chose à exploiter en Occident. Les décideurs occidentaux ont vu la Russie commettre de plus en plus ses ressources intérieures dans le conflit, ainsi que récemment de l’appeler une «opération militaire spéciale» à une guerre. L’augmentation constante de la capacité technique de l’Ukraine à lutter contre une guerre d’attrition continuera de porter l’arsenal soviétique de la Russie et le déploiement d’armes à l’étranger, démontrant la faiblesse de la production russe et des systèmes d’armes avancés. En provoquant une défaite russe, on espère qu’une deuxième convulsion majeure dans l’ancienne Union soviétique réduira davantage l’influence géopolitique de Moscou. La campagne militaire prolongée de la Russie et la stratégie de l’Occident pour prolonger le conflit grâce à la gestion de l’escalade continueront de donner un péage catastrophique sur la vie et les infrastructures ukrainiennes.
Russian President Vladimir Putin arrived in Beijing for a two-day trip on May 15, 2024, and was greeted with a red-carpet welcome by Chinese President Xi Jinping. The two leaders pledged a “new era” for the Russia-China relationship, building on their “no limits partnership” struck just before Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine. As Putin’s first foreign trip since winning reelection in March, the visit showcased his and Russia’s enduring stature amid the war in Ukraine.
Despite Russia’s 2024 election being marked by systemic repression of serious alternative parties and candidates and decades of brazen statements about Russia’s “managed” democracy, Putin captured 87 percent of the vote from a record-high voter turnout. Even with some self-censorship and a slight drop in approval, the Russian public still largely backs the war, despite a largely static frontline, the severance of ties with Europe, declines in living standards, and the deaths and injuries of hundreds of thousands of Russian soldiers. The staggering number of casualties is mirrored in Ukraine, a nation that Putin and many Russians consider a brotherly nation and the mother culture of Russia.
In contrast, U.S. domestic support for the wars in Afghanistan and Iraqbegan to decline markedly a couple of years after the conflicts began, and predictions of a collapse in Russian public support for the war emerged soon after it began. Yet although the costs of Russia’s war in Ukraine continue to escalate and it appears far from conclusion, several reasons have compelled Russian citizens to continue supporting the war and the President who initiated it.
Opposition to war in Russia faces unique challenges not encountered in the U.S., but convincing a population that war is unavoidable is essential for any government to sustain a war effort. The Kremlin has framed the nation’s military actions as a noble fight to save ethnic Russians and Russian speakersin Ukraine from a fascist regime in Kyiv—a narrative that resonates with many Russians and the country’s history in World War II. Highlighting growing restrictions on the Russian language in Ukraine furthers this message, while Russia’s excuse that they were answering cries for help in Ukraine echoes their 1968 invasion of Czechoslovakia. Russian media also portrays their forces as minimizing civilian casualties, as Ukraine is accused of targeting civilians in Russia, and Ukraine’s failure to hold scheduled elections in 2024 has been used to question President Zelensky’s legitimacy.
By portraying Ukraine as the mother culture of Russia, Putin has cast the invasion through a historical and patriotic lens. The conflict is framed as an internal matter of reasserting Russian dominance over the ancestral homeland that birthed Russian language, religion, and political origins, against an illegitimate Ukrainian government that currently occupies the country. Russian nationalism can be rallied by invoking ethnic unity, territorial patrimony, and the need to rectify Ukraine’s separation from Moscow, making it easier to dismiss Ukraine’s sovereignty.
Russia has also deflected its violations of the UN Charter against non-aggression by depicting itself as an aggrieved party, forced into war by the U.S.-led West and its vassal states, sentiment reflected in national polls, and supported by notable figures like Slovakia’s Prime Minister Robert Fico, who in January 2024 stated that Ukraine was under the complete control of Washington. On May 1, 2024, an exhibition of captured Western weapons, vehicles, and equipment since the start of the war opened in Moscow—much like Kyiv’s in May 2022 which showed captured Russian equipment. The Kremlin connects everything to the war—including the recent attack by ISIS in Moscow. In contrast, the American public increasingly began to believe that U.S. leaders had misled them into the War on Terror, particularly the War in Iraq, which it felt could have been avoided.
Russians’ support for the war has manifested as the culmination of decades of “patriotic mobilization” that has taken place since Putin’s first term. The cultivation of nationalist sentiment, pervasive across media, culture, and politics, has intensified significantly since the invasion. The Russian identity is increasingly intertwined with the existential need to protect Russians abroad, shield Russia from NATO, and bolster Russia’s status as a great power.
Preparing and instilling confidence in the Russian armed forces’ ability to sustain a major conflict has been ongoing for decades. Russian forces engaged in counterinsurgency operations in Russia’s restive region of Chechnya in the 2000s and supported a limited conflict in support of two restive regions in neighboring Georgia in 2008. Subsequently, Russian forces seized Crimea from Ukraine in 2014 and supported a limited conflict in support of Ukraine’s restive border region with Russia. In 2015, they launched a major military operation to rescue Syrian President Assad in 2015. With relative success in Syria, the significant escalation of Russia’s conflict in Ukraine in 2022 did not come as a surprise. This contrasts with the perceived failures of Western military interventions in the 21st Century, causing domestic confidence in the U.S. military to decline as well as the scale of the military’s operations.
To alleviate domestic concern stemming from severing Russia’s historical connections with Europe, as well as distancing by other countries to comply with Western sanctions, Putin has embarked on a series of foreign trips to show Russia’s resiliency. Visits to Belarus and other former Soviet states in Central Asia and the Caucasus have helped stabilize its regional influence. Visits to Iran, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates have served to demonstrate Russia’s enduring influence in the Middle East, while Russia has also hosted dozens of foreign leaders from the Global South, as well as those of Hungary and Austria.
However, Russia’s ties with China form its most crucial bilateral relationship. Despite the power imbalance, Putin’s May visit to China reaffirmed Moscow’s strategic relationship with Beijing. Russia’s capacity to confront the U.S. and collaborate with other major powers offers reassurance that has erased much of the pain of the geopolitical decline that accompanied the Soviet collapse.
Moscow has also aimed to counter any moral superiority by the West in Ukraine by highlighting Washington’s and Kyiv’s support for Israel since October 7. Framing it as part of Russia’s confrontation with the West for a new multipolar world order, the Kremlin hopes to legitimize its policies and broaden Russia’s appeal to the Global South. Following the Nigerien government’s expulsion of U.S. troops in May 2024 and the invitation of Russian forces, images of Russian troops entering the same airbase where U.S. military personnel were stationed further underscored Russia’s assertive struggle with the West and wider geopolitical ambitions.
Furthermore, Russian citizens have been shielded from the economic repercussions of the war through subsidized fuel, food, and other essential resources. Russia’s substantial gold and foreign reserves have helped fund the war and prevented extended currency volatility, while the imposition of hefty penalties on foreign companies considering leaving Russia has deterred many Western firms from exiting or compelled them to pay significant costs.
Russia’s major economic partners, most importantly China and India, have helped maintain stability in Russia’s exports and imports. Western sanctions have also by design not crippled the Russian economy, as preventing Russian resources from reaching global markets would cause prices to spike.
In contrast to Ukrainian citizens, no Russian civilians have been forcefully committed to fight. The 2022 partial mobilization called up reservists, while recent changes to laws have meant Russia has been more easily able to offer generous contracts to annual conscripts soon after their training has concluded. Compared to the forced conscription videos in Ukraine, Russian media can claim it only uses volunteers and those already part of the armed forces.
Russian soldiers who are injured, as well as the families of Russian soldiers who died in service, receive substantial compensation. Though payment is often delayed, the modest backgrounds of most Russian soldiers mean that these funds can be life-changing. The use of prisoners in particularly perilous military operations has also shielded regular Russian soldiers, with Ukraine only considering this practice earlier this year.
Nevertheless, tens of thousands of Russian soldiers have been killed and hundreds of thousands more seriously wounded. This tests the casualties hypothesis, which states that the public’s willingness to remain engaged in a military intervention declines as casualties mount. The Soviet Union’s 10-year war in Afghanistan saw 15,000 Soviet troops killed and eventually helped lead to the downfall of the country, while the deeply unpopular Iraq War saw 4,500 U.S. soldier deaths and saw the Bush administration’s popularity decline considerably.
Undoubtedly, the Russian government distorts official casualty figures. Yet it is crucial to contextualize Russia’s losses in Ukraine within the context of recent history. The COVID-19 pandemic claimed more than 400,000 Russian lives, far surpassing the casualties in Ukraine.
Furthermore, the Russian public’s stomach in the face of such significant losses may be influenced by the large number of deaths of prominent Russians since the beginning of the war. Across Russian media, the war and its repercussions have shown that even the country’s most influential individuals can be killed and have their assets stripped, contributing to a sense of collective sacrifice amid the conflict.
Amid the chaos of the war, dozens of Russian oligarchs and political figureshave been killed in suspicious circumstances both in Russia and overseas, in a public settling of scores, opportunism, and punishment from the Kremlin for disobedience. A day after Russian forces entered Ukraine, the body of Alexander Tyulyakov, a senior executive of Gazprom’s corporate security, was found hanging in his garage. Ravil Maganov, chairman of the board of Russia’s oil giant Lukoil, allegedly fell out of a Moscow hospital window in September 2022. In December, businessman Vladimir Bidenov died of heart problems at the Hotel Sai International in India—two days later his business associate and deputy in the Legislative Assembly of Vladimir Oblast, Pavel Antov, fell out of a window at the same hotel.
While the deaths of oligarchs and politicians may offer some solace to ordinary Russian soldiers serving in Ukraine, there has also been a significant loss of high-ranking military officials. Some, like Lieutenant General Vladimir Sviridov, were also killed in suspicious circumstances. However, the necessity for high-ranking Russian military officials to remain near the frontlines, owing to a more top-down decision-making military structure and the risk of electronic eavesdropping by Ukrainian and Western advisors, contributes to their higher casualty rate.
Alongside hundreds of other high-profile deaths, Russia has confirmed that seven general officers had been killed in Ukraine by 2024, with Ukraine claiming more than 14 had been killed by early 2023. The last time a U.S. general was killed in combat was in 2014 when an Afghan serviceman opened fire on NATO personnel in Kabul; prior to that, no American general had lost their life in combat since the Vietnam War. With this backdrop of sacrifice and solidarity among Russian elites, Russia’s “rally-‘round-the-flag” effect may sustain itself longer than expected.
Russians appear to believe time and demographics are on their side. According to a March 2024 poll by Russia’s Levada Center, after decades of emigration, the share of Russians expressing a desire to move abroad hit a record low, partly in response to many of those wanting to leave having already done so. Nevertheless, Finion, a Moscow-based relocation firm, stated that 40 to 45 percent of Russians who fled abroad had since returned, driven by factors such as cracking down on remote work, visa issues, reduced fears of conscription, and a general desire to return.
And while tens of thousands of Russian soldiers have perished, along with thousands more ethnic Russians in occupied parts of Ukraine, millions of those living in those occupied territories have already been incorporated into the Russian Federation’s pre-existing 144 million citizens. Conversely, Ukraine, with 37 million people before the war, has faced a population exodus compounding already challenging demographics.
By early 2024, the prevailing sentiment was that Russia had gained a fragile upper hand. Victory, though potentially pyrrhic, appears increasingly likely, if loosely defined, in Russia. Yet, as the conflict drags on, sustained by a Russian economy increasingly geared toward the war, the pursuit of victory may wane as casualties and other costs mount. The Kremlin’s anxieties are now focused on Western nations, led by the UK, France, and Poland, allowing Ukraine to use Western weapons in Russia, which would further bring the war home to Russian civilians and internal infrastructure.
While projecting an image of composure to the public, tensions are unquestionably simmering in the Kremlin. Estimates regarding Russia’s capacity to sustain the war in its current state typically hover around two to three years. Yet unwavering support for Putin, coupled with the absence of viable alternatives, may extend his strong personal commitment to the war indefinitely. While Russia appears capable of and determined to continue the war, its uncertain future will continue to test the Russian public’s tacit enthusiasm for it.
Putin’s willingness to continue the war is seen as something to exploit in the West. Western policymakers have witnessed Russia increasingly commit its domestic resources to the conflict, as well as recently shift from calling it a “special military operation” to a war. Steadily increasing Ukraine’s technical capacity to fight a war of attrition will continue to wear down Russia’s Soviet arsenal and deployment of arms abroad, demonstrating the feebleness of Russia’s production and advanced weapons systems. By provoking a Russian defeat, it is hoped a second major convulsion across the former Soviet Union will further reduce Moscow’s geopolitical influence. Russia’s protracted military campaign and the West’s strategy of prolonging the conflict through escalation management will keep exacting a catastrophic toll on Ukrainian lives and infrastructure.
John P. Ruehl is an Australian-American journalist living in Washington, D.C. He is a contributing editor to Strategic Policy and a contributor to several other foreign affairs publications.
The warning by President Putin could not be starker: “In the event of the use of long-range weapons, the Russian Armed Forces will again have to make decisions about expanding the sanitary zone further (…) Do they want global conflict? It seemed they wanted to negotiate [with us], but we don’t see much desire to do this.”
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov then came up with the appropriate metaphor to designate NATO’s ramped-up military outbursts: not only NATO is raising the degree of escalation but delving into a warlike “ecstasy”.
It does not get more serious than that. “They”, as Putin alluded to, do seem to want “global conflict”. That’s at the heart of NATO’s new suicidal “ecstasy” strategy.
For all their circumlocutions, NATO Secretary Jens Stoltenberg, French President Emmanuel Macron, and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz have effectively greenlighted Kiev using Western weapons for attacks deep inside the Russian Federation. The alleged debate, still ongoing, is just a “smokescreen” for the real objective: a pretext that could lead to WWIII.
NATO dragging EU into WWIII, it is no longer defensive alliance – French politician
NATO is dragging the European Union into World War III with statements about strikes on Russian territory and is no longer a “defensive alliance,” Florian Philippot, the leader of French… pic.twitter.com/0UGYMpPV0P
— Sputnik (@SputnikInt)
There’s no reason to think Kiev will stick to “limited” strikes against relatively unimportant targets. Instead, it is likely to target critical security infrastructure in hopes of provoking an unrelenting Russian response, which in turn would pave the way for NATO to invoke Article 5 and de facto engage in a Hot War.
Already on the Edge of Doom
The escalation “ecstasy” defined by Peskov went out of control since a – secret – new batch of ATACMS was dispatched to Kiev earlier this year, complemented with longer-range ATACMS. Kiev has been using them for serious hits on Russian air bases and key air defense nodes. These ATACMS fire missiles at Mach 3 speed: a serious challenge even for the best Russian air defense systems.
All that seems to point to a crucial decision enveloped in several layers of fog: as the incoming, cosmic NATO humiliation in the black soil of Novorossiya becomes self-evident day after day, the Western elites who really run the show are betting on provoking a full Hot War against Russia.
“This is a continuation of the pattern in which the NATO forces recognize they are losing the war in Ukraine, with the fragile lines of defense breaking, and the NATO response is to escalate. This is not accidental, but very deliberate. It is not the first attack on the Russian nuclear triad. The ideological folks are seeing their world crumbling, after flying the rainbow flag over conservative countries and [waging] perpetual wars. They are frantic and could escalate to nuclear war to get out of the bind. They are taking a series of baby steps, and respond that ‘they don’t do anything in response,’ and so they keep taking baby steps until one of them lands on a land mine and we are into World War III. (…) Putin is very aware of the disconnect in the West, who keep saying he is just saber rattling, but he is not—he is informing the West of the dangerous reality.”
In Russia, Senator Dmitry Rogozin, a former head of Roscosmos, directly warned Washington: “We are not just on the threshold, but already on the edge, beyond which, if the enemy is not stopped in such actions, an irreversible collapse of the strategic security of the nuclear powers will begin.”
General Evgeny Buzhinky advanced an ominous scenario: “I am sure that if the strikes of Taurus of ATACMS are very harmful for Russia, then I presume we will at least strike the logistical hub in the territory of Poland in Rzeszów” where the missiles are staged for delivery to Ukraine.
The connection in this case would be irreversible: Russia hits Poland; NATO invokes Article 5; WW3.
Be Careful What You Wish For
NATO warlike “ecstasy” is predictably cloaked in cowardice. For all the rhetorical garbage 24/7 about “we don’t want a war with Russia”, the facts point to NATO using Kiev to attack and try to destroy a wide range of Russian military assets. There’s also no denying the US Deep State’s role in enabling Kiev’s terror attacks against Russian civilians in the Donbass, Belgorod, and elsewhere.
Considering the serious debate finally on across several Russian platforms, all of that might constitute a reasonable pretext for a tactical nuclear drop on the – legally illegitimate – Kiev gang. At least that would finish a war that is dragging for too long.
US has not encouraged Ukrainian strikes outside of Ukraine, but Kiev has to make it’s own decisions about how to defend itself, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken has claimed
Earlier, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg proposed that Western countries must allow the use…
— Sputnik (@SputnikInt)
Yet that would be totally out of character when it comes to legalistic Putin – who deals with Armageddon-laden issues with the patience of a Taoist monk. Yet Russia has an entire arsenal of asymmetric tools – both conventional and nuclear — that can deliver a painful blow to NATO in places where the alliance least expects.
We’re not there yet – even as we get ominously closer day after day. Dmitri Medvedev has issued the umpteenth red line: a US strike on Russian targets, or the US letting Kiev hit targets within Russia using American missiles and drones would be the ‘start of World War’.
And Foreign Minister Lavrov, once again displaying his trademark Taoist patience, had to come up with another serious reminder: Russia will regard the deployment of nuclear-capable F-16s in Ukraine – which de facto can only be operated by NATO pilots – as “a deliberate signal from NATO in the nuclear field to Russia”.
And still the gaggle of armchair Dr. Strangeloves – lavishly rewarded by the rarified Atlanticist plutocracy holding real power, funds, influence and mass media control – is not listening.
In war, exaggeration is a killer. In the media, exaggeration is a bestseller. In the current war there is a dearth of military and political analysts who for truth or money will tell the difference.
Instead, when the mentality of the war fighters is a combination of racial superiority and spetsnaz derring-do, what you get is the conviction that with one more brilliant operation and one more super-weapon, victory can be snatched from every indicator of defeat because the adversary will be persuaded to accept negotiations as he loses his nerve.
This is the meaning of the Anglo-American publicity which burst over the long Bank Holiday and Memorial Day weekend, as summer campaigning began in earnest for the July and November elections in the UK and US — with the incumbent in the former running 21 points behind, and the incumbent in the latter trailing on an approval margin of minus-16 points.
The Reuters propaganda agency, based in New York, is claiming to have found four Russians from “a senior level in the political and business worlds” to be talkative about what they say they know of the Kremlin’s end-of-war plans. “[President Vladimir] Putin can fight for as long as it takes, but Putin is also ready for a ceasefire – to freeze the war… Putin would, however, be ready to settle for what land he has now and freeze the conflict at the current front lines, four of the sources said. ‘Putin will say that we won, that NATO attacked us and we kept our sovereignty, that we have a land corridor to Crimea, which is true,’ one of them said, giving their own analysis.”
With just one more successful push from the Ukrainian side, Reuters and its four Russians believe, Putin will agree to give up his war. This push, which the western media have been amplifying this week, is the drone attacks on Russian radar stations for early warning of nuclear missile attack at Armavir, Krasnodar, and Orsk, Orenburg.
Although Russian military sources claim these attacks were pinpricks, and the second of them was shot out of the sky before detonation, western media are reporting that it is now the battle strategy of the US, the British, and the Ukrainians to provoke Putin into retaliation, crossing the red line of tactical nuclear warfare. That’s a red line, the allies are calculating, which Putin would rather negotiate end-of-war terms than cross.
A retired Moscow military analyst warns against the exaggeration, not of the attacks themselves, but of Putin’s power to decide end-of-war terms over the opposition of the General Staff and the new Defense Ministry. “It is obvious the Ukrainians have had a string of successful breakthroughs,” the source acknowledges, “– against ships, airfields, refineries, and now this radar site. We also understand it is not the Ukrainians: all target selection, identification, guidance, and the hardware are American or European. Where the command control of these launch sites is, we do not know but it might well not be in Ukraine.”
“But the Russian response will not be nuclear. That is impossible. There are a thousand options between doing nothing and going nuclear, and we can be sure the General Staff are working on all of them. So when people say this is provocation for a nuclear strike and that [Ukrainian President Vladimir] Zelensky is provoking it, we understand that, first, NATO planners know Putin will not go nuclear because he and his generals are too rational and sane. And second, Zelensky is not the one making the provocations. So the real red line now is not the nuclear arms provocations from the NATO side. That’s a fantasy of theirs. Just so, in response, I think it’s time Putin stops making threats and strikes at the source of these operations.”
When desperate weakness triggers battlefield fantasies, call this the Popski Syndrome.
Popski was the call sign and unit nickname assigned by the British Army headquarters in Cairo to a tiny unit of behind-the-lines special forces operating against the Italian and German armies in the Libyan deserts from late in 1941 until September 1943, when the war moved on to Italy, taking Popski with it. Popski’s unit numbered 24 men to start in Libya; in Italy, by the war’s end, it had reached 80.
Vladimir Peniakoff was Popski, born to wealthy Jewish Russians who fled the Revolution to install their aluminium business and themselves in Belgium, then the UK. With London publisher Jonathan Cape, Peniakoff imagined he could turn his small guerrilla war in the Libyan and Tunisian deserts into something approaching the bestsellerdom of the Seven Pillars of Wisdom, T.E.Lawrence’s story of the war of the Arabian peninsula tribes against the Turks between 1916 and 1918; first published in 1926.
Only Peniakoff’s wisdom turned out to be a combination of cynical racism towards his Arab allies; fondness for his German enemies; and exaggerated self-importance in commando or special forces operations, whose strategic rationale Peniakoff accepted enthusiastically without a second thought. But that thought does appear in the very last lines of the book after “Popski’s Private Army” — as it was called at the time, and on the book jacket — had manipulated, then betrayed the Libyan Arab and Berber tribes; promoted General Bernard Montgomery’s reputation for military genius; and drew the tender ministrations of New Zealand and Canadian girls working in the rear casualty hospitals where Peniakoff lost first a finger and then his left hand.
Left. Vladimir Peniakoff’s book; Right: Peniakoff (front) in action. At first establishment in March 1942 Peniakoff’s Popski’s Private Army (PPA) comprised 24 men, including Peniakoff. Most of the troops were Libyan Arabs. According to Peniakoff, he told a conference of sheikhs of the Obaidi tribe: “My Government wants your help, and they want to help you…I told them that my Government had solemnly undertaken never to let their country come again under Italian rule after the victorious conclusion of the war.” This was a cynical lie. At the Potsdam Conference of the US, UK, and Soviet leaders in July 1945, the British and Americans were so nervous at the rise of the Communist Party in Italy, and of the parallel rise of Arab nationalism in Libya, Tunisia and Algeria, they offered to restore Italy’s colonial administration in Libya until Stalin insisted on a Soviet trusteeship of the territory to prepare the Libyans for independence. This story has been told in The Jackals’ Wedding, American Power, Arab Revolt – Chapter 7. A new history of Libya based on the records of the Obaidi tribe is being prepared. Popski’s betrayal of the Obaidi was the common Anglo-American policy in Libya until Muammar Qaddafi’s revolution of September 1, 1969.
Peniakoff’s last lines describe himself in his jeep in the train of a British cavalry unit on an Austrian alpine road crowded with German troops begging to surrender before the Russian Army, advancing a few kilometres away, caught up with them. Peniakoff, who could also speak fluent Russian, Arabic, French, Italian, and German, was stopped in the road by “the mass of a tank ahead of me, covered with a red Soviet flag.” According to Peniakoff, the tank commander “delivered a speech. He ended: ‘There is nothing that can destroy our solidarity’.”
Peniakoff doesn’t report what he told the Russian in reply at the time. Instead, he concludes his book with this rumination and threat. “‘The war was over’, I thought, ‘I might now well see to that’.” This was Peniakoff’s personal fantasy of continuing his war-fighting. But there was no role for him, or the 80 men his unit had grown to in Italy, to play as lightly armed demolition raiders against the Red Army.
It didn’t occur to him that in his three years of fighting in Arab North Africa, then Italy, he had betrayed, not only the Obaidi tribesmen of Libya, but also the Italian Communist and Socialist partisans who had fought with him, also on his post-war promises. Turning his back on them, Peniakoff was ready to go to war with Moscow until a brain tumour stopped him in 1951, the year after he had published his story.
But the Anglo-American idea of war with Russia is alive and kicking this week, as it’s the Ukrainian troops who are running away from the advance of the Russian Army.
The idea of Popski’s Private Army against Russia which Peniakoff was gung-ho to fight is now on the edge of nuclear attacks – first by Ukrainian artillery on the Zaporozhye nuclear power plant, and since that has failed to generate a radioactive explosion, drone attacks on Russian radar stations at Armavir and Orsk whose job it is to detect nuclear armed missile launches and trigger Russian nuclear retaliation.
Post-attack pictures of the damage at the Armavir radar station in Krasnodar. Russian military assessment of the drone attack is in marked contrast to the hype of western reporting. “We may be talking about partial shrapnel damage to the high-voltage power lines of the transceiver modules. At the same time, the blocks of transceiver modules themselves (together with amplifiers, phase shifters and cooling circuits) could receive minimal damage, as indicated by the absence of traces of direct hits from drones into active antenna arrays. Considering the modular design of Voronezh-DM (and all stations of this type), we can expect a prompt restoration of the complex and its return to combat duty… The station serves as a means of monitoring ballistic missile launches at a distance of 6 thousand km and also detects high-altitude hypersonic aerodynamic means of aerospace attack. What kind of drone could be used to attack the radar? Initially, it was believed that for the strike on Voronezh-DM, the Main Intelligence Directorate simulated a complex low-altitude flight route for drones of the Lyuty or UJ-26 Beaver type, skirting the radar viewing sectors of the Russian Aerospace Forces anti-aircraft missile systems. However, later information appeared that British-Portuguese Tekever AR3 drones were used for the strike. Interestingly, this drone is designed using VTOL (vertical take-off) technology and could be deployed near the radar, probably several kilometres away. However, launch from the territory of Ukraine is not excluded. To build routes bypassing air defence systems, reconnaissance information from the US Air Force RQ-4 Global Hawk drone could be used. Let us recall that for several months now the focus of attention of the US Air Force RQ-4B data has been shifted specifically to the Krasnodar Territory, as can be seen from the flight route. What conclusion can be drawn? The strike on the Armavir station (and a likely attempt to hit another Voronezh-type radar 25 km from Orsk) may be part of a single operation to inflict painful media attacks. The use of British-Portuguese drones in this case may be the fundamental point since it is the British who are considered the ‘architects’ of many GUR [Ukrainian military intelligence] actions: attempts to land in Crimea and other campaigns in which the planned result was never achieved.”
A veteran US military observer is not sanguine about the rationality of the US and British officers directing Ukrainian operations. He warns that the British, and also the CIA, have an inordinate faith in special operations to turn the tide, and in their own cleverness to think them up. “What we’re seeing — with Israel, too,” according to this source, “is years of impunity resulting in an epic, murderous tantrum that’s having the opposite of its intended effect. It’s certainly not beyond either of them to play nuclear chicken. Most people would say that if you do that, you’re insane. But they think a special operation playing nuclear chicken with the Russians is clever, potentially effective.”
“And so I think there’s going to be a nuclear war. The people who run things in the West have made up their minds that if they can’t rule, there will be nothing to rule. I guess we must figure now whether British and Ukrainian madness will prevail over US cowardice.”
China’s Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Mao Ning has agreed to attend next month’s Ukrainian peace conference in Switzerland with one proviso, that Russia be invited. Mao said that Beijing supports the “timely convening of an international peace conference that is recognized by both the Russian and Ukrainian sides.”
That sounds reasonable, after all, one would expect that peace negotiations would include the representatives of the warring parties. But that is not the case here. And while more than 90 countries have confirmed that they will attend the upcoming meetings, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has excluded the one nation whose presence might make a difference. Russia.
Naturally, many analysts are puzzled by Zelensky’s omission which precludes any possible settlement or end to the hostilities. Simply put, the fighting will continue until Russia and Ukraine conduct bilateral negotiations and reach an agreement.
So, what is going on here?
What’s going on is that Zelensky is perpetrating a fraud. Clearly, there is no intention to strike a deal with Russia or to end the fighting. How could there be, after all, Russia wasn’t invited. So, we must assume that the peace conference will be used for some other purpose, like demonizing Putin or drumming up more support for the war.
What that tells us is that neither Zelensky nor his handlers in Washington have abandoned the idea of inflicting a strategic defeat on Russia. They’re not throwing in the towel and they’re certainly not looking for areas of mutual compromise. No. They’re merely exploring more creative ways of garnering support for their failed crusade. That’s what the so-called ‘peace conference’ is all about, luring more recruits to the Ukraine bandwagon.
We should mention, however, that Russia knows exactly what Zelensky is up-to and has no illusions about where all this is headed. Check out this short clip from an interview with Russian FM Sergey Lavrov:
The Swiss conference is being convened with the sole purpose of addressing Zelensky’s peace formula in the form of an ultimatum. It is not accidental that the Swiss themselves, including Swiss diplomats, are saying that the conference will focus not on “building bridges” for peace, but on supporting Ukraine.
Josep Borrel said the peace formula was the only initiative under discussion. (Note: Other peace initiatives by China, Brazil, and the Arab League are all being ignored.)
We have access to information that is not normally intended for public use. In late April, discussing the Swiss conference with foreign ambassadors in Kiev… Zelensky spent most of the time rambling almost hysterically and incoherently, and pleading for support for his peace formula as a means of forcing Russia on its knees. Whenever a person does not feel the need to control themselves, they tend to speak the truth. Those who are now being courted and pressed into coming to Switzerland, creating a crowd, and posing for a “family photo” in order to be able to then bloviate about broad-based support for Zelensky’s peace formula, should be aware of the place they are being lured into. They are expected to support an ultimatum that will then be presented to Russia. This is ridiculous.
President Vladimir Putin spoke about this quite recently. These games, just like other foreign policy moves by our Western partners who have lost their diplomatic skills, have nothing to do with diplomacy. Sergey Lavrov, Russian Foreign Minister Press Conference, ru
So, the Russians aren’t taken in by this nonsense, they know it’s a scam. They also know that the whole thing was probably concocted by the Intel agencies in concert with their media consultants. Just like they know the meetings will probably be used to shore up Zelensky’s tattered image while, once again, dragging Russia through the mud. We’ve seen it all before. But the reality is that the more time that’s wasted on these public relations fiascos, the more the carnage piles up on battlefields in the East. And that’s the real tragedy, that Zelensky continues to play these stupid games while his countrymen are slaughtered in droves for no apparent reason. Maybe he should stop the performance art long enough to fix the problem? Maybe he should think seriously about peace?
Is that possible?
It is possible.
Imagine for a minute, if Zelensky was sincere in wanting to end the war. How much effort and sacrifice would it really take?
Not much. Yes, he would be opposed by Washington and by the far-right uber-nationalists in his government, but the actual price he would pay in terms of blood and treasure would be negligible. True, he’ll never recapture Crimea or the Donbas (roughly 20% of Ukraine’s former landmass) but that’s the price of waging a two year-long war with Russia. Putin can’t be blamed for that. (Remember, Zelensky was prepared to sign a peace agreement with Putin one month into the war, but Boris Johnson scotched the deal.) In any event, those territories are gone forever. The point is to salvage what is left of Ukraine before its borders shrink even more. This is what Zelensky should be focused on; preserving what’s left of his country while he still can. The longer the war drags on, the more likely Ukraine will either be partitioned or transformed into an uninhabitable wasteland. The time to act is now.
The good news is that Putin is ready to deal. Despite the misinformation in the West, he wants to put this mess behind him. He wants to end the war.
And Putin’s demands are not unreasonable. He just wants assurances about Russia’s security, which means he won’t allow NATO missile-sites on his western border. That is a demand that Zelensky can meet at no cost to himself.
What else does Putin want?
This may surprise you, but the deal Putin seeks with Zelensky can be reduced to just one word: Neutrality. Ukraine must be a neutral state which means that it must not become a member of a major military bloc like NATO, because NATO is a hostile, anti-Russian, military alliance that has prosecuted wars of aggression in Yugoslavia, Afghanistan and Libya. It is a menace that must be prevented from putting its bases, combat troops or weapons systems on Russia’s border. Period. Just as the United States would never allow China to place missile systems on Mexico’s northern border, NATO cannot be allowed to place Washington’s missiles on Russia’s border. It’s the same thing.
Zelensky believes that Ukraine ‘has the right’ to make whatever security arrangements it thinks best serve its national interests. That sounds like a reasonable proposition, but it’s not. Because in practical terms, Ukraine’s determination to join NATO has made Ukraine less safe, in fact, the probability of Ukraine’s membership in NATO has brought the country to the brink of annihilation. So, if Zelensky’s intention was to increase Ukraine’s national security, then he has compelling proof that he made the wrong decision.
Here’s a good rule of thumb for any smaller and less powerful nation that shares a border with a nuclear superpower: Don’t do things that scare your neighbor. Do not do things that make your neighbor feel threatened. And—most of all—do not threaten to join hostile anti-Russian alliances that regularly express their deeply-felt contempt and loathing for Russia. That is the fast-track to annihilation. If Zelensky did not know that before, he should certainly know it by now. Check out this excerpt from an article at Geopolitical Monitor:
Ukraine is not exactly a stranger when it comes to the notion of neutrality. In the aftermath of the fall of the Soviet Union, the country expressed an intention in its declaration of state sovereignty of 1 July 1990 to become a permanently neutral state that would shun participation in military blocs and show a commitment to denuclearization. This largely nonaligned status resulted in a vacillating foreign policy, which nonetheless appeared to be conducive to the pursuit of amicable relations with both the European Union (EU) and Russia, before being ultimately abandoned in December 2014 in the aftermath of Russia’s annexation of Crimea and the start of the Donbas war. In February 2019, with the overwhelming approval of the Verkhovna Rada (the Parliament of Ukraine), the Ukrainian constitution was amended, setting the country on a course toward full membership in the EU and NATO. Nonetheless, in late March 2022 Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy was still prepared to discuss the possibility of Ukraine taking a neutral position as part of a potential peace deal with Russia to halt the invasion. A Neutral Ukraine Is Not the Answer,Geopolitical Monitor
Let’s review: When Ukraine made its declaration of state sovereignty in July 1990, it pledged to be “a permanently neutral state.” And while it remained committed to that neutral status there was no hostility between Moscow and Kiev. But as soon as the United States toppled Ukraine’s government in the 2014 coup, Ukraine moved to renounce its neutrality, which is when all their problems began. What’s clear is that independent Ukrainian leaders did not choose to abandon neutrality. That decision was made in Washington by neocons who wanted to move their globalist army closer to Russia’s border. This isn’t speculation, this is what happened. NATO lied about ‘not moving one inch east” after the reunification of Germany and continued to push eastward until they were right on Russia ‘s doorstep. Finally—after being shoved into a corner—Russia pursued the only option available and pushed back. Russia launched its Special Military Operation (SMO) on February 24, 2022.
Of course, many people still think that Putin wants to rebuild the Soviet empire and that Ukraine is just the first step in a long march across Europe. Fortunately, NATO secretary general Jens Stoltenberg dispelled that fiction in a press conference in September, 2023. Here’s what he said:
“President Putin declared in the autumn of 2021, and actually sent a draft treaty that they wanted NATO to sign, to promise no more NATO enlargement. That was what he sent us. And was a pre-condition for not invade Ukraine. Of course we didn’t sign that.
“The opposite happened. He wanted us to sign that promise, never to enlarge NATO. He wanted us to remove our military infrastructure in all Allies that have joined NATO since 1997, meaning half of NATO, all the Central and Eastern Europe, we should remove NATO from that part of our Alliance, introducing some kind of B, or second class membership. We rejected that.
“So he went to war to prevent NATO, more NATO, close to his borders. He has got the exact opposite. He has got more NATO presence in eastern part of the Alliance and he has also seen that Finland has already joined the Alliance and Sweden will soon be a full member.
“This is this is good for the Nordic countries. It’s good for Finland and Sweden. And it’s also good for NATO. And it demonstrates that when President Putin invaded a European country to prevent more NATO, he’s getting the exact opposite.” Putin invaded Ukraine to stop NATO, says NATO chief, YouTube
So, Putin did not go to war to rebuild the Soviet empire. He went to war to prevent a hostile, anti-Russia, military coalition from plopping itself on his border where their missiles could strike Moscow in less than 7 minutes.
Was that unreasonable of him?
Of course, not. He was simply acting is his country’s best interests on a matter of critical (existential) importance. Check out this short 1-minute video of John Mearsheimer who makes the same point:
“… Let me put it differently, Ukraine—according to its Constitution and its Declaration of Sovereignty in 1990—was a neutral country. It abandoned neutrality in December 2014. Just think about that. So, if we had left it alone, Ukraine would be intact today including Crimea. (And) all these dead people would not be dead.” John Mearsheimer, Would Neutrality Have Prevented the War, You Tube
For Zelensky, the choice could not be clearer. Ukraine is either going to be neutral or it’s going to be obliterated. The choice is his to make. But one thing is certain, Russia is not going to live with a gun to its head. We know that now.
The discourse of military escalation is in fashion in Europe, but both in the Middle East and Ukraine, western policy is in deep trouble.
The paradox is that Team Biden – wholly inadvertently – is midwifing the birth of a ‘new world’. It is doing so by dint of its crude opposition to parturition. The more the western élites push against the birthing – through ‘saving Zionism’; ‘saving European Ukraine’ and by crushing dissent – perversely they accelerate the foundering of Leviathan.
President Xi’s double farewell hug for President Putin following their 16-17 May summit nonetheless sealed the birth – even the New York Times, with customary self-absorption, termed the warm embrace by Xi as ‘defiance of the West’.
The root of the coming dissolution stems precisely from the shortcoming that the NY Times headline encapsulates in its disdainful labelling of the seismic shift as base anti-westernism.
It reflects the myopia of not wanting to see or hear that which stands so plainly in clear sight before one: If it were simply “anti-West” – nothing more than negation of negation – then the criticism would have some justification. Yet, it is not mere antithesis.
Rather, the near 8,000-word joint China-Russia statement evokes the very elemental laws of nature itself in sketching the West’s usurpation of the fundamental principles of humanity, reality, and order – a critique which maddens the collective West.
David Brooks, the U.S. author who coined the term BoBos (Bohemian Bourgeoisie i.e. the metro-élites) to chart the rise of wokeism, now asserts that ‘liberalism’ (whatever that means today) “is ailing” and in retreat. The classic ‘liberal’ zeitgeist lay upon a foundation of commitments and moral obligations that precede choice – our obligations to our families, to our communities and nations, to our ancestors and descendants, to God or some set of transcendent truths.
It tends to the tepid and uninspiring, Brooks says;
“It avoids the big questions like: Why are we here? What is the meaning to it all? It nurtures rather, the gentle bourgeois virtues like kindness and decency – but not, as Lefebvre allows some of the loftier virtues, like bravery, loyalty, piety and self-sacrificial love”.
To be clear, Brooks, in a separate piece, argues that by putting so much emphasis on individual choice, pure liberalism attenuates social bonds: In a purely liberal ethos, an invisible question lurks behind every relationship: Is this person good for me? Every social connection becomes temporary and contingent. When societies become liberal all the way down, they neglect (as quoted by Brooks) Victor Frankl’s core truth that “Man’s search for meaning is the primary motivation in his life”.
The joint Xi-Putin statement therefore is not just a detailed work-plan for a BRICS future (though it is indeed a very comprehensive work plan for the BRICS summit in October). Russia and China rather have put forward a dynamic vision of concrete principles as pillars for a new society in the post-Western future.
By playing straight into the primordial sources of meaning that are deeper than individual preference – faith, family, soil and flag – Russia and China have picked up the pieces and born-up the mantle of the Bandung Non-Aligned Movement through promoting the right of national self-determination and an end to centuries old systems of exploitation.
Yet how and why can the West be said to be acceleratingits own dissolution?
The NY Times gives the clue to the ‘why’: The old ‘Anglo’ obsession with a defiant Russia that the West has never been able to bend to their will. And now, Russia and China have signed a joint statement somewhat similar to the ‘no limits’ friendship declared in February 2022 but reaching further.
It portrays their relationship as
“superior to political and military alliances of the Cold War era. Friendship between the two States has no limits, there are no ‘forbidden’ areas of cooperation … ”.
Put starkly, this breaches the long-standing western rule of triangulation: the U.S. must stand with either the one, Russia or China, against the other; but never should China and Russia be permitted to band together versus the U.S.! – a doctrine sanctified in western ‘canon law’ since Mackinder’s time in the 19th Century.
Yet, that ‘two versus one’ is precisely what Team Biden inadvertently have ‘done’.
What then, constitutes the ‘how’?
The problem with the western solutions to any geo-political problem is that they invariably comprise more of the same.
The combination of this deep disdain for Russia – subsumed into the undercurrent fear of Russia as a putative geo-strategic competitor – invites a western recourse to repeating the same triangulation approach, without due reflection on whether circumstances have changed, or not. This is the case here and now – making for a ‘clear and present’ risk of unintended and damaging escalation: A prospect that might midwife the very thing that the West most fears – a loss of control, spiralling the system down into freefall.
The Mistake:
Ray McGovern, a former U.S. Presidential briefer, has chronicled how as
“Biden took office in 2021, his advisers assured him that he could play on Russia’s fear (sic) of China – and drive a wedge between them. This represents the ‘mother of all errors’ of judgement, because it brings about the circumstances in which the western ‘Order’ may dissolve”.
“This [presumption of Russian weakness] became embarrassingly clear when Biden said to Putin during their Geneva summit … let me ask a rhetorical question: ‘You got a multi-thousand-mile border with China. China is seeking to be the most powerful economy in the world and the largest and the most powerful military in the world’.”
McGovern observes that this meeting gave Putin clear confirmation that Biden and his advisers were stuck in a woefully outdated appraisal of Russia-China relations.
Here is the bizarre way Biden described his approach to Putin on China: At the airport after the summit, Biden’s aides did their best to whisk him onto the plane but failed to stop him from sharing more ‘wisdom’ on China: “Russia is in a very, very difficult spot right now. They are being squeezed by China”.
‘Yes’: More of the same! Biden was trying, on the advice of his experts, to insert the ubiquitous western ‘wedge’ between Russia and an ‘BIG’ China.
After these remarks, Putin and Xi spent the rest of 2021 trying to disabuse Biden of the “China squeeze” meme: This mutual effort culminated in the Xi-Putin ‘no limits’ friendship summit of that year. If the advisers had been paying attention however, they would have threaded a long history of Russo-Chinese rapprochement. But no, they were ideologically frozen in the view that the two were destined to be eternal enemies.
Doubling Down on the Mistake. It gets worse:
Then, in a 30 December 2021 telephone conversation, Biden assured Putin that “Washington had no intention of deploying offensive strike weapons in Ukraine”. However, Foreign Minister Lavrov has revealed that when he met Blinken in Geneva in January 2022, the U.S. Secretary of State pretended he had not heard of Biden’s undertaking to Putin on 30 December 2021. Rather, Blinken insisted that U.S. medium-range missiles could be deployed in Ukraine, and that the U.S. might be willing to consider limiting their number.
Making An Egregious Mistake Worse
In August 2019, when the U.S. withdrew from the treaty banning intermediate-range missiles in Europe, the U.S. had already deployed missiles in Romania and Poland (saying their purpose was ostensibly ‘to defend against Iran’). However, the tubes installed are deliberately configured to accommodate nuclear warhead equipped, cruise and ballistic missiles; but here is the rub: it is not possible to determine which missile is loaded, as the tubes have lids to them. The time for these missiles to reach Moscow would be 9 minutes from Poland, and 10 from Romania.
But if, as Blinken threatened, missiles might be installed in Ukraine, it would drop to only 7 minutes (and were it to be a hypersonic missile, which the U.S. does not yet possess, it would be a mere 2-3 minutes)
Just for clarity, this (i.e. Ukraine) is Russia’s existential war which it will fight, no matter what it takes. Beijing is fully aware of the high stakes involved for Russia (and ultimately for China, too)
The Consequences to relying on the ‘Same Tactics Again, and Again’ Threats and Pressure).
On 18 May in Moscow, in the wake of the latest Xi-Putin summit – as MK Bhadrakumar notes – Lavrov predicted an escalation in western weapon supplies to Ukraine, reflecting not only the Biden’s election need to be seen ‘facing down Russia, but also the reality that “the acute phase of the military-political confrontation with the West” will continue, in “full swing”.
The western thought processes, Lavrov said, are veering round dangerously to “the contours of the formation of a European military alliance – with a nuclear component”. Lavrov lamented that “they have made a choice in favour of a showdown on the battlefield: We are ready for this”. “The agenda to inflict a strategic defeat on Russia militarily and otherwise – is pure fantasy and it will be resolutely countered”.
European military inadequacy explains, presumably, the mooted notion to add a nuclear component.
Put plainly, with the U.S. unable to exit or to moderate its determination to preserve its hegemony, Lavrov sees the prospect for increased western weapons provision for Ukraine. The discourse of military escalation is in fashion in Europe (of that there is no doubt); but both in the Middle East and Ukraine, western policy is in deep trouble. There must be doubts whether the West has either the political will, or the internal unity, to pursue this aggressive course. Dragging wars are not traditionally thought to be ‘voter friendly’ when campaigning reaches its peak.
KHARKIV—Russia’s sudden ground invasion of the Kharkiv region came as a shock to the country that has been plagued by the two-year-long conflict. For well over a year, Ukraine had managed to keep the Kremlin’s military from crossing its northern border between Kharkiv and Russia after it launched its 2022 summer counteroffensive, which saw Kyiv reclaim masses of land in a short period of time.
Since Russian forces retreated, residents of the Kharkiv region had found some sense of normal amidst the constant air raid sirens and frequent attacks in Ukraine’s second biggest city. On May 10, that all came crumbling down, and now Kharkiv’s residents, some of whom already felt that Ukraine’s defeat of Russia was unlikely, are once more living in a frontline town. Ukraine has reached a turning point and it’s unclear if a Russian victory can still be thwarted.
A Steadfast Patriotism
First, the good news. Over the last two years, Ukraine has remained strong in the face of its adversaries. Early predictions from journalists and scholars claimed that Kyiv would fall in a matter of days and that Russia would swiftly take control of all of Ukraine.
In the beginning, the future of Ukraine seemed bleak as Russia occupied cities like Kherson and Mariupol, and the streets of major cities like Kyiv, Kharkiv, and Kramatorsk were filled with battles.
But Kyiv’s military warded off advances across much of the country, and central and western Ukraine have become relative safe zones. Patriotism remains high in much of the country and Ukrainians continue to raise money for the armed forces with constant crowdfunding efforts ever-present on social media. Masses of Ukrainians continue to support the country’s fight for freedom. The effort from volunteers has been extraordinary. The Hospitallers, a Ukrainian paramedic volunteer group, for example, risk their lives on the frontlines every day to provide life-saving medical care.
A Ukrainian soldier operating a drone from a trench.Anna Conkling
Some of the professional units have become household names or national heroes and symbols of freedom. One of these is Achilles, a drone battalion in the 92nd brigade that is so exclusive it only accepts the very best soldiers from its application process. On the Ukrainian Railways, an ad for Achilles shows its commander, Yuri Fedorenko, standing in an open field as he directs drones in the direction of Russian military positions. The ad ends with the drones landing behind a set of trees, seemingly hitting their intended target, and “ACHILLES” in yellow bolded words closing the scene.
The Daily Beast visited various Achilles locations, including a drone warehouse in Kostyantynivka. A platoon sergeant major who goes by the call sign “Zub” said that volunteers, and civilians who work with Ukraine’s Ministry of Digital Transformation are spending their own money to buy drones. The drones, which the military goes through at a rapid pace, can cost anywhere from $15,000 to over $30,000. Zub says they have really relied on those individual donors who supplied the brigades with drones but he is worried people will no longer be able to afford to help.
“It’s already the third year of the war. Let’s be honest. Our economy is falling. People who were very active at the beginning have already exhausted their resources. And to make enough money to help us, people are getting less and less,” he added.
Now that the U.S. has ended its hiatus on supplying aid to Ukraine after passing a deal worth $61 billion, there’s hope that the U.S. may send more drones directly. “[If] America will supply us with drones, then maybe we will have more opportunities,” Zub said.
Running Out of Men
The victory on Capitol Hill was met with cheers throughout Ukraine, but it made some feel frustrated that the war would continue even longer.
Many of the men fighting on the front are exhausted , and even with new weapons, they fear for how long they can continue to fight before they end up dead or severely wounded. Morale is at its lowest ebb.
In Kharkiv, one soldier named Leo told The Daily Beast that many of the men fighting alongside him on the new front in the region are much older than him and their health is in a fragile state. “Everyone is exhausted, no one is ready to fight. Right now, we have 20 people left in the company, maybe even less. Of those, half still need medical help, which they [government] don’t want to give us,” he said.
Destroyed homes in Kharkiv.Anna Conkling
Leo was sitting at an indoor market in Kharkiv at 8:30 in the morning as we spoke. The market was quiet as many of Kharkiv’s residents had not yet begun their day, but the vicinity was scattered with soldiers who drank cups of coffee with their friends or smoked cigarettes outside. He had just dropped wounded soldiers at a nearby hospital and said he was “hanging out” in Kharkiv for the time being.
Leo sat hunched over a steaming bowl of borscht, a Ukrainian soup, as he spoke. He fears he has a concussion after a mine detonated near him. Right now, he believes the battles in the Kharkiv region are “Stationary. [Russians] are polishing off everything with artillery on those positions. We were first on the closest positions. Then we were pushed back a bit, given a few days to rest, but they are also shelling there, but not as often. It’s all day long, shooting, all day long, artillery.”
“I just want to go home,” said Leo.
The country’s military is facing constant setbacks as Russia’s military advances. Ukraine is having a hard time recruiting new soldiers, and a poll by InfoSapiens, a Ukrainian research agency, stated that just 35 percent of men not already fighting are willing to serve. Ukraine’s military has had to resort to increasingly unpopular measures to ensure that there are still able bodies fighting on the frontlines.
A Ukrainian drone.Anna Conkling
Men from the age of 18 to 60 have been, for the most part, unable to leave the country, part of a martial law mandate that has been in place since the early days of the war. The restriction applies to all men, regardless of whether they have illnesses or disabilities that prohibit them from joining the military. Over the last two years, The Daily Beast has spoken to dozens who believe that the law is unfair and has led many to feel depressed and trapped in the country—women can freely come and go.
On April 2, Zelensky passed a law lowering the military draft age from 27 to 25, a move that was unpopular across Ukraine. In recent weeks, Zelensky’s government has also tightened restrictions on men living abroad in the hopes that they will return home; granted parole to prisoners with less than three years left on their sentence if they join the military; and enforced large mobilization efforts.
On Sunday, major mobilization changes significantly impacted Ukrainian men, especially those living near the frontlines. All men aged 18 to 60 must have military documents with them at all times and present them at any request from law enforcement. Men of fighting age must register their address, phone number, email address, and all other personal data within 60 days of the new law. Ukrainian civilians must relinquish their vehicles to the military if necessary for up to one month, and some men fear that in the near future they may not be able to freely leave their region.
A Kharkiv resident named Vladimir, 46, told The Daily Beast that he is angry about the new restrictions on his freedom. “First, you need to get documents, and there’s no guarantee that I won’t be immediately drafted when I go to the military , and then I will have to report for duty and fight in a month.”
Vladimir is the father of two children, one is 11 and the other is two. The youngest has never known a peaceful Ukraine, because he was born during the war. Although he is too young to understand why his country has been invaded, Vladimir said “lately he has started running to the corridor during explosions.”
Vladimir and his family want to move somewhere safer, away from the new Kharkiv frontlines. He and his wife had planned to go to Sumy, another border town nearly a three hour’s drive away from Kharkiv, but now the future of it too remains unknown. The couple are considering moving to Dnirpo, further in the east towards Donetsk, but Vladimir said “There’s no guarantee that they won’t tell you to serve there as well.”
Can Ukraine Fight Them Off Again?
As Ukraine’s military desperately tries to find new recruits, it is also facing an unprecedented Russian counter-offensive for which it had not been properly prepared. For weeks leading up to Russia’s counteroffensive, Kremlin officials, propaganda media outlets, and think tanks like the Institute for The Study of War [ISW] have said that Russia intended to seize Kharkiv city to create a “sanitary zone” in Ukraine, which they claimed would “protect Russian border settlements from Ukrainian strikes,” according to the ISW.
Moscow launched its offensive with more than 30,000 troops, and Zelensky said on Friday that Russian forces may advance as much as six miles into the Kharkiv region in just one week. It’s the fastest progress seen since the early days of the war and there are some analysts who fear that Ukraine won’t be able to hold back the might of the Russian army this time around, especially if they attack on other fronts at the same time as they are pushing into Kharkiv.
Last month, Oleksandr Pivnenko, the commander of Ukraine’s National Guard, told the Ukrainian outlet Liga.net that Russia would need years to occupy Kharkiv city, but they are already making significant gains. Over 7,500 Ukrainians have had to evacuate from their homes in the border region of Kharkiv, according to Governor Oleh Syniehubov. Fighting is especially heavy in Vovchansk, a city 46 miles from the center of Kharkiv. Serhii Bolvino, the head of the investigative department of the police of Kharkiv Oblast, said that Russian soldiers in Vovchansk have taken captive up to 40 Ukrainian civilians, mostly older citizens, and are now using them as human shields.
Elderly women evacuating.Anna Conkling
Kyiv said that 60 percent of Vovchansk is still under their control, but videos show that the city has been nearly leveled. The Daily Beast met with half a dozen refugees from Vovchansk since May 10, and they recounted the horrors of the second invasion. Most of them had already lived under Russian occupation in 2022. When Russia first took the city, the refugees all said they came more or less calmly, without targeting civilians or aiming to destroy all signs of life. This time, however, they said the Russians have been malicious in their fighting, showing little care of who lives and who dies, and wreaking havoc on a city that has been terrorized by the Kremlin for over two years.
While residents from the front lines are fleeing to Kharkiv, many who lived in the city center are now leaving for safer regions as the counteroffensive looms over Ukraine’s second-largest city. Should the entire oblast fall, it could set up an opportunity for Russia to take control of all of eastern Ukraine, something it has been attempting for ten years. Should Russia effectively split the country in two, it could be all but impossible for Kyiv to regain control of its entire territory, not least since we could be a matter of months away from the return of President Trump, who is likely to push for a negotiated settlement at the earliest opportunity. If Russia is able to make swift gains before the November elections in the U.S. it would be negotiating from a hugely strengthened position.
At the beginning of May, Kharkiv was primarily made up of civilians, but over the last two weeks, the city has been flooded with soldiers. The number of troops in the region could mean that Russia will not be able to break through into the city without a massive fight, but it remains unclear how the deployment of troops to this new front will affect Ukraine’s strength in Donbas or on the southern front, where the majority of soldiers have been stationed throughout the war.
Alexander, 33, said that he and his wife are trying to find an alternative of where they can go that is away from Kharkiv. Alexander’s wife and his young child could leave Ukraine and go somewhere abroad, far from the war. But, he said his wife refuses to leave him and now they are searching for another region of Ukraine to move to.
In the past, Alexander had used a certificate from a doctor that showed he was too ill to join the army, but now he says it no longer works. He is afraid of being drafted into the military and he is afraid Kharkiv could be seized by Russia. “This is my land. Everything is possible. They said there wouldn’t be a war. Well, it started,” he said.“I don’t want to take up arms. I don’t want to kill anyone. I just want to live.”
Alexander’s point is entirely understandable, but Ukraine desperately needs more people to fight or thousands more will die as Putin drives this new offensive deep into the country.
In a desperate attempt to stave off a humiliating defeat in Ukraine, “Secretary of State Antony Blinken has reportedly asked President Biden to greenlight Ukrainian missile strikes on targets deep inside Russia.” The change in policy will have no material impact on the ongoing ground war in Ukraine, although it could trigger a response that would put NATO in direct conflict with Moscow. In short, Washington’s looming defeat in Ukraine has compelled administration decisionmakers to implement a strategy that could precipitate a Third World War. This is from the New York Times:
Since the first American shipments of sophisticated weapons to Ukraine, President Biden has never wavered on one prohibition: President Volodymyr Zelensky had to agree to never fire them into Russian territory, insisting that would violate Mr. Biden’s mandate to “avoid World War III.”
But the consensus around that policy is fraying. Propelled by the State Department, there is now a vigorous debate inside the administration over relaxing the ban to allow the Ukrainians to hit missile and artillery launch sites just over the border in Russia — targets that Mr. Zelensky says have enabled Moscow’s recent territorial gains….
For months, Mr. Zelensky has been mounting attacks on Russian ships, oil facilities and electricity plants, but he has been doing so largely with Ukrainian-made drones, which don’t pack the power and speed of the American weapons… Now, the pressure is mounting on the United States to help Ukraine target Russian military sites,… with American-provided arms….
The United States is now considering training Ukrainian troops inside the country, rather than sending them to a training ground in Germany. That would require putting American military personnel in Ukraine, something else that Mr. Biden has prohibited until now. It raises the question of how the United States would respond if the trainers, who would likely be based near the western city of Lviv, came under attack. The Russians have periodically targeted Lviv, though it is distant from the main areas of combat….
The Russians… have been unsubtle in playing to American concerns about an escalation of the war. This week they began very public exercises with the units that would be involved in the use of tactical nuclear weapons, the kind that would be used on Ukrainian troops. Russian news reports said it was “a response to provocative statements and threats from Western officials against Russia.”…
The current exercises… are being dismissed as bluster and muscle-flexing….
In his interview with the Times, Mr. Zelensky dismissed fears of escalation, saying President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia had already escalated the war. And he thought it unlikely that Mr. Putin would ever make good on his threat to unleash a nuclear weapon…. Inside the White House, a Debate Over Letting Ukraine Shoot U.S. Weapons Into Russia, New York Times
Let’s not mince words: Missile attacks on Russian territory is a flagrant act of aggression against the Russian Federation. It is an open declaration of war. The Biden administration is committing to a policy that will pit the United States against Russia in a war between two nuclear superpowers.
Why? Why is Biden doing this?
He’s doing this because the US is heavily invested in the outcome of the war in Ukraine, and Ukraine is losing the war quite badly. Here’s a short recap from combat veteran and military analyst Colonel Daniel Davis:
Trust me when I tell you that there is no chance that Ukraine will ever succeed in a war against Russia. There is no path to military victory for Ukraine. Period. It doesn’t matter whether we give them $60 billion or $120 billion or $200 billion. It won’t change anything, because the foundations on which the fighting power at the national level is built are irrevocably on the side of Russia. You can’t reverse the tide because you can’t change the basics.
Air power is on Russia’s side, air defense is on Russia’s side, military-industrial potential is on Russia’s side, enabling the production of a large amount of artillery, ammunition, the weapons themselves, drones, electronic warfare equipment and, above all, people are all on Russia’s side. Russia has more people and will always have more people… In my opinion, it is unreasonable to continue to hope that the Ukrainian side will be able to win if we give just a little more money, because it will not work….UKRAINE WILL NEVER WIN….Period. Retired US Army Lt. Col. Daniel Davis: I have over 20 years of military combat experience. Daniel Davis@peacemaket71
Not surprisingly, Davis’s views are shared by the vast majority of military experts who have been closely following events on the ground. The overall assessment of these experts is invariably the same: Ukraine is losing, and losing badly. There won’t be any reversal of momentum because—in every area of combat capability—Russia has a clear advantage. Ukraine doesn’t have the firepower, the aircraft, the tanks, the armored vehicles, the missiles, the heavy artillery, the air-defense systems, the munitions, the industrial capacity or the manpower to roll back the Russian army or to even stop the persistent Russian offensive. Simply put, Ukraine cannot and will not win. And, this is not just the view of men like Davis who think the fighting should stop immediately. It is also the view of globalist elites, like Richard Haass, who think the war should be prolonged. Haass is the president emeritus of the prestigious Council On Foreign Relations, and his views on Ukraine are likely shared by a large cross-section of wealthy elites who think there is something to gain by dragging the conflict out for another year or so. Take a look at this excerpt from a recent article by Haass and see if you can spot the similarities between his analysis and Davis’:
...what should Ukraine and its backers in the West seek to achieve? What should constitute success?
Some answer that success should be defined as Ukraine recovering all of its lost territory, to re-establish its 1991 borders…. This would be a serious mistake. Don’t get me wrong: re-establishing rightful, legal borders would be highly desirable, demonstrating that aggression is not acceptable. But foreign policy must be doable as well as desirable, and Ukraine is simply not in a position to liberate Crimea and its eastern regions through military force.
The maths is unavoidable. Russia has too many soldiers and a wartime economy capable of producing large amounts of arms and ammunition. Despite sanctions, Russia has been able to ramp up its military-industrial base and has access to weaponry and ammunition produced in Iran and North Korea and to Chinese manufactured goods and technologies that contribute to the Kremlin’s war effort.
Another factor militating against a Ukraine effort to recapture its lands by force is that offensive operations tend to require much more in the way of manpower, equipment, and ammunition than do defensive efforts. This is especially so when defences have had the chance to build fortifications, as Russia has in much of the Ukrainian territory it occupies. Why Mounting another Counteroffensive in 2025 would be a Mistake, Novaya Gazeta
So, Haass openly admits that the war is a mismatch and that Ukraine cannot reasonably expect to retake the territory it has lost. He admits that “Russia has too many soldiers” (unlimited manpower) “a wartime economy capable of producing large amounts of arms and ammunition”(Unlimited industrial capacity) and “Russia… has access to weaponry and ammunition… that contribute to the Kremlin’s war effort.” (Unlimited weapons production) In short, Haass’s analysis is identical to Davis’s. They both agree on the fundamentals, that is, that Ukraine cannot and will not win.
But then the article takes an unusual turn, in which, Haass inexplicably draws the exact opposite conclusions from his analysis than Davis. It is an astonishing rhetorical sleight-of-hand that would make Svengali envious. Here’s what says after listing the numerous reasons why Ukraine will not win the war:
“Some answer that success should be defined as Ukraine recovering all of its lost territory, to re-establish its 1991 borders…. This would be a serious mistake.”
Think about that for a minute. So, according to Haass—winning the war no longer means winning the war. It does not mean retaking captured territory, it does not mean expelling the Russians from eastern Ukraine, and it does not mean prevailing in the ground war. It means, ‘what’ exactly? Haass explains:
“What strategy… should Ukraine and its supporters pursue? First, Ukraine should emphasise the defensive, an approach that would allow it to husband its limited resources and frustrate Russia.
Second, Ukraine should be given the means — long-range strike capabilities — and the freedom to attack Russian forces anywhere in Ukraine, as well as Russian warships in the Black Sea and economic targets within Russia itself. Russia must come to feel the cost of a war it initiated and prolongs.
Third, Ukraine’s backers must commit to providing long-term military aid. The goal of all of the above is to signal to Vladimir Putin that time is not on Russia’s side and that he cannot hope to outlast Ukraine.Why Mounting another Counteroffensive in 2025 would be a Mistake, Novaya Gazeta
So, this is the new strategy? This is Plan B?
Yes, apparently. And look at what Plan B involves:
Hunkering down in a defensive posture
Using “long-range strike capabilities” to attack targets in Russia (Is this where Blinken got the idea?)
Pumping billions more into the Ukrainian ‘black hole’ to prolong a war that cannot be won.
In short, provoke, hector and inflict as much pain as possible on Russia for as long as it takes.
As long as what takes? What does that mean?
Haass explains that too:
An interim ceasefire almost certainly would not lead to anything resembling peace, which will likely have to wait for the arrival of a Russian leadershipthat chooses to end the country’s pariah status. That might not happen for years or decades.
Oh, so the real objective, is regime change. What a surprise!
This is more than just “moving the goalposts” (by changing the definition of “winning” a war). This is a revelation of the elite agenda, which looks beyond the fatuous propaganda about “unprovoked aggression” and focuses entirely on geopolitics, the driving force in international relations. In Haass’s mind, Ukraine is not a battlefield on which Ukrainian and Russian patriots sacrifice their lives for their countries. No. In Haass’s mind, Ukraine is the critical gateway to Central Asia which is expected to be the most prosperous region of the next century. Western plutocrats intend to be the main players in Central Asia’s development,(pivot to Asia) which is why they are trying to remove the biggest obstacle to western penetration, which is Russia. Once Russia has been weakened and rolled-back, Washington will be free to spread its military bases across Eurasia laying the groundwork for containing rival China through provocations, encirclement and economic strangulation.
That is why Haass’s definition of “success” is more flexible than ordinary people who evaluate these matters in terms of the enormous human suffering they cause. In the globalist view, these things are only of secondary importance. What really matters is power; raw, geopolitical power in the form of global hegemony. That is the ultimate strategic objective. Nothing else matters.
And that is why the Biden administration is about to approve the use of American-made long-range strike weapons to destroy targets on Russian territory. Because—even though it does not increase Ukraine’s chances of winning the war—it does help to advance the globalist geopolitical agenda which regards Ukraine as a mere springboard for launching attacks on Russia.
The elites are so drunk with hubris, they have convinced themselves that Putin will not see these missile-strikes on Russian territory as a declaration of war. Which they are.
James Creegan, a lifelong revolutionary socialist and a good friend and comrade, died on Thursday, Nov. 23, 2023, at the age of seventy-six, following a lengthy illness. I had the good fortune to know Jim and collaborated with him on educational and political projects over the last ten years. Over time, I learned something about where he came from and the forces that shaped him. Much of the material I present is taken from a memoir Jim wrote and circulated among a few friends. All quotations are taken from his memoir unless otherwise indicated. This article was first published in theWeekly Worker edition of Dec. 7, 2023.
A.S.
Formative Years
Jim was a red-diaper baby, born on June 27 1947. Unlike many baby boomers, he did not rebel against his parents but learned from them. Both his parents were in the US Communist Party in the 1930’s and 1940’s. His father, Bernard, but “Barney” to his friends, was more political than his mom Selma née Rubin. His father came originally from what is now Northern Ireland and joined the British CP in Scotland in 1923. He came to the U.S. in 1930, where he worked as a union organizer for the CP, and later for the CIO. He fell out with the party in 1945 and was not active politically after that though he maintained his sympathy for the party. When the international Stalinist movement went into crisis, beginning with Khruschev’s “secret speech” in 1956, when the crimes of Stalinism were revealed, first to a select audience, and eventually, to any CP member who had eyes to see, Jim’s father reacted by adopting a left-Stalinist orientation. His position was quite different from that of other former members disillusioned with the CP, who were turning to liberalism and anti-communism. When the Sino-Soviet split happened he sided with China.
From the New Left to Trotsky
It was therefore no accident that Jim’s earliest political orientation as a young man leaned toward Maoism. His first political affiliation was at Penn State in 1965, where, as a convinced Maoist, he entered the network of the Progressive Labor Party (PLP). He was for two years chair of the campus Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) during the headiest days of the student anti-war and radical movements. In If I Had a Hammer, Maurice Isserman, a historian of the American left, argues that the children of Communists were a more essential element of the New Left than is generally recognized. Jim’s experience bears this out.
Jim had his road to Damascus moment in his senior year when he read Isaac Deutscher’s Trotsky trilogy at the suggestion of a fellow member of Students for a Democratic Society (SDS). As he put it years later,
This biography changed my political views more than any single work I’ve read, and I began to take more of an interest in Trotskyism.
His newfound interest in Trotskyism however did not immediately translate into a political affiliation.
After graduating college in 1969, Jim returned to his hometown, Philadelphia. He remained there for two years during which he became active in the local chapter of the New American Movement (NAM). The NAM was basically a grouping of New Left refugees trying to reconstitute themselves politically. He entered graduate school in philosophy at the University of Colorado (Boulder) in 1972. He belonged to the NAM chapter there as well, but his main emphasis was on study–deepening his understanding of classical philosophy, Hegel, and Marx.
Jim returned to Philly in 1977, a more educated and convinced, Marxist than before. He had it in the back of his mind that the next phase of his life had to include organized politics. He always believed abstractly that any Marxist worth his/her salt must belong to a party-type organization. In his own words, Jim wrote about this period of his life.
“I felt somewhat guilty about not having acted upon that belief by following the more serious refugees from the New Left who joined various parties in the early 70s. But I felt the need for more knowledge at the time, so went to grad school instead. And I hadn’t burned my bridges to academia even after I left Boulder. I enrolled in the Political Economy grad program at the New School (which, as it turned out, was like what people often say about communism: appealing on paper, but disappointing in practice), and moved to NYC in 1979.”
Adventures in the Spartacist League
It was in this period that Jim began reading the newspaper of the Spartacist League (SL), Workers Vanguard. From the start Jim felt a kinship with its polemics. He wrote of his engagement with the SL publication that,
“…it reinforced much of what I felt about the rest of the left circa 1980: that most individuals and organizations had moved markedly to the right along with ruling-class-generated public opinion and emerged in far too flaccid a state to meet the challenges of the Carter/Reagan years .”
Jim’s reaction was understandable. As a revolutionary socialist in formation, he had a gut reaction against the abandonment of radical politics by many of his contemporaries from the 1960’s generation. The fact that Jim’s reaction coincided with his introduction to the Spartacist League is one of those contingent events in a life that nevertheless expressed a certain logic.
The Spartacist League was vociferous in its denunciation of what they considered opportunism on the left, more so than any other organization claiming to be Trotskyist. It very much was in consonance with Jim’s uncompromising convictions as a Trotskyist. Jim later explained his affinity for this side of the SL:
“I am by temperament a controversialist, who relishes the clash of ideas, the cut and thrust of polemic. The witty, pugilistic style of WV seemed to me to partake more of the authentic spirit of communism in its early pre-Stalinist incarnation, much of which my father had retained from his youth and passed on to me.”
Once he became convinced of the correctness of a political stance Jim would brook no apologies for those misguided individuals on the wrong side of that issue, and he did not suffer fools. However, after a while Jim did have second thoughts about the Spartacist style that attracted him initially. He pointed to their “acerbic style” and their “excessively abrasive and hectoring “interventions” at the political meetings of other groups.” The SL’s interventions often degenerated into what he described as “the accusation and insult that had become an SL trademark.”
Jim’s initial deep commitment to a political organization that gave expression to his revolutionary impulses certainly had its admirable side. But it also harbored a fundamental problem. Once he became convinced of something it was exceedingly difficult for Jim to pause and retrace his steps and consider that he may have been mistaken. That was my judgment based on many discussions I had with Jim. No matter how much his original enthusiasm for the SL changed into a deep opposition both to their policies and to their internal regime, he always looked back to the SL of the 1970’s as their golden age.
To cite one example, Jim indicated more than once that a fundamental issue which cemented his sympathy for the SL was the full-throated support the Spartacist League provided to the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979.
Jim and I never agreed on this issue. I found the SL’s slogan, ‘Hail to the Red Army’ repugnant. It created the pretense that the Russian tanks that went into Afghanistan in 1979 had a direct connection to the heroic Red Army of 1919 that defeated the counterrevolutionary forces arrayed against the newly established Soviet state.
The Spartacist League, and Jim, had this notion that any military intervention by the Soviet Union was an expression of the Stalinist bureaucracy defending the gains of the October Revolution. While it was true that the forces arrayed against the Soviet-backed regime in Kabul were reactionary Islamists backed by the CIA it was also true that the Soviet-backed regime did not come into existence as a result of a popular uprising. Rather it was the inheritor of a series of coups backed by Moscow and had little popular support. The SL by this point in its political evolution had elevated the Stalinist bureaucracy at the expense of the international working class. While it was incumbent on Trotskyists to defend the Soviet Union, despite the bureaucracy, against imperialism, it did not follow that the Stalinist bureaucracy had somehow become a progressive factor in world politics and it certainly did not follow that Trotskyists were obliged to support whatever global political maneuver the Stalinist bureaucracy involved itself in. Once you substitute a bureaucracy for the revolutionary potential of the masses, as the SL did, you wind up with some very bizarre – for a Trotskyist – positions. The most notorious expression of this was the publication by Workers Vanguard in 1984, of a black-bordered death notice on its front page marking the death of the former KGB and Soviet party chief Yuri Andropov.
But even when Jim was an enthusiastic supporter of the SL’s perspective, he never became an apparatchik who failed to question the leadership, the kind of person that inhabits every group, one who is content to follow orders. Exactly the opposite was the case. Jim always had a mind of his own and refused to become the obsequious follower that other members of SL became.
Jim’s description of his duties when he was a member of the Spartacist League testifies to his unselfish spirit, sacrificing much of his personal life and income as a soldier for the cause of the revolution. Even years after he had left the SL Jim still thought that those onerous work assignments were legitimate though he also became angered by the unequal treatment meted out to different members. Jim was assigned numerous duties on a daily basis involving newspaper sales, sales of literature and meetings with fellow SL members, in addition to a regular and much-dreaded early morning sale where he had to arrive at 7AM at a remote location in Brooklyn. By way of contrast, the head of the Spartacist League lived like a king.
Listen to Jim’s depiction of the corruption of the Spartacist leader, James Robertson, and the regime of exploitation built around his needs:
“Maybe now you can better appreciate why those of us who joined the BT later on were so enraged that Robertson, however greatly he had sacrificed to build the SL in the past, was then having a basement playroom built with our labor for his nocturnal escapades, flying Concorde–many times more expensive than a regular passenger jet–having a hot tub installed ( again with organizational funds and labor) in his NYC apartment, and demanding a special contribution over and above dues to buy himself a house in the Bay Area.”
When Jim joined the SL, he came as part of a wave of new recruits inspired by their campaign for a victory for the Salvadoran rebels and opposition to a compromise with leaders of the death squads that had plagued El Salvador. But from the start the S L never fully trusted him because he came to them as already formed politically instead of “the preferred tabula rasa minds, upon which the leadership could effortlessly inscribe its wisdom and ‘organizational norms’.”
As a result, Jim was given tasks that mostly segregated him from other comrades lest he “infect” them with his independent spirit. He wrote,
“…because of my reluctance to join full-throatedly in Robertson’s amen chorus, I was shunted off into the lowly position of lit director… isolated from other members on the second floor of the SL compound, where I occupied the only permanent work station. The other members were assigned to the upper floors, only passing on occasion the lit shelves where I worked.”
The SL never recognized the asset they had in Jim and instead of encouraging his political and theoretical development they kept him occupied with lots of make-work tasks. In retrospect, the worst crime they committed was undoubtedly their refusal to allow him to contribute to their publications given Jim’s enormous talent for political-historical analysis.
The Spartacist Afterlife
Jim remained in the SL for 5 years, from 1981 to 1986, until his inevitable break with them. He thereupon joined the Spartacist spawn known as the International Bolshevik Tendency (IBT). Jim developed differences with the SL position on various questions – the details are unimportant – but the real driving force for his break with the SL was undoubtedly his disgust with the cultish behavior of its leadership and the endless series of purges of members who came into conflict with Robertson. He thereafter found a home in the IBT where he remained for the next 10 years. The IBT, like the SL, was obsessed with the “Russian question” and felt that one’s position on the Russian question was the litmus test for whether one was a genuine Trotskyist. The IBT accused the SL of deviating from the “correct” position and the SL likewise made the same accusation of the IBT. In many ways the IBT led a parasitic existence off the SL. But Jim found a more congenial home within the IBT since he was finally able to publish, giving vent to his polemical talents.
In time Jim became disenchanted with the IBT. Years later he explained that,
“They [the IBT] believed that the program remained valid regardless of what happened in the world. They had no clue in terms of analyzing newer developments in the class struggle and in politics.” [1]
It troubled Jim that although the IBT had at that time existed for 20 years it had failed miserably to attract members and was the same tiny group that it was at its inception. One would think that if your goal were to change the world and you remained a tiny group over the years that had absolutely no influence on the working class, you should ask why this failure and critique whatever practices you have engaged in that led to this sterile abyss. One would think that, but only if one were ignorant of the ways of the various grouplets that populate the extreme left. Such questions never occur to them as they blithely ignore reality.
One incident stands out during Jim’s tenure in the IBT. He had worked for a number of years as a clerk at the office of the Village Voice, a famous New York weekly that featured some of the best journalists in the country. In 1996 the maintenance workers at the building housing the Village Voice went on strike, part of a city-wide strike, against the companies that were contracted by the building owners to do their maintenance.
The traditional labor union call is that “Picket lines mean do not cross!”
Jim was the shop steward of the United Auto Workers branch that represented the Village Voice employees. The striking maintenance workers belonged to a different union and made it clear that their strike was against the company that employed the maintenance workers, not the Village Voice. The Voice employees, with the assent of the UAW local and Village Voice management, took out the trash themselves. The striking building maintenance workers did not object to this accommodation. The only other option would have been to allow the building’s maintenance contractor to bring in scabs to do that job. The Village Voice owners also stopped all payments to the building maintenance contractors for the duration of the strike. In addition, the Village Voice UAW local, largely because of Jim’s efforts, raised $3,000 for the striking maintenance workers in an unprecedented show of solidarity.
The Spartacist League newspaper, Workers Vanguard, always ready to find something with which to trash their IBT rivals, said Jim was a “scab” for participating in the Village Voice’s attempt to keep their operations going. The IBT put out a pamphlet with the title, Sectarians, “Scabs” & Socialists, which defended Jim against the slanderous “scab” charge. The union local also put out a bulletin, titled Support to Strikers, So Long to Scabs, which explained that the actions taken by the Village workers were in support of the strike by the building’s maintenance workers. Village Voice management also came to an agreement with the union to stop paying the building maintenance fee until such time as the building maintenance worker’s strike was settled.
This was back in 1996. Move forward 20 years to 2016. Jim is suddenly confronted with the news that the IBT, which had defended him in 1996, had now “repudiated” the pamphlet defending him and had concluded that Jim had been a scab after all. The IBT further [falsely] claimed ignorance of the details at the time as their rationale for having defended Jim in 1996! Jim responded to these slanders with a brilliant piece that skewers the IBT and the SL. It is worth quoting the beginning of Jim’s response to give you a flavor of his inimical polemical style:
“Old Lie Makes New Converts – The principal service that the microscopic and pompously named International Bolshevik Tendency (IBT) has performed for the left was to expose the Spartacist League (US) and its affiliates in the International Communist League (ICL) as the personality cult that they are. Unable to answer the truthful testimony of the IBT (and its predecessors, the External Tendency, and the Bolshevik Tendency), the Spartacists fired back with a cascade of lies about their accusers, worthy of the vipers’ nest this organization had become. Now, in a turn more pathetic than pernicious, the IBT has taken to retailing one of the lies directed against me when I was a member of their group over twenty years ago. I hesitate to reply only because I fear that I might make myself look ridiculous by expending so many pixels over something that won’t matter a tinker’s damn to anyone outside the time capsule inhabited by the Spartacist League and its derivative groupuscules. But, as Trotsky said, the historical record should be accurately maintained, even in its minutest details.” [2]
Jim was denounced not only by the SL and the IBT, but also by another Spart spawn, the Internationalist Group (IG). Anyone who could earns the wrath of all these small-minded sectarian outfits deserves a medal!
A revolutionary without a party
After leaving the IBT in the mid 1990’s, Jim was finally able to flourish as a writer, an educator, and a trenchant critic of contemporary culture. And as I later learned Jim was also a great raconteur, a poet, and a competent singer. Yet ironically, in this most productive period of his life, Jim was not affiliated with any political group. For someone who always believed that “any Marxist worth his salt should be a member of a party” this was undoubtedly a bittersweet period for him.
As a result of Jim’s work as an activist in the UAW local and his outspoken politics, he was forced out of his job at the Village Voice in 2002 after new owners took it over. Jim’s next job was that of a substitute teacher in the New York City public school system. The job was often very gratifying as Jim’s talents as a teacher made him an instant favorite in practically every school to which he was assigned. However as much as Jim enjoyed teaching, the earnings of a substitute teacher in the New York public school system are quite meager and the benefits even worse. But the job suited Jim insofar as he often had the afternoons free to read or write.
It was in this period that Jim’s literary and polemical talents shined as he became a regular contributor to the UK-based newspaper Weekly Worker. He wrote dozens of articles for the Weekly Worker starting in 2007 and ending in June of 2022. Jim’s oeuvre was not confined to strictly political essays, which he did masterfully enough, but also touched on history and culture. One notable example was a review of a film by Ken Loach about the Irish war of independence and subsequent civil war, Ken Loach’s use of Irish history. [3]
When the pandemic hit, Jim was assigned to the well-known science-oriented high school, Stuyvesant. Jim made a huge impression on his colleagues and students at Stuyvesant. The students knew him as the teacher who sang the attendance call. He worked at Stuyvesant up until several weeks prior to his death.
Afterword
Ironically, Jim outlived the Spartacist League. The SL’s founder-leader, James Robertson, died in 2019 at the age of ninety. The cult he began did not survive his passing. The newspaper of the SL, Workers Vanguard, ceased publication for over a year following his death. Eventually a group based in the UK attempted to revive the corpse of the SL. They held an “International Conference” where they attempted to diagnose the ills of the SL that led to their demise. Jim was following these events and noted wryly that for all their “self-criticism” the self-appointed resurrectionists of the SL never said a word about the corruption of the Robertson regime.
The International Bolshevik Tendency (IBT) suffered a major split in 2018. The issue that precipitated the split was, as you may have guessed, the Russian question. Following the split the IBT was left with fewer members than it had when it started out almost 50 years ago. As Jim explained at a Left Forum panel in 2019,
Now the IBT, which was fewer than twenty members, has the rare distinction among Trotskyist grouplets that they managed to split over the Russian question thirty years after the collapse of the Soviet Union! [4]
I met Jim ten years ago in a seminar on the Russian Revolution organized by the Brecht Forum. When the Brecht Forum dissolved the following year both of us continued with its successor organization, the Marxist Education Project. Although we did not agree on every political and philosophical question, we had enough affinity on basic issues to collaborate on a number of projects. Among these was a walking tour in New York inspired by Trotsky’s 9-week sojourn in that city prior to his arrival in Russia in 1917. We also worked together, along with Marilyn Vogt-Downey, on a special broadcast on radio station WBAI commemorating the 100th anniversary of the October Revolution. Jim was also a participant – and often a co-facilitator – in a series of classes on Hegel that I taught through the Marxist Education Project. Among Jim’s many contributions to that class series one that stands out for me was Jim’s masterful lecture on the French Revolution. I will miss our back and forth sparring over our different interpretations of Hegel.
In addition to our political collaboration Jim and I developed a personal bond. Both of us came out of the 60’s generation and both of us joined small Trotskyist groups following a flirtation with the New Left. It turned out that we knew several people in common. I learned that Jim had known my first wife before I met her, when they were both members of SDS at Penn State. It also turned out that the groups we joined, in Jim’s case the Spartacist League, in mine the Workers League, began life in the same opposition faction of the Socialist Workers Party in the early 1960’s. And we both witnessed the toll that the years of Reaganite reaction inflicted on the 60s generation. Many did not survive the trauma when the optimism and Utopian spirit of the 60’s clashed with the dismal, self-centered culture of the 80’s and 90’s. We both knew people whose lives were cut short by mental illness, alcoholism, drug abuse and suicide.
Any account by me of Jim’s political life would not be complete if I did not mention that Jim and I had a fundamental disagreement about the very basis of Trotskyism. Jim, in his later years, had come to the conclusion that the premise behind the launch of the Fourth International by Trotsky in 1938 was a mistaken assessment of the nature of the epoch. Trotsky thought that we were living in a period of the decay and terminal decline of capitalism and that therefore the objective conditions were ripe for socialist revolution. Jim felt that Trotsky’s assessment of capitalism in the 20th century was mistaken and cited the post-war boom as evidence of that. I thought that Jim was being too literal in his interpretation of Trotsky’s intent. While it was true that Trotsky did not anticipate the post-war boom (not that anyone else did either) his pronouncement on the nature of the epoch was not meant to only apply to the immediate situation capitalism faced in the 1930’s and the decades following but was a judgment of an entire historical period whose length could not be predicted in advance. I also felt that while Jim’s commitment and active participation in the struggles that emerged in the last sixty years were second to none, he was at the same time overly pessimistic about the potential for the rebirth of a militant working class. Jim would undoubtedly have retorted that he was a realist, not a pessimist, and that my optimism was based on illusions I inherited from the Trotskyist groups with which I had been associated. (Jim provided a detailed presentation on this topic in a panel at the Left Forum.) [5] Yet no matter how strong our disagreements I knew that with Jim I was dealing with an intellectual giant who was not easily dismissed.
I should also mention that Jim was a wonderful raconteur who had mastered the art of storytelling. I always enjoyed going to an Irish pub with him.
Jim’s memory will be cherished by his friends and colleagues, some of whom have known him since childhood, others more recently. He leaves a legacy of commitment and independence tempered by his wit and good humor.
Alex Steiner
New York, Dec 2, 2023
Jim standing in front of a monument to Lord Byron. Jim loved the English, Irish and Scottish poets.
[4] Ibid. Beyond sect or movement: What is a political center?(See note 1)
[5] Ibid. Beyond sect or movement: What is a political center?
………………………
James Creegan: A Beloved Substitute and Singer
The student body had incredible, unforgettable experiences with Mr. Creegan, a singing substitute. To commemorate his passing, here is what the students have to say.
James (Jimmy) Creegan, a beloved substitute teacher at Stuyvesant High School, passed away after a battle with brain cancer on November 23, 2023, at the age of 76. He will be greatly missed by the student body and administration alike. Creegan was renowned in Stuyvesant as the substitute teacher who sang the attendance roster. He spread joy, kindness, and music. The profound impact he made will not be forgotten.
Stuyvesant students remember Creegan fondly and are devastated over his passing, as illustrated by the outpour of grief and shock in reaction to a Facebook post recognizing his death. “I was genuinely very sad when I found out he died. Although I didn’t really know him at all, I’m going to miss him,” sophomore Sophie Tulovsky said. “Anytime I walked into a classroom and saw him I was very excited. […] He was just a sweetheart,” she added. Tulovsky had Creegan as a substitute multiple times in her freshman year, and she looked forward to his kind personality and wonderful singing. Though substitute teachers only interact with students for a short time, Creegan managed to brighten their days.
Creegan’s musical talent granted him a strong authoritative presence in the classroom. Junior Imene Zarouri had Creegan as a substitute for Music Appreciation, a class she noticed that some students did not commit to. “A lot of students didn’t take [the class] seriously and got into the habit of putting on their AirPods and taking out their laptops to finish [other] work during class,” Zarouri recalled. However, the moment Creegan began to sing, the class environment transformed. “[Creegan] captured everyone’s attention. He first introduced himself to us and then began singing an English song from his youth in a deep voice. I’ll never forget those two minutes of silence where the class was completely focused on Mr. Creegan’s singing,” Zarouri described.
The impression Creegan left on the student body was almost universally positive, which contributed to his fame at Stuyvesant. “The energy he brought to the class was unforgettable, so I told all my friends about it right after the period ended. They all immediately knew who I was talking about and shared their own stories about Mr. Creegan,” junior Samantha Ruinsky remembered.
Even past graduation, Creegan maintained a lasting impression on many Stuyvesant students, including Hannah Riegel (‘23). “[He was] a sort of Stuy legend,” Riegel said. “Sometimes subs are disliked because kids just want to goof off when their teachers aren’t there, but [Creegan] had a way of gathering everyone’s attention in a pleasant, nice way.”
Beyond students, Creegan touched the hearts of his fellow teachers. He was part of a close-knit group of substitute teachers who ate lunch together. Narkiz Agish, a fellow substitute teacher, spoke fondly of their friendship. “We really enjoyed our lunches together. He loved the chocolate milk,” Agish recalled. “He loved the New York Times paper version. […] He would sit there with his big newspaper, with his wonderful Irish accent, and he would recite poems [to us],” she said. Creegan had a special love for Chinese food; after his passing, his loved ones from all over met to celebrate his remarkable life at a Chinese restaurant—a fitting goodbye to a beloved and well-respected friend.
Creegan nurtured multiple passions throughout his life, including film and poetry. Deidre Donovan, a fellow substitute teacher, shared her memories of Creegan’s intellectual quality. “[Creegan] was just very good company and he was extremely knowledgeable. […] He would give you a very intelligent interpretation of [any film]. He was very up-to-date on what was going on in our world. So having a conversation with Mr. Creegan was always a pleasure,” Donovan described. In particular, she recalled his fondness for Emily Dickinson and Scottish poetry.
Donovan also looked back on Creegan’s kindness during a brutal rainstorm. “[Creegan] immediately offered his umbrella to get me home, [even though] he would get wet,” Donovan said. Creegan was a compassionate friend, ready to help everyone around him. “I miss him. He was just a good friend, a wonderful colleague, and he cannot be replaced,” Donavan expressed.
Creegan left a lasting impact outside of Stuyvesant as well. As a passionate Marxist, he formed a strong community by discussing politics with peers of like-minded and opposing stances. In an obituary by Alex Steiner in the Weekly Worker, Steiner—a good friend of Creegan’s who worked with him on various educational and political projects—elaborated on Creegan’s communist history. “Jim was a red-diaper baby, born on June 27, 1947. Unlike many baby boomers, he did not rebel against his parents but learned from them. Both his parents were in the Communist Party in the 1930s and 1940s,” Steiner wrote. Creegan also explored Maoism and Trotskyism in his youth.
Steiner went on to discuss how Creegan applied his political background. “After graduating college in 1969, Jim returned to his hometown, Philadelphia. He remained there for two years during which he became active in the local chapter of the New American Movement (NAM),” Steiner wrote. NAM was a congregation of New Left refugees trying to develop their political identities. Creegan then went on to work for The Village Voice, a news and culture publication based in New York City.
After leaving The Village Voice in 2002, Creegan decided to explore his other talents in writing and educating. “However as much as Jim enjoyed teaching, the earnings of a substitute teacher in the New York public school system are quite meager and the benefits even worse. But the job suited Jim insofar as he often had the afternoons free to read or write,” Steiner wrote. It was during this time that Creegan began to work at the Weekly Worker, a UK-based newspaper. “Jim’s oeuvre was not confined to strictly political essays, which he did masterfully enough, but also touched on history and culture,” Steiner described. Creegan was multitalented and led a fascinating life in the realms of journalism and politics.
Creegan was known as “The Singing Substitute,” but his impact on the Stuyvesant community—and beyond—reflects much more than that title. Creegan was a remarkable individual who led a fascinating and fulfilling life, all while improving the lives of those around him. He created a welcoming environment, built long-lasting friendships, and was a bright spot in the lives of many. Stuyvesant students are devastated by his passing, and we hope that his legacy will continue to live on.
The blunder began years before February 2022. Putin failed to realize that the US was preparing the overthrow of the Ukraine government. When the overthrow began, Putin took no action to prevent the overthrow. Instead, Russia permitted Washington to take over the former province of the Russian state.
A hostile Ukraine is an existential threat to Russia. Why did Russia stand aside and permit Washington’s takeover? Why did Russia sit for the next 8 years on its hands, rejecting the votes of the independent Donbas republics to be reunited with Russia from which they were torn by Soviet leaders and stuck in Ukraine? The culprit in these strategic blunders was the Kremlin’s lack of realism. Putin relied on diplomacy despite the fact that Washington relies on threats, bribes, and coercion. The Kremlin simply did not understand that with the Minsk Agreement it was saddling a dead horse that could go nowhere.
When Putin was finally forced to intervene by the prospect that the inhabitants of Russian Donbas were about to be slaughtered like Palestinians in Gaza today, Putin failed to respond decisively. Still playing all by himself a diplomatic game, he insisted that there be no Russian invasion of Ukraine, only a “special military operation” to clear hostile Ukrainian forces from Donbas. Lost in a diplomatic world that no longer exists, Putin failed to realize that regardless of what he said or did, Western propaganda would present the intervention as a reconstruction of the Soviet Empire that would extend to all of Europe.
It was immediately obvious that the limited and slow-paced “special military operation” would provide Washington and its NATO puppets abundant time to become involved in the conflict, thus endlessly widening the conflict until the conflict became an existential issue for Russia. This is what has occurred.
Still the Kremlin thinks unrealistically. Putin is on the verge of succeeding with his purpose of driving Ukrainian forces out of, and away from, the Russian populated areas, and the assumption is that the war will be over and Russia’s success will be acknowledged in a negotiated settlement.
This delusion persists despite Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov’s acknowledgement that Washington intends Russia’s destruction. Both Lavrov and Putin continue to stress that they are willing to negotiate with Washington Washington’s intention to destroy Russia. It would be hilarious if were not so deadly.
Thinking Russia’s intervention to be limited, Putin was unprepared for war. He has done very little to hamper the Ukrainian government’s ability to conduct war. Rather than shutting down Ukraine, Putin chose a long drawn-out village by village conquest. The West interpreted this as limited Russian military capability, and this provided both encouragement and time for the West to involve itself in the conflict.
The West is so involved now and the Western political leaders are so certain that Russia intends more aggression that they are preparing for war against Russia. Still, Putin and Lavrov speak of negotiation. After a decade of the West’s rejection of negotiation, how can the Kremlin still see negotiation as a solution?
What needed to be done was to knock Kiev out of the war, install a Russian friendly government in place of the American puppet regime, and present the West with a fait accompli before the West had time to get involved. It is Western involvement that presents the danger of the conflict widening into a war between Russia and the West.
Possibly the solution is still viable. It would leave a neutral Ukrainian state west of the Dnieper River with no Black Sea access. It is highly unlikely that such an outcome can be achieved by negotiation. It can only be imposed by force.
By restraining Russia’s use of force, Putin has opened the road to nuclear Armageddon.
Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping added another to their count of 40–odd summit meetings when the Russian and Chinese presidents convened in Beijing, later proceeding to Harbin in Northeast China, for two days of talks that ended Friday. At 9:55 Thursday evening Beijing time, a day’s work done, the two sat behind a long table draped in green to address “members of the media,” as Xi put it.
Western officials and the media that clerk for them have done their best, per usual, to dismiss this latest encounter of the Russian and Chinese leaders as of no account, just two authoritarians bound together by nothing more than their shared enmity toward the West. Pay no attention. We ought not miss the significance of what Putin and Xi had to say this week to one another and to the rest of humanity. The world just turned once again.
The Kremlin was first to publish a transcript of their “Media Statement Following Russia–China Talks.” The two presidents spoke in turn—Xi, the host, going first and Putin to follow. Here is a snippet drawn from Xi’s remarks:
We signed joint statements on enhancing the comprehensive partnership and strategic cooperation between the People’s Republic of China and the Russian Federation for a new era…. China and Russia have served as a role model by showing others ways of building state-to-state ties of a new kind and working together as two major neighboring powers … based on the principles of respect and equality.
Xi spoke in this vein for several minutes. Here is a little of what Putin then contributed:
Our talks have reaffirmed that Russia and China have similar or identical views on many international and regional issues.
Both countries have an independent and sovereign foreign policy. We are working together to create a fairer and more democratic multipolar world order based on the central role of the U.N. and its Security Council, international law, cultural and civilizational diversity, as well as a calibrated balance of interests of all members of the international community.
There are two things to note about these remarks straight off the top.
One, Western media have reported for months that there is a rift between Beijing and Moscow just below the surface. The Chinese do not approve of Russia’s military intervention in Ukraine, we have read. The bilateral relationship is radically unbalanced in Russia’s favor and of little use to China. Etc. This is nonsense, we can now see. In their brief presentation to the media and in other statements since, Xi and Putin have made it plain that there is virtually no air between the non–West’s two leading powers. As to the Ukraine question, to be noted right away, China has been studiously neutral while cognisant of the West’s provocations. Russia has never asked for more than this.
If Xi and Putin have made it a point to display their two nations’ closeness over the years—and their own as friends as well as statesmen, indeed—the two days they spent together this week mark an important public reaffirmation of their shared commitment to that “fairer and more democratic multipolar world” Putin mentioned Thursday. We have told you we have begun to build a new world order, they may as well have said. We’re on for this project. Together with others we will get this done.
Two, and related to the above, consider the May 16 joint statement from a few steps back. Apart from what is in it, what is conspicuously absent? There is no mention of the West, is there? The tone is strikingly self-confident and entirely self-referential. In my read, the two leaders could not have more clearly if subtly demonstrated that the new world order of which they speak is to be an initiative the non–West will advance whether or not the Atlantic world approves or wishes to participate in its construction.
In the first few weeks of this year, Sergei Lavrov gave a press conference that, although we could not know this at the time, previewed the just-concluded Sino–Russian summit and its larger significance. As the Russian foreign minister reviewed Russia’s foreign relations at the start of 2024, and listed the members of Moscow’s “close circle”—all non–Western nations, some of which are traditionally aligned with the U.S.—Lavrov announced Moscow’s intent “to remove any dependence on the West.” That is TASS, the Russian news agency, not me, although I commented on Lavrov’s remarks in this space at the time.
I also quoted a scholar of Russia and Eurasia named Gordon Hahn, who read the Lavrov press conference more acutely than anyone I know. Hahn’s remarks, during a segment of The Duran, the webcast produced daily in London, are worth requoting for their insight into what just happened when Putin and Xi met for their latest summit:
“For Russia, it looks now, the West is no longer its ‘Other.’… Russia has always identified itself, motivated itself, driven itself in relation to Europe. Now Putin is turning away from that. He said that we are no longer to define ourselves, look at ourselves, through the European prism. For now, we will put all our eggs in one basket, and that is Eurasia…. This close bilateral relationship, of Europe as Russia’s Other, is ending…
The joint statements Xi mentioned—Reuters reported Thursday that the two leaders signed one that runs to 7,000 words—are yet to be available at “Kremlin.ru” and “fmprc.org,” where documents of this kind are customarily made public. But as ScheerPost awaits these, it is already evident that Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin are intent on continuing to pry open the 21st century in the service of the new world order both describe as their overarching objective.
The timing of this summit is significant. It marks the 75th anniversary of Sino–Russian diplomatic relations. Moscow was the first nation to open formal ties with China after Mao declared the People’s Republic. Mao took Beijing October 1, 1949. The Soviet Union recognized on October 2. In referencing this occasion, Xi and Putin clearly intend to give relations as they are the ballast of history. This is not a passing partnership of convenience, they mean to say.
More immediately to the point, the Biden regime has dispatched a procession of officials to China in recent months, all to cajole China to bend to a lengthening list of sanctions, export controls, and tariffs intended to slow or subvert its economic development. Most recently, Secretary of State Blinken, during a three-day visit late last month, threatened Beijing with “consequences”—how they love to strike the ominous pose in Washington—if it did not stop supplying Russia with “dual use” products—semiconductors, industrial components and the like that the U.S. asserts may have military applications.
The extremely warm welcome Xi just extended to Putin is nothing if not a piquant reply to these threats and attempted coercions. Was it a pointed snub, a poke in the eye? It may look like one, but it would be a mistake to read it this way. In hosting the Russian leader, the greatest bête noire the U.S. has confected the whole of the postwar era, Xi gave us a display only of China’s indifference toward the policy hawks in Washington and among its trans–Atlantic satellites.
If Putin is intent on breaking Russia’s dependence on the West, as TASS well put it at the start of the year, Xi appears committed to a variant of the same position. China’s relations with the West are denser and more complex of course, because America and the Europeans are far more dependent on China’s economic production and investments. But Xi and Putin share a grasp of history’s movement that is far beyond Blinken and the rest of the Biden regime. Both leaders signaled this week they are confident that the dynamism that will define our new era—economic, diplomatic, even philosophic—no longer lies in the Atlantic world.
And so they got on with it this week.
■
It is two years and a few months since, on the eve of the Winter Olympics in Beijing, Putin and Xi made dramatically public their “Joint Statement on International Relations Entering a New Era and Global Sustainable Development.” This was a kind of declaration of intent in 5,500 words. In it the two leaders offered an analysis of global geopolitics and of the disorder that, then as now, threatened to overtake the world. Facing forward, they declared “a new world order”—this made the phrase official—as the planet’s most pressing imperative. I continue to view the “Joint Statement,” as I did at the time, as the most important political document advanced so far in the 21st century.
The latest Putin–Xi summit marks a significant recommitment to the principles set out in the statement of Feb. 4, 2022. The two again cite their dedication to rebuilding “a U.N.–centered system of international relations and an international order based on international law,” as Xi put it. He elaborated:
We have been coordinating our positions within multilateral platforms such as the United Nations, APEC [the Asia–Pacific Economic Cooperation forum] and the G20 [the Group of 20 advanced and middle-income nations] to promote the emergence of a multipolar world and economic globalization based on genuine multilateralism.
That is the fourth of five principles Xi listed in his remarks to media. Here he is noting the last:
The fifth principle deals with promoting a political settlement for hotspots in the interest of truth and justice. Today’s world is still plagued by [a] Cold War mentality. Aspirations to securing a unilateral hegemony, bloc-based confrontation, and power politics pose a direct threat to peace and security for all countries around the world.
Unilateral hegemony, bloc-based confrontation: This sort of language will be familiar to those who have followed the public statements of senior Chinese officials, notably Xi and Foreign Minister Wang Yi, over the past several years. And I was pleased to note that a piece published May 16 by the PRC’s State Council cited the Five Principles Zhou Enlai famously formulated in the mid–1950s to define Chinese foreign policy. Xi’s five, in my read, are a modernized version of Zhou’s.
Zhou’s Principles, which were adopted by the Non–Aligned Movement at the famous conference Sukarno hosted at Bandung in 1955, are simply stated: respect for the sovereignty of others, respect for territorial integrity, noninterference in the internal affairs of others, a commitment to acting for mutual benefit, and a commitment to peaceful coexistence. I have detected these as subtext in Sino–Russian communiqués since the two sides issued the “Joint Statement” two years ago. Now they are restated publicly. It will be no bad thing if those coalescing around a new world order adopt them as the NAM did 70 years ago next year.
Something important must be said in this connection: Neither Xi nor Putin is “aligned” against the U.S. or its trans–Atlantic allies. Neither stands against cooperation with the U.S. or the rest of the West as they join others to build a new order. That is the concoction of U.S. officials and those who report upon them and is intended merely to confirm that China and Russia must always be understood to act as dangerous enemies of the U.S. in particular.
“China–Russia axis heralds an ominous future,” was the headline atop a piece the Center for European Policy Analysis published on the eve of the Putin–Xi summit. CEPA is, admittedly, one of those Washington civil-society groups, neoliberal to the core, that does not say who funds it while standing entirely in favor of “bloc confrontations.” But its take on Sino–Russian relations was typical of what we read in supposedly more serious mainstream media this week.
“Putin and Xi pledged a new era and condemned the United States,” Reuters reported May 15.The New York Times reported the same day, “Mr. Xi considers Russia an important counterweight in China’s rivalry with the United States.” It went on to explain, “The two leaders are expected to present a united front. But they have different agendas.”
Where do they get this pitiful stuff? Nobody condemned the U.S. in Beijing this week. Is there some question of Sino–Russian unity at this point? Can you find “competing agendas” in anything that has come out of the summit to date? I cannot. These are Western-centric fabrications intended to sustain the broadly held impression that Russia and China are malign adversaries, while obscuring the very salient fact that the only thing China and Russia oppose when they look Westward is hegemonic power.
■
The summits Putin and Xi are evidently fond of tend to be high-concept, as they say in Hollywood. This is as it should be, in my view. Ours is a moment of historical magnitude. We witness an immense shift in global power—at least to the extent those purporting to lead the West and their clerks in media fail to obscure this reality from us. But as China and Russia deepen and broaden their ties—“strategic cooperation,” a phrase used repeatedly this week, is new in the bilateral lexicon—the substantive density of the relationship is impossible to miss.
As both sides enthusiastically noted this week, bilateral trade came to $240 billion last year—$40 billion above the announced target. In the first two months of this year, two-way trade came to $37 billion, according to a Business Insider report published in March, suggesting a 2024 total of $222 billion, a touch below this year’s figure. But trade statistics tend to bounce around, one month to the next. Chinese customs reported trade of $76 billion in the first four months of this year, in line with a 2025 forecast of $300 billion—a 25 percent increase over two years.
As important as the volume and value is the currency in which trade is settled. China has been eager to internationalize the yuan for years, and Russia’s war in Ukraine has proven a big boost. Nearly a quarter of Russia’s imports are now settled in yuan, up from 4 percent a couple of years ago. No, we are not surprised to learn that the yuan surpassed the dollar last year as the most traded currency in the Moscow foreign-exchange market.
It is oil, gas, minerals and other resources eastward from Russia to China and manufactured goods and technology westward from China to Russia. So it is pipelines and tankers in one direction, by and large, and rail freight in the other. Bloomberg reported in March that Russia is spending heavily on improvements to its rail links to and from Chinese industrial centers, and once again there is no surprise here. This shows how the economic relationship is densifying as we speak.
Collaboration on nuclear power research, defense-related research, high-technology research: There appear to be few economic sectors Beijing and Moscow are leaving out. But what interests me most are advances in little corners of the Chinese economy, small business enterprises right down to Chinese medicine makers who want to see what’s what in the Russian market. This is people-to-people stuff, and so far as I can make out the Russians and Chinese leaderships count it important in the long-term, enduring densification of the relationship.
This is why, or one reason, Xi invited Putin to Harbin for the second day of their summit. Harbin is among China’s most interesting cities. Russians built the modern city after they completed a rail line in Northeast China in the first years of the last century. Its architecture remains a cosmopolitan mix of Russian, European and Chinese influences. If Xi and Putin wanted to display the depth and intimacy of Sino–Russian relations—altogether their organic nature—they could not have done better than to stroll around Harbin like a couple of companionable, pose-for-the-cameras boulevardiers, as they did Friday.
It will be a long walk through the 21st century before Russia, China and the rest of the non–West arrive at the new world order these nations advocate. They will get there. Some important steps were taken in Beijing and Harbin this week. This is how history’s wheel turns.
Le président russe Vladimir Poutine et le président chinois Xi Jinping et leurs équipes se sont rencontrés jeudi à Pékin. (Konstantin Zavrajine, Kremlin)
L’accueil extrêmement chaleureux réservé par le président chinois Xi Jinping au président Vladimir Poutine hier à Pékin a scellé la relation stratégique de plus en plus formidable entre la Russie et la Chine. Cela équivaut à un changement tectonique dans l’équilibre mondial des pouvoirs.
L’entente russo-chinoise sonne également le glas des tentatives des néophytes américains en matière de politique étrangère de creuser un fossé entre les deux pays. La relation triangulaire est devenue une relation de deux contre un, avec de graves implications, notamment pour la guerre en Ukraine. Si les génies de la politique étrangère du président américain Joe Biden restent dans le déni, l’escalade est presque certaine.
Dans une interview accordée à Xinhua avant sa visite, Poutine a souligné le « niveau sans précédent de partenariat stratégique entre nos pays ». Lui et Xi se sont rencontrés plus de 40 fois en personne ou virtuellement. En juin 2018, Xi a décrit Poutine comme « un vieil ami du peuple chinois » et, personnellement, son « meilleur ami ».
Pour sa part, Poutine a noté jeudi que lui et Xi étaient « en contact constant pour garder le contrôle personnel sur toutes les questions urgentes de l’agenda russo-chinois et international ». Poutine était accompagné du ministre de la Défense Andreï Belousov ainsi que de vétérans comme le ministre des Affaires étrangères Sergueï Lavrov et de principaux dirigeants du monde des affaires.
Les déclarations communes sont importantes
Xi et Poutine ont signé jeudi une déclaration commune ferme, similaire à celle extraordinaire que les deux ont publiée le 4 février 2022 à Pékin. Il décrivait leur relation comme « supérieure aux alliances politiques et militaires de l’époque de la guerre froide. L’amitié entre les deux Etats n’a pas de limites, il n’y a pas de domaines de coopération « interdits »… »
Cette déclaration n’a pris toute sa portée que lorsque Poutine a lancé l’opération militaire spéciale dans le Donbass trois semaines plus tard. La réaction discrète de la Chine a choqué la plupart des analystes, qui avaient écarté la possibilité que Xi accorde en fait à son « meilleur ami » Poutine une dérogation à la politique fondamentale de la Chine de non-ingérence à l’étranger.
Dans les semaines suivantes, les déclarations officielles chinoises ont clairement indiqué que les principes de Westphalie étaient passés au second plan face à « la nécessité pour chaque pays de défendre ses intérêts fondamentaux » et de juger chaque situation « selon ses propres mérites ».
Guerre nucléaire
La déclaration de jeudi exprime son inquiétude face aux « risques stratégiques accrus entre les puissances nucléaires » – faisant référence à l’escalade continue de la guerre entre l’Ukraine et la Russie, soutenues par l’OTAN. Il condamne « l’expansion des alliances militaires et la création de têtes de pont militaires à proximité des frontières d’autres puissances nucléaires, notamment avec le déploiement avancé d’armes nucléaires et de leurs vecteurs, ainsi que d’autres éléments ».
Poutine a sans aucun doute informé Xi des sites de missiles américains déjà en Roumanie et en Pologne, capables de lancer ce que les Russes appellent des « missiles offensifs » avec un temps de vol vers Moscou de moins de 10 minutes. Poutine a sûrement fait part à Xi des incohérences dans les déclarations américaines concernant les missiles nucléaires à portée intermédiaire.
Par exemple, Xi sait – tout aussi sûrement que les consommateurs des médias occidentaux l’ignorent – que lors d’une conversation téléphonique le 30 décembre 2021, Biden a assuré à Poutine que « Washington n’avait pas l’intention de déployer des armes de frappe offensives en Ukraine ».
Il y avait de la joie au Kremlin ce soir-là, à la veille du Nouvel An, puisque l’assurance de Biden était le premier signe que Washington pourrait reconnaître les préoccupations de sécurité de la Russie. En effet, Biden a abordé une question clé dans au moins cinq des huit articles du projet de traité russe remis aux États-Unis le 17 décembre 2021. La joie russe a cependant été de courte durée.
Le ministre des Affaires étrangères Lavrov a révélé le mois dernier que lorsqu’il avait rencontré Antony Blinken à Genève en janvier 2022, le secrétaire d’État américain avait prétendu qu’il n’avait pas entendu parler de l’engagement de Biden envers Poutine le 30 décembre 2021. Blinken a plutôt insisté sur le fait que les États-Unis à moyen terme des missiles pourraient être déployés en Ukraine, et seulement que les États-Unis seraient disposés à en limiter le nombre, a déclaré Lavrov.
La mère de toutes les erreurs de calcul
Lorsque Biden a pris ses fonctions en 2021, ses conseillers lui ont assuré qu’il pouvait jouer sur la peur (sic) de la Russie à l’égard de la Chine et creuser un fossé entre eux. Cela est devenu d’une clarté embarrassante lorsque Biden a indiqué ce qu’il avait dit à Poutine lors de leur sommet à Genève le 16 juin 2021.
Cette réunion a donné à Poutine la confirmation que Biden et ses conseillers étaient coincés dans une évaluation terriblement dépassée des relations russo-chinoises.
Voici la façon bizarre dont Biden a décrit son approche envers Poutine sur la Chine :
« Sans le citer [Poutine] – ce que je ne pense pas approprié – permettez-moi de poser une question rhétorique : vous avez une frontière de plusieurs milliers de kilomètres avec la Chine. La Chine cherche à devenir l’économie la plus puissante du monde et l’armée la plus grande et la plus puissante du monde.
La « compression »
À l’aéroport après le sommet, les collaborateurs de Biden ont fait de leur mieux pour le faire monter dans l’avion, mais n’ont pas réussi à l’empêcher de partager davantage de sagesse sur la Chine :
« La Russie se trouve actuellement dans une situation très, très difficile. Ils sont écrasés par la Chine. »
Après ces remarques, Poutine et Xi ont passé le reste de l’année 2021 à essayer de désabuser Biden de la « pression chinoise » sur la Russie : il ne s’agissait pas d’une pression, mais d’une étreinte fraternelle. Cet effort mutuel a abouti à un sommet virtuel Xi-Poutine le 15 décembre de la même année.
La vidéo de la première minute de leur conversation a été reprise par le New York Times, ainsi que par d’autres. Pourtant, la plupart des commentateurs semblent ne pas en saisir l’importance :
Poutine :
« Cher ami, cher président Xi Jinping.
En février prochain, j’espère que nous pourrons enfin nous rencontrer en personne à Pékin, comme nous l’avons convenu. Nous aurons des entretiens puis participerons à la cérémonie d’ouverture des Jeux olympiques d’hiver. Je suis reconnaissant de votre invitation à assister à cet événement marquant.
XI :
« Cher président Poutine, mon vieil ami. J’ai le plaisir de vous rencontrer à la fin de cette année par vidéo, pour la deuxième fois cette année, lors de notre 37e réunion depuis 2013. Vous avez salué … les relations sino-russes comme un modèle de collaboration internationale au 21e siècle, soutenant fermement la position de la Chine. sur la sauvegarde de ses intérêts fondamentaux et fermement opposé aux tentatives visant à creuser un fossé entre nos deux pays. Je l’apprécie beaucoup.
Biden l’ignore-t-il toujours ? Ses conseillers lui ont-ils dit que la Russie et la Chine n’ont jamais été aussi proches, dans ce qui s’apparente à une alliance militaire virtuelle ?
L’élection
Poutine a déclaré qu’il était conscient que la politique de Washington à l’égard de la Russie « est principalement influencée par les processus politiques nationaux ». La Russie et la Chine estiment certainement que la politique de Biden à l’égard de l’Ukraine sera influencée par l’impératif politique de vouloir faire face à la Russie.
Si les têtes brûlées des pays de l’OTAN envoient des « formateurs » en Ukraine, la perspective d’un conflit militaire est toujours présente. Ce que Biden doit savoir, c’est que s’il s’agit d’ouvrir les hostilités entre la Russie et l’Occident, il risque de faire face à plus que de simples coups de sabre dans la mer de Chine méridionale – et au spectre d’une guerre sur deux fronts.
Les Chinois savent qu’ils sont les prochains sur la liste pour les ministères de l’OTAN/Est. En effet, ce n’est un secret pour personne que le Pentagone considère la Chine comme l’ennemi n°1. Selon la stratégie de défense nationale du ministère de la Défense, « les priorités de défense sont d’abord la défense de la patrie, au rythme de la menace multi-domaines croissante posée par la République populaire de Chine ». .»
Le Pentagone sera le dernier à chanter un requiem pour le monde unipolaire aujourd’hui disparu. Que la raison prévale.
Le premier portefeuille de Ray McGovern en tant que C.I.A. L’analyste était les relations sino-soviétiques. En 1963, leur commerce total s’élevait à 220 MILLIONS de dollars ; en 2023, 227 MILLIARDS DE DOLLARS. Faire le calcul.
Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping and their teams meeting in Beijing on Thursday. (Konstantin Zavrazhin, Kremlin)
Chinese President Xi Jinping’s extremely warm reception of President Vladimir Putin yesterday in Beijing sealed the increasingly formidable Russia-China strategic relationship. It amounts to a tectonic shift in the world balance of power.
The Russia-China entente also sounds the death knell for attempts by U.S. foreign policy neophytes to drive a wedge between the two countries. The triangular relationship has become two-against-one, with serious implications, particularly for the war in Ukraine. If U.S. President Joe Biden’s foreign policy geniuses remain in denial, escalation is almost certain.
In a pre-visit interview with Xinhua, Putin noted the “unprecedented level of strategic partnership between our countries.” He and Xi have met more than 40 times in person or virtually. In June 2018, Xi described Putin as “an old friend of the Chinese people” and, personally, his “best friend.”
For his part, Putin noted Thursday that he and Xi are “in constant contact to keep personal control over all pressing issues on the Russian-Chinese and international agenda.” Putin brought along Defense Minister Andrey Belousov as well as veterans like Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and key business leaders.
Joint Statements Matter
Xi and Putin signed a strong joint statement Thursday, similar to the extraordinary one the two issued on Feb. 4, 2022, in Beijing. It portrayed their relationship as “superior to political and military alliances of the Cold War era. Friendship between the two States has no limits, there are no ‘forbidden’ areas of cooperation …”
The full import of that statement did not hit home until Putin launched the Special Military Operation into the Donbass three weeks later. China’s muted reaction shocked most analysts, who had dismissed the possibility that Xi would give “best friend” Putin, in effect, a waiver on China’s bedrock policy of non-interference abroad.
In the following weeks, official Chinese statements made clear that the principles of Westphalia had taken a back seat to “the need for every country to defend its core interests” and to judge each situation “on its own merits.”
Nuclear War
Thursday’s statement expressed concern over “increased strategic risks between nuclear powers” — referring to continued escalation of the war between NATO-supported Ukraine and Russia. It condemns “the expansion of military alliances and creation of military bridgeheads close to the borders of other nuclear powers, particularly with the advanced deployment of nuclear weapons and their means of delivery, as well as other items.”
Putin has undoubtedly briefed Xi on the U.S. missile sites already in Romania and Poland that can launch what Russians call “offensive strike missiles” with flight time to Moscow of less than 10 minutes. Putin surely has told Xi about the inconsistencies in U.S. statements regarding intermediate-range nuclear missiles.
For example, Xi is aware — just as surely as consumers of Western media are unaware — that during a Dec. 30, 2021, telephone conversation, Biden assured Putin that “Washington had no intention of deploying offensive strike weapons in Ukraine.”
There was rejoicing in the Kremlin that New Years’ Eve, since Biden’s assurance was the first sign that Washington might acknowledge Russia’s security concerns. Indeed, Biden addressed a key issue in at least five of the eight articles of the Russian draft treaty given to the U.S. on Dec. 17, 2021. Russian rejoicing, however, was short-lived.
Foreign Minister Lavrov revealed last month that when he met Antony Blinken in Geneva in January 2022, the U.S. secretary of state pretended he’d not heard of Biden’s undertaking to Putin on Dec. 30, 2021. Rather, Blinken insisted that U.S. medium-range missiles could be deployed in Ukraine, and only that the U.S. might be willing to limit their number, Lavrov said.
The Mother of All Miscalculations
When Biden took office in 2021, his advisers assured him that he could play on Russia’s fear (sic) of China and drive a wedge between them. This became embarrassingly clear when Biden indicated what he had told Putin during their Geneva summit on June 16, 2021.
That meeting gave Putin confirmation that Biden and his advisers were stuck in a woefully outdated appraisal of Russia-China relations.
Here is the bizarre way Biden described his approach to Putin on China:
“Without quoting him [Putin] — which I don’t think is appropriate — let me ask a rhetorical question: You got a multi-thousand-mile border with China. China is seeking to be the most powerful economy in the world and the largest and the most powerful military in the world.”
The ‘Squeeze’
At the airport after the summit, Biden’s aides did their best to whisk him onto the plane, but failed to stop him from sharing more wisdom on China:
“Russia is in a very, very difficult spot right now. They are being squeezed by China.”
After these remarks Putin and Xi spent the rest of 2021 trying to disabuse Biden of the “China squeeze” on Russia: it was not a squeeze, but a fraternal embrace. This mutual effort culminated in a Xi-Putin virtual summit on Dec. 15 of that year.
The video of the first minute of their conversation was picked up by The New York Times, as well as others. Still, most commentators seemed to miss its significance:
Putin:
“Dear friend, dear President Xi Jinping.
Next February I expect we can finally meet in person in Beijing as we agreed. We will hold talks and then participate in the opening ceremony of the Winter Olympic Games. I am grateful for your invitation to attend this landmark event.”
Xi:
“Dear President Putin, my old friend. It’s my pleasure to meet you at the end of this year by video, the second time this year, our 37th meeting since 2013. You have hailed … China-Russia relations as a model in international collaboration in the 21st Century, strongly supporting China’s position on safeguarding its core interests, and firmly opposed to attempts to drive a wedge between our two countries. I highly appreciate it.”
Is Biden still unaware of this? Have his advisers told him that Russia and China have never been closer, with what amounts to a virtual military alliance?
The Election
Putin has said he is aware that Washington’s policy toward Russia “is primarily impacted by domestic political processes.” Russia and China certainly assess that Biden’s policy on Ukraine will be influenced by the political imperative to be seen as facing Russia down.
If NATO country hotheads send “trainers” to Ukraine, the prospect of a military dust-up is ever present. What Biden needs to know is that, if it comes to open hostilities between Russia and the West, he is likely to face more than just saber rattling in the South China Sea — and the specter of a two-front war.
The Chinese know they are next in line for the ministrations of NATO/East. Indeed, it is no secret that the Pentagon sees China as enemy No. 1. According to the DOD’s National Defense Strategy, “defense priorities are first, defending the homeland, paced to the growing multi-domain threat posed by the People’s Republic of China.”
The Pentagon will be the last to sing a requiem for the dearly departed unipolar world. May sanity prevail.
Ray McGovern’s first portfolio as a C.I.A. analyst was Sino-Soviet relations. In 1963, their total trade was $220 MILLION; in 2023, $227 BILLION. Do the math.
The NATOstan lackeys will remain dazed and confused. So what; lackeys lack strategic depth, they just wallow in the shallow waters of irrelevancy.
Startling mirror images swirl around two major developments this week directly inbuilt in the Grand Narrative that shapes my latest book, Eurasia v. NATOstan, recently published in the U.S.: Xi Jinping’s visit to Paris and the inauguration of Vladimir Putin’s new term in Moscow.
Inevitably, this is a contrasting tale of Sovereigns – the comprehensive Russia-China strategic partnership – and lackeys: the NATOstan/EU vassals.
Xi, the quintessential hermetic guest, is quite sharp at reading a table – and we’re not talking about Gallic gastronomic finesse. The minute he sat at the Paris table he got the Big Picture. This was not a tete-a-tete with Le Petit Roi, Emmanuel Macron. This was a threesome because Toxic Medusa Ursula von der Leyen, more appropriately defined as Pustula von der Lugen, had inserted herself in the plot.
Nothing was lost in translation for Xi: this was graphic illustration that Le Petit Roi, the leader of a third-rate former Western colonial power, enjoys zero “strategic autonomy”. The decisions that matter come from the Kafkaesque Eurocracy of the European Commission (EC), led by his Nanny, the Medusa, and directly relayed by the Hegemon.
Le Petit Roi spent the whole of Xi’s Gallic time babbling like an infant on Putin’s “destabilizations” and trying to “engage China, which objectively enjoys sufficient levers to change Moscow’s calculus in its war in Ukraine”.
Obviously no pubescent adviser at the Elysee Palace – and there’s quite a crowd – dared to break the news to Le Petit Roi about the strength, depth and reach of the Russia-China strategic partnership.
So it was up to his Nanny to volunteer out loud the fine print on the “Monsieur Xi comes to France” adventure.
Faithfully parroting Treasure Secretary Janet Yellen in her recent, disastrous Beijing incursion, the Nanny directly threatened the superpowered hermetic guest: you are exceeding in “over-capacity”, you are over-producing; and if you don’t stop it, we will sanction you to death.
So much for European “strategic autonomy”. Moreover, it’s idle to dwell on what can only be described as suicidal stupidity.
Steadfastly defending a debacle
Now let’s switch to what really matters: the chain of events leading to Putin’s lavish fifth inauguration at the Kremlin.
We start with the chief of GRU (main intelligence department) of the General Staff of the Russian Armed Forces, Admiral Igor Kostyukov.
Kostyukov, on the record, actually re-confirmed that right on the eve of the Special Military Operation (SMO), in February 2022, the West was ready to inflict a “strategic defeat” on Russia in Donbass, just as before the Great Patriotic War (Victory Day, incidentally, is celebrated this Thursday not only in Russia but also across the post-Soviet space).
Then the ambassadors of Britain and France were called at the Russian Foreign Ministry. They spent roughly half an hour each, separately, and left without addressing the media. There were no leaks about the reasons for both visits.
Yet that was more than obvious. The Foreign Ministry handed the Brits a serious note in response to David “of Arabia” Cameron’s babbling about using British long-range missiles to attack the territory of the Russian Federation. And to the French, another serious note on Le Petit Roi’s babbling about sending French troops to Ukraine.
Immediately after this compounded NATO babbling, the Russian Federation started drills on the use of tactical nuclear weapons.
So what started as a NATO verbal escalation was counterpunched not only with stern messages but also an extra, clear, stern warning: Moscow will regard any F-16 entering Ukraine as a potential carrier of nuclear weapons – regardless of its specific design. F-16s in Ukraine will be treated as a clear and present danger.
And there’s more: Moscow will respond with symmetric measures if Washington deploys any ground-based intermediate-range nuclear missiles (INF) in Ukraine – or elsewhere. There will be a counterpunch.
All that happened within the framework of astonishing Ukrainian losses in the battlefield over the past two months or so. The only parallels are with the 1980s Iran-Iraq war and the first Gulf War. Kiev, between dead, wounded and missing, may be losing as many as 10,000 soldiers a week: the equivalent of three divisions, 9 brigades or 30 battalions.
No compulsory mobilization, whatever its reach, can counter such debacle. And the much-advertised Russian offensive has not even started yet.
There’s no way the current U.S. administration led by a cadaver in the White House, in an electoral year, is going to send troops to a war that from the beginning was scripted to be fought to the last Ukrainian. And there’s no way NATO will officially send troops to this proxy war, because they will be minced into steak tartare in a matter of hours.
Any serious military analyst knows NATO has less than zero capability to transfer significant forces and assets to Ukraine – no matter the current, grandiloquent Steadfast Defender “exercises” coupled with Macron’s mini-Napoleon rhetoric.
So it’s Ouroboros all over again, the snake biting its own sorry tail: there was never a Plan B to the proxy war. And at the current configuration in the battlefield, plus possible outcomes, we’re back to what everyone from Putin to Nebenzya at the UN have been saying: it’s over only when we say it’s over. The only thing to negotiate is the modality of surrendering.
And of course there will be no sniffin’ sweaty sweatshirt cabal in place in Kiev: Zelensky is already a “Wanted” entity in Russia, and in a few days, from a legal standpoint, his government will be totally illegitimate.
Russia aligns with the world majority
Moscow has to be fully aware that serious threats remain: what NATOstan wants is to test the strategic capability of hitting Russian military, manufacturing or energy installations deep within the Russian Federation. This could be easily interpreted as a last shot of bourbon at the counter before the 404 saloon goes down in flames.
After all, Moscow’s response will have to be devastating, as already communicated by Medvedev Unplugged: “None of them will be able to hide either on Capitol Hill, or in the Elysee Palace, or on Downing Street 10. A world catastrophe will happen.”
Putin, at the inauguration, was cool, calm and collected, unfazed by all the hysterical incandescence across the NATOstan sphere.
These are his main takeaways:
Russia and only Russia will determine its own fate.
Russia will pass through this difficult, milestone period with dignity and become even stronger, it must be self-sufficient and competitive.
The key priority for Russia is safeguarding the people, preserving its age-old values and traditions.
Russia is ready to strengthen good relations with all countries, and with the world majority.
Russia will continue to work with its partners on the formation of a multipolar world order.
Russia does not reject dialog with the West, it is ready for dialog on security and strategic stability, but only on an equal footing.
All that is supremely rational. The problem is the other side is supremely irrational.
Still, a new Russian government will be in place in a matter of days. The new Prime Minister will be appointed by the President after the Duma approves the candidacy.
The new head of the Cabinet must propose to the President and the Duma candidates for deputy prime ministers and ministers – except for the heads of the security bloc and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
The heads of the Ministry of Defense, FSB, Ministry of Internal Affairs, Ministry of Justice, Ministry of Emergency Situations and Ministry of Foreign Affairs will be appointed by the President after consultations with the Federation Council.
All ministerial candidacies will be submitted and considered before May 15.
And all that will happen before the key meeting: Putin and Xi face to face in Beijing on May 17. Everything will be in play – and on the table. Then a new era starts – outlining the path towards the BRICS+ summit next October in Kazan, and the subsequent multipolar moves.
The NATOstan lackeys will remain dazed, confused – and hysterical. So what; lackeys lack strategic depth, they just wallow in the shallow waters of irrelevancy.
Turning Point: The Bomb and the Cold War, the new series on Netflix by Brian Knappenberger, is a documentary about the Cold War and the current US conflict with Russia.
“With firsthand accounts and access to prominent figures around the world, this comprehensive docuseries explores the Cold War and its aftermath,” reads Netflix’s breathless promotional blurb.
The mushroom cloud from the world’s first test of a thermonuclear device, dubbed Ivy Mike, over Enewetak Atoll in the Marshall Islands on November 1, 1952. [AP Photo/Los Alamos National Laboratory]
The documentary’s trailer features chilling excerpts from interviews with such figures as whistleblower Daniel Ellsberg, who released the Pentagon Papers, Garrett M. Graff, author of Raven Rock: The Story of the U.S. Government’s Secret Plan to Save Itself–While the Rest of Us Die (2017), a book about the United States’ secret nuclear war plans, and historian Timothy Naftali, who revealed American government collaboration with leading German Nazis after World War II.
As the series progresses, however, historians and critics of US foreign policy are replaced by some—for lack of a better phrase—of the world’s leading war criminals, including former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, one of the architects of the Iraq War, and Robert Gates, who, as Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) director, presided over the Iran-Contra scandal and later served as Secretary of Defense.
Condoleezza Rice in Turning Point: The Bomb and the Cold War
It gradually emerges that this “monumental” documentary is, in fact, an equally monumental exercise in the dissemination of US militarist propaganda. Its disclosures about Washington’s foreign policy crimes serve primarily to give credence to its central purpose of agitating for world war against Russia.
In the course of the documentary, Michael McFaul, former US ambassador to Russia and a leading proponent of the Ukraine bloodbath, offers a comment that sums up in microcosm the documentary’s overall approach.
“I would say very openly: Has the CIA been involved in coups? The answer to that is, yes, of course. The 1953 Iranian coup against Mossadegh. There are lots of examples of that. To the best of my knowledge, the CIA was not doing that in Ukraine in 2004, or Russia in 2011. Or in Ukraine in 2013 and 2014.”
This comment, presented without comment or criticism, combines an undeniable truth with an absurd lie. It is, of course, well-known that the CIA was the leading force behind the overthrow of the Iranian government of Mohammad Mosaddegh in 1953.
It is equally true, however, that, in the words of a recent New York Times article, “a decade ago … The C.I.A. and other American intelligence agencies” initiated a “partnership” that “transformed Ukraine … into one of Washington’s most important intelligence partners against the Kremlin today.” In English, this is called a coup.
McFaul’s amalgam of embarrassing truth with bald-faced lies is the modus operandi of the series. It freely discusses the crimes of American imperialism, provided they took place years ago, while excluding anything but benevolent and altruistic motives and exemplary conduct in current US foreign policy.
This approach, which involves both selective admissions and falsifications, means that the series resides in a sort of parallel universe to Knappenberger’s previous documentary, Turning Point: 9/11 and the War on Terror.
Brian Knappenberger
The villains who funded and armed Osama bin Laden and launched the disastrous and murderous invasion of Iraq based on the doctrine of “preemptive war” in the previous series become the heroes of the “struggle for democracy” in the new one, without any attempt to explain the change in casting.
Substantive revelations
With that said, the admissions the series does make are significant and valuable.
The first episode includes a horrific depiction of the effects of the dropping of the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and a frank reference to the fact that the decision to use them was aimed at sending a message to the Soviet Union that any further military advances into Eastern Europe and China would be met with overwhelming American military force. “Some would say [it was a] war crime,” declares one historian in the first episode.
The episode includes a detailed and harrowing account of the displacement of Japanese Americans during World War II in a climate of state-promoted anti-Japanese racism.
The second episode—drawing heavily on an interview with Ellsberg—reveals that during the Cold War human civilization came far closer to total destruction during the Cuban Missile Crisis than had been publicly known. Ellsberg explains that not only did the US president have the authority to wipe out humankind, but a large number of other military officials did as well. Dr. Strangelove was a “documentary,” not a work of fiction, Ellsberg observes.
Peter Sellers as Dr. Strangelove
In the third episode, the viewer is presented with a litany of CIA crimes during the Cold War, including coups all over the world, the promotion of disinformation and the control of the press. One historian notes:
The early CIA, from the late 1940s into the 1960s, had hundreds of influence operations where they purchased the favor of a newspaper editor in places like Cairo, Tokyo, or Berlin. There were a handful, some say more than a handful, of American journalists who were paid by the CIA or cooperated with the CIA free of charge.
From documentary to propaganda
However, as noted above, after these initial episodes, the series ceases to resemble a documentary in any meaningful fashion and becomes an extended piece of propaganda.
Anne Applebaum with husband
New faces and voices appear, including those of Anne Applebaum and a shockingly broad array of prime ministers and leading officials from the US and its NATO allies. The stench of CIA/State Department propaganda, which co-producer Alexandra Poolos peddled covering the Balkans for Radio Free Europe, becomes overwhelming.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in Turning Point: The Bomb and the Cold War
The final episodes are turned almost directly over to Rice, National Security Advisor and later Secretary of State under George W. Bush, and Gates, Defense Secretary under both the younger Bush and Barack Obama.
The documentary’s premise
The second half of Turning Point: The Bomb and the Cold War revolves around the assertion that the present war in Ukraine is a seamless continuation of the conflict between the US and the Soviet Union.
In an interview, Knappenberger explains,
The basic premise is the Cold War is not over, and never was over. We still live with some of those same tensions of the Cold War. We just keep telling those events up to the invasion of Ukraine, which has all of the same tactics and all the same tensions as the rest of the Cold War. That’s the main thing we do that hasn’t been done. The collapse of the Soviet Union is just one part of this story.
The Oxford English Dictionary defines the Cold War as “the state of political hostility that existed between the Soviet bloc countries and the US-led Western powers from 1945 to 1990.”
Knappenberger’s documentary, in the form of interviews with leading state figures, attempts to redefine that definition, arguing that the Cold War never ended. While nationalized property may have been privatized with the end of the USSR, both the Soviet Union and the present-day Russian Federation are essentially one, in that both are “empires.”
The US meanwhile, standing for the ideals of freedom and self-determination, has opposed “imperialism”—both in its Soviet and Russian varieties.
This thesis is crude, stupid and reactionary, but the producers have managed to craft a 12-hour series, involving over a hundred interviewees, some highly distinguished and knowledgeable, around it.
In fact, the basic thesis of the documentary is refuted by Ellsberg in the third episode. He declares:
The Russian army had been enormously overestimated. The Russians were not on a crash program to build missiles, which the people around me all took for granted that they were and were not superior. We’re not trying to be superior, which meant that they were not trying for a first strike capability against the US, which in turn really meant they weren’t trying to dominate the world militarily, that discovery should have led to a rethinking of our whole paradigm, their whole world perspective as to who we were confronting and what their aims were, and how we don’t put them, but it didn’t at all.
The narrative of the permanent “evil empire” is not a mere fiction, but a direct inversion of reality. American capitalism, and not the Soviet Union or the post-Soviet Russian state, is an “empire” bent on subjugating the world.
Revelations by omission
If there is one image associated with the dangers and horror of nuclear war firmly etched in the consciousness of certain generations of Americans, it is the 60-second 1964 campaign ad by Lyndon B. Johnson, known as the “Daisy” ad. It depicts a little girl counting as she plucks the petals from a daisy, followed by a nuclear countdown and footage of an atomic explosion.
Yet, seemingly inexplicably, Turning Point: The Bomb and the Cold War, in its 12 hours, could not find space to include this 60-second clip. Why?
The omission is not an oversight. Including the famous campaign ad would require an explanation of the bitter factional divisions within the American state over nuclear war with the Soviet Union: an examination that the documentary strenuously refuses to undertake.
The “Daisy” ad targeted Republican presidential candidate Barry Goldwater, author of Why Not Victory?, which argued that the US was insufficiently aggressive in confronting the Soviet Union because the American population was too fearful of nuclear war.
In fact, Goldwater’s name is not mentioned in the mini-series.
“A craven fear of death is entering the American consciousness,” the Arizona Republican wrote, “We want to stay alive, of course; but more than that we want to be free.”
Democratic Party candidate Johnson countered Goldwater’s slogan, “In your heart, you know he’s right,” with the rhyme, “In your heart, you know he might”—implying that Goldwater might bring about the end of the world by using nuclear weapons.
Commenting on Goldwater’s campaign in his well-known essay “The Paranoid Style in American Politics,” American political theorist Richard Hofstadter noted that what had “become clear by 1964, and what could not be undone in the campaign, was the public impression that Goldwater’s imagination had never confronted the implications of thermonuclear war.” The Republican candidate, Hofstadter wrote, “seemed strangely casual about the prospect of total destruction.”
At the time, Johnson, and with him dominant sections of the US political establishment, rejected Goldwater as a quasi-lunatic, willing to destroy the planet in a monomaniacal quest to vanquish the Soviet Union.
Beginning in the late 1970s and 1980s, however, the policy of “containment” relative to the Soviet Union was replaced with that of “rollback.” Washington initiated a massive nuclear arms buildup, coupled with the funneling of arms to proxy forces such as the Mujahideen, led by Osama Bin Laden in Afghanistan, and the Contras in Nicaragua.
In the face of overwhelming military and political pressure from American imperialism, the Soviet Stalinist bureaucracy made the decision to liquidate the USSR and funneled the wealth of state-owned industry into its own pockets, as well as the pockets of its imperialist paymasters.
The dissolution of the Soviet Union has led to the eruption of an orgy of imperialist violence, from the Gulf War to the bombing of the former Yugoslavia, to the invasion of Iraq and Afghanistan within the framework of the “war on terror.”
In this period, the political forces arguing for the most aggressive actions with regard to the Soviet Union during the Cold War came to dominate US foreign policy. The doctrine of American imperialism was summed up in a 1991 editorial statement in the Wall Street Journal: “force works.”
Robert Gates in Turning Point: The Bomb and the Cold War
Which leads us to the featured interviewees in the last two episodes of Turning Point: The Bomb and the Cold War: Rice and Gates.
These two imperialist bandits, who between them oversaw the plotting of aggressive war and countless terrorist attacks, and who devised or approved shockingly sadistic forms of torture, make use of the extended platform to offer pearl-clutching monologues about their horror and dismay at the audacity of Vladimir Putin to oppose the American military.
However, in fact, the pair fit seamlessly into the documentary, alongside the dozens of other interviewees, mostly Democrats, in an almost uniform monoculture of military and diplomatic strategy.
The overall tenor of opinion in the second half of the series finds appropriate expression in a social media post from Kaja Kallas, Estonian prime minister, announcing the series:
The new @netflix series about the Cold War is out. I explain based on Estonia’s and my family’s history why we can’t let Russian aggression pay off in Ukraine. If we fail, we’ll wake up in a more dangerous world. Weakness provokes aggressors, not strength.
This view is summed up with somewhat greater sophistication in the concluding episode by Mary Sarotte, of the Henry A. Kissinger Center for Global Affairs, who declares:
How do we stand up to what Putin is doing and defend our values despite the risk of nuclear catastrophe? That is an immense challenge. Fortunately, we have the history of the Cold War, to help us to guide us because we’re going to need what we learned during the cold war again. So we need to find a way even in full consciousness of the risk of nuclear escalation to stand up for values, to stand up for what is right in the face of evil.
The basic conception is that the United States, by abandoning all restraints on nuclear rearmament, by arming terrorists like Bin Laden and the Contras, and by being willing to tolerate nuclear annihilation, “won” the Cold War.
According to this reckless doctrine, the winner in the game of nuclear war is the one willing to risk the most. The conclusion of the 1983 film WarGames, “the only way to win is not to play at all,” becomes, “the only way to win is to be willing to die.”
American imperialism’s “victory” in the Cold War is to be repeated on an even greater scale through forcing the breakup of Russia, a country in possession of the world’s second-largest nuclear arsenal.
Goldwater’s disciples, once the “lunatic fringe” of American politics, practitioners of the “paranoid style,” now encompass nearly the totality of official American military and strategic thought, from the “neo-conservative” Rice, to the former Goldwater Republican turned Democratic warmonger-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton
The constant invocations of the power of military violence to solve all problems, the declaration that caution is tantamount to treason, are expressions of deep and irremediable crisis.
“His rash fierce blaze of riot cannot last, / For violent fires soon burn out themselves,” Shakespeare’s John of Gaunt observes of Richard II.
The late 1890s were a time of acute social and economic upheaval in China. Foreign governments dramatically increased their economic penetration and influence in China during this period, and the Chinese suffered an embarrassing military defeat at the hands of Japan in a war that began in the summer 1894. Catastrophic floods of the Yellow River in the final years of the century devastated thousands of square miles and directly caused hundreds of thousands of deaths. Famine and disease followed in the wake of the floods, driving massive movements of people and leaving millions of peasants in the north of the country in conditions of extreme poverty. Amidst these overlapping crises, “1898 was a good year for the Christians,” and the missionaries added “a new threat to peasant well-being.”[1]That year also saw the political turbulence of the Hundred Days of Reform and its aftermath, in particular the coup d’état that made Empress Dowager Cixi the head of the Qing government.
It is within this context that the Boxer Uprising materializes. While the general circumstances surrounding the Uprising have become a familiar story to many in the United States, it is nonetheless poorly understood, our accounts shaped by Western chauvinism and the old, embarrassed desire to rationalize the brutality of the West’s efforts to “civilize” benighted foreigners. A popular romanization of the movement’s actual name is Yi-he quan, which has been translated as “righteous and harmonious fists.”[2] But the group was “dismissively known by members of the Western embassies”[3] in Beijing as the Boxers, owing to ritualistic martial arts practices to which confused westerners referred as “Chinese boxing.” As historian and China expert Joseph W. Esherick observes, the “boxing” of the Yi-he quan movement “was really a set of invulnerability rituals—to protect them from the powerful new weapons of the West.” Professor Esherick observes that even the popular name “Boxer Rebellion” is a misnomer pointing to a degree of historical misunderstanding, as the Boxers were never actively rebelling against the Qing dynasty and its Manchu ruling class.[4] As a matter of fact, the Boxers had expressed support of the Qing and had always made it explicit that theirs was a struggle against foreign influence generally and the Christian missionary presence in particular. The Qing dynasty likewise expressed its support for the boxers in 1900 as the Eight-Nation Alliance moved toward the capital, as discussed below.
At the time of a serious economic crisis, the Boxers observed the clear connection between burgeoning Christianity, propelled by ever-bolder missionary leaders, and the growing power of Western governments in their country. Just as many of the most important and sacred temples were being repurposed as churches by the Christian missionaries, so was much of China’s wealth being expropriated by the foreign powers. Their history and culture were being destroyed before their eyes while millions of Chinese sank into lower and lower states of poverty and need. Unlike many contemporary accounts, “[t]he classic works on modern China” correctly “stressed the crucial role of Western and Japanese imperialism” in reducing China to the crisis state of social and economic breakdown the country witnessed during the first half of the twentieth century.[5] The Boxer Uprising is among the most important events for developing an understanding of several related phenomena that continue to shape the world of today; it is one of the major immediate preludes to the decades-long conflict between the Kuomintang and the Chinese Communist Party, and it helps to explain current relations between China and the West, particularly the foreign policy of the United States as today’s dominant imperial power.
Through a combination of military pressure and economic coercion, the major powers of Europe had acquired strategically important pieces of territory and broad concessions of authority that allowed them power over tariffs and trade and supplanted local governments and laws in much of the country on important issues. Such grants of privilege to foreign governments, accomplished through a series of humiliating unequal treaties, had become a source of controversy, rightly resented by the Chinese population. The governments of the United Kingdom and France, for example, held some concessions in China for almost one-hundred years.
The Boxers were a genuinely decentralized, bottom-up, people’s uprising against a destructive, extractive economic system foisted upon Chinese people from without—a system that could not have been erected or maintained without war. The Boxers understood the connection between economic extraction and imperialistic wars better than most people do today, because they lived and observed that connection and its material consequences. Today’s war hawks and imperialists follow directly from the government elites of the major European powers of the nineteenth century and the turn of the century in pretending that there is an equivalence between high notions of free trade and gunboat diplomacy. The elites of the capitalist West believed it their clear and unquestionable prerogative to “open China,” and this they did through force, the language of “free trade” notwithstanding.
The Uprising’s crescendo was the Boxers’ siege of the international legations. Founded after China’s defeat in the Second Opium War, the Legation Quarter was an area of the capital city that was the prime real estate home to the diplomats of the foreign powers. The siege lasted almost two months during the summer of 1900, until the Boxers were overcome by the Eight Nation Alliance of Germany, Japan, Russia, Britain, France, the United States, Italy, and Austria-Hungary. The Eight Nation Alliance’s attacks on the Taku Forts in June of 1900 had led to the Qing government’s decision to support the Boxers in the fighting that took place at the legations. It is noteworthy that there was no formal declaration of war against China. Among the Eight-Nation Alliance, Japan committed far and away the largest number of troops, with over 20,000 of its soldiers descending upon the Chinese capital. Of the soldiers the British sent to the war, thousands were unwilling conscripts from India, forced at the point of a gun to a faraway war in which they held no stake. In the brutal aftermath of the Alliance’s victory at the capital city, suspected boxers were tortured and killed, often publicly decapitated. The Alliance’s looting remains legendary. An estimated 80% of Beijing’s cultural objects were either looted or destroyed. Missionaries, too, knew an opportunity to loot when they saw it, demanding indemnity payments for losses incurred during the Uprising; the payment amounts and terms reflected the power of the missionaries—they were new unequal treaties intended to punish local populations. They took whatever they could, reaping a massive windfall from the proceeds of the stolen booty. The excesses of one well-known missionary, William Scott Ament, made headlines back in the United States, particularly after Mark Twain entered the fray.
Published in the February 1901 issue of the North American Review, Twain’s satirical essay “To the Person Sitting in Darkness” addressed the controversy of the church engaging in the exploitative looting of China. In it, Twain skewered the ideological foundations of imperialism with characteristic trenchance, addressing the aftermath of the Boxer Uprising, and in particular the actions of Ament. A Congregationalist minister, Ament had left for China on a missionary effort shortly after his ordination in the fall of 1877. In China, Ament was the “ideal missionary,”[6] an able preacher in Mandarin Chinese who became one of the most influential missionaries in China. Twain regarded Ament as a moral hypocrite and fraud, and his treatment of the reverend was cuttingly sarcastic:
We all hold [Ament] dear for manfully defending his fellow missionaries from exaggerated charges which were beginning to distress us, but which his testimony has so considerably modified that we can now contemplate them without noticeable pain. For now we know that, even before the siege, the missionaries were not “generally” out looting, and that, “since the siege,” they have acted quite handsomely, except when “circumstances” crowded them. I am arranging for the monument.
Mark Twain was a key figure in the foundation of the American Anti-Imperialist League, becoming one of the organization’s Vice Presidents in 1901. He was a forceful and adamant opponent of war and imperialism and became a “red-hot anti-imperialist.”[7] In 1900, in a piece for the New York Herald, Twain had written of his conversion experience, remarking on his time as a “red-hot imperialist” who “wanted the American eagle to go screaming into the Pacific.” Twain soon came to understand that the mission of the U.S. government in the Philippines was the same old one, a mission not to free, but to subjugate—not to redeem, but to conquer. Twain’s experience reflects that of so many anti-war and anti-empire activists, who have been disabused of their jingoism by a growing awareness of history and respect for their fellow human beings.
In school, many received a boring, whitewashed version of Mark Twain—a humorist of bottomless wit certainly, and comfortably critical of American slavery and racism, but without a more comprehensive anti-authoritarian worldview. Though the ideological underpinnings of his anti-imperialism have been debated, Twain clearly understood a relationship between monopoly capitalism and imperialism.[8] The anti-imperialism that was so important a part of his life and character has been blotted out because it is not a fit with the worldview of a decadent, out-of-touch American ruling class. It is difficult to deny the judgment reached by R. Samarin in the 1950 article “The True Mark Twain,” which argued that America’s culture-makers had presented Twain “to the reading public in a false light,” promoting him as a shallow and “easy-going humorist.” Samarin contends that Twain’s indictments of capitalism and his “attack against the dictatorship of the dollar in American life” were deliberately buried.[9] His work for the League was incredibly important to him, and later in life, the failure of the anti-imperialist movement left Twain with an increasingly pessimistic and “despairing world view.”[10]
The American Anti-Imperialist League was founded in 1898 as a response to the ongoing Spanish-American war. The anti-imperialists’ platform protested against “the subjugation of the weak by the strong,” anticipating today’s critics of empire in resisting a so-called rules-based order that cynically ratifies the arbitrary violence of the hegemonic power. The organization’s members, though extremely diverse in background and ideology, understood well that embarking on a project of global conquest and empire would fundamentally change the character of America’s social, cultural, and political institutions, debasing and corrupting them. History has of course borne out their worries, as an increasingly powerful arms industry and ever-expanding military-industrial complex have neutralized and neutered democratic institutions in favor of a comparatively tiny elite. American society is now bereft of democracy. We have trillions of dollars for war-making while Americans go hungry and unhoused—and, crucially, this was both predictable and predicted by the anti-imperialists of over one-hundred years ago.
Charles Ames, a prominent member of the League and a Unitarian minister, warned that the quest for empire would mean a “trampling on the principles of free government,” making the United States “one more bully among bullies,” “only add[ing] one more to the list of oppressors of mankind.”[11] Ames represents another kind of Christian and man of the cloth, one who understood Jesus as a radical messenger for love and peace in a world racked by a sick, destructive obsession with purity and rules, the kind of ideology that divides people from one another. It is critical to understand the nuanced perspective with which the members of the American Anti-Imperialist League approached this subject: their opposition to war and empire was not only about the rights and freedoms of the people whose countries and cultures were being ravaged, though this was certainly a central aspect of their opposition. Crucially, it was also about the domestic upshots of empire, the politico-economic cementing of a permanent war machine incarnated as a standing army, a permanent military intelligence bureaucracy, and a nominally private war industry, well-connected to finance capital and political decision-makers. It was obvious to late nineteenth century American anti-imperialists that this conflux of organized and centralized incentives held the potential to foreclose the possibility of freedom and people’s government.
The connection between imperialism and racial animus was also always clear to those paying attention. It is impossible to manufacture public support for the conquest of faraway lands and peoples without cultivating the pretense of ethnic and cultural superiority, the idea that the imperial power actually helps the conquered by sharing its more advanced culture. Both President William McKinley and President Theodore Roosevelt attempted to buoy their unpopular war-making by “branding their Filipino foes as little better than ungrateful savages,”[12] just as the American and European press had reported on the Boxers with already-established racist tropes, appealing to scare tactics associated with characterizing Asians as “the Yellow Peril.” As there is today, there was much overlap a century ago between the anti-imperialist movement and activism for equality of rights under the law between racial and ethnic groups.
Moorfield Storey is among the most important figures in the history of the League, serving as its President from 1905 until the final days of the organization in 1921. Storey is more well-known as among the founding members of the NAACP, serving as its first president from the organization’s founding in 1910 until he died in 1929. Storey was a pioneer in the use of targeted, strategic litigation to secure civil rights victories and raise awareness of important civil rights issues (later taken up by the ACLU and others), and he was instrumental in bringing an end to the exclusion of Black Americans from the American Bar Association.[13] He believed that domestic racial violence and domination were intimately connected with a broader way of thinking in which a ruling class formulates an ideology of both economic and ethnic stratification, with a ruling class using ideology to manufacture consent among the middle classes for a profoundly violent and immoral system. In this thinking, he was of course many decades ahead of his time.
Our political and media class, even (perhaps especially) our liberals, harbors a system of belief not so very different from the one held by the turn-of-the-century imperialists against whom Twain railed. They continue to believe, against all available evidence, that we’ve arrived at a kind of end of history, that Washington should, indeed must, project America’s cultural, political, and economic paradigm around the world—as a boon to the world. As the late Palestinian-American scholar and activist Edward Said observed over 20 years ago, this is all predicated on “the theory that imperialism is a benign and necessary thing,” the ability of the oppressor to see itself as “unlike all other empires,” with a mission “not to plunder and control but to educate and liberate.” Notwithstanding its proponents’ pretenses to enlightened liberalism, this is a philosophy that proceeds in direct continuity from the one underpinning the genocide of the peoples the Spanish and English wiped out in the Americas. Today’s colonial enterprises demonstrate that we are not nearly as far from these ideologies of racial hierarchy and extreme violence as we think. Most people in the white, educated West have committed themselves to a vast complex of politics to which they don’t realize they’ve committed themselves. Imperialism and colonialism are fundamentally attempts to define and establish one’s own culture as the foundation of or condition precedent to the cultures of other peoples. Inequality is always at the center of such projects.
But across time, people everywhere have desired self-determination and organized within their communities to resist the subjugation and oppression of foreign rulers. For wanting just what we all want and expect, they have been hatefully slurred as uncivilized, as animals, terrorists, savages, rebels, criminals, and subversives. But they never sought the violent domination of conquering foreign nations looking for resources to plunder. The modern era’s imperial powers have always feigned shock that the peoples they want to steal from and sentence to permanent second-class status in their own homelands are not ready to welcome them with open arms. In the world that is emerging now, a more grounded geopolitical posture will be an absolute imperative for the United States, particularly after the massive loss of respect and legitimacy that will come from the rest of the world now.
We are entering a new moment of global discontent with the arrogance and license of an increasingly brutal imperial order.
Like those who fight for freedom today, the Boxers didn’t need to be taught revolutionary consciousness. They wanted to protect their families, their home, and their way of life. They understood something philosopher Chantelle Gray observed in a recent interview: “Revolution is not something that is this kind of event,” but is rather “something that we practice in the here and now, individually, together, all the time” as “a persistent action towards freedom—towards more freedom.” They understood and lived this intuitively. Twain famously referred to himself as a Boxer and wished the movement success, calling the Boxers patriots. We must learn to see today’s Boxers in the same light.
Notes.
[1] Joseph W. Esherick, The Origins of the Boxer Uprising (University of California Press 1987), page 185.
[2] To avoid confusion, I’ve chosen to refer to the movement as the Boxers here, rather than using their actual name.
[3] David J. Silbey, The Boxer Rebellion and the Great Game in China: A History (Hill and Wang 2012).
[4] Joseph W. Esherick, The Origins of the Boxer Uprising (University of California Press 1987), page xiv.
[5] As against the view, growing in popularity at the time of Esherick’s article in 1972, that “imperialism fostered economic development, progressive Western-style nationalism and institutional modernization.”
[6] Larry Clinton Thompson, William Scott Ament and the Boxer Rebellion: Heroism, Hubris and the “Ideal Missionary”(McFarland & Company 2009), page 2.
[7] Selina Lai-Henderson, Mark Twain in China (2015 Stanford University Press).
[8] John Carlos Rowe, Literary Culture and U.S. Imperialism: From the Revolution to World War II (Oxford University Press 2000), page 134.
[9] James L. Machor, The Mercurial Mark Twain(s): Reception History, Audience Engagement, and Iconic Authorship (Routledge 2023).
[10] Hunt Hawkins. “Mark Twain’s Anti-Imperialism.” American Literary Realism, 1870-1910, vol. 25, no. 2, 1993, pp. 31–45. In 1906, Twain writes, “The woes of the wronged and unfortunate poison my
life and make it so undesirable that pretty often I wish I were 90 instead of 70.”
[11] Stephen Kinzer, The True Flag: Theodore Roosevelt, Mark Twain, and the Birth of American Empire (Henry Holt and Company 2017).
[12] Kenneth Osgood, Andrew K. Frank, Selling War in a Media Age: The Presidency and Public Opinion in the American Century(University Press of Florida 2010).
[13] Paul Finkelman, ed. American Encyclopedia of Civil Liberties: Volume 3, R-Z (Routledge 2018), page 1571.
David S. D’Amato is an attorney, businessman, and independent researcher. He is a Policy Advisor to the Future of Freedom Foundation and a regular opinion contributor to The Hill. His writing has appeared in Forbes, Newsweek, Investor’s Business Daily, RealClearPolitics, The Washington Examiner, and many other publications, both popular and scholarly. His work has been cited by the ACLU and Human Rights Watch, among others.
Many Europeans would opt for making Europe competitive again; making Europe a diplomatic actor, rather than as a military one.
Theodore Postol, Professor of Science, Technology and National Security Policy at MIT, has provided a forensic analysis of the videos and evidence emerging from Iran’s 13th April swarm drone and missile ‘demonstration’ attack into Israel: A ‘message’, rather than an ‘assault’.
The leading Israeli daily, Yediot Ahoronot, has estimated the cost of attempting to down this Iranian flotilla at between $2-3 billion dollars. The implications of this single number are substantial.
Professor Postol writes:
“This indicates that the cost of defending against waves of attacks of this type is very likely to be unsustainable against an adequately armed and determined adversary”.
“The videos show an extremely important fact: All of the targets, whether drones or not, are shot down by air-to-air missiles”, [fired from mostly U.S. aircraft. Some 154 aircraft reportedly were aloft at the time] likely firing AIM-9x Sidewinder air to air missiles. The cost of a single Sidewinder air-to-air missile is about $500,000”.
Furthermore:
“The fact that a very large number of unengaged ballistic missiles could be seen glowing as they reenter the atmosphere to lower altitudes [an indication of hyper-speed], indicates that whatever the effects of [Israel’s] David’s Sling and the Arrow missile defenses, they were not especially effective. Thus, the evidence at this point shows that essentially all or most of the arriving long-range ballistic missiles were not intercepted by any of the Israeli air and missile-defense systems”.
Postel adds,
“I have analyzed the situation, and have concluded that commercially available optical and computational technology is more than capable of being adapted to a cruise missile guidance system to give it very high precision homing capability … it is my conclusion that the Iranians have already developed precision guided cruise missiles and drones”.
“The implications of this are clear. The cost of shooting down cruise missiles and drones will be very high and might well be unsustainable unless extremely inexpensive and effective anti-air systems can be implemented. At this time, no one has demonstrated a cost-effective defense system that can intercept ballistic missiles with any reliability”.
Just to be clear, Postol is saying that neither the U.S. nor Israel has more than a partial defence to a potential attack of this nature – especially as Iran has dispersed and buried its ballistic missile silos across the entire terrain of Iran under the control of autonomous units which are capable of continuing a war, even were central command and communications to be completely lost.
This amounts to paradigm change – clearly for Israel, for one. The huge physical expenditure on air defence ordinance – 2-3 billion dollars worth – will not be repeated willy-nilly by the U.S. Netanyahu will not easily persuade the U.S. to engage with Israel in any joint venture against Iran, given these unsustainable air-defence costs.
But also, as a second important implication, these Air Defence assets are not just expensive in dollar terms, they simply are not there: i.e. the store cupboard is near empty! And the U.S. lacks the manufacturing capacity to replace these not particularly effective, high cost platforms speedily.
‘Yes, Ukraine’ … the Middle East paradigm interlinks directly with the Ukraine paradigm where Russia has succeeded in destroying so much of the western supplied, air-defence capabilities in Ukraine, giving Russia near complete air dominance over the skies.
Positioning scarce air defence ‘to save Israel’ therefore, exposes Ukraine (and slows the U.S. pivot to China, too). And given the recent passage of the funding Bill for Ukraine in Congress, clearly air defence assets are a priority for sending to Kiev – where the West looks increasingly trapped and rummaging for a way out that does not lead to humiliation.
But before leaving the Middle East paradigm shift, the implications for Netanyahu are already evident: He must therefore focus back to the ‘near enemy’ – the Palestinian sphere or to Lebanon – to provide Israel with the ‘Great Victory’ that his government craves.
In short, the ‘cost’ for Biden of saving Israel from the Iranian flotilla which had been pre-announced by Iran to be demonstrative and not destructive nor lethal is that the White House must put-up with the corollary – an attack on Rafah. But this implies a different form of cost – an electoral erosion through exacerbating domestic tensions arising from the on-going blatant slaughter of Palestinians.
It is not just Israel that bears the weight of the Iranian paradigm shift. Consider the Sunni Arab States that have been working in various forms of collaboration (normalisation) with Israel.
In the event of wider conflict embracing Iran, clearly Israel cannot protect them – as Professor Postol so clearly shows. And can they count on the U.S.? The U.S. faces competing demands for its scarce Air Defences and (for now) Ukraine, and the pivot to China, are higher on the White House priority ladder.
In September 2019, the Saudi Abqaiq oil facility was hit by cruise missiles, which Postol notes,
“had an effective accuracy of perhaps a few feet, much more precise than could be achieved with GPS guidance (suggesting an optical and computational guidance system, giving a very precise homing capability)”.
So, after the Iranian active deterrence paradigm shift, and the subsequent Air Defence depletion paradigm shock, the putative coming western paradigm shift (the Third Paradigm) is similarly interlinked with Ukraine.
For the western proxy war with Russia centred on Ukraine has made one thing abundantly clear: this is that the West’s off-shoring of its manufacturing base has left it uncompetitive, both in simple trade terms, and secondly, in limiting western defence manufacturing capacity. It finds (post-13 April) that it does not have the Air Defence assets to go round: ‘saving Israel’; ‘saving Ukraine’ and preparing for war with China.
The western maximalisation of shareholder returns model has not adapted readily to the logistical needs of the present ‘limited’ Ukraine/Russia war, let alone provided positioning for future wars – with Iran and China.
Put plainly, this ‘late stage’ global imperialism has been living a ‘false dawn’: With the economy shifting from manufacturing ‘things’, to the more lucrative sphere of imagining new financial products (such as derivatives) that make a lot of money quickly, but which destabilise society (through increasing disparities of wealth); and which ultimately, de-stabilise the global system itself (as the World Majority states recoil from the loss of sovereignty and autonomy that financialism entails).
More broadly, the global system is close to massive structural change. As the Financial Times warns,
“the U.S. and EU cannot embrace national-security “infant industry” arguments, seize key value chains to narrow inequality, and break the fiscal and monetary ‘rules’, while also using the IMF and World Bank – and the economics profession– to preach free-market best practice to EM ex-China. And China can’t expect others not to copy what it does”. As the FT concludes, “the shift to a new economic paradigm has begun. Where it will end is very much up for grabs.”
‘Up for grabs’: Well, for the FT the answer may be opaque, but for the Global Majority is plain enough – “We’re going back to basics”: A simpler, largely national economy, protected from foreign competition by customs barriers. Call it ‘old- fashioned’ (the concepts have been written about for the last 200 years); yet it is nothing extreme. The notions simply reflect the flip side of the coin to Adam Smith’s doctrines, and that which Friedrich List advanced in his critique of the laissez-faire individualist approach of the Anglo-Americans.
‘European leaders’, however, see the economic paradigm solution differently:
“The ECB’s Panetta gave a speech echoing Mario Draghi’s call for “radical change”: He stated for the EU to thrive it needs a de facto national-security focused POLITICAL economy centered around: reducing dependence on foreign demand; enhancing energy security (green protectionism); advancing production of technology (industrial policy); rethinking participation in global value chains (tariffs/subsidies); governing migration flows (so higher labour costs); enhancing external security (huge funds for defence); and joint investments in European public goods (via Eurobonds … to be bought by ECB QE)”.
The ‘false dawn’ boom in U.S. financial services began as its industrial base was rotting away, and as new wars began to be promoted.
It is easy to see that the U.S. economy now needs structural change. Its real economy has become globally uncompetitive – hence Yellen’s call on China to curb its over-capacity which is hurting western economies.
But is it realistic to think that Europe can manage a relaunch as a ‘defence and national security-led political economy’, as Draghi and Panetta advocate as a continuation of war with Russia? Launched from near ground zero?
Is it realistic to think that the American Security State will allow Europe to do this, having deliberately reduced Europe to economic vassalage through causing it to abandon its prior business model based on cheap energy and selling high-end engineering products to China?
This Draghi-ECB plan represents a huge structural change; one that would take a decade or two to implement and would cost trillions. It would occur too, at a time of inevitable European fiscal austerity. Is there evidence that ordinary Europeans support such radical structural change?
Why then is Europe pursuing a path that embraces huge risks – one that potentially could drag Europe into a whirlpool of tensions ending in war with Russia?
For one main reason: The EU leadership held hubristic ambitions to turn the EU into a ‘geo-political’ empire – a global actor with the heft to join the U.S. at Top Table. To this end, the EU unreservedly offered itself as the auxiliary of the White House Team for their Ukraine project, and acquiesced to the entry price of emptying their armouries and sanctioning the cheap energy on which the economy depended.
It was this decision that has been de-industrialising Europe; that has made what remains of a real economy uncompetitive and triggered the inflation that is undermining living standards. Falling into line with Washington’s failing Ukraine project has released a cascade of disastrous decisions by the EU.
Were this policy line to change, Europe could revert to what it was: a trading association formed of diverse sovereign states. Many Europeans would settle for that: Placing the focus on making Europe competitive again; making Europe a diplomatic actor, rather than as a military actor.
Do Europeans even want to be at the American ‘top table’?
This past weekend, April 20, 2024 the US House of Representatives passed a bill to provide Ukraine with another $61 billion in aid. Then the meassure quickly passed the Senate and was signed into law by Biden within days.
The funds, however, will make little difference to the outcome of the war on the ground as it appears most of the military hardware funded by the $61 billion has already been produced and much of it already shipped. Perhaps no more than $10 billion in additional new weapons and equipment will result from the latest $61 billion passed by Congress .
Subject to revision, initial reports of the composition of the $61 billion indicate $23.2 billion of it will go to pay US arms producers for weapons that have already been produced and delivered to Ukraine. Another $13.8 billion is earmarked to replace weapons from US military stocks that have been produced and are in the process of being shipped—but haven’t as yet—or are additional weapons still to be produced. The breakdown of this latter $13.8 amount is not yet clear in the initial reports. One might generously guess perhaps $10 billion at most represents weapons not yet produced, while $25-$30 billion represents weapons already shipped to Ukraine or in the current shipment pipeline.
In total, therefore, weapons already delivered to Ukraine, awaiting shipment, or yet to be produced amount to approximately $37 billion.
The remainder of the $61 billion includes $7.8 billion for financial assistance to Ukraine to pay for salaries of government employees through 2024. An additional $11.3 billion to finance current Pentagon operations in Ukraine—which sounds suspiciously like pay for US advisors, mercenaries, special ops, and US forces operating equipment like radars, advanced Patriot missile systems, etc. on the ground. Another $4.7 billion is for miscellaneous expenses, whatever that is.
In other words, only $13.8 billion of the $61 billion is for weapons Ukraine doesn’t already have!
And that $13.8 billion is all Ukraine will likely get in new weapons funding for the rest of 2024! Like the $23 billion already in theater, that will likely be burned up in a couple of weeks this summer once Russia’s coming major offensive—its largest of the war—is launched in late May or early June. So what does the US do in order to continue to fund Ukraine’s economy, government and military efforts this fall and thereafter?
In other words, what’s the Biden/NATO strategy for aiding Ukraine, militarily and economically, after the $37 billion is expended by late this summer? Where’s the money to come from?
To understand how the US/NATO plan to fund subsequent weapons production for Ukraine in late 2024 and early 2025, one must consider not only the $61 billion bill but a second bill also passed by Congress this past weekend that hasn’t been given much attention in the mainstream media.
That second bill may potentially provide up to $300 billion for Ukraine from USA and its G7 allies, especially NATO allies in Europe where reportedly $260 of the $300 billion resides in Eurozone banks.
Biden/US Short-Term Strategy 2024
The $61 billion is clearly only a stopgap measure to try to get the Ukraine army and government funded through the summer. Beyond that, the broader Biden strategy is to keep Ukraine afloat until after the US November elections. In addition to the $61 billion—which the US hopes will get Ukraine through the US November election (but likely won’t)—US strategy includes getting the Russians to agree to begin some kind of negotiations. The US will then use the discussions to raise a demand to freeze military operations on both sides while negotiations are underway. But Biden’s ‘freeze and negotiate’ strategy is dead on arrival, since it is abundantly clear to the Russians it is basically about US and NATO ‘buying time’ and Russia has already been played by that one. As the popular US saying goes: “fool me once shame on you; fool me twice shame on me”.
The Russians already fell for that ‘let’s suspend fighting and negotiation ploy’ with the Minsk II treaty back in 2015-16. It agreed to halt military operations in the Donbass back then but NATO and the Ukraine government used the Minsk agreement as cover to re-build Ukraine’s military force which it thereafter used to attack the Donbass provinces. European leaders Angela Merkel of Germany and Francois Holland of France thereafter publicly admitted in 2022 that Minsk II was just to ‘buy time’.
The Russian’s were again similarly snookered at the Istanbul peace discussions held in April 2022. They were asked by NATO to show good faith in negotiations by withdrawing their forces from around Kiev, which they did. Negotiations were then broken off by Zelensky, on NATO’s strong recommendation, and Ukraine launched an offensive chasing the withdrawing Russians all the way back to the Donbass borders.
Russia is therefore extremely unlikely to fall a third time for a Biden/NATO request to ‘freeze’ military operations and negotiate again.
Biden may want to ‘buy time’ once more, but that hand’s been played twice already and the West will be (is being) told by Russia they aren’t interested in buying anything from the West and its ‘money’ no longer has any value.
Speaker Johnson’s Volte Face
The passage of the stop-gap $61 billion for Ukraine by the US House of Representatives was the result of House Speaker, Johnson, doing an about-face and allowing the vote on the House floor after saying he wouldn’t for weeks. There’s been much speculation in the US mainstream media as to why Johnson reversed his position and allowed the Ukraine aid bill to the House floor for a vote. However, it’s not difficult to understand why he did reverse his view.
In recent weeks there was intense lobbying behind the scenes by US weapons companies with key Republican committee chairmen in the House. After all, at least $37 billion in payments for weapons—both already delivered and to be delivered—was involved. Not a minor sum even for super-profitable companies like Lockheed, Raytheon and the like. Rumors are that corporate lobbying had its desired effect on Republican committee chairs in the House, who then in turn pressured Johnson to allow the vote on the floor. The final vote in the House was 310 to 111 with 210 Democrats joining 100 Republicans to pass the measure—revealing that the core support for the US Military Industrial Complex in the House of Representatives is at least three-fourths (the US Senate likely even higher).
So the vote was the result of a ‘parliamentary maneuver’ in which all the Democrats crossed over to support the Republican Speaker of the House (who de factor switched parties for the moment). A minority of Republicans joined him. A slim majority of Republicans opposed the measure. Their opposition remains. Thus it is highly unlikely Congress will appropriate more funding for Ukraine for the rest of this year—even when the $61 billion for weapons and Ukraine’s government run out by this late summer.
So what happens if and when the $61 billion is exhausted well before the November elections?
A possible answer to that question lies in the passage of a second Ukraine funding measure this past weekend. The $61 billion was not the most important legislative action in the US House. While most of the media commentary has been on that Ukraine aid bill, hardly anything has been said in the mainstream media about another bill that the US House also passed over the weekend. This second measure has greater strategic implications for US global interests than the $37 billion in actual weapons shipments for Ukraine. This second measure is HR 8038, a 184-page bill misnamed the ‘21st Century Peace Through Strength Act’ which amounted to yet another package (the 16th?) of US sanctions.
Transferring Russia’s $300 Billion Assets to Ukraine
The first section of the bill arranges a procedure for the US to force the sale of the China company, Tik Tok, to a consortium of US financial investors, reportedly led by former US Treasury Secretary under Trump, Steve Mnuchin. This is part of the expanding list of sanctions on China. Also sanctioned are China’s purchases of Iranian oil, as well as a host of additional sanctions on Iran itself. However, the most significant measure related to sanctions on Russia.
The 21st Century Peace Through Strength Act calls for the US to transfer its $5 billion share of Russia’s $300 billion of seized assets in Western banks that were frozen in 2022 at the outset of the Ukraine war. It provides a procedure to hand over the $5 billion to Ukraine to further finance its war efforts! This move has been rumored and debated in the USA and Europe since the assets were seized two years ago. But now the process of actually transferring the seized funds to Ukraine has begun with the passage of this second bill by the US House.
The USA’s $5 billion share in US banks is just a drop in the bucket of the $300 billion. Russia could probably care less about it, i.e. a mere ‘rounding error’ in its total revenue from the sale of oil, gas and other commodities. But Europe holds $260 of the $300 billion, according to European Central Bank chair, Christine Lagarde. A tidy sum which Russia has threatened to retaliate against Europe should the EU follow the US/Biden lead and also begin to transfer its $260 billion to Ukraine.
The US bill is very clear that the transfer of the US’s $5 billion is imminent. The bill requires the Biden administration to establish a ‘Ukraine Defense Fund’ into which the US’s $5 billion will be deposited. If parts of the $5 billion are not in liquid asset form, the US president is further authorized by the bill to liquidate those assets and deposit the proceeds in the fund as well. So the seizure and transfer of the $5 billion to Ukraine is a done deal. And when it happens a legal precedent will be made that Europe may use to follow and transfer its $260 billion.
One can expect the US to pressure Europe strongly to do so. Biden is further authorized by the bill to ‘negotiate’ with Europe and other G7 partners to convince them to do the same—i.e. seize their share of the $300 billion, liquidate and then transfer the cash assets into the US ‘Ukraine Defense Fund’. And to date the US has been able to ‘convince’ Europe—via its control of NATO and influence over Europe’s economy and its umbrella political elites in the European Commission and European Parliament—to follow US policy without too much resistance. Europe is fast becoming an economic satrapy and political dependency of the USA in recent decades, more than willing to bend in whatever policy direction the USA wants.
It is clear the seizure & redistribution to Ukraine of the $300 billion via the Ukraine Defense Fund is the means by which the US/NATO plan longer term to continue to finance the Ukraine war after the $61 billion runs out sometime in 2024; and certainly in 2025 and beyond. For the US has no intention of ending its NATO-led proxy war in Ukraine anytime soon. It is just seeking to ‘buy time’ in the interim before its November elections.
For a majority of both parties in the US—Democrat and Republican—are united on continuing the war. It will matter little who wins the presidency or which party has majorities in Congress after November. Political elites on both sides of the aisle in Congress are united in pursuing the war in Ukraine—just as they are united in continuing to fund Israel as well as to continue the US’s steadily expanding economic war with China. In just the past week it is obvious more US sanctions on China are also coming soon, including possibly an announcement of financial sanctions on China for the first time after US Secretary of State, Blinken’s, most recent visit.
Failed Russian Sanctions: Past and Future
The geopolitical objectives of the US and its commitment to continuing its three wars are resulting in unintended, negative effects on the economies of the US and its G7 allies, especially Germany. But those same sanctions have had little to no negative impact on Russia’s economy.
The recently passed US transfer of its $5 billion share of Russia’s $300 billion will accelerate the negative consequences, especially for Europe should the latter follow the US lead and distribute its $260 billion share to Ukraine, which it eventually will.
As EBC chairperson, Lagarde, put it referring to the US plan and legislation: “It needs to be carefully considered”. UK political leaders are already on record advocating the confiscation and transfer of Europe’s $260 billion holdings of Russian assets to Ukraine. Europe in recent years has a strong history of capitulating to US economic policies and demands. It will be no different this time.
Should Europe join the USA in transferring its $260 billion share of Russian assets in European banks (most of which is in Belgium), it’s almost certain that Russia will reply similarly and seize at least an equal amount of European assets still in Russia. The Russian Parliament has officially recently said as much.
Part of the G7/NATO sanctions to date included forcing Western businesses in Russia to liquidate and leave Russia. Some have done so. But many have not. Russia’s response has been to arrange the transfer of those EU companies’ assets that have left to Russian companies. This has actually stimulated the Russian economy. It resulted in Russian government subsidies—and thus government spending—to Russian companies assuming the assets, as well as additional investment by those companies after their acquisition of the departed EU companies’ assets.
In short, the Western sanctions measure pressuring Western companies to leave Russia has backfired in its predicted result of reducing Russian government spending and business investment.
In contrast, the US/NATO’s fifteen or so sanctions packages to date have had little, if any, impact on Russia’s economy since the commencing of the war in February 2022. To cite just a few of the performance of Russia’s key economic indicators under the sanctions regime: (Note: all following data is from the US global research source https://tradingeconomics.com):
Russia’s GDP in the latest six months has risen between 4.9% (3rd quarter 2023) to 5.5% (4th quarter). Russia’s PMI statistics show robust expansion for both manufacturing and services during the same period while in most of the major European economies, both PMI indicators are contracting. Wage growth in Russia over the six months has averaged 8.5% for both quarters (whereas in the US is it less than half that and in Germany less than 1%). Russian government revenues rose from roughly 5 trillion rubles in the third quarter to 8.7 trillion in the 4th. Military expenditures are up from $69.5 billion (dollars) to $86.3 billion. Consumer spending is at record levels in the latest quarter. Russian household debt as a percent of GDP remains steady at around 22% (whereas in the USA it is 62.5%). Crude oil production and general exports continue to steadily rise. Gasoline remains at 60 cents a liter (whereas in US five to six times that and in Europe more than ten times). And the unemployment rate in Russia remains steady at 2.9% (whereas in the US and Europe it’s a quarter to a half higher). Interest rates and inflation are higher in Russia but that represents an economy firing on all economic cylinders and is not necessarily a negative.
In short, it’s hard to find a single statistic that shows the Russian economy has been negatively impacted by the US/NATO sanctions regime over the past two years. Indeed, an argument can even be made the sanctions have stimulated the Russian economy not undermined it.
The latest sanction in the form of the US and G7 transfer of the $300 billion in seized Russian assets in Western banks will almost for certain have a similar effect on Russia’s economy. Namely, distributing the $300 billion will result in the Russian government’s seizure of at least an equivalent of European companies’ assets still in Russia. And that will provide funding for still further government subsidy spending benefiting Russian companies followed by more private investment.
Is the US Empire Shooting Itself in the Foot?
But there is an even greater consequence to follow the US and Europe’s desperate act of transferring Russia’s $300 billion in assets in western banks to Ukraine.
Western bankers, economic policymakers, and many economists alike have warned against the seizure and transfer of the $300 billion. Heads of US and other central banks, CEOs of large commercial banks, and even mainstream economists like Shiller at Yale have continually warned publicly that transferring the assets will seriously undermine faith in the US dollar system which is the lynchpin of the US global economic empire.
What countries in the global South will now want to put (or leave) their assets in western banks, especially in Europe, if they think the assets could be seized should they disagree on policies promoted by the empire? It’s clear the US has now begun to impose ‘secondary’ sanctions on countries that don’t abide by its primary sanctions on Russia. Will the US also seize the assets of these ‘secondary’ countries now in western banks if they don’t go along with refusing to trade with Russia? And what about China, as the US has now begun to expand its sanctions—primary and secondary—on that country as well? Watch for unprecedented financial sanctions on China that may be forthcoming following Blinken’s visit to China this week.
The US does not realize this is not the 1980s. The global south has developed massively in recent decades. They are insisting on more independence and more say in the rules of the empire—without which they will simply leave now that an alternative is beginning to appear in the expansion of the BRICS countries.
Recently expanded to 10 members (all of which in the Middle East and heavily oil producers), no fewer than 34 more countries have now petitioned to join the BRICS. Furthermore, it is reported that at the BRICS next conference in late 2024 an ‘alternative global financial framework’ will be announced! That will likely include some alternative currency arrangement as well as an alternative international payments system to replace the US SWIFT system (by which the USA via its banks can see who is violating its sanctions). Likely forthcoming will be something to replace the US-run IMF in order to ensure currency stability and an expansion of China’s Belt & Road as an alternative to the US-run World Bank. (Perhaps that is the real topic of Blinken’s forthcoming China visit?)
In short, the US global economic empire is entering its most unstable period. And yet US policy is to accelerate alternatives to it by seizing and transferring funds to Ukraine to continue the war! The blowback from the seizure and transfer will prove significant, both to US and European interests. It will render past resistance to US sanctions pale in comparison.
How to Crash an Empire!
History will show that US geopolitical objectives and strategies in the 21st century were the single greatest cause of the decline of US global economic hegemony over the last quarter century. Much of those objectives and strategies have been the work of the most economically ignorant foreign policy team in US history, who are generally referred to as the Neocons.
The seizure and transfer of the $300 billion may provide a way to continue funding Ukraine in the US/NATO proxy war against Russia through 2024 and beyond. But the timing could not be worse for US/Europe imperial interests, coming on the eve of the historic BRICS conference later this year. The desperate act of seizure and transfer will only convince more countries of the global South to seek another more independent alternative by joining the BRICS, or increasingly trade with that bloc.
History shows empires rest ultimately on economic foundations. And they collapse when those underlying economic foundations fracture and then crumble.
The longer run consequence of the $300 billion transfer and the exiting of the global South from the US empire can only be the decline in the use of the US dollar in global transactions and as a reserve currency. That sets in motion a series of events that in turn undermine the US domestic economy in turn: Less demand for the dollar results in a fall in the dollar’s value. That means less recycling of dollars back to the US, resulting in less purchases of US Treasuries from the Federal Reserve, which in turn will require the Fed to raise long term interest rates for years to come in order to cover rising US budget deficits. All this will happen to an intensifying fiscal crisis of the US state rapidly deteriorating already
In other words, blowback on the US economy from declining US global hegemony—exacerbated by sanctions in general and seizure of countries like Russia’s assets in particular—is almost certain in the longer run, just as it will be for Europe’s economy in the even more immediate term.
But such is the economic myopia of the US neocons and the incompetent political elite leadership in both parties in the USA in recent years. As that other American saying goes: ‘We have found the enemy and they are us!’
A recent survey from YouGov found that 61% of Americans think a world war within the next five to ten years is “very likely” or “somewhat likely,” while only 21% say that such a scenario is “not very likely” or “not likely at all.”
It’s notable that Democrats, who are much more likely to view Russia as the source of the world’s evils, are less likely than Republicans to believe a world war is coming by a strong margin; although it is still only 28% of Democrats in the two “unlikely” categories. At the same time, Republicans who may want rapprochement with Russia mostly see this as a way to free up resources to fight China. The reality is that our ruling class has decided that a global conflict is inevitable and as such are doing nothing to stop it. Further, they are actively hostile to anything which could reduce hostilities with Russia while also proactively antagonizing China.
Our ruling class is far along in creating a simplistic good vs evil narrative which they hope to get into the history books—should anyone survive to write them—but for those of us living through it, it’s obvious the only cause would be the madness of today’s rulers. The most devastating of wars do not commonly arise out of unsolvable problems, but from rulers who refuse to solve them. Further, the drive towards oblivion is usually obvious to many observers, even if the rulers and much of the public are caught in a jingoistic mania. Things are just the same today.
There is a modern perception that World War I took the powers of Europe by surprise and that the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand was a spark which made war inevitable. Perhaps this is believed because of the human need to understand the degree of devastation from a war which more than others lacks a clear meaning. However, author Rebecca West, in her landmark text Black Lamb and Grey Falcon, which was written in the 1930s, tells a different story. West explains that all of Europe expected that the Central Powers were preparing for an aggressive war, writing, “It is said that both France and Russia were for some reason convinced that Germany and Austria would not make war until 1916, and certainly that alone would explain the freedom with which Russia announced to various interested parties in the early months of 1914 that she herself was not ready to fight.”1
According to West’s account, Austria then worked quite hard to make the assassination their pretext although the plot had almost no connection to the Kingdom of Serbia. This isn’t a perfect parallel to our moment, but it’s notable that no one was trying to stop the war; they simply wanted time to arm themselves. Similarly, Germany and other countries in Europe have not hidden their current lack of preparedness, but made it clear their interest isn’t avoiding war, but fighting one. In the classic satirical antiwar novel The Good Soldier Svejk by Jaroslav Havec, the author repeatedly includes the line “an empire this stupid shouldn’t exist” in regards to the Austro-Hungarian ruling class; because of the war they, launched it soon wouldn’t.
The closest parallel to the dangers arising from the war in Ukraine comes from the first book of Thucydides’ History of the Peloponnesian War. The most immediate cause of the war was civil dissension within a colony leading to conflict with the mother city, and ultimately seeking the protection of that city’s enemy. However, what has gotten more notice recently about this text is one passage that is applied to China, which is now known as the Thucydides Trap. Thucydides wrote, “The real cause however, I consider to be the one which was formally most kept out of sight. The growth of the power of Athens, and the alarm which this inspired in Sparta, made war inevitable.” For all that people have commented on this, it is not that incisive to say that one country’s power growing would alarm another country. What is more commonly missed is that no one forced Athens to expand recklessly to the extent that it caused war with Sparta. It was an unforced error which caused them the briefest moment of greatness followed by utter devastation. On the other side, no one forced Sparta to respond with war, and Sparta’s post-war supremacy was also short-lived. Unfortunately the leaders on both sides chose conflict over co-existence, and in many ways Greece never recovered from that war and the ones which followed.
In America it is part of our founding mythology that War of Independence against the United Kingdom was inevitable because of conflicting interests between the Americans and the British. However, if one reads key British authors of the time, it is clear that the wiser men of the era knew that the British government was barreling towards a devastating and pointless war for no good reason. The reality is that the volume of trade in the British American colonies was growing so rapidly that peaceful reconciliation at any cost was in Britain’s self-interest; The Wealth of Nations was published in 1776 and contains some incredible statistics in this regard. Directly taxing the American public instead of levying taxes from their colonial governments was in no way a point worth proving, especially given the profitability of peace and trade.
Edmund Burke was a leader of the peace faction in the British Parliament and his timeless words about avoiding war should be remembered. Burke wrote, in March 1775, “The proposition is Peace. Not Peace through the medium of War; not Peace to be hunted through the labyrinth of intricate and endless negociations; not Peace to arise out of universal discord…not Peace to depend on the Juridical Determination of perplexing questions…it is simply Peace; sought in its natural course…laid in principles purely pacific”2 It is obvious in our current times that peace could be preserved with Russia and China if it was approached with this principle, but that is considered out of the question by our rulers.
The world is currently a tinderbox and every day we watch our rulers pour on more gasoline and throw out extinguishers. I have to wonder what our descendants will think of us and the war which seems to be coming. There is certainly no chance that they can create a clear World War II sort of narrative about this. I often think of the European Union Commission President Ursula von der Leyen saying, “Ukrainians are ready to die for the European perspective,” a statement which should only exist as a parody of the vapid state of Western “values.” They want us to believe Vladimir Putin is obsessed with rolling his tanks across Europe, but that makes no sense and clearly isn’t possible. They certainly can’t admit the lengths they went to in order to provoke Russia into war in Ukraine.
There is absolutely no justification for not doing the work necessary for a lasting and equitable peace with Russia and China. When all is said and done, if there are people left to comment on the causes of the Third World War that so many think we are about to experience, perhaps people will say the same as the famous character Captain Edmund Blackadder said of World War I, “the real reason for the whole thing was that it was too much effort not to have a war.” The majority of the American public thinks countless millions will die in a new world war, and if that comes to pass, it will be because our rulers found going to war easier than making peace.
Civil War est un film d’action des studios A24 qui se déroule dans le futur proche d’une Amérique au milieu d’une guerre intestine en cours entre le gouvernement fédéral, plusieurs États et les milices rivales.
Le sujet nominal du film – les États-Unis dans les dernières étapes d’une guerre civile qui a amené la société au bord de la barbarie – est clairement d’une immense pertinence et d’un immense intérêt. Le film est sorti en pleine campagne électorale de 2024 et un peu plus de trois ans après les émeutes de George Floyd aux États-Unis à l’été 2020, ou le prétendu « coup d’État » non armé du 6 janvier 2021, au cours duquel le président sortant a tenté de prétendre que les démocrates tricheraient et voleraient une élection et a tenté d’arrêter le transfert de pouvoir par une manœuvre légale empêchant la certification. Au Texas, des affrontements ont eu lieu entre les troupes armées de la Garde nationale du Texas et les agents armés des douanes fédérales américaines qui guident les immigrants à travers la frontière et ouvrent les barrières aux nouveaux arrivants. L’actuel favori du Parti républicain à l’investiture présidentielle, Trump, est traduit en justice dans de nombreux États par les démocrates et exclu du scrutin dans certains États.
C’est sans aucun doute ce qui explique l’intérêt populaire généralisé pour le film. Civil War a été le film numéro un au box-office nord-américain le week-end dernier, dépassant Godzilla x Kong, avec des ventes de billets estimées à 25,7 millions de dollars.
Cependant, Civil War ne fournit finalement aucune explication. En fait, il tente de faire valoir le fait de ne même pas essayer de le faire.
Le film se concentre sur le voyage et les luttes internes d’une poignée de journalistes et de photojournalistes alors qu’ils se dirigent de New York vers la Maison Blanche assiégée pour obtenir les derniers mots et le « dernier plan » d’un président-dictateur sur sa sortie. Oui, un entretien est demandé. Un peu comme aller à Berlin, en Allemagne, en avril 1945, pour voir si l’on pouvait obtenir « une interview » avec Hitler pour connaître ses réactions aux événements actuels.
Civil War met en vedette Kirsten Dunst dans le rôle du photojournaliste Lee Smith, avec Wagner Moura dans le rôle du collègue journaliste de Lee, Joel. Cailee Spaeny incarne Jessie Cullen, une jeune photojournaliste qui idolâtre le personnage de Dunst. Les « photojournalistes » du film utilisent des images fixes et non des vidéos. C’est cool la vieille école. L’excellent acteur Stephen McKinley Henderson complète le casting principal dans le rôle de Sammy, qui, nous dit-on, est l’un des rares journalistes restants du New York Times.
Tout au long du trajet, les journalistes, avec leurs casques de presse, leurs gilets pare-balles et leurs coûteux appareils photo, assistent et photographient des scènes d’exécutions sommaires, de torture, d’échanges de tirs et d’autres violences. Pendant les deux premiers tiers du film, le personnage de Dunst photographie froidement le carnage tandis que son aspirante protégée Jessie, apparemment toujours accrochée à son humanité, s’effondre et pleure. Dans le dernier tiers du film, les deux hommes inversent les rôles, avant la conclusion mortelle et profondément insatisfaisante.
Nick Offerman, célèbre pour avoir joué un bureaucrate libertaire misanthrope dans la série télévisée comique Parks and Recreation, ne dispose que de quelques minutes à l’écran dans le rôle du président anonyme des États-Unis. Ses motivations politiques, sa politique et le parti auquel il appartient sont inconnus, bien que sa personnalité soit vaguement trumpienne et qu’il se soit présenté pour un troisième mandat. Il y a des références passagères au bombardement de son propre peuple, à l’exécution de journalistes sur la pelouse sud de la Maison Blanche et à la dissolution du FBI.
Une autre performance notable du film est celle de Jesse Plemons, qui fait une apparition non crédité en tant que milicien déconcertant arborant des lunettes teintées en rose et un M-16. Dans son unique scène, Plemons interroge les journalistes de manière menaçante, leur demandant à chacun, avec des conséquences potentiellement mortelles : « Quel genre d’Américain êtes-vous ?
Le film a été écrit et réalisé par l’auteur, scénariste et réalisateur britannique Alex Garland. Ses précédents crédits d’écriture incluent le film de zombies captivant 28 jours plus tard (2002) et l’hyper-violent Dredd (2012). En 2015, Garland a fait ses débuts en tant que réalisateur avec l’intéressant thriller de science-fiction Ex Machina. Ce film est centré sur un programmeur informatique, son patron milliardaire de droite et les robots réalistes et intelligents créés par l’entreprise.
Dans des interviews, Garland a déclaré avoir terminé le scénario de Civil War avant le 6 janvier 2021. Et bien que le film présente occasionnellement des images de manifestants et de policiers anti-émeutes combattant dans les rues (interrompus par l’explosion d’une bombe), ce qui est le plus frappant c’est ce qu’il ne fait pas. Il n’y a aucune tentative d’aborder de quelque manière que ce soit les circonstances politiques, sociales et historiques qui ont produit la guerre civile qui fait l’objet du film.
Dans une interview accordée au New York Times publiée ce week-end, Garland déclare : « Je pense que la guerre civile n’est qu’une extension d’une situation… Cette situation est la polarisation et l’absence de forces limitantes sur la polarisation. » Quant aux causes de la polarisation et aux raisons pour lesquelles il n’y a pas de limites, il reste silencieux et apparemment totalement inconscient, tout comme son intervieweur.
Civil War propose une série d’images montrant une violence brutale qui explose, non pas dans un pays lointain, mais dans les rues des villes, les quartiers verdoyants des banlieues et les villes rurales apparemment calmes des États-Unis. Mais il n’y a pas de « pourquoi », pas même une allusion aux motivations des participants, sans parler du « pourquoi » plus fondamental, qui examine les forces sociales qui génèrent les motivations dans l’esprit des hommes et des femmes.
Dans une séquence impliquant un tireur d’élite et deux soldats qu’il a coincés, Joël demande aux soldats de quel côté ils se trouvent et pour quel camp le tireur d’élite se bat. Garland raconte la séquence dans le cadre de son interview au Times, citant le dialogue qu’il a écrit.
Un soldat répond à la question de savoir de quel côté ils sont : « Vous ne comprenez pas un mot de ce que je dis. » Il se tourne vers Jessie : « Yo. Qu’y a-t-il là-bas, dans cette maison ? Jessie répond: “Quelqu’un tire.” Cette réponse satisfait le soldat.
Garland poursuit, de sa propre voix : « Cela est dû au fait que lorsque les choses deviennent extrêmes, les raisons pour lesquelles les choses sont devenues extrêmes ne deviennent plus pertinentes et le tranchant du problème est tout ce qui reste vraiment pertinent. Dans ce contexte, peu importe donc peu importe pour quel camp on se bat ou pour quoi l’autre se bat. C’est juste réduit à une survie.
Ici, l’effet escompté est l’inconscience littérale.
Au cours du film, le personnage de Dunst explique qu’elle a renvoyé ses photos de conflits à l’étranger pour dire aux Américains de ne pas faire ça. Comme dans un cours de conduite sécuritaire, où ils montrent des images fixes d’accidents de voiture pour avertir les nouveaux conducteurs du danger.
Le réalisateur Garland adopte évidemment la même attitude à l’égard du film dans son ensemble : « Ne faites pas de guerre civile car ce serait terrible. » Mais sans examen des causes, un tel avertissement, aussi bien intentionné soit-il, n’a aucune substance.
Le refus de prendre parti, ou la représentation des deux côtés comme étant essentiellement équivalents, ne sert à rien, artistique ou autre. Une guerre civile n’est pas, contrairement à Garland, simplement une question d’incapacité des gens à contrôler leurs désaccords. Pour que la société se divise en camps belligérants, il doit y avoir des causes plus profondes, et le cinéaste ne peut éviter de prendre position.
Imaginez décrire la guerre civile américaine de 1861-1865 sans prendre position sur l’esclavage. Il y aurait beaucoup d’effusion de sang, mais ce serait un massacre inutile. Une telle attitude aboutirait finalement à une description du conflit comme « la guerre entre les États », comme l’ont qualifié les apologistes confédérés, dans laquelle il n’y avait aucun droit historique ni aucune hauteur morale occupée par Lincoln et les forces de l’Union. Une prétendue neutralité masquerait en réalité une position pro-confédérée.
Le film de Garland a tellement de trous dans l’intrigue qu’il est plus un trou qu’une intrigue.
Il n’y a aucune explication pour laquelle les « Forces occidentales », apparemment composées de Texans et de Californiens de toutes races et classes sociales, ont décidé de prendre les armes contre le gouvernement américain. On pourrait penser que le gouvernement de Californie est plus pro-libéral-démocrate et que le gouvernement du Texas est républicain et populiste, pourquoi ces deux États seraient-ils ensemble ? N’y pensez pas trop.
Il n’y a pas non plus d’explication pour les autres factions brièvement mentionnées dans le film, notamment « l’Alliance de Floride » qui comprend plusieurs États du sud, et la « Nouvelle Armée populaire », composée de plusieurs États du nord-ouest du Pacifique. Il existe apparemment des zones « loyalistes » qui s’étendent à travers le Midwest et jusqu’en Nouvelle-Angleterre, mais dans ce cas, pourquoi le président reste-t-il à Washington plutôt que de se retirer vers un territoire plus sûr ?
Dans une scène, un exploitant de station-service rejette les dollars américains comme étant sans valeur, mais accepte avec enthousiasme les factures canadiennes. Il est donc évident que la guerre civile qui fait rage aux États-Unis n’a eu aucun effet significatif sur son voisin du nord. Ce n’est là que l’absurdité géopolitique la plus évidente dans la présentation d’une guerre civile américaine – au XXIe siècle ! – comme un événement purement national.
Le refus de prendre parti ou même de fournir une description cohérente des deux côtés a peut-être été, comme le dit Garland, un choix artistique, aussi erroné soit-il. Mais il est probable que les producteurs et les distributeurs l’ont adopté pour d’autres raisons, bien plus mercantiles. Après tout, vous ne voulez pas faire un film qui pourrait aliéner une partie du public qui va au cinéma et achète des billets.
Cette conclusion malheureuse est renforcée lorsqu’un personnage du film affirme que Lee Smith (Dunst) a d’abord fait sa marque avec des photos du « massacre d’Antifa ». La référence est si délibérément elliptique que le spectateur ne sait pas s’il s’agit d’un massacre mené par des « antifas » contre de malheureux automobilistes klaxonnant contre les manifestants bloquant les rues ou si les antifascistes ont eux-mêmes été tués par des éléments hostiles.
Surtout, le film ne donne pas la moindre allusion au rôle de la vaste machine militaire américaine dans la guerre civile, qui est menée en grande partie avec des armes légères et des lance-roquettes portatifs, auxquels s’ajoutent ultérieurement des jeeps et des hélicoptères. Pas d’artillerie, pas de missiles de croisière, pas de combat aérien et, évidemment, pas d’armes nucléaires de faible puissance.
Contrairement à l’excellent film américain de 1964, Seven Days in May, qui dépeint un coup d’État militaire aux États-Unis, Civil War n’aborde pas le rôle critique que l’armée américaine devrait jouer dans le soutien d’une dictature aux États-Unis. Une révolution n’est pas une lutte contre l’armée, une révolution est une lutte pour l’armée.
Au lieu d’un examen sérieux de la façon dont la société civile et l’État de lois sociales raisonnables peuvent s’effondrer aux États-Unis, le film alterne des moments tendus de violence extrême ou potentielle, suivis de scènes de voyage accompagnées de chansons pop, et des discussions sur le rôle du photojournalisme « objectif » pendant la guerre.
Après six mois de génocide à Gaza, au cours desquels des journalistes héroïques ont risqué leur vie pour détailler les crimes quotidiens du gouvernement israélien, soutenu par les États-Unis et leurs alliés, la revendication de neutralité et d’objectivité du personnage de Dunst lorsqu’il photographie des civils enterrés en masse les tombes ou les explosions en mendiant de l’eau sont minces pour certains.
Dans l’ensemble, Civil War ne parvient pas complètement à répondre à ce qui pourrait être une prémisse convaincante.
“Submission to the pressure of bourgeois society has repeatedly thrust nominally Marxist currents towards revisionism, the process of ruling out Marxism’s essential conclusions.” —“Declaration of Principles of the Spartacist League,” adopted by the founding conference of the Spartacist League, September 1966
The latest issue of Spartacist marks a watershed moment in the sad history of the International Communist League (ICL). Formally junking the core of its program and political heritage going back to its founding—a tradition it denounces as “centrist” at best—the ICL now frames its raison d’être as the fight against “liberalism.”
An IBT comrade intervened at a public forum of the Trotskyist League, Canadian section of the ICL, held in Toronto on 30 September to introduce the new approach. He pointed out that this orientation is precisely towards a kind of liberalism: bourgeois nationalism. The ICL claims that it previously opposed “bourgeois nationalism in oppressed nations based on sectarian class purity” (“The ICL’s Post-Soviet Revisionism,” Spartacist No.68).
What is the “sectarian class purity” that supposedly undermined the ICL’s fight for revolution? While the recent issue of Spartacist leaves many questions unanswered, it provides a good sense of where the ICL is heading. Rejecting as “social-democratic” their founder James Robertson’s orthodox Trotskyist defense of permanent revolution, the ICL now projects “national liberation as the fundamental lever for proletarian revolution” (“In Defense of the Second and Fourth Comintern Congresses,” Spartacist No.68). Instead of viewing class struggle as the “fundamental lever for proletarian revolution” in the neocolonial world—the central idea of Trotsky’s permanent revolution—the ICL resurrects the concept of the “anti-imperialist united front” with the national bourgeoisie of oppressed countries. It goes so far as to suggest that rejecting the “democratic dictatorship of the proletariat and the peasantry,” which Lenin himself abandoned as outdated over a century ago, means renouncing “the alliance between workers and peasants” and even the early Soviet government (Ibid.).
To be sure, the ICL still pays lip service to proletarian independence and the struggle against the influence of nationalist ideology—revisionists have always been careful to have “orthodox”-sounding formulations to confuse people. But in promoting the fight against national oppression as the “fundamental” mechanism for revolution; advocating “anti-imperialist” alliances with the national bourgeoisie; and drawing an equals sign between the struggle for a two-class “democratic dictatorship” and permanent revolution, the ICL has finally embraced the Pabloite revisionism that the founders of the Spartacist League fought against. Indeed, according to the ICL, only “sectarians” (or is it “social democrats”?) “denounce bourgeois nationalism in oppressed countries as simply reactionary” (Ibid.). Ernest Mandel would be pleased.
“What was the point of your group for the past half century?” our comrade asked the Trotskyist League. “Was it all a waste of time? Did it ever mean anything?”
The painful truth is that it once meant everything. The Spartacist League was founded to restore the revolutionary Marxist program, to ensure continuity with Trotsky’s Fourth International, destroyed by a Pabloite revisionism that sought other “fundamental levers” for socialist transformation, whether in Stalinist, social-democratic or bourgeois-nationalist parties. From its founding until its political degeneration in the late 1970s/early 1980s, the international Spartacist tendency embodied the Trotskyist program. Even after its degeneration, it was able to hold onto its core programmatic ideas at least in a formal sense, despite notable deviations in practice. The SL was distinguished from the Pabloites on a range of important political questions, from Northern Ireland to Israel/Palestine, from the Iranian Revolution to the Malvinas/Falklands War, from Mexico to Quebec and beyond. All of that has now been erased.
The chair clearly did not much like this critique and cut our representative off before the allotted time was up. But ICL comrades who are not exhausted, not demoralized, not resigned, not cynical, who are committed to advancing Trotskyism instead of neo-Pabloism must stop and ask themselves: “How did we get here?” Answering that question means taking seriously the IBT’s critique of a process of degeneration over the last four decades.
On the “Usual Suspects” list we have Ukraine and we have ISIS (Islamic State). A good case can be made for both. I am posting three videos — some of it is repetitive — that discusses the attack and the very odd behavior of the Biden Administration. Let’s go through the chronology of events.
The Embassy is monitoring reports that extremists have imminent plans to target large gatherings in Moscow, to include concerts, and U.S. citizens should be advised to avoid large gatherings over the next 48 hours.
What you need to understand is that this warning was not issued at the discretion of the embassy. This was approved in Washington, DC at Main State and would have required some intelligence that was deemed somewhat specific and “credible.” When I was doing this job at State Counter Terrorism in 1990, this was in the aftermath of the bombing of Pan, 103. It was widely believed in the public that state department, and the CIA had information in advance about the terrorist bombing of that plane, and warned our person out not to get on board. That was not true but it did raise the issue of when, and how to warn the public about a potential threat. We came up with a system that required specific and credible intelligence. The more specific and credible the intelligence, the less need to warn the public. Consider, for example, that if we knew a terrorist attack was going to be carried out on Friday at a public concert hall by a particular group, we would be able to alert appropriate authorities and take precautions to intercept the attack without alarming the public.
On the other hand, if the information was not in great detail, but did come from a credible source, then we would take the time to put together a public warning. That is what happened when the US Embassy Moscow issued the warning on 7 March. They had information they thought was credible, but not terribly specific. This raises a key question — did the United States warn Russian authorities? Normally, when I was doing the job, we would share the information with the appropriate government and law enforcement authorities, in order to try to prevent the attack. Based on public comments by Maria Zakharova and Dimitri Medvedev, following the March 7, warning, and following today’s attack, it appears that the United States did not share any of its information with Russia. I would note there is a Wall Street Journal report tonight, stating that the United States did warn, but Russian authorities insist that they were not provided with an Intel heads up.
What makes the entire situation so bizarre and questionable in terms of what the United States knew, and when it knew it, is that the State Department issued a statement within two hours of the bombing — remember, we still did not know how many attackers, what kind of weapons, how many casualties, and whether or not, they were hostages — declaring that Ukraine was not responsible for this attack. How did State Department know that? It’s strongly suggests that the United States had intelligence, which did not share with Moscow.
Then we have this very unusual X message (formerly Twitter) that was posted at 3:30 AM this morning, 22 March, by OSINTdefender (which I think of has a CIA front for spreading messages the CIA wants out there):
Members of U.S. National Security Council and the White House have reportedly started to become Increasingly Frustrated by “Unauthorized Brazen Actions” taken by Ukraine against Russia, including their recent Campaign of Long-Range Drone Strikes having Targeted at least 25 Oil Refineries, Terminals, Depots and Storage Facilities across Western Russia; with some Biden Administration Officials believing these Strikes will cause a Spike in Global Oil Prices as well as Significant Escalation and Retaliation against Ukraine like was seen during tonight’s Large-Scale Missile Attack.
Do you think that is just a happy coincidence that the Biden White House is bemoaning Ukraine taking “unauthorized brazen actions” on the same day there is a massive terrorist attack in Moscow? I don’t believe in coincidence. I think the Biden ministration was trying to get out ahead of an attack that they knew was coming.
Some claims have emerged late in the day with ISIS, allegedly, taking credit for the attack. What makes that interesting is that we have evidence that some members of ISIS have been fighting in Ukraine against Russia, so this does not necessarily exonerate, either Ukraine or the United States.
Anyway, I deal with these issues from different perspectives in the following videos:
They have waited 10 long, suffering years to vote in this election. And vote they did, in massive numbers, certifying a landslide reelection for the political leader who brought them back to Mother Russia. VVP may now be widely referred to as Mr. 87%. In Donetsk, turnout was even higher: 88,17%. And no less than 95% voted for him.
To follow the Russian electoral process at work in Donbass was a humbling – and illuminating – experience. Graphically, in front of us, the full weight of the collective West’s relentless denigration campaign was instantly gobbled up by the rich black soil of Novorossiya. The impeccable organization, the full transparency of the voting, the enthusiasm by polling station workers and voters alike punctuated the historical gravity of the political moment: at the same time everything was enveloped in an impalpable feeling of silent jubilation.
This was of course a referendum. Donbass represents a microcosm of the solid internal cohesion of Russian citizens around the policies of Team Putin – while at the same time sharing a feeling experienced by the overwhelming majority of the Global South. VVP’s victory was a victory of the Global Majority.
And that’s what’s making the puny Global Minority even more apoplectic. With their highest turnout since 1991, Russian voters inflicted a massive strategic defeat to the intellectual pigmies who pass for Western “leadership” – arguably the most mediocre political class of the past 100 years. They voted for a fairer, stable system of international relations; for multipolarity; and for true leadership by civilization-states such as Russia.
VVP’s 87% score was followed, by a long shot, by the Communists, with 3.9%. That is quite significant, because these 91% represent a total rejection of the globalist Davos/Great Reset plutocratic “future” envisioned by the 0.001%.
Avdeyevka: Voting Under Total Devastation
On Election Day Two, at section 198 in downtown Donetsk, not far from Government House, it was possible to fully measure the fluidity and transparency of the system – even as Donetsk was not spared from shelling, in the late afternoon and early evening in the final day of voting.
Afterwards, a strategic pit stop in a neighborhood mini-market. Yuri, an activist, was buying a full load of fresh eggs to be transported to the nearly starving civilians who still remain in Avdeyevka. Ten eggs cost the equivalent of a dollar and forty cents.
At Yasinovata, very close to Avdeyevka, we visit the MBOU, or school number 7, impeccably rebuilt after non-stop shelling. The director, Ludmilla Leonova, an extraordinary strong woman, takes me on a guide tour of the school and its brand new classrooms for chemistry and biology, a quaint Soviet alphabet decorating the classroom for Russian language. Classes, hopefully, will resume in the Fall.
Close to the school a refugee center for those who have been brought from Avdeyevka has been set up. Everything is spotlessly clean. People are processed, entered into the system, then wait for proper papers. Everyone wants to obtain a Russian passport as soon as possible.
For the moment, they stay in dormitories, around 10 people in each room. Some came from Avdeyevka, miraculously, in their own cars: there are a few Ukrainian license plates around. Invariably, the overall expectation is to return to Avdeyevka, when reconstruction starts, to rebuild their lives in their own town.
Then, it’s on the road to Avdeyevka. Nothing, absolutely nothing prepares us to confront total devastation. In my nearly 40 years as a foreign correspondent, I’ve never seen anything like it – even Iraq. At the unofficial entry to Avdeyevka, beside the skeleton of a bombed building and the remains of a tank turret, the flags of all military batallions which took part in the liberation flutter in the wind.
Each building in every street is at least partially destroyed. A few remaining residents congregate in a flat to organize the distribution of essential supplies. I find a miraculously preserved icon behind the window of a bombed-out ground floor apartment.
FPVs loiter overheard – detected by a handheld device, and our military escort is on full alert. We find out that as we enter a ground floor apartment which is being kept as a sort of mini food depot – housing donations from Yasinovata or from the military – that very same room, in the morning, had been converted into a polling station. That’s where the very few remaining Avdeyevka residents actually voted.
A nearly blind man with his dog explains why he can’t leave: he lives in the same street, and his apartment is still functional – even though he has no water or electricity. He explains how the Ukrainians were occupying each apartment block – with residents turned into refugees or hostages in the basements – and then, pressed by the Russians, relocated to nearby schools and hospitals until finally fleeing.
The basements are a nightmare. Virtually no light. The temperature is at least 10 degrees Celsius lower than at street level. It’s impossible to imagine how they survived. Another resident nonchalantly strolls by in his bicycle, surrounded by derelict concrete skeletons. The loud booms – mostly outgoing – are incessant.
Then, standing amidst total devastation, a vision: the elegant silhouette of the Church of Mary Magdalen, immaculately preserved. Dmitry, the caretaker, takes me around; it’s a beautiful church, the paintings on the roof still gleaming under the pale sunlight, a gorgeous chandelier and the inner chamber virtually intact.
The Mariupol Renaissance
The final election day is spent in Mariupol – which is being rebuilt at nearly breakneck speed: the new railway station has just been finished. Voting is seamless at school number 53, housing district 711. A beautiful mural behind the ballot box depicts the sister cities St. Petersburg and Mariupol, with the legendary Scarlet Sails from the Alexander Green story right in the middle.
I revisit the port: international cargo is still not moving, only ships coming from the Russian mainland. But the first deal has been reached with Cameroon – fruits in exchange with metals and manufactured products. Several other deals with African nations are on the horizon.
The Pakrovska church, a Mariupol landmark, is being carefully restored. We are welcomed by Father Viktor, who hosts lunch for a group of people from the parish, and a fine conversation ensues ranging from Christian Orthodoxy to the Decline of the West and the LGBT agenda.
We go to the roof and walk around a balustrade offering a spectacular 360-degree view of Mariupol, with the port, the destroyed Azovstal iron works and the Russian Sea of Azov in the deep background. The massive church bells ring – as in a metaphor for the resurrection of a beautiful city which has the potential to become a sort of Nice in the Sea of Azov.
Back in Donetsk, going to a “secret” school/museum only 2 km away from the line of fire – which I first visited last month – has to be canceled: Donetsk continues to be shelled.
With Avdeyevka in mind, as well as the shelling that refuses to go away, a few questions on numbers pop up on the long 20-hour drive back to Moscow.
In Chechnya, led by uber-patriot Kadyrov, turnout was 97%. And no less than 99% voted for VVP. So, unlike in the past, forget about any ulterior attempt at a color revolution in Chechnya.
Same pattern in the Caucasus, in the region of Kabardino: turnout was 96%. No less than 94% voted for VVP.
Between Kazakhstan and Mongolia, in Tuva, turnout was 96%. And 95% voted for VVP. In the autonomous Yamal-Nenets, turnout was 94%. But VVP got “only” 79% of the votes. In lake Baikal, Buryatia had 74% turnout and 88% of votes for VVP.
The key, once again, remains Moscow. Turnout, compared to other regions, was relatively low: 67%. Well, Moscow is still largely Westernized and in several aspects ideologically globalist – thus more critical than other parts of Russia when it comes to the patriotic emphasis.
And that brings us to the clincher. Even with the resounding success of Mr. 87%, they will never give up. If there ever is a minor chance of a successful Hybrid War strategy provoking a color revolution, the stage will be Moscow. Quite pathetic, actually, when compared to the images of Mr. 87% saluted by a packed Red Square on Sunday like the ultimate rock star.
The Kremlin is taking no chances. Putin addressed the FSB and went straight to the point: attempts to sow interethnic trouble – as a prelude to color revolutions – must be strictly suppressed. The FSB will go for the next level: traitors will be identified by name and targeted without a statute of limitations.
After the electoral euphoria, no one really knows what happens next. It has to be something hugely significant, honoring the historical VVP electoral landslide. He has carte blanche now to do anything. Priority number one: to finish once and for all with the Hegemon-built terror mongrel that has been attacking Novorossiya for 10 long years.
The Four Stooges saga of Bundeswehr officers plotting to blow up the Kerch bridge in Crimea with Taurus missiles and getting away with it is a gift that keeps on giving.
President Putin, in his comprehensive interview to Dmitry Kiselev for Russia 1/RIA Novosti, did not fail to address it:
“They are fantasizing, encouraging themselves, first of all. Secondly, they are trying to intimidate us. As for the Federal Republic of Germany, there are constitutional problems there. They correctly say: if these Taurus hit that part of the Crimean Bridge, which, of course, even according to their concepts, is Russian territory, this is a violation of the constitution of the Federal Republic of Germany.”
Yet it gets curioser and curioser.
When the transcript of the Taurus leak was published by RT, everyone was able to hear Brigadier General Frank Gräfe – head of operations of the German Air Force – speaking with Lieutenant Colonel Fenske from the German Space Command Air Operations on the plan to deploy Taurus systems in Ukraine.
A key point is that during the plotting, these two mention that plans were already discussed “four months ago” with “Schneider”, the successor of “Wilsbach”.
Well, these are German names, of course. Thus it did not dawn on anyone that (Kevin) Schneider and (Kenneth) Wilsbach could instead be… Americans.
Yet that did raise the eyebrows of German investigative journalist Dirk Pohlmann – who I had the pleasure to meet in Berlin years ago – and his fellow researcher Tobias Augenbraun.
They found out that the German-sounding names did identify Americans. Not only that: none less than the former and the current Commanders of the U.S. Pacific Air Forces.
The Four (actually Six) Stooges element gets an extra boost when it is established that Liver Sausage Chancellor Scholz and his Totalenkrieg Minister Pistorius learned about the Taurus plan no less than four months later.
So here apparently we have a clear cut case of top German military officers taking direct orders regarding an attack on Crimea – part of the Russian Federation – directly from American officers in the Pacific Air Forces.
That in itself opens the dossier to a large spectrum ranging from national treason (against Germany) to casus belli (from the point of view of Russia).
Of course none of that is being discussed on German mainstream media.
After all, the only thing that seems to disturb Brigadier General Gräfe is that German media may start seriously prying on the Bundeswehr’s Multiple Stooges methods.
The only ones who actually did proper investigation were Pohlmann and Augenbaun.
It would be too much to expect from German media of the “Bild” type to analyze what would be the Russian response to the Multiple Stooge shenanigans against Crimea: a devastating retaliation against Berlin assets.
It’s so cold in Alaska
During the jolly Bundeswehr conversation yet another “plan” is mentioned:
“Nee, nee. Ich mein wegen der anderen Sache.” (“No, no. I mean the other matter.”) Then: “Ähm … meinst du Alaska jetzt?” (“Ahm, you mean Alaska now?”)
It all gest juicier when it is known that German Space Command Air Operations Centre officer Florstedt will meet none other than Schneider next Tuesday, March 19, in Alaska.
And Gräfe will also “have to go back to Alaska” to explain everything all over again to Schneider as he is “new” in the post.
So the question is: Why Alaska?
Enter American shadowplay on a lot of “activities” in Alaska – which happen to concern none other than China.
And there’s more: during the conversation still another “plan” (“Auftrag”, meaning “mission”) also surfaces, bearing a not clearly understandable code name sounding like “Kumalatra”.
What all of that tells us is that the Crash Test Dummy administration in the White House, the CIA and the Pentagon seem to betting, in desperation, on Total War in the black soil of Novorossiya.
And now they are sayin’ it out loud, with no shadow play, and coming directly from the head of the CIA, William Burns, who obviously sucks at secrecy.
This is what Burns told the members of the U.S. Senate Intelligence Committee earlier this week:
“I think without supplemental assistance in 2024, you’re going to see more Avdeevkas, and that – it seems to me – would be a massive and historic mistake for the United States.”
That spells out how much the Avdeevka trauma is impressed on the psyche of the U.S. intel apparatus.
Yet there’s more: “With supplemental assistance, Ukraine can hold its own on the front lines through 2024 and into early 2025. Ukraine can continue to exact costs against Russia, not only with deep penetration strikes in Crimea, but also against Russia’s Black Sea Fleet.”
Here we go: Crimea all over again.
Burns actually believes that the humongous $60 billion new “aid” package which must be approved by the U.S. Congress will enable Kiev to launch an “offensive” by the end of 2024.
The only thing he gets right is that if there’s no new package, there will be “significant territorial losses for Ukraine this year.”
Burns may not be the brightest bulb in the – intel – room. A long time ago he was a diplomat/CIA asset in Moscow, and seems to have learned nothing.
Apart from letting cats and kitties galore out of the bag. It’s not only about attacking Crimea. This one is being read with surpreme delight in Beijing:
“The U.S. is providing assistance to Ukraine in part because such activities help curb China.”
Burns nailed his Cat Out of the Bag Oscar win when he said “if we’re seen to be walking away from support for Ukraine, not only is that going to feed doubts amongst our allies and partners in the Indo-Pacific; it’s going to stoke the ambitions of the Chinese leadership in contingencies ranging from Taiwan to the South China Sea”.
The inestimable Andrei Martyanov perfectly summed up the astonishing incompetence, peppered with tawdry exceptionalism, that permeates this performance by Burns.
There are things “they cannot grasp due to low level of education and culture. This is a new paradigm for them – all of them are ‘graduates’ of the school of ‘beating the crap from defenseless nations’ strategic ‘studies’, and with the level of economic ‘science’ in the West they cannot grasp how this all unfolds.”
So what is left is panic, as expressed by Burns in the Senate, mixed with the impotence in understanding a “different warrior culture” such as Russia’s: “They simply have no reference points.”
Even as the acronym fest of the CIA and 17 other U.S. intel agencies have concluded, in a report shown to Congress earlier this week, that Russia is “almost certainly” seeking to avoid a direct military conflict with NATO and will calibrate its policies to steer clear of a global war.
After all the Empire of Chaos is all about Forever Wars. And we are all in the middle of a do or die affair. The Empire simply cannot afford the cosmic humiliation of NATO in Novorossiya.
Still every “plan” – Taurus on Crimea-style – is a bluff. Russia is aware of bluff after bluff. The Western cards are now all on the table. The only question is when, and how fast will Russia call the bluff.
Empires don’t just fall like toppled trees. Instead, they weaken slowly as a succession of crises drain their strength and confidence until they suddenly begin to disintegrate. So it was with the British, French, and Soviet empires; so it now is with imperial America.
Great Britain confronted serious colonial crises in India, Iran, and Palestine before plunging headlong into the Suez Canal and imperial collapse in 1956. In the later years of the Cold War, the Soviet Union faced its own challenges in Czechoslovakia, Egypt, and Ethiopia before crashing into a brick wall in its war in Afghanistan.
America’s post-Cold War victory lap suffered its own crisis early in this century with disastrous invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq. Now, looming just over history’s horizon are three more imperial crises in Gaza, Taiwan, and Ukraine that could cumulatively turn a slow imperial recessional into an all-too-rapid decline, if not collapse.
As a start, let’s put the very idea of an imperial crisis in perspective. The history of every empire, ancient or modern, has always involved a succession of crises — usually mastered in the empire’s earlier years, only to be ever more disastrously mishandled in its era of decline. Right after World War II, when the United States became history’s most powerful empire, Washington’s leaders skillfully handled just such crises in Greece, Berlin, Italy, and France, and somewhat less skillfully but not disastrously in a Korean War that never quite officially ended. Even after the dual disasters of a bungled covert invasion of Cuba in 1961 and a conventional war in Vietnam that went all too disastrously awry in the 1960s and early 1970s, Washington proved capable of recalibrating effectively enough to outlast the Soviet Union, “win” the Cold War, and become the “lone superpower” on this planet.
In both success and failure, crisis management usually entails a delicate balance between domestic politics and global geopolitics. President John F. Kennedy’s White House, manipulated by the CIA into the disastrous 1961 Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba, managed to recover its political balance sufficiently to check the Pentagon and achieve a diplomatic resolution of the dangerous 1962 Cuban missile crisis with the Soviet Union.
America’s current plight, however, can be traced at least in part to a growing imbalance between a domestic politics that appears to be coming apart at the seams and a series of challenging global upheavals. Whether in Gaza, Ukraine, or even Taiwan, the Washington of President Joe Biden is clearly failing to align domestic political constituencies with the empire’s international interests. And in each case, crisis mismanagement has only been compounded by errors that have accumulated in the decades since the Cold War’s end, turning each crisis into a conundrum without an easy resolution or perhaps any resolution at all. Both individually and collectively, then, the mishandling of these crises is likely to prove a significant marker of America’s ultimate decline as a global power, both at home and abroad.
Creeping Disaster in Ukraine
Since the closing months of the Cold War, mismanaging relations with Ukraine has been a curiously bipartisan project. As the Soviet Union began breaking up in 1991, Washington focused on ensuring that Moscow’s arsenal of possibly 45,000 nuclear warheads was secure, particularly the 5,000 atomic weapons then stored in Ukraine, which also had the largest Soviet nuclear weapons plant at Dnipropetrovsk.
During an August 1991 visit, President George H.W. Bush told Ukrainian Prime Minister Leonid Kravchuk that he could not support Ukraine’s future independence and gave what became known as his “chicken Kiev” speech, saying: “Americans will not support those who seek independence in order to replace a far-off tyranny with a local despotism. They will not aid those who promote a suicidal nationalism based upon ethnic hatred.” He would, however, soon recognize Latvia, Lithuania, and Estonia as independent states since they didn’t have nuclear weapons.
When the Soviet Union finally imploded in December 1991, Ukraine instantly became the world’s third-largest nuclear power, though it had no way to actually deliver most of those atomic weapons. To persuade Ukraine to transfer its nuclear warheads to Moscow, Washington launched three years of multilateral negotiations, while giving Kyiv “assurances” (but not “guarantees”) of its future security — the diplomatic equivalent of a personal check drawn on a bank account with a zero balance.
Under the Budapest Memorandum on Security in December 1994, three former Soviet republics — Belarus, Kazakhstan, and Ukraine — signed the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and started transferring their atomic weapons to Russia. Simultaneously, Russia, the U.S., and Great Britain agreed to respect the sovereignty of the three signatories and refrain from using such weaponry against them. Everyone present, however, seemed to understand that the agreement was, at best, tenuous. (One Ukrainian diplomat told the Americans that he had “no illusions that the Russians would live up to the agreements they signed.”)
Meanwhile — and this should sound familiar today — Russian President Boris Yeltsin raged against Washington’s plans to expand NATO further, accusing President Bill Clinton of moving from a Cold War to a “cold peace.” Right after that conference, Defense Secretary William Perry warned Clinton, point blank, that “a wounded Moscow would lash out in response to NATO expansion.”
Nonetheless, once those former Soviet republics were safely disarmed of their nuclear weapons, Clinton agreed to begin admitting new members to NATO, launching a relentless eastward march toward Russia that continued under his successor George W. Bush. It came to include three former Soviet satellites, the Czech Republic, Hungary, and Poland (1999); three one-time Soviet Republics, Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania (2004); and three more former satellites, Romania, Slovakia, and Slovenia (2004). At the Bucharest summit in 2008, moreover, the alliance’s 26 members unanimously agreed that, at some unspecified point, Ukraine and Georgia, too, would “become members of NATO.” In other words, having pushed NATO right up to the Ukrainian border, Washington seemed oblivious to the possibility that Russia might feel in any way threatened and react by annexing that nation to create its own security corridor.
In those years, Washington also came to believe that it could transform Russia into a functioning democracy to be fully integrated into a still-developing American world order. Yet for more than 200 years, Russia’s governance had been autocratic and every ruler from Catherine the Great to Leonid Brezhnev had achieved domestic stability through incessant foreign expansion. So, it should hardly have been surprising when the seemingly endless expansion of NATO led Russia’s latest autocrat, Vladimir Putin, to invade the Crimean Peninsula in March 2014, only weeks after hosting the Winter Olympics.
In an interview soon after Moscow annexed that area of Ukraine, President Obama recognized the geopolitical reality that could yet consign all of that land to Russia’s orbit, saying: “The fact is that Ukraine, which is a non-NATO country, is going to be vulnerable to military domination by Russia no matter what we do.”
Then, in February 2022, after years of low-intensity fighting in the Donbass region of eastern Ukraine, Putin sent 200,000 mechanized troops to capture the country’s capital, Kyiv, and establish that very “military domination.” At first, as the Ukrainians surprisingly fought off the Russians, Washington and the West reacted with a striking resolve — cutting Europe’s energy imports from Russia, imposing serious sanctions on Moscow, expanding NATO to all of Scandinavia, and dispatching an impressive arsenal of armaments to Ukraine.
After two years of never-ending war, however, cracks have appeared in the anti-Russian coalition, indicating that Washington’s global clout has declined markedly since its Cold War glory days. After 30 years of free-market growth, Russia’s resilient economy has weathered sanctions, its oil exports have found new markets, and its gross domestic product is projected to grow a healthy 2.6% this year. In last spring and summer’s fighting season, a Ukrainian “counteroffensive” failed and the war is, in the view of both Russian and Ukrainian commanders, at least “stalemated,” if not now beginning to turn in Russia’s favor.
Most critically, U.S. support for Ukraine is faltering. After successfully rallying the NATO alliance to stand with Ukraine, the Biden White House opened the American arsenal to provide Kyiv with a stunning array of weaponry, totaling $46 billion, that gave its smaller army a technological edge on the battlefield. But now, in a move with historic implications, part of the Republican (or rather Trumpublican) Party has broken with the bipartisan foreign policy that sustained American global power since the Cold War began. For weeks, the Republican-led House has even repeatedly refused to consider President Biden’s latest $60 billion aid package for Ukraine, contributing to Kyiv’s recent reverses on the battlefield.
The Republican Party’s rupture starts with its leader. In the view of former White House adviser Fiona Hill, Donald Trump was so painfully deferential to Vladimir Putin during “the now legendarily disastrous press conference” at Helsinki in 2018 that critics were convinced “the Kremlin held sway over the American president.” But the problem goes so much deeper. As New York Times columnist David Brooks noted recently, the Republican Party’s historic “isolationism is still on the march.” Indeed, between March 2022 and December 2023, the Pew Research Center found that the percentage of Republicans who think the U.S. gives “too much support” to Ukraine climbed from just 9% to a whopping 48%. Asked to explain the trend, Brooks feels that “Trumpian populism does represent some very legitimate values: the fear of imperial overreach… [and] the need to protect working-class wages from the pressures of globalization.”
Since Trump represents this deeper trend, his hostility toward NATO has taken on an added significance. His recent remarks that he would encourage Russia to “do whatever the hell they want” to a NATO ally that didn’t pay its fair share sent shockwaves across Europe, forcing key allies to consider what such an alliance would be like without the United States (even as Russian President Vladimir Putin, undoubtedly sensing a weakening of U.S. resolve, threatened Europe with nuclear war). All of this is certainly signaling to the world that Washington’s global leadership is now anything but a certainty.
Crisis in Gaza
Just as in Ukraine, decades of diffident American leadership, compounded by increasingly chaotic domestic politics, let the Gaza crisis spin out of control. At the close of the Cold War, when the Middle East was momentarily disentangled from great-power politics, Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization signed the 1993 Oslo Accord. In it, they agreed to create the Palestinian Authority as the first step toward a two-state solution. For the next two decades, however, Washington’s ineffectual initiatives failed to break the deadlock between that Authority and successive Israeli governments that prevented any progress toward such a solution.
In 2005, Israel’s hawkish Prime Minister Ariel Sharon decided to withdraw his defense forces and 25 Israeli settlements from the Gaza Strip with the aim of improving “Israel’s security and international status.” Within two years, however, Hamas militants had seized power in Gaza, ousting the Palestinian Authority under President Mahmoud Abbas. In 2009, the controversial Benjamin Netanyahu started his nearly continuous 15-year stretch as Israel’s prime minister and soon discovered the utility of supporting Hamas as a political foil to block the two-state solution he so abhorred.
Not surprisingly then, the day after last year’s tragic October 7th Hamas attack, theTimes of Israelpublished this headline: “For Years Netanyahu Propped Up Hamas. Now It’s Blown Up in Our Faces.” In her lead piece, senior political correspondent Tal Schneider reported: “For years, the various governments led by Benjamin Netanyahu took an approach that divided power between the Gaza Strip and the West Bank — bringing Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas to his knees while making moves that propped up the Hamas terror group.”
On October 18th, with the Israeli bombing of Gaza already inflicting severe casualties on Palestinian civilians, President Biden flew to Tel Aviv for a meeting with Netanyahu that would prove eerily reminiscent of Trump’s Helsinki press conference with Putin. After Netanyahu praised the president for drawing “a clear line between the forces of civilization and the forces of barbarism,” Biden endorsed that Manichean view by condemning Hamas for “evils and atrocities that make ISIS look somewhat more rational” and promised to provide the weaponry Israel needed “as they respond to these attacks.” Biden said nothing about Netanyahu’s previous arm’s length alliance with Hamas or the two-state solution. Instead, the Biden White House began vetoing ceasefire proposals at the U.N. while air-freighting, among other weaponry, 15,000 bombs to Israel, including the behemoth 2,000-pound “bunker busters” that were soon flattening Gaza’s high-rise buildings with increasingly heavy civilian casualties.
After five months of arms shipments to Israel, three U.N. ceasefire vetoes, and nothing to stop Netanyahu’s plan for an endless occupation of Gaza instead of a two-state solution, Biden has damaged American diplomatic leadership in the Middle East and much of the world. In November and again in February, massive crowds calling for peace in Gaza marched in Berlin, London, Madrid, Milan, Paris, Istanbul, and Dakar, among other places.
Moreover, the relentless rise in civilian deaths well past 30,000 in Gaza, striking numbers of them children, has already weakened Biden’s domestic support in constituencies that were critical for his win in 2020 — including Arab-Americans in the key swing state of Michigan, African-Americans nationwide, and younger voters more generally. To heal the breach, Biden is now becoming desperate for a negotiated cease-fire. In an inept intertwining of international and domestic politics, the president has given Netanyahu, a natural ally of Donald Trump, the opportunity for an October surprise of more devastation in Gaza that could rip the Democratic coalition apart and thereby increase the chances of a Trump win in November — with fatal consequences for U.S. global power.
Trouble in the Taiwan Straits
While Washington is preoccupied with Gaza and Ukraine, it may also be at the threshold of a serious crisis in the Taiwan Straits. Beijing’s relentless pressure on the island of Taiwan continues unabated. Following the incremental strategy that it’s used since 2014 to secure a half-dozen military bases in the South China Sea, Beijing is moving to slowly strangle Taiwan’s sovereignty. Its breaches of the island’s airspace have increased from 400 in 2020 to 1,700 in 2023. Similarly, Chinese warships have crossed the median line in the Taiwan Straits 300 times since August 2022, effectively erasing it. As commentator Ben Lewis warned, “There soon may be no lines left for China to cross.”
After recognizing Beijing as “the sole legal Government of China” in 1979, Washington agreed to “acknowledge” that Taiwan was part of China. At the same time, however, Congress passed the Taiwan Relations Act of 1979, requiring “that the United States maintain the capacity to resist any resort to force… that would jeopardize the security… of the people on Taiwan.”
Such all-American ambiguity seemed manageable until October 2022 when Chinese President Xi Jinping told the 20th Communist Party Congress that “reunification must be realized” and refused “to renounce the use of force” against Taiwan. In a fateful counterpoint, President Biden stated, as recently as September 2022, that the US would defend Taiwan “if in fact there was an unprecedented attack.”
But Beijing could cripple Taiwan several steps short of that “unprecedented attack” by turning those air and sea transgressions into a customs quarantine that would peacefully divert all Taiwan-bound cargo to mainland China. With the island’s major ports at Taipei and Kaohsiung facing the Taiwan Straits, any American warships trying to break that embargo would face a lethal swarm of nuclear submarines, jet aircraft, and ship-killing missiles.
Given the near-certain loss of two or three aircraft carriers, the U.S. Navy would likely back off and Taiwan would be forced to negotiate the terms of its reunification with Beijing. Such a humiliating reversal would send a clear signal that, after 80 years, American dominion over the Pacific had finally ended, inflicting another major blow to U.S. global hegemony.
The Sum of Three Crises
Washington now finds itself facing three complex global crises, each demanding its undivided attention. Any one of them would challenge the skills of even the most seasoned diplomat. Their simultaneity places the U.S. in the unenviable position of potential reverses in all three at once, even as its politics at home threaten to head into an era of chaos. Playing upon American domestic divisions, the protagonists in Beijing, Moscow, and Tel Aviv are all holding a long hand (or at least a potentially longer one than Washington’s) and hoping to win by default when the U.S. tires of the game. As the incumbent, President Biden must bear the burden of any reversal, with the consequent political damage this November.
Meanwhile, waiting in the wings, Donald Trump may try to escape such foreign entanglements and their political cost by reverting to the Republican Party’s historic isolationism, even as he ensures that the former lone superpower of Planet Earth could come apart at the seams in the wake of election 2024. If so, in such a distinctly quagmire world, American global hegemony would fade with surprising speed, soon becoming little more than a distant memory.
To the recycle bin, or Marxist Archive, or…. oblivion.
One might ask why the people who took over ‘Workers Vanguard’ wanted to join the Spartacists in the first place. From the outside, it looks like a hostile takeover. Did these people voice opposition to everything the Spartacists had written in ‘Workers Vanguard’ as they joined?
After copying and watching and listening to the Neo-Spartacist versus Internationalist Group debate a number of times an impression comes through to me. The Neo-Spartacist leader is an academic. I have no knowledge of this man’s name even, or personal history. I am making this judgement from his speaking style and evident thinking style. He is used to speaking with a condescending self satisfied smirk of someone who is speaking at a podium with an audience that must listen and be graded.
The Internationalist Group speaker seemed like someone who was used to speaking in many different situations, some calling for short declarative sentences, a joke or bit of humor, and a firm voice when emphasizing and important point. Selling ‘Workers Vanguard’ on the street or at a factory gate may teach one to speak in many different ways to convince people. The Internationalist Group speaker gave example after example of actual workers in the audience who had been on picket lines, in labor unions, at universities during demonstrations.
“All you do is call us names,” was the bizarre response from the Neo-Spartacist speaker.
Simply not used to classical debating techniques. Of the levels of argument, name calling is the lowest form. But, saying that the Neo-Spartacists are following the ideas of Michael Pablo and the tired tiny Trotskyists parties faced with the Stalinist victories of the 1940’s is not ‘name calling.’ Saying that the Neo-Spartacists want to join the ‘mass movements’ is not name calling. True or false, the description is about political activity and writing.
The stunning collapse of the Spartacist in the spring of 2020 was simply dismissed by the Neo-Spartacist speaker. “So you put out a few leaflets,” he said dismissively.
So, what were the Neo-Spartacists doing while the biggest demonstrations in decades were happening across the US after the killing of George Floyd?
At the time, with the media full of death from COVID stories, I wondered if key Spartacists had gotten sick, or died.
Now, I wonder if this was the “Night of the Long Knaves” elimination of the Old Guard Spartacists to complete the take-over and then renunciation of the last thirty years of the Spartacist League. The online meeting format works for some things, but limits all kinds of contact people might have in a political setting where all kinds of incidental meetings and communication may take place. Every crisis is an opportunity apparently.
The Internationalist Group speaker noted that the founders of the Internationalist Group were kicked out of the Spartacist League in 1996 and that was to be the Decline and Fall of the Classic Spartacist League.
Bizarrely the Neo-Spartacist speaker admits, in a hurry, that the expulsion was wrong, but won’t say why. What went wrong? The answer is “that was almost thirty years ago, who cares?” The words of someone who is in charge, but not because of the power to persuade people. The technique works in closed organizations. In the rough and tumble real world, not so much.
The thinking seems the same style of academic glibness that throws out a number of points sounding intelligent enough, questioned on a point immediately transitions to a related, or unrelated topic. Assumes that because they are officially “smart” and degreed they must be right. A pedant…
I noted the multicolor ‘Workers Vanguard’ issued 22 Dec 2024. Color print is more expensive than black ink on newsprint paper. Printing photos is expensive. All this could be on a website at less cost. But, the price is still fifty cents. The articles are more general, essay type pieces so that the issue may be sold many months after print date. Okay.
But what happened to the bi-weekly print schedule? When I first subscribed ‘Workers Vanguard’ had just gone from bi-monthly to once a week. But, the output was hard to maintain for a small revolutionary organization. Now, what is it, twice a year. Are all the articles written by Comrade X?
Curiouser, and curiouser….
I don’t see how this organization can thrive in the US at this time. Listening to Comrade X I feel like I’m back in the 1970’s with the constant talk about “The Movement.” Last summer when there was a UAW strike the Neo-Spartacist called for a General Strike to shut down Detroit. The general strike did not happen. Why not just call for a Detroit Soviet, that’s not going to happen either.
The summer when Lenin was fifteen years old he read the populist novel “What is to Be Done?” In some ways that fictional narrative of a workers cooperative and people who wanted to create a new society is the Foundational Myth of the Soviet Union. One commenter noted that religions and social movements are not based on lists of rules or dry documents… some kind of simple narrative is usually at the heart of the idea. Christians were around for decades before anyone dreamed up the Jesus was born and walked the Earth story.
So, narratives matter.
The Neo-Spartacists narrative is “that was a long time ago.” As the Internationalist speaker said “You are all about the Now.”
Again, back to the 1970’s, it seems.
On the Ukraine Russia War the Internationalist group first adopted the classic ‘both sides are capitalists, workers don’t have a side’ and then reassessed and said this is US Imperialism and the European satellites trying to defeat Russia and then go on to China. So, militant workers should militarily defend the Russians against Western Imperialism. The Neo-Spartacists say that workers labor unions in Ukraine and Russia should oppose their own rulers. I must read and hear three or four solid hours of news about the Ukraine War each day. I have never seen one reference to Ukrainian labor unions. What political power or presence in political life do Ukrainian labor unions have? Do Russian labor unions have any political power or projection. I do not know. I never hear of any. The Communist Party of Russia looks like almost every leader is over 70 and they sound like National Stalinists, not organized workers.
The Neo-Spartacist did protest at Columbia University when the college bosses said there was a ban on pro-Palestinian protests. The Neo-Spartacist did mount a protest against the monarchy in the UK that I would have attended if in the area. So, it is not all negative.
Neo-Spartacist Comrade X complained that the Internationalist Group would not join the Neo-Spartacists in a demonstration they had called. A few months ago the Neo-Spartacist were calling on the Internationalist Group to join them and asked for private meetings. Perhaps Comrade X thought he could use his organizational magic to charm the Internationalist Group into joining his project. The Internationalist Group asked for a public debate instead.
……………
Afterthought…
Comrade X from the Spartacist claimed that “Hundreds of thousands” of black people have been killed by the US police? What? The US police kill about 1,000 people a year over the last half decade that people have been keeping a relatively accurate tally. About 400 of the people shot dead or killed by other methods by police are black. Four hundred a year is a lot, but are there 40,000,000 black people in the US. The police claim that only twenty of the black people killed were unarmed. Do the police lie. Yes. But Comrade X is engaged in hyperbole.
What is the claim “Open Police Archives” supposed to prove. Is it supposed to imply that the police are conducting massive campaigns of repression an violence across the US that is only a vague rumor to the public? 100,000 black people are killed, and no one took note? But, we can expose the Liberals by opening the police archives and see the secret reports of mass systematic repression and thousands and thousands of unknown killings by the state. Hyperbole.
In the Spring of 2020 when the COVID lockdowns and hysteria reigned the Spartacist League…. disappeared. Despite having a functioning website, nothing new was posted. Why? Some have noted in the past that Workers Vanguard articles are edited and checked by numerous people because they are not just a columnist or a person’s opinion but a group statement of matters of public and working class import. Couldn’t that be done online? Or, was something else going on? I don’t know.
The excuse for collapse and other problems that “so did everybody else on the Left” from Comrade X is mind boggling after dealing and listening and reading Spartacist and Leninist and Trotskyist ideas for decades. Having presented Workers Vanguard to workers at factory gates in the morning or on college campuses at noon, the appeal was never “We’re like everybody else on the Left.”
I don’t remember an appeal to build some amorphous outpouring of justified rage like the “Palestinian Justice Movement” as something that militants should seek to build. The outpouring of street protests and anger can and has arrived and then disappeared leaving little of any “Movement.”
So, perhaps the Neo-Spartacist League will latch on to the “Palestine Justice Movement” and become the best builders of the Movement the way the Socialist Workers Party became the best builders the anti-war “Movement” in the 1960’s and 1970’s and then became a cult with the copyrights to a lot of Trotsky’s works that they did not read. The copyrights to those works are close to expiring, and the Socialist Workers Party has a couple of dozen members and they are all over seventy years of age.
I remember in the 1980’s running into American Communist Party members who were outrage that the Spartacists had the gaul to claim to defend the Soviet Union while opposing Stalinist leaders while the CP/USA defended Democrats and held victory parties when Democrats won control of the US Congress. I felt like I was in a play. The old Communist Stalinists were laughable crypto-Democrat Radical Liberals.
And… now the Spartacists are…. crypto-Democrat Liberals looking for Communist allies in the Democratic Socialist USA. Curiouser and curiouser…. I’m still in a play.
The first-ever US Department of Defense National Defense Industrial Strategy (NDIS) confirms what many analysts have concluded in regard to the unsustainable nature of Washington’s global-spanning foreign policy objectives and its defense industrial base’s (DIB) inability to achieve them.
The report lays out a multitude of problems plaguing the US DIB including a lack of surge capacity, inadequate workforce, off-shore downstream suppliers, as well as insufficient “demand signals” to motivate private industry partners to produce what’s needed, in the quantities needed, when it is needed.
In fact, the majority of the problems identified by the report involved private industry and its unwillingness to meet national security requirements because they were not profitable.
For example, the report attempts to explain why many companies across the US DIB lack advanced manufacturing capabilities, claiming:
Many elements of the traditional DIB have yet to adopt advanced manufacturing technologies, as they struggle to develop business cases for needed capital investment.
In other words, while adopting advanced manufacturing technologies would fulfill the purpose of the US Department of Defense, it is not profitable for private industry to do so.
Despite virtually all the problems the report identifies stemming from private industry’s disproportionate influence over the US DIB, the report never identifies private industry itself as a problem.
If private industry and its prioritization of profits is the central problem inhibiting the DIB from fulfilling its purpose, the obvious solution is nationalizing the DIB by replacing private industry with state-owned enterprises. This allows the government to prioritize purpose over profits. Yet in the United States and across Europe, the so-called “military industrial complex” has grown to such proportions that it is no longer subordinated to the government and national interests, but rather the government and national interests are subordinated to it.
US Defense Industrial Strategy Built on a Flawed Premise
Beyond private industry’s hold on the US DIB, the very premise the NDIS is built on is fundamentally flawed, deeply rooted in private industry’s profit-driven prioritization.
The report claims:
The purpose of this National Defense Industrial Strategy is to drive development of an industrial ecosystem that provides a sustained competitive advantage to the United States over its adversaries.
The notion of the United States perpetually expanding its wealth and power across the globe, unrivaled by its so-called “adversaries” is unrealistic.
China alone has a population 4-5 times greater than the US. China’s population is, in fact, larger than that of the G7 combined. China has a larger industrial base, economy, and education system than the US. China’s education system not only produces millions more graduates each year in essential fields like science, technology, and engineering than the US, the proportion of such graduates is higher in China than in the US.
China alone possesses the means to maintain a competitive advantage over the United States now and well into the foreseeable future. The US, attempting to draw up a strategy to maintain an advantage over China (not to mention over the rest of the world) regardless of these realities, borders on delusion.
Yet for 60 pages, US policymakers attempt to lay out a strategy to do just that.
Not Just China, But Also Russia
While China is repeatedly mentioned as America’s “pacing challenge,” the ongoing conflict in Ukraine is perhaps the most acute example of a shifting balance of global power.
Despite a combined population, GDP, and military budget many times greater than Russia’s, the collective West is incapable of matching Russian production of even relatively simple munitions like artillery shells, let alone more complex systems like tanks, aircraft, and precision-guided missiles.
While the US and its allies appear to have every conceivable advantage over Russia on paper, the collective West has organized itself as a profit-driven rather than purpose-driven society.
In Russia, the defense industry exists to serve national security. While one might believe this goes without saying, across the collective West, the defense industry, like all other industries in the West, exists solely to maximize profits.
To best serve national security, the defense industry is required to maintain substantial surge capacity – meaning additional, unused factory space, machines, and labor on standby if and when large surges in production are required in relatively short periods of time. Across the West, in order to maximize profits, surge capacity has been ruthlessly slashed, deemed economically inefficient. Only rare exceptions exist, such as US 155 mm artillery shell production.
While the West’s defense industry remains the most profitable on Earth, its ability to actually churn out arms and ammunition in the quantities and quality required for large-scale conflict is clearly compromised by its maximization of profits.
The result is evident today as the West struggles to expand production of arms and ammunition for its Ukrainian proxies.
The NDIS report would note:
Prior to the invasion, weapon procurements for some of the in-demand systems were driven by annual training requirements and ongoing combat operations. This modest demand, along with recent market dynamics, drove companies to divest excess capacity due to cost. This meant that any increased production requirements would require an increase in workforce hours in existing facilities—commonly referred to as “surge” capacity. These, in turn, were limited further by similar down-stream considerations of workforce, facility, and supply chain limitations.
Costs are most certainly a consideration across any defense industry, but costs cannot be the primary consideration.
A central element of Russia’s defense industry is Rostec, a massive state-owned enterprise under which hundreds of companies related to national industrial needs including defense are organized. Rostec is profitable. However, the industrial concerns organized under Rostec serve purposes related to Russia’s national interests first and foremost, be it national health, infrastructure or security.
Because Russia’s defense industry is purpose-driven, it produced military equipment because it was necessary, not because it was profitable. As a result, Russia possessed huge stockpiles of ammunition and equipment ahead of the Special Military Operation (SMO) in February 2022. In addition to this, Russia maintained large amounts of surge capacity enabling production rates of everything from artillery shells to armored vehicles to expand quickly over the past 2 years.
Only relatively recently have Western analysts acknowledged this.
The New York Times in its September 2023 article, “Russia Overcomes Sanctions to Expand Missile Production, Officials Say,” admits Russian arms production of not only missiles, but also armored vehicles and artillery shells have exceeded prewar levels. The article estimates that Russia is producing at least seven times more ammunition than the US and its Western allies combined.
Despite this, Western analysts now claim Russian production will “plateau” as the limits of surge capacity are reached and new facilities and sources of raw materials are required.
The Royal United Services Institute (RUSI) in a February 2024 article titled, “Russian Military Objectives and Capacity in Ukraine Through 2024,” regarding ammunition production would claim:
…the Russian MoD does not believe it can significantly raise production in subsequent years, unless new factories are set up and raw material extraction is invested in with a lead time beyond five years.
But because Russia’s industrial base is purpose-driven rather than profit-driven, additional facilities are already being built despite the longer-term economic inefficiency of doing so.
US government-funded Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty in a November 2023 article titled, “Satellite Images Suggest Russia Is Ramping Up Production Capacity For Its War Against Ukraine,” reported that Russia was not only expanding production at existing facilities but was also developing new factories producing warplanes, combat helicopters, military drones, and guided munitions.
US “Solutions” Fall Far Short
The 2023 NDIS cites the expansion of 155 mm artillery shell production as a demonstration of the US DIB’s ability to “scale rapidly.”
The report claims:
In response, the DoD has invested in expanding existing production facilities in Scranton, Pennsylvania and broke ground on a new production facility in Mesquite, Texas to respond to the higher demand signal. In addition to these investments made in December 2022, the U.S. Army awarded contracts worth $1.5 billion in September 2023* to meet its goal of delivering more than 80,000 projectiles per month by the end of FY2025.
However, this was only possible because the US Army owns the facilities producing artillery shells. Increased rates of shell production were made possible through existing surge capacity deliberately set up by the US Army years before the Russian SMO began. This foresight in planning, unfortunately for the United States, is a rare exception to the rule and cannot be applied across the rest of US and European arms production.
The West’s profit-driven policies have created problems for the US DIB well downstream of production lines for arms and ammunition. This includes America’s decades of off-shoring production to maximize profits by taking advantage of cheaper labor overseas. Many raw materials and components used across the US DIB today come from overseas including from “adversarial” nations.
The NDIS report lamented:
Over the last decade, the DoD has struggled to curtail adversarial sourcing and burnish the integrity of defense supply chains. Despite these efforts, dependence on adversarial sources of supply has grown. DoD continues to lack a comprehensive effort for mitigating supply chain risk.
Profit-driven policies have also hurt the workforce. Decades of off-shoring US manufacturing saw America transition to a primarily service-based economy. This was reflected across education as well, where vocational skills were not only neglected, they were stigmatized.
The NDIS report would explain that:
The labor market lacks the required number of skilled workers to meet defense production demand while driving innovation at all levels. This shortfall is becoming exacerbated as baby boomers retire, and younger generations show less interest in manufacturing and engineering careers.
Beyond this problem, profit-driven policies have made education in the United States inaccessible. The desire to profit from providing education has usurped the actual purpose of providing education in the first place – the creation of human resources required to run a functioning, prosperous society. Degrees and training courses in the United States require loans that can take a lifetime to pay off.
A lack of interest in skilled labor and the inaccessibility of education in the United States has resulted in a skewed workforce relative to the rest of the world. The number of STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) graduates in the US, for example, is comparable to Russia despite Russia having less than half the total population of the US. In 2016 there were 568,000 STEM graduates in the US for Russia’s 561,000, according to Forbes. China produced over 4.7 million graduates that same year.
US economic fundamentals altogether have created a skewed society and correspondingly skewed DIB that is struggling to match that of nations smaller in terms of population and GDP. But even if the US did address these fundamental problems, the fact remains that China alone, saying nothing of the BRIC alliance it is a part of, has both solid fundamentals and simply possesses a larger population, economy, and industrial base.
The premise upon which US foreign policy is based is unrealistic. The fundamentals of US economic power are fatally flawed.
The very notion of the US maintaining a competitive edge over the rest of the world is only realistic if the rest of the world is suffering from significant internal and/or regional instability.
This is precisely why the US has invested so heavily over the decades in political interference, political capture, and even regional conflict around the globe. However, the disparity between the US and the rest of the world in terms of economic power, industrial strength, and military might be diminishing faster than the US can impose its “international order” upon it.
A reemerging Russia alone has exceeded the US in terms of military industrial production. China is surpassing the United States across a much wider multitude of metrics. As long as the US pursues unsustainable policies based on an unrealistic premise, it will not only find itself surpassed by a growing number of nations, it will find itself isolated and unstable.
The difference between nations the US calls “adversaries” and the US itself, is the difference between a farmer who cultivates his land in a sustainable, purposeful way, and a predator who mindlessly consumes all in its path until there is nothing left to consume, thus jeopardizing its own self-preservation.
At a time between now and then, more rational circles of interest may displace those currently driving US economic and foreign policies, and transform the US into a nation pursuing power proportional to its means and invested in working together with the other nations of the world, rather than attempting to impose itself upon them.
Pepe Escobar embarked on a journey across Donbass to share his thoughts on the many first-hand encounters with the locals, who show unbreakable resilience.
You are given a name by the War:/it’s a call sign, not nickname – much more./Lack of fancy cars here and iPads,/But you have APC and MANPADS./Social media long left behind,/Children’s drawings with “Z” stick to mind./’Likes” and “thumbs up” are valued as dust,/But the prayers from people you trust./Hold On, Soldier, my brother, my friend,/The hostility comes to an end./War’s unable to stop its decease,/Grief and suffering will turn into peace./Life returns to the placid format,/With your callsign, inscribed in your heart./ From the war, as a small souvenir:/Far away, but eternally near.
Inna Kucherova, Call Sign, in A Letter to a Soldier, published December 2022
It’s a cold, rainy, damp morning in the deep Donbass countryside, at a secret location close to the Urozhaynoye direction; a nondescript country house, crucially under the fog, which prevents the work of enemy drones.
Father Igor, a military priest, is blessing a group of local contract-signed volunteers to the Archangel Gabriel battalion, ready to go to the front lines of the US vs. Russia proxy war. The man in charge of the battalion is one of the top-ranking officers of Orthodox Christian units in the DPR.
A small shrine is set up in the corner of a small, cramped room, decorated with icons. Candles are lit, and three soldiers hold the red flag with the icon of Jesus in the center. After prayers and a small homily, Father Igor blesses each soldier.
Paying my respects to the children victims of Ukrainian shelling at a DIY memorial off the ‘Road of Life’.
Quite an honor. This pic is now on the wall of the HQ of the Dmitry Donskoy Orthodox Christian battalion in Donbass.
With the kamikaze drone and DIY mine-landing rover specialists at an undisclosed location in Donetsk.
This is yet another stop in a sort of itinerant icon road show, started in Kherson, then Zaporozhye and all the way to the myriad DPR front lines, led by my gracious host Andrey Afanasiev, military correspondent for the Spas channel, and later joined in Donetsk by a decorated fighter for the Archangel Michael battalion, an extremely bright and engaging young man codename Pilot.
There are between 28 and 30 Orthodox Christian battalion fighting in Donbass. That’s the power of Orthodox Christianity. To see them at work is to understand the essentials: how the Russian soul is capable of any sacrifice to protect the core values of its civilization. Throughout Russian history, it’s individuals that sacrifice their lives to protect the community – and not vice-versa. Those who survived – or perished – in the siege of Leningrad are only one among countless examples.
So the Orthodox Christian battalion were my guardian angels as I returned to Novorossiya to revisit the rich black soil where the old “rules-based” world order came to die.
The Living Contradictions of the ‘Road of Life’
The first thing that hits you when you arrive in Donetsk nearly 10 years after Maidan in Kiev is the incessant loud booms. Incoming and mostly outgoing. After such a long, dreary time, interminable shelling of civilians (which are invisible to the collective West), and nearly 2 years after the start of the Special Military Operation (SMO), this is still a city at war; still vulnerable along the three lines of defense behind the front.
The “Road of Life” has got to be one of the epic war misnomers in Donetsk. “Road” is a euphemism for a dark, muddy bog plied back and forth virtually non-stop by military vehicles. “Life” applies because the Donbass military actually donate food and humanitarian aid to the locals at the Gornyak neighborhood every single week.
The heart of the Road of Life is the Svyato Blagoveschensky temple, cared for by Father Viktor – who at the time of my visit was away on rehabilitation, as several parts of his body were hit by shrapnel. I am shepherded by Yelena, who shows me around the impeccably clean temple bearing sublime icons – including 13th century Prince Alexander Nevsky, who in 1259 became the supreme Russian ruler, Sovereign of Kiev, Vladimir and Novgorod. Gornyak is a deluge of black mud, under the incessant rain, with no running water and electricity. Residents are forced to walk at least two kilometers, every day, to buy groceries: there are no local buses.
Yelena, the caretaker of Father Michael’s temple at the ‘Road of Life’ in Donetsk.
Alexander Nevsky’s icon at Father Michael’s temple.
In one of the back rooms, Svetlana carefully arranges mini-packages of food essentials to be distributed every Sunday after liturgy. I meet Mother Pelageya, 86 years old, who comes to the temple every Sunday, and would not even dream of ever leaving her neighborhood.
Svetlana organizing food packages out of donations by the DPR military to civilians close to the front line.
Mother Pelageya, 86, at Father Michael’s temple in the ‘Road of Life’ in Donetsk.
Gornyak is in the third line of defense. The loud booms – as in everywhere in Donetsk – are nearly non-stop, incoming and outgoing. If we follow the road for another 500 meters or so and turn right, we are only 5 km away from Avdeyevka – which may be about to fall in days, or weeks at most.
At the entrance of Gornyak there’s the legendary DonbassActiv chemical factory – now inactive – which actually fabricated the red stars which shine over the Kremlin, using a special gas technology that was never reproduced. In a side street to the Road of Life, local residents built an improvised shrine to honor the child victims of Ukrainian shelling. One day this is going to end: the day when the DPR military completely controls Avdeyevka.
The Donbass Activ chemical plant at the entrance of the ‘Road of Life’ in Donetsk
‘Mariupol Is Russia’
The traveling priesthood exits the digs of the Archangel Gabriel battalion and heads to a meeting in a garage with the Dmitry Donskoy orthodox battalion, fighting in the Ugledar direction. That’s where I meet the remarkable Troya, the battalion’s medic, a young woman who had a comfy job as a deputy officer in a Russian district before she decided to volunteer.
Onwards to a cramped military dormitory where a cat and her kittens reign as mascots, choosing the best place in the room right by the iron stove. Time to bless the fighters of the Dimitri Zalunsky battalion, named after St. Dimitri of Thessaloniki, who are fighting in the Nikolskoye direction.
At each successive ceremony, you can’t help being stricken by the purity of the ritual, the beauty of the chants, the grave expressions in the faces of the volunteers, all ages, from teenagers to sexagenarians. Deeply touching. This in so many aspects is the Slavic counterpart of the Islamic Axis of Resistance fighting in West Asia. It is a form of asabiyya – “community spirit”, as I used it in a different context referring to the Yemeni Houthis supporting “our people” in Gaza.
Mariupol. Destroyed to the left, rebuilt to the right.
’Mariupol is Russia’. The port is to the left.
Mariupol building
So yes: deep down in the Donbass countryside, in communion with those living life during wartime, we feel the enormity of something inexplicable and vast, full of endless wonder, as if touching the Tao by silencing the recurrent loud booms. In Russian there is, of course, a word for it: “загадка“, roughly translated as “enigma” or “mystery”.
I left the Donetsk countryside to go to Mariupol – and to be hit by the proverbial shock when one is reminded of the utter destruction perpetrated by the neo-nazi Azov battalion* in the spring of 2022, from the city center to the shoreline along the port then all the way to the massive Azovstal Iron and Steel Works.
The theatre – rather the Donetsk Academic Regional Drama Theatre – nearly destroyed by the Azov battalion is now being meticulously restored, and the next in line are scores of classical buildings downtown. In some neighborhoods the contrast is striking: on the left side of the road, a destroyed building; on the right side, a brand new one.
At the port, a red, white and blue stripe lays down the law: “Mariupol is Russia”. I make a point to go to the former entrance of Azovstal, where the remaining Azov battalion fighters, around 1,700, surrendered to Russian soldiers in May 2022. As much as Berdyansk may eventually become a sort of Monaco in the Sea of Azov, Mariupol may also have a bright future as a tourism, leisure and cultural center and last but not least, a key maritime entrepot of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) and the Eurasia Economic Union.
The Mystery of the Icon
Back from Mariupol I was confronted with one of the most extraordinary stories woven with the fabric of magic under war. In a nondescript parking lot, suddenly I’m face to the face with The Icon.
The icon – of Mary Mother of God – was gifted to the whole of Donbass by veterans of the Zsloha Spetsnaz, when they came in the summer of 2014. The legend goes that the icon started to spontaneously generate myrrh: as it felt the pain suffered by the local people, it started to cry. During the storming of Azovstal, the icon suddenly made an appearance, out of nowhere, brought in by a pious soul. Two hours later, the legend goes, the DPR, Russian and Chechen forces found their breakthrough.
The icon is always on the move along the SMO hot spots in Donbass. People in charge of the relay know one another, but they can never guess where the icon heads next; everything develops as a sort of magical mystery tour. It’s no wonder Kiev has offered a huge reward for anyone – especially fifth columnists – capable of capturing the icon, which then would be destroyed.
Father Igor reciting prayers.
The Orthodox icon “Mary Mother of God”, gifted to the people of Donbass.
The shrine set up at one of the Orthodox Christian battalion, where Father Igor blesses the soldiers.
The shrine set up at one of the Orthodox Christian battalion, where Father Igor blesses the soldiers.
At a night gathering in a compound in the western outskirts of Donetsk – lights completely out in every direction – I have the honor to join one of the top-ranking officers of the Orthodox units in the DPR, a tough as nails yet jovial fellow fond of Barcelona under Messi, as well as the commander of Archangel Michael battalion, codename Alphabet. We are in the first line of defense, only 2 km away from the front line. The incessant loud booms – especially outgoing – are really loud.
The conversation ranges from military tactics on the battlefield, especially in the siege of Avdeyevka, which will be totally encircled in a matter of days, now with the help of Special Forces, paratroopers and lots of armored vehicles, to impressions of the Tucker Carlson interview with Putin (they heard nothing new). The commanders note the absurdity of Kiev not acknowledging their hit on the Il-76 carrying 65 Ukrainian POWs – totally dismissing the plight of their own PoWs. I ask them why Russia simply does not bomb Avdeyevka to oblivion: “Humanism”, they answer.
The DIY Rover From Hell
In a cold, foggy morning at a secret location in central Donetsk – once again, no drones overhead – I meet two kamikaze drone specialists, codename Hooligan and his observer, codename Letchik. They set up a kamikaze drone demo – of course unarmed – while a few meters away mechanical engineer specialist “The Advocate” sets up his own demo of a DIY mine-delivery rover.
That’s a certified lethal version of the Yandex food delivery rovers now quite popular around Moscow. “Advocate” shows off the maneuverability and ability of his little toy to face any terrain. The mission: each rover is equipped with two mines, to be placed right under an enemy tank. Success so far has been extraordinary – and the rover will be upgraded.
’The Advocate’ setting up his DIY mine-delivering rover test
There’s hardly a more daring character in Donetsk than Artyom Gavrilenko, who built a brand new school cum museum right in the middle of the first line of defense – once again only 2 km or so away from the frontline. He shows me around the museum, which performs the enviable task of outlining the continuity between the Great Patriotic War, the USSR adventure in Afghanistan against the US-financed and weaponized jihad, and the proxy war in Donbass.
At the school/museum in Donetsk only 2 km away from the front line
That’s a parallel, DIY version of the official Museum of War in central Donetsk, close to the Shaktar Donetsk football arena, which features stunning memorabilia from the Great Patriotic War as well as fabulous shots by Russian war photographers.
So Donetsk students – emphasis in math, history, geography, languages – will be growing up deeply enmeshed in the history of what for all practical purposes is a heroic mining town, extracting wealth from the black soil while its dreams are always inexorably clouded by war.
We went into the DPR using backroads to cross the border to the LPR not far from Lugansk. This is a slow, desolate border which reminds me of the Pamirs in Tajikistan, basically used by locals. In and out, I was politely questioned by a passport control officer from Dagestan and his seconds-in-command. They were fascinated by my travels in Donbass, Afghanistan and West Asia – and invited me to visit the Caucasus. As we left deep into the freezing night for the long trek ahead back to Moscow, the exchange was priceless:
About a week ago, Chilean American independent journalist, Gonzalo Lira, died in a Ukrainian prison. Gonzalo Lira certainly had bravado, charisma, and a big ego, and was constantly reinventing himself. For instance, from a filmmaker to libertarian financial journalist, to PUA/passport bro, to geopolitical correspondent, and finally a POW/prisoner of conscious. Regardless, I found him fascinating and enjoyed his geopolitical YouTube videos. Plus his original Coach Red Pill videos were hilarious. He didn’t deserve his fate and its especially tragic, considering he had kids.
While Gonzalo Lira’s case eventually garnered the attention of Tucker Carlson, by then it was too little too late. It was primarily the alternative media that spoke out when he previously went missing. Ideally the US government should have done something to save Lira, free speech should be protected, and I shilled for him when he went missing. However, he should have tried to escape when he had the chance, rather than staying in place, and then speaking out against the Ukrainian regime. Whether Lira sacrificing himself to get his message out is admirable and courageous or foolish is up for debate. One could make the case that he had a death wish, and there is some speculation that he had some terminal illness, and wanted to go out with a banger, and not be forgotten.
Martial Law during wartime is often exploited to get rid of dissidents. For instance, Israel using the war in Gaza to take out Palestinian journalists and intellectuals. However, a regime does not need to execute or assassinate a dissident. Rather it can just imprison them, deny them healthcare, and just allow them to die, thus denying any culpability. This is especially the case if one is already in poor health, as Lira likely was. Lira also said that the Ukrainian prison guards incited other prisoners to attack him. These are common tactics in authoritarian regimes, though are also not uncommon in the US.
Though Gonzalo Lira is technically GenX, he had a boomer mentality in that he operated under the “End of History” paradigm. Basically where one could just travel anywhere and do as one pleases, as one would at home, while taking for granted the protections of a US citizen. Now dissidents are even getting arrested for thought crimes in Western European nations. One has to be extremely cautious about getting politically involved and criticizing foreign governments while abroad. Not to mention when it’s in a hostile regime, like Zelensky’s regime was to Lira.
The same applies to outspoken anti-Putin Americans, living in or visiting Russia, though the State Department is more likely to help them. While it is harder to rescue someone from an adversarial regime, the irony is that Ukraine is a staunch US ally. Thus the Biden admin and Deep State likely intended Lira’s fate, or at the very least were indifferent. There is a paradigm shift where the State Department can no longer guarantee protection to all US passport holders. Perhaps Trump would have been more likely to save Lira, but Trump has disappointed plenty of times.
While Richard Spencer’s shilling for Biden was cringe, from a Nietzschean perspective, he was right in much of his harsh critique of the populist right. If you look at Jan 6th, those involved LARPed as revolutionaries, like the Founding Fathers, but then once caught they were just trespassing while peacefully protesting. Many of the Jan6th protesters wanted to be martyrs rather than having a plan. Certainly many were just protesting and got caught up in the moment. Even though the Left and establishment overblow Jan 6th, the Right wants to have it both ways. They desperately want to be martyrs but are not willing to accept the fate of a martyr. LARPing and living in hyperreality can lead to real life ramifications, though Lira had much more real life experience than most on the dissident right.
Certainly many of those in positions of political power are scum. However, the populist right lacks consistency in how they try to hold their adversaries to some idealistic moral standards, and expect them to be beholden to Classical Liberal principles. Hypocrisy is just power, so there is no point in trying to moralize one’s adversary’s motives, in the way one would with an ally or someone you can negotiate a deal with.
While Classical Liberal principles, like Human Rights, free speech, freedom of the press, and civil liberties, are precious and something to strive for, they are not guaranteed, and are specific to the right circumstances. Those being reciprocity and or a society made up of people with shared values. Civil liberties are increasingly conditional upon which side one is on, and both sides now want to imprison their political opponents. While accelerationists and neo-reactionaries might see the demise of 20th Century Liberalism as something to celebrate, what replaces it could end up being much worse and more oppressive.
The dissident right hates liberalism but then tries to outflank the Left using liberal arguments. For instance, the dissident right will go back and forth between memes about helicopter rides for liberal journalists to protesting that freedom of the press is sacred and must be protected under all circumstances. Another example is Russian shills attacking Ukraine using Western liberal arguments. Liberalism is so ingrained, that all political sides still reply upon liberal arguments.
Much of the Right operates by how things should ideally be, based upon the liberalism that they were brought up in. While it’s one thing for normie and boomer conservatives, a lot of these arguments are made by the radically anti-liberal, dissident right. Basically those who believe that might makes right and that only ingroup vs outgroup distinctions and ethnocentrism matter. Though Gonzalo Lira, being older, did have more Classical Liberal and libertarian leanings.
The allegations that Gonzalo Lira was some kind of Russian plant or paid Russian shill are nonsense. Western media smears likely contributed to his demise. However, he did come across as having a pro-Russian slant. For instance, he said that the Russians would steamroll Ukraine, when it has been more of a stalemate, with Russia seizing about 20% of Ukraine’s territory.
The Ukrainian military has performed stronger, and has shown itself to be more competent than a lot of the anti-Ukraine dissident right assumed. Not to mention that Russia is much larger and more powerful than Ukraine. Lira would say how much respect he had for the Ukrainian people, including their soldiers’ courage. There is also a case that the US and NATO prolonging the war has gotten a lot more Ukrainians killed, in order to weaken Russia. This is a kind of old school liberal argument, of loving a people and hating their government, which increasingly has less legitimacy, especially in times of war and hyper-polarization.
xenagoguevicene 