A World On The Brink?
Lots going on today, and especially there’s lots of fallout from the US attempts to bully China into submission. A lot of what we’ll be looking at follows on very logically from John Mearshimer’s very lucid reflections yesterday. It’s clear that the Chinese are very angry and are aligning there policies with Russia’s. Before we look at that specifically I want to highly recommend Will Schryver’s latest full length substack (I’ll be recommending other pieces as well):
The Ontological Incoherence of American Imperial Exceptionalism
Jingoism by any other name still smells the same
It’s a terrific piece, which works off Arta Moeini’s recent essay published at UnHerd: Is the West escalating the Ukraine war? Will is writing about where we are in this war, and the misconceptions that got us to this point. Where we are is the realization that this war is lost. The Grand Plan has backfired spectacularly. The question that arises in the West is: Will it be full on war or a full on climbdown:
Moeini’s article emerges from the milieu of the past several weeks, during which time we have observed a pronounced rhetorical revolution in the popular western narratives regarding the NATO/Russia war in Ukraine.
“Lost cause” is in the air. Many who have privately known this to be the case for some time have finally been sufficiently emboldened to publicly embrace the obvious – albeit reluctantly, and often with a good measure of rationalization and lingering misinformation in tow.
This Tom Luongo tweet helps visualize how spectacular the backfire has been:
Here’s Will defining the Grand Plan:
The inherently disharmonious nation-state currently assigned the toponym “Ukraine” on maps of Europe is incontrovertibly an artificial construction of relatively recent origin. The socio-political and cultural facts underlying this reality were ably exploited by the Germans in the Second World War when the Nazis successfully recruited large numbers of its western inhabitants (primarily from Galicia) to join them in a war of annihilation against the Poles, the Jews, and the more numerous and prosperous “Muscovites” who inhabited the agriculturally fertile and substantially industrialized regions of historical Novorossiya.
This was the polity within the geographic region known as the Ukraine that, beginning as early as the immediate aftermath of the war, was systematically cultivated by the Anglo-American western hegemon as a disruptive force to undermine Soviet power and influence in eastern Europe.
And in the aftermath of the fall of the Soviet Union which occasioned the rise of the global American empire, this was the polity that was methodically groomed to eventually become a disposable proxy for imperial designs which explicitly aspired to dismember Russia and despoil its nearly limitless natural resource treasures.
Further, here we see the Neocon seduction of Ukraine:
What he is describing is a hegemon/vassal relationship wherein the empire defines, measures, and imposes both the quid and the quo of every transaction between the parties.
In the case of Ukraine, this pact with the devil entailed the empire pledging to equip and train a military force which would become the vanguard in a bold maneuver to not only reclaim Novorossiya and Crimea for Ukraine, but also to substantially attrit Russian military capability; humiliate and depose the despised Vladimir Putin, and then, as their just reward, to assume their supposedly rightful place among the great nations of Europe and the world.
As it were, the emissaries of empire took their chosen Ukrainian aspirants to the top of an exceedingly high mountain, showed them all the kingdoms of the world, and the glory thereof, and solemnly vowed, “All these things will we give unto you, if you will fall down and worship us.”
And, without hesitation, the credulous Ukrainians replied, “Hell yes! We’ll take that deal!”
What went wrong?
“Escalation” was always an essential parameter of the empire’s calculus. The dissolution and vassalization of continental Russia has never ceased to be the prime directive. The imperial suzerains simply failed to accurately perceive that the Russians possessed escalatory supremacy. They erroneously imagined themselves to be the irresistible force and dismissed the historical evidence that Russia is the immovable object.
That increasingly evident reality has now abruptly sobered the western masters of war and forced them to reassess the entire equation of the conflict.
Where are we now? We’re at a precipice, and here Will refers to the China angle:
… the empire’s seemingly endless string of hubris-driven blunders has rapidly accelerated the formation of what is quite arguably the single most potent military / economic / geostrategic alliance seen in modern times: the tripartite axis of Russia, China, and Iran.
In its misguided and short-sighted gambit to thwart the long-dreaded Russo-German rapprochement — incomprehensibly punctuated by the late September 2022 sabotage of the Nordstream gas pipelines — the empire has astoundingly managed to jump from the frying pan of a regional proxy war against Russia into the fire of a global conflict all three of its steadily strengthening adversaries now view as existential.
In my considered opinion, this is almost certainly the single most inexplicable and portentous series of geopolitical blunders in recorded history.
For the time being, the fighting will remain confined to Ukraine. But the entire complexion of this war has been irreversibly altered.
Much, much more at the link—all of it good, solid, analysis. Tucker captures this moment beautifully, especially the boneheaded way in which our rulers are stoking a multiple front war with their contemptuous treatment of a very old and proud civilization—which is now a major world power once again. Check out the section starting at 1:55 when Boris Johnson, er, Janet Yellen gets trotted out to lecture the Bad Boy Chinese. And there are some who claim Janet is the actual president:
Larry Johnson provides what was, in effect, the Russian response:
The arrogance and hypocrisy of the United States towards both Russia and China is solidifying the bond between the Russians and the Chinese. Dmitry Medvedev’s comment on Putin’s and Biden’s speeches should be a wake up call to America (but I fear it is falling on deaf ears):
Yesterday we had an address by the President of Russia to the Federal Assembly, in which, among other things, he announced the suspension of our participation in START III. A long overdue decision, the inevitability of which I noted last year. A decision prompted by the war the United States and other NATO countries have declared on our country. A decision that will have a huge resonance in the world in general and in the United States in particular. The reasoning of the American establishment so far has been this: we will shit all over you, we will supply huge volumes of weapons to the Kiev regime, we will work to defeat Russia, we will limit and destroy you, but strategic security is a separate issue. It is not related to the overall context of the U.S.-Russia relationship. It is almost a sacred cow.
This conclusion is worse than a crime-it’s a grave mistake by Americans.
MoA has an excellent rundown of the repeated salvos launched by the Chinese in response to our insane escalations of assaults on their sovereignty. There’s a lot at the link, but this excerpt will give you an idea of just how POed the Chinese really are:
U.S. Hegemony - At War With China's Global Security Initiative
On February 20 its foreign ministry released a paper about US Hegemony and Its Perils. It is full broadside against U.S. foreign policy behavior. Its chapter are:
Introduction
I. Political Hegemony—Throwing Its Weight Around
II. Military Hegemony—Wanton Use of Force
III. Economic Hegemony—Looting and Exploitation
IV. Technological Hegemony—Monopoly and Suppression
V. Cultural Hegemony—Spreading False Narratives
Conclusion
The introduction lays out the facts:
Since becoming the world's most powerful country after the two world wars and the Cold War, the United States has acted more boldly to interfere in the internal affairs of other countries, pursue, maintain and abuse hegemony, advance subversion and infiltration, and willfully wage wars, bringing harm to the international community.
The United States has developed a hegemonic playbook to stage "color revolutions," instigate regional disputes, and even directly launch wars under the guise of promoting democracy, freedom and human rights. Clinging to the Cold War mentality, the United States has ramped up bloc politics and stoked conflict and confrontation. It has overstretched the concept of national security, abused export controls and forced unilateral sanctions upon others. It has taken a selective approach to international law and rules, utilizing or discarding them as it sees fit, and has sought to impose rules that serve its own interests in the name of upholding a "rules-based international order."
This report, by presenting the relevant facts, seeks to expose the U.S. abuse of hegemony in the political, military, economic, financial, technological and cultural fields, and to draw greater international attention to the perils of the U.S. practices to world peace and stability and the well-being of all peoples.
That’s approaching white hot heat. And the other Chinese statements make it abundantly clear that Boris Johnson, er, Janet Yellen will not dictate to them, will not deter them in the least. The point here is not that a world shaped by Chinese interests would be a great place. The point is that we need a much smarter approach to dealing with other major powers. Don’t hold your breath. Martin Armstrong points to the ramifications of this crazy approach:
Russia has deployed tactical nuclear weapons on all its ships. The US arrogantly told China not to support Russia or that they would impose sanctions on China as they have done with Russia. That is like waving a red flag in front of a bull. Once you make such a public demand on China, they now MUST act against it or their leadership will lose face.
I have dealt with governments for some 40 years +. Warnings of this nature have ALWAYS been communicated privately – NEVER publicly for that is confrontational and will necessitate the opposite side to vote against your demand. I cannot imagine that even I know far more about diplomacy than anyone in the Biden Administration. That suggests to me that this is deliberate. They just cannot be this stupid. They seem to be deliberately moving Russia and China together against the arrogant West in the very same manner that resulted in the Peloponnesian War with Sparta taking down Athens for its arrogance.
As the world teeters on the edge of World War III between Russia, China, North Korea, and Iran against the United States, Canada, Australia, Japan, and Europe, diplomatic efforts to reach a peaceful settlement are seriously lacking.
Speaking about hot, that’s Tom Luongo today. This linked essay (republished from 2022) is a total must read. Probably the best thing he’s written. In part you can take it as a response to Michael Hudson:
Luongo also replies to Martin Armstrong in the course of a 6 part thread. Armstrong had asked: "Are they [Zhou and the Neocons] really this brain-dead?" Tom’s thread begins:
More meltdown in the Eurodollar markets this morning on US inflation data.
These markets and the long-end of the US yield curve are hideously mispriced
But he concludes with Armstrong:
They aren't this stupid. This is policy, not incompetence. I've been saying this for over a year. It's good to know someone else finally agrees with me.
The rate shock on the horizon in the next few months will be epic and into that storm there needs to be an escalation of the kinetic war to cover it up.
The idea is that the Neocons need economic chaos to cover for their war. Think about that. Hey—nothing would surprise me at this point.
Let’s close on this weird note. Follow the flow up to 1:01:28 …
Michael Tracey
@mtracey
At this point no one is "sleep-walking" into World War III, the people in power have been made well aware of the risk -- it's just a risk they've consciously chosen to take, due to a combination of hubris, inertia, and ideological zealotry. They're not asleep, they're wide awake
This Arizona Hearing yesterday had some pretty explosive testimony, about money laundering, election fraud, bribery of state and local officials, naming names, and linking tons of stuff to Sinaloa Cartel, and claims they have been screwing with our elections for a long time, and bribing officials, cops, judges, lawyers, etc. Check it out here https://treasureliberty.com and hope some of this gets broader publicity. And someone gets held accountable. Always good to read your thoughts!