I'd like to introduce a ray of hope here, if I may.
As desperate as the current international situation appears, and as irrational as America's commitment to both Ukraine and Israel seems, the eventual outcome is that both those issues will be resolved to America's advantage, which is to say they will no longer be a drain on America's financial resources because they will, in effect, cease to exist.
Why do I say this? Because once the fantasy of continuing as the world's hegemon is no longer supportable, you still have the following:
A vast nation protected on all sides by wide oceans and friendly neighbours. A nation still rich in natural resources and more importantly, with the human potential to rebuild the nation's economy along similar lines to what Russia has already done. The political structure of a Union of States governed by a constitution already exists, so nothing has to replace that or be created anew, just respected in its existing form.
It's a tall order, but once the realization dawns that it's the only way forward I expect Americans to rise to the challenge. The point that needs to be stressed is that once you strip away the financial overburden of global dollar hegemony, the basic resources still remain. A rebuilding will have to take place, but the means to do that are all present in abundance. Some skills will have to be relearned, so this won't happen overnight, but anything worth doing takes effort, and going by the sentiment of those who've supported the drive to make America Great Again, the will is there.
To be clear though, Making America great again does not mean restoring its ability to threaten the world, or to dictate the course that other nations take in their own development. The original concept of non-interference - a friend to all, an ally of none, will have to be the guiding principle, but that impulse already exists in the national consciousness, it only needs to be resurrected in a meaningful form.
What I'm saying is, all the pieces are still there. You just have to reassemble them.
Trump continues the long standing American tradition of unconditional support of Israel, so nothing much changes there, except...
That ship is sinking. If you look at the economic and demographic condition of Israel you can clearly see it has passed the point of no return and is now an international pariah. That's what happens when you base your national policy on a 2000 year old myth of racial supremacy.
At this point close to 1M people have already left. Those are the rational ones with no commitment to the Zionist cause. Those that remain, going by their own surveys and public statements, are completely committed to an irrational agenda that smacks of mass psychosis. That never ends well.
I've combed through recent history for some comparison to what's happening in Israel and the closest I could find was Cambodia under the Khmer Rouge. The ideology was different, but the methods were comparable and the end result is entirely predictable. Israel as a Zionist enterprise will cease to exist. Some small percentage of the remaining population will choose to stay and adapt to life in a new state called Palestine, but the majority will probably end up in the USA where the worst fears of Zionists, assimilation, will be the eventual reality. Before that happens however, you can expect even more Zionist influence in US politics as their "government-in-exile" tries desperately to regain what they've lost.
As it now stands, Israel has only one card left that it can play, the so-called Samson option. Should they go that route I would expect Russia to put a halt to it. They are already in a position to do so with major bases in Latakia and Tartus Syria, just minutes away as the crow flies. I assume a plan already exists to eliminate anything launched towards Russia. Whether Russia elects to rescue anyone else from that madness remains to be seen. It would be in their best interests, but as usual, they can expect no gratitude from those they save. That was the lesson learned in The Great Patriotic War, and nothing since then has changed.
Excellent summary and all true; now where is this headed? The West can no longer do deep strikes into Russia because they will play tit-for-tat on NATO targets. The war will go on and Ukraine will continue its heavy losses of soldiers and land area. The West is now revealed as impotent, so bellicose bluster does nothing. When Team Trump arrives in late January, they will get a rude awakening about how little leverage they actually have. There will be hemming and hawing and more impotent threats, but at the end of the day they will have to face reality. The price of access to Ukrainian resources will be a new European Security Framework in which NATO tangibly retreats. Take it or leave it. If the later, Russia will patiently wait for the West's economic decline to roil it politics and put new leadership into Europe. Ditto for Israel. The ME wars will go on until its economy also collapses. Wishing on rainbows won't change any of this.
NEW:   Disgusting video of Israeli soldiers desecrated the Greek Orthodox Church
Israeli soldiers desecrated the Greek Orthodox Church in the Lebanese town of Deir Mimas, and made fun of the blessed Virgin Mary while conducting a homosexual wedding in the church as a 'joke'
11:10 PM · Nov 25, 2024
·
Megatron @Megatron_ron
Replying to
@Megatron_ron
Unfortunately X is shadow banning this video judging by the small number of impressions, despite the fact that engagements are high for Christians not to see this video.
Great article. Russia and its military is backed 100% by her people and by the global majority. There is one person calling the shots and he has the full trust of nearly the whole planet.
The west on the other hand has very little support for war, maybe none, amongst its people, there is no one trusted leader calling the shots and apart from nuclear weapons and chemical weapons, offers very little militarily.
Trump has no chance of making a deal to keep the city of London and Wall Street happy while satisfying the Russians at the same time, that's not going to happen.
The city of London will go the nuclear option I believe as they have by far the most to lose, along with Paris. Should they go down this route I believe the US and Russia would be amiable to the destruction of both these countries once and for all, that might be the deal Trump gets.
Ultimately Trump's agenda is to MAGA. Peace with Russia is a means to that end, since Russia is an immovable object that has to be dealt with on its own terms. If that process involves 'destruction' of other countries as a necessary part of the means to the MAGA end, Trump will probably be willing to do that. The question then comes down to the Anglo-Zionists within the US.
Mark-- America has no diplomacy skills or diplomats on the level of Lavrov and China etc. We bluster, threaten, bomb and bludgeon with Teddy R 's" big stick".
Did we ever have a diplomatic corps of skill, cultural knowledge and finesse such as Russia has?
There may have been a few, but not many. Our diplomats are political appointments with no training in diplomacy. They are usually self-interested political donors or movers and shakers in the business world and they are assigned to keep the corruption going.
Agree. I think the breakdown has been a recent affair. Looking back to the 60's. Civil rights, which in it's essence was needed, but what we got along with the Immigration act was a betrayal of what we were supposed to stand for. Fleeting values over long standing principals.
just wondering what was on the table when Nato's Rutte circling about Biden, Trump and Erdogan recently. Erdogan, by the way had a phone call to Putin before he met with Rutte.
Well done Mark. Consider that the divide we see today goes back further. And do you read Alexander Dugin’s substack? Worth paying attention to.
James Billington wrote the Icon and the Axe about 1968. It was heretical in the US/Brits, and was never accepted as a way to view the Russians. This was a grave mistake. We never realized the differences and how they viewed their part of the Western civilization.
We also never recognized that the US/Brits and most of Western Europe was fully into a different paradigm after WWII from the Russians. The West fully embraced Globalism with the US/Brits in the lead and this was spread to everyone in the West by the adoption of Television as the primary means of communication.
The Russians developed differently after the War, much more of a Radio sensibility (think of all of the Radio communications towers in all of the Russian satellite countries). They never accepted or allowed television to become what the rest of the West did. China resisted this as well.
So different paradigms in conflict for decades looking at themselves and the rest of the world differently, fighting over different views of the Western civilization and Christianity. The idea that the Russians were atheists was a West prop. The ROC and other churches never went away. Now it’s clear that the ROC is in charge, not Putin. We ignore this at our own peril.
Jeffrey Sachs points to 1990 as the beginning of today’s problems: Gorbachev asked for help from the Bush I admin regarding their economy after the Wall, calling Sachs directly about this. Sachs says that Bush said screw them. Clinton maintained the same attitude and was a total sell out.
There is also the reality of the context on the US/Brits side (I am not defending it). Call it establishment or deep state. There was no serious alternative by the 80s. There was no shadow possibility that was viable. We were completely in the tank with Television/fantasy “formation.”
Putin understands the Russian history and their civilization. There is no deviation from it. They have gone Digital and are fully embracing the effects: spirituality and the dispersed multipolarity. They/he knows that Globalism is dead. It’s the US/Brits that have not let go of it…yet. But there is a going pushback, particularly for those in Tech, Wall Street and lower levels of Intel. There is disagreement in the US (the Brits are not a serious player anymore, though their IC tries to push us).
The Russians and Chinese are further down the road in thinking about “what comes next.” We are still fighting over that, but the Trump win will be an impedance for “change.”
[Davis notes that several hundred thousand Ukrainians may have been lost in less than two years.]
"As someone who joined our nation's armed forces to defend America I find it reprehensible that our leaders are so focused on CASH that they don't even care about the moral aspect: the bigger reason why people serve, why people who wore the uniform like me were willing to sacrifice their lives because they believed their leaders were doing the right thing -- leaders with the character and morals commensurate with someone who's willing to sacrifice their LIFE!
Maybe that's the reason why we're having such a hard time with recruiting right now. Because when people hear guys like Lindsey Graham...
Who wants to go and risk your life so that somebody else can get a job [at Raytheon]? That's not what the military is supposed to do."
Great succinct recounting of this terrible history and an accompanying great analysis! A mini "theory of everything," if you will, for the results of Neocon "foreign policy" since the '90s. I am printing this one out for the bulletin board. Thank you, Mark!
Having just watched two interviews with Col. McGregor and Scott Ritter all I can say is that Biden and the Neocons are living in a dangerous fantasy world and so are a number of Trump's appointees.
Listening to the interviews brought close to home just how fragile the situation is right now and all it is going to take is a very foolish mistake to unleash to the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse upon us and there will be no going back.
Biden, the UK, and France are delusional in their thinking that they can press Russia to any length and they will do nothing about it. They will and that just pushes all is that much closer to Midnight and total Armageddon. I wonder if any of us should make any plans past the next two months for anything or even past Thanksgiving for that matter.
To think that we have people here in positions of power that somehow believe that we can survive a Nuclear War or Bluff the Russians into some sort of surrender to us on favorable terms is total madness.
One of the films I think back on I saw as kid was "Fail Safe", which I rewatched recently and it still scared me to death. Another film that dealt with Nuclear conflict was 1965's "The Bedford Incident", that one scared me also.
Once the button is pushed the whole machinery is then put in motion and is on automatic and the computers take over, it cannot then be stopped. We measure the time we have left in mere minutes, maybe as many as 72 minutes for some of us. Nuclear winter then comes and the rest of mankind dies from starvation, radiation sickness and the elements. No one lives, all eventually die and that is the total end.
And what do those left say to the Billions that are dead and dying?
In St. Louis County, where I reside, we have a park, Lone Elk Park. I guess at one point we only had one elk. Now, we have several. Posted signs clearly warn visitors not to get too close to the elk.
Every couple years I read in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch about a poor soul who ignored the signs. The males bugle before they attack. The victim ignores the warning and then the elk gores him.
The 4d chess turned out to be more like Chinese checkers going by the last term.
It’s beginning to look like Biden was rolled over because he wouldn’t go all in. I can hear it now, “Russia refused a deal of the century so we have no other option.”
Have to give him credit though, he is the master of cognitive dissonance, ‘operation warp speed’ was followed by advice to take Chloroquine.
Why would Putin talk to these knuckleheads that Trump is appointing. This good cop/bad cop thing is absurd:
Sebastian Gorka: I'll give one tip away that the president [Trump] has mentioned. He will say to that murderous former KGB Colonel, that thug who runs the Russian Federation: "You will negotiate now or the aid that we have given to Ukraine thus far will look like peanuts!" That's how [Trump] will force those gentlemen [Putin and Zelensky] to come to an arrangement that stops the bloodshed.
Don't count on the Russians talking to these idiots--who are citing Trump for the authority of these idiocies--any time soon.
Why would Putin or Lavrov even consider talking to someone describing the President of the Russian Federation in such demeaning, uncouth, and undiplomatic language.
I saw an appropriate meme that pictured the US shooting dollar bills out of cannons at the Russians. That's about the only thing we have left. We can sanction. We can print money. But we can't print fighting men or weapons. Our cupboards are bare.
Where does the idiot in question think all of this additional "aid" to Ukraine is going to come from while China is divesting itself from U.S. Treasuries and Europe is going broke and the U.S. is on the path to bankruptcy?
My goodness, if Gorka and Lindsey and the Wong character Mark cited over the weekend and so many others like them are handed power under Trump I fear for our continued existence as a nation in a short few years. These people have lived in academic ivory towers and/or the gilded cages of defense industry sinecures with utterly no contact with reality, I fear for our very existence in a few years time.
Let's not forget that Russia is the backing for the Axis of Resistance. Hamas and Hezbollah, for instance, along with Iran, have underground fortifications and arrays of drones and missiles that they have gotten via association from the old communist bloc--specifically Russia and North Korea. There are numerous reports of North Korea helping in the building of these fortifications and of they and Russia providing weapons and missiles; also to the Houthis. So there is a whole infrastructure of anti-West, anti-Israel, and anti-US military systems that Russia is not going to walk away from. So yes, by delaying negotiations and rubbing Ukraine's nose in it, Putin keeps this entire interlocking infrastructure alive. Putin knows WWIII is on, and there is no way he will call a ceasefire that will lose the momentum that his de facto alliance has built since Zhou went berserk in 2021. Maybe Trump even thinks "shock and awe" is yet possible. But it is not in Ukraine, we have seen that, and with the underground fortifications in the ME, not there either. The US used to think it could bomb any country in the world to oblivion, as least ones without a nuclear deterrent. Those days are gone. All the US has left, along with Israel, is some variant of the Samson option. Putin can also play that game.
The only time bombing truly worked was in Japan, with nuclear war heads. If it works again most of humanity will be dead. Who is going to program the transhumans?
"The United States needs Ukraine's rare-earth metals, including lithium, and intends to take them as payment for military assistance" Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said.
"It is no coincidence that US Senator Lindsey Graham said outright (he is not a diplomat and does not hide his thoughts), that the US needs to ensure that Russia suffer a defeat in Ukraine, because there are many rare-earth metals, including lithium," Lavrov said.
"He said so to Vladimir Zelensky when he visited him recently. He said that the US needs these riches. And he added that they would help Ukraine and in return they would take all this from it as payback."
Lavrov noted that American companies had already bought up most of the fertile land.
"They keep talking about the 'Black Sea initiative', about the need to feed Africa. First of all, the West exported more than 50% of grain to the European Union, and not to Africa. American corporations made money on this grain. And they want to do the same to the rest of our neighbor's wealth," Lavrov stressed.
The Data Humanist substack had an analysis which gets to the bottom line,
/quote
Ukraine has proven lithium reserves — as known for decades. But we have had NO lithium mining in Ukraine. None. [There] has been no lithium mining taking place in Ukraine.
Why?
Hint: the answer is not Russian interference. Rather, think marketplace instead. It has not been cost-effective to mine the lithium in Ukraine, although the increased global demand is changing that. So specific consortiums from China and Australia — ones with the appropriate expertise — have floated proposals for development. The necessary investments, which start in the 100s of millions of dollars, are not simply a matter of financial capital. The parties involved must also have both the knowledge capital and the physical capital (heavy machinery, related technology, needed transport infrastructure, et cetera).
So BlackRock, for example, cannot simply print say 300 million in debt-financing and then have the metal magically rise out of the earth....
If the lithium reserves are worth say 5 trillion USD, but will cost 6 trillion USD to extract and process into a market-ready commodity, then the lithium stays in ground. The projected global demand for lithium is such that the Ukrainian reserves WILL likely be developed. But this requires not just investors but also expertise and equipment. Consortiums with this expertise and heavy industry technology also have the ability to line up investors — the Chinese foremost among them. If market economics matter at all, it may not be possible to keep the Chinese out.
Ukraine will not be as important for the Trump Administration as it has been for Biden’s Administration. The reason it was important to the Biden Administration was ideological and money (10% to the big man).
China is not going to invade Taiwan for the next two years. They are eating the United States lunch economically worldwide, so why endanger that?
Trump will talk to Putin and the little rocket man, create nice visuals, with no results.
Israel and Iran - no idea. My gut feeling is a ceasefire is in Hamas, Herzbolla, and Israel’s interests, and bordering nations. It’s not in the interest of Iran or Houthis. This has a higher political importance to Trump than Ukraine, due to power of AIPAC. I would not be surprised if Iran does a nuclear test.
Sanctions are just hurting the U.S. economically, so I expect these to be walked back by Trump. The question is this politically possible with all the anti Trump forces in the house and senate (democrats and eGOP).
I expect in a year Odessa will have been captured, and potentially Kiev, making Ukraine a landlocked nation that has been demilitarized, losing all the Russia speaking areas. There will be a Russian land bridge to The Russian part of Moldavia.
The U.S. will have a nice press release on pivoting to China, but it will be more hot air. Until the U.S. industrial economy and military industrial complex are fixed, nothing meaningful is possible. And this is not even bringing up all the dei infestation, and over extension of U.S. forces. Plus the effectiveness of U.S. military equipment.
Trump is going to focus more on domestic and economic issues for his first two years, including his death match cage fight against the Deep state.
What makes you think China is eating the US's lunch economically? Do not believe the economists as they are in the pocket of protecting the bankers. In Trump's first term, middle class wages rose against inflation for the first time in many years. And if you think the Chinese are great innovators, sorry, not so much. They are excellent at copying something that has already been done. New stuff, not so much. The entire history of their culture is not disposed to individual creativity. Plus, the central control of their economy is such a facade of success as to be unbelievable, other than to the money interests of the bankers. And those same bankers have exfiltrated so much wealth from the American middle class that our country is nearly ruined per that design. The one thing Trump will do and showed in his first term is to change that course.
I have huge respect for Trump on the economic side, and I have a lot of hope for the future.
Why China is eating us lunch economically…
Uniparty has exported manufacturing jobs to China, and been rewarded in the process. It makes more sense due to sec regulations and us tax code to outsource manufacturing, verses capital expenses in the us.
China has been in a trade war with the U.S., and with the exception of the Trump Administration, the U.S. has been asleep. Clinton selling of rocket technology is a great example of this. China requires tech sharing in order to sell into Chinese market. Bullet trains is another example. And money talks - Sf Bay Bridge - Chinese firm built and had massive rework and over cost. Another example of unfair trade practices is all the medicines made in China. China will lower prices to destroy competition, then raise them after competition destroyed. Raw earths mine in us was another victim.
Expansion of Chinese export markets into Central Asia, Africa, South America, and Central America.
U.S. develops technology, China either buys or steals it, and then produces it. Another example of this is Hawei (Chinese telecom manufacturer).
China is not hobbling itself as Europe is with green stuff driving de-industrialization due to higher energy costs and burdensome regulations. California is too, unfortunately. Some U.S. states are a bit saner than on energy and business policies.
China does not have dei tearing it apart.
China does not have lawyer tax that us does.
China does not have huge healthcare costs, thanks Obama, that is does.
Chinas schools are producing an incredible amount of engineers.
Fenatyl is the opium war 3. Chinas revenge for first two opium wars.
Multiple huge bubbles in us and out of control deficit spending.
China stays out of other countries business, in contrast to us out of control sanctions and willing to pressure on lgbt and other issues. Remember the lgbt flag in Kabul? U.S. diplomats now seem to be more dei hires.
China is willing to use bribes to get its way.
Top U.S. universities have largely become dei woke brainwashing factories, with admissions not based on ability.
Out of control crime in major U.S. cities. Thanks George Soros!
Horrible race relations - thanks Obama!
PhD programs in the hard sciences are full of Chinese, so we are training our competition.
Chinese culture values education. My child went to …. Watching Chinese mothers one up themselves using their kids is a sight. Tiger Mom is a true story.
China has a lot of challenges, falling birth rate is a huge one and another is their own financial bubble. Plus quality issues.
A quote from a top ranked economics teacher, is the headache with economics is half is right. Unfortunately economists don’t know which half. My view on economists is most are clueless and political hacks. The usual reference by them to the official inflation rate, that’s highly politicized and manipulated, is proof of that.
"[Not] all GDP is created equal. A dollar of GDP generated by a casino is fundamentally different from a dollar of GDP generated by extracting oil. Since economies like China and Russia have far larger mining and manufacturing industries, their relative economic importance is far greater than even a PPP-adjusted GDP figure shows. This goes a long way toward explaining why the Western sanctions did not cut the Russian economy in half, as President Biden promised, but instead created a severe energy crisis in Europe—and the continent now faces the horrifying prospect of deindustrialization.
Bad metrics can impose severe costs; that much is now clear. But can they also affect military planning? Could underestimating the relative size and power of a rival country’s economy go beyond economics and affect military readiness?"
I'd like to introduce a ray of hope here, if I may.
As desperate as the current international situation appears, and as irrational as America's commitment to both Ukraine and Israel seems, the eventual outcome is that both those issues will be resolved to America's advantage, which is to say they will no longer be a drain on America's financial resources because they will, in effect, cease to exist.
Why do I say this? Because once the fantasy of continuing as the world's hegemon is no longer supportable, you still have the following:
A vast nation protected on all sides by wide oceans and friendly neighbours. A nation still rich in natural resources and more importantly, with the human potential to rebuild the nation's economy along similar lines to what Russia has already done. The political structure of a Union of States governed by a constitution already exists, so nothing has to replace that or be created anew, just respected in its existing form.
It's a tall order, but once the realization dawns that it's the only way forward I expect Americans to rise to the challenge. The point that needs to be stressed is that once you strip away the financial overburden of global dollar hegemony, the basic resources still remain. A rebuilding will have to take place, but the means to do that are all present in abundance. Some skills will have to be relearned, so this won't happen overnight, but anything worth doing takes effort, and going by the sentiment of those who've supported the drive to make America Great Again, the will is there.
To be clear though, Making America great again does not mean restoring its ability to threaten the world, or to dictate the course that other nations take in their own development. The original concept of non-interference - a friend to all, an ally of none, will have to be the guiding principle, but that impulse already exists in the national consciousness, it only needs to be resurrected in a meaningful form.
What I'm saying is, all the pieces are still there. You just have to reassemble them.
Trump continues the long standing American tradition of unconditional support of Israel, so nothing much changes there, except...
That ship is sinking. If you look at the economic and demographic condition of Israel you can clearly see it has passed the point of no return and is now an international pariah. That's what happens when you base your national policy on a 2000 year old myth of racial supremacy.
At this point close to 1M people have already left. Those are the rational ones with no commitment to the Zionist cause. Those that remain, going by their own surveys and public statements, are completely committed to an irrational agenda that smacks of mass psychosis. That never ends well.
I've combed through recent history for some comparison to what's happening in Israel and the closest I could find was Cambodia under the Khmer Rouge. The ideology was different, but the methods were comparable and the end result is entirely predictable. Israel as a Zionist enterprise will cease to exist. Some small percentage of the remaining population will choose to stay and adapt to life in a new state called Palestine, but the majority will probably end up in the USA where the worst fears of Zionists, assimilation, will be the eventual reality. Before that happens however, you can expect even more Zionist influence in US politics as their "government-in-exile" tries desperately to regain what they've lost.
As it now stands, Israel has only one card left that it can play, the so-called Samson option. Should they go that route I would expect Russia to put a halt to it. They are already in a position to do so with major bases in Latakia and Tartus Syria, just minutes away as the crow flies. I assume a plan already exists to eliminate anything launched towards Russia. Whether Russia elects to rescue anyone else from that madness remains to be seen. It would be in their best interests, but as usual, they can expect no gratitude from those they save. That was the lesson learned in The Great Patriotic War, and nothing since then has changed.
Excellent summary and all true; now where is this headed? The West can no longer do deep strikes into Russia because they will play tit-for-tat on NATO targets. The war will go on and Ukraine will continue its heavy losses of soldiers and land area. The West is now revealed as impotent, so bellicose bluster does nothing. When Team Trump arrives in late January, they will get a rude awakening about how little leverage they actually have. There will be hemming and hawing and more impotent threats, but at the end of the day they will have to face reality. The price of access to Ukrainian resources will be a new European Security Framework in which NATO tangibly retreats. Take it or leave it. If the later, Russia will patiently wait for the West's economic decline to roil it politics and put new leadership into Europe. Ditto for Israel. The ME wars will go on until its economy also collapses. Wishing on rainbows won't change any of this.
Megatron @Megatron_ron
NEW:   Disgusting video of Israeli soldiers desecrated the Greek Orthodox Church
Israeli soldiers desecrated the Greek Orthodox Church in the Lebanese town of Deir Mimas, and made fun of the blessed Virgin Mary while conducting a homosexual wedding in the church as a 'joke'
11:10 PM · Nov 25, 2024
·
Megatron @Megatron_ron
Replying to
@Megatron_ron
Unfortunately X is shadow banning this video judging by the small number of impressions, despite the fact that engagements are high for Christians not to see this video.
Charming.
What will Huckabee and Hagee say after viewing this? Boys will be boys?
Great article. Russia and its military is backed 100% by her people and by the global majority. There is one person calling the shots and he has the full trust of nearly the whole planet.
The west on the other hand has very little support for war, maybe none, amongst its people, there is no one trusted leader calling the shots and apart from nuclear weapons and chemical weapons, offers very little militarily.
Trump has no chance of making a deal to keep the city of London and Wall Street happy while satisfying the Russians at the same time, that's not going to happen.
The city of London will go the nuclear option I believe as they have by far the most to lose, along with Paris. Should they go down this route I believe the US and Russia would be amiable to the destruction of both these countries once and for all, that might be the deal Trump gets.
Ultimately Trump's agenda is to MAGA. Peace with Russia is a means to that end, since Russia is an immovable object that has to be dealt with on its own terms. If that process involves 'destruction' of other countries as a necessary part of the means to the MAGA end, Trump will probably be willing to do that. The question then comes down to the Anglo-Zionists within the US.
Mark-- America has no diplomacy skills or diplomats on the level of Lavrov and China etc. We bluster, threaten, bomb and bludgeon with Teddy R 's" big stick".
Did we ever have a diplomatic corps of skill, cultural knowledge and finesse such as Russia has?
There may have been a few, but not many. Our diplomats are political appointments with no training in diplomacy. They are usually self-interested political donors or movers and shakers in the business world and they are assigned to keep the corruption going.
Sad.
Diplomacy is a centuries old art.
Perhaps, in one small part, this is why the great civilization states of the East remain after a millennium or more.
Whereas we are in a state of disintegration at less than 250 years🤔
Agree. I think the breakdown has been a recent affair. Looking back to the 60's. Civil rights, which in it's essence was needed, but what we got along with the Immigration act was a betrayal of what we were supposed to stand for. Fleeting values over long standing principals.
just wondering what was on the table when Nato's Rutte circling about Biden, Trump and Erdogan recently. Erdogan, by the way had a phone call to Putin before he met with Rutte.
Well done Mark. Consider that the divide we see today goes back further. And do you read Alexander Dugin’s substack? Worth paying attention to.
James Billington wrote the Icon and the Axe about 1968. It was heretical in the US/Brits, and was never accepted as a way to view the Russians. This was a grave mistake. We never realized the differences and how they viewed their part of the Western civilization.
We also never recognized that the US/Brits and most of Western Europe was fully into a different paradigm after WWII from the Russians. The West fully embraced Globalism with the US/Brits in the lead and this was spread to everyone in the West by the adoption of Television as the primary means of communication.
The Russians developed differently after the War, much more of a Radio sensibility (think of all of the Radio communications towers in all of the Russian satellite countries). They never accepted or allowed television to become what the rest of the West did. China resisted this as well.
So different paradigms in conflict for decades looking at themselves and the rest of the world differently, fighting over different views of the Western civilization and Christianity. The idea that the Russians were atheists was a West prop. The ROC and other churches never went away. Now it’s clear that the ROC is in charge, not Putin. We ignore this at our own peril.
Jeffrey Sachs points to 1990 as the beginning of today’s problems: Gorbachev asked for help from the Bush I admin regarding their economy after the Wall, calling Sachs directly about this. Sachs says that Bush said screw them. Clinton maintained the same attitude and was a total sell out.
There is also the reality of the context on the US/Brits side (I am not defending it). Call it establishment or deep state. There was no serious alternative by the 80s. There was no shadow possibility that was viable. We were completely in the tank with Television/fantasy “formation.”
Putin understands the Russian history and their civilization. There is no deviation from it. They have gone Digital and are fully embracing the effects: spirituality and the dispersed multipolarity. They/he knows that Globalism is dead. It’s the US/Brits that have not let go of it…yet. But there is a going pushback, particularly for those in Tech, Wall Street and lower levels of Intel. There is disagreement in the US (the Brits are not a serious player anymore, though their IC tries to push us).
The Russians and Chinese are further down the road in thinking about “what comes next.” We are still fighting over that, but the Trump win will be an impedance for “change.”
Fabulous summary. Thank you.
Danny Davis explaining that Trump has nothing to negotiate with.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5FT26KRHLgc
Exactly what he says and in every respect! Morally, culturally, and practically. This is a must watch.
Lightly edited for clarity:
[Davis notes that several hundred thousand Ukrainians may have been lost in less than two years.]
"As someone who joined our nation's armed forces to defend America I find it reprehensible that our leaders are so focused on CASH that they don't even care about the moral aspect: the bigger reason why people serve, why people who wore the uniform like me were willing to sacrifice their lives because they believed their leaders were doing the right thing -- leaders with the character and morals commensurate with someone who's willing to sacrifice their LIFE!
Maybe that's the reason why we're having such a hard time with recruiting right now. Because when people hear guys like Lindsey Graham...
Who wants to go and risk your life so that somebody else can get a job [at Raytheon]? That's not what the military is supposed to do."
Excellent! A highlight indeed. Thanks very much for the time and effort, Tamsin!
So, well put, Tamsin. God question, why? Why would I put my life on the line for our leaders, Israel or the Ukraine.
Great Freudian slip in your question!
Good catch, Bob!
At the beginning of the war, some of the more prescient said: "the US will fight to the last Ukrainian". Sadly it's true.
Our 'leaders' have a lot of blood on their hands.
Great succinct recounting of this terrible history and an accompanying great analysis! A mini "theory of everything," if you will, for the results of Neocon "foreign policy" since the '90s. I am printing this one out for the bulletin board. Thank you, Mark!
I concur. I appreciate the background
Having just watched two interviews with Col. McGregor and Scott Ritter all I can say is that Biden and the Neocons are living in a dangerous fantasy world and so are a number of Trump's appointees.
Listening to the interviews brought close to home just how fragile the situation is right now and all it is going to take is a very foolish mistake to unleash to the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse upon us and there will be no going back.
Biden, the UK, and France are delusional in their thinking that they can press Russia to any length and they will do nothing about it. They will and that just pushes all is that much closer to Midnight and total Armageddon. I wonder if any of us should make any plans past the next two months for anything or even past Thanksgiving for that matter.
To think that we have people here in positions of power that somehow believe that we can survive a Nuclear War or Bluff the Russians into some sort of surrender to us on favorable terms is total madness.
One of the films I think back on I saw as kid was "Fail Safe", which I rewatched recently and it still scared me to death. Another film that dealt with Nuclear conflict was 1965's "The Bedford Incident", that one scared me also.
Once the button is pushed the whole machinery is then put in motion and is on automatic and the computers take over, it cannot then be stopped. We measure the time we have left in mere minutes, maybe as many as 72 minutes for some of us. Nuclear winter then comes and the rest of mankind dies from starvation, radiation sickness and the elements. No one lives, all eventually die and that is the total end.
And what do those left say to the Billions that are dead and dying?
If everyone's dead, there's no one left to say "sorry".
Reading your comment, an analogy came to mind.
In St. Louis County, where I reside, we have a park, Lone Elk Park. I guess at one point we only had one elk. Now, we have several. Posted signs clearly warn visitors not to get too close to the elk.
Every couple years I read in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch about a poor soul who ignored the signs. The males bugle before they attack. The victim ignores the warning and then the elk gores him.
Seems to me that Putin is bugling.
"Oops?" You can bet it won't be "Sorry!"
The 4d chess turned out to be more like Chinese checkers going by the last term.
It’s beginning to look like Biden was rolled over because he wouldn’t go all in. I can hear it now, “Russia refused a deal of the century so we have no other option.”
Have to give him credit though, he is the master of cognitive dissonance, ‘operation warp speed’ was followed by advice to take Chloroquine.
Why would Putin talk to these knuckleheads that Trump is appointing. This good cop/bad cop thing is absurd:
Sebastian Gorka: I'll give one tip away that the president [Trump] has mentioned. He will say to that murderous former KGB Colonel, that thug who runs the Russian Federation: "You will negotiate now or the aid that we have given to Ukraine thus far will look like peanuts!" That's how [Trump] will force those gentlemen [Putin and Zelensky] to come to an arrangement that stops the bloodshed.
Don't count on the Russians talking to these idiots--who are citing Trump for the authority of these idiocies--any time soon.
Why would Putin or Lavrov even consider talking to someone describing the President of the Russian Federation in such demeaning, uncouth, and undiplomatic language.
We sound like a bunch of unlettered barbarians.
I saw an appropriate meme that pictured the US shooting dollar bills out of cannons at the Russians. That's about the only thing we have left. We can sanction. We can print money. But we can't print fighting men or weapons. Our cupboards are bare.
It'd be more accurate to say we're firing IOUs out of the cannons.
Gorka is an air-headed loudmouth, an idiot - pass him by.
Where does the idiot in question think all of this additional "aid" to Ukraine is going to come from while China is divesting itself from U.S. Treasuries and Europe is going broke and the U.S. is on the path to bankruptcy?
https://www.foxbusiness.com/business-leaders/elon-musk-says-america-going-bankrupt-extremely-quickly
My goodness, if Gorka and Lindsey and the Wong character Mark cited over the weekend and so many others like them are handed power under Trump I fear for our continued existence as a nation in a short few years. These people have lived in academic ivory towers and/or the gilded cages of defense industry sinecures with utterly no contact with reality, I fear for our very existence in a few years time.
Let's not forget that Russia is the backing for the Axis of Resistance. Hamas and Hezbollah, for instance, along with Iran, have underground fortifications and arrays of drones and missiles that they have gotten via association from the old communist bloc--specifically Russia and North Korea. There are numerous reports of North Korea helping in the building of these fortifications and of they and Russia providing weapons and missiles; also to the Houthis. So there is a whole infrastructure of anti-West, anti-Israel, and anti-US military systems that Russia is not going to walk away from. So yes, by delaying negotiations and rubbing Ukraine's nose in it, Putin keeps this entire interlocking infrastructure alive. Putin knows WWIII is on, and there is no way he will call a ceasefire that will lose the momentum that his de facto alliance has built since Zhou went berserk in 2021. Maybe Trump even thinks "shock and awe" is yet possible. But it is not in Ukraine, we have seen that, and with the underground fortifications in the ME, not there either. The US used to think it could bomb any country in the world to oblivion, as least ones without a nuclear deterrent. Those days are gone. All the US has left, along with Israel, is some variant of the Samson option. Putin can also play that game.
The only time bombing truly worked was in Japan, with nuclear war heads. If it works again most of humanity will be dead. Who is going to program the transhumans?
I wonder who will be on the receiving end of any shocks-and-awes - it’s by no means certain.
As if on cue:
MenchOsint @MenchOsint
"The United States needs Ukraine's rare-earth metals, including lithium, and intends to take them as payment for military assistance" Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said.
"It is no coincidence that US Senator Lindsey Graham said outright (he is not a diplomat and does not hide his thoughts), that the US needs to ensure that Russia suffer a defeat in Ukraine, because there are many rare-earth metals, including lithium," Lavrov said.
"He said so to Vladimir Zelensky when he visited him recently. He said that the US needs these riches. And he added that they would help Ukraine and in return they would take all this from it as payback."
Lavrov noted that American companies had already bought up most of the fertile land.
"They keep talking about the 'Black Sea initiative', about the need to feed Africa. First of all, the West exported more than 50% of grain to the European Union, and not to Africa. American corporations made money on this grain. And they want to do the same to the rest of our neighbor's wealth," Lavrov stressed.
The Data Humanist substack had an analysis which gets to the bottom line,
/quote
Ukraine has proven lithium reserves — as known for decades. But we have had NO lithium mining in Ukraine. None. [There] has been no lithium mining taking place in Ukraine.
Why?
Hint: the answer is not Russian interference. Rather, think marketplace instead. It has not been cost-effective to mine the lithium in Ukraine, although the increased global demand is changing that. So specific consortiums from China and Australia — ones with the appropriate expertise — have floated proposals for development. The necessary investments, which start in the 100s of millions of dollars, are not simply a matter of financial capital. The parties involved must also have both the knowledge capital and the physical capital (heavy machinery, related technology, needed transport infrastructure, et cetera).
So BlackRock, for example, cannot simply print say 300 million in debt-financing and then have the metal magically rise out of the earth....
If the lithium reserves are worth say 5 trillion USD, but will cost 6 trillion USD to extract and process into a market-ready commodity, then the lithium stays in ground. The projected global demand for lithium is such that the Ukrainian reserves WILL likely be developed. But this requires not just investors but also expertise and equipment. Consortiums with this expertise and heavy industry technology also have the ability to line up investors — the Chinese foremost among them. If market economics matter at all, it may not be possible to keep the Chinese out.
/endquote
Swags:
Ukraine will not be as important for the Trump Administration as it has been for Biden’s Administration. The reason it was important to the Biden Administration was ideological and money (10% to the big man).
China is not going to invade Taiwan for the next two years. They are eating the United States lunch economically worldwide, so why endanger that?
Trump will talk to Putin and the little rocket man, create nice visuals, with no results.
Israel and Iran - no idea. My gut feeling is a ceasefire is in Hamas, Herzbolla, and Israel’s interests, and bordering nations. It’s not in the interest of Iran or Houthis. This has a higher political importance to Trump than Ukraine, due to power of AIPAC. I would not be surprised if Iran does a nuclear test.
Sanctions are just hurting the U.S. economically, so I expect these to be walked back by Trump. The question is this politically possible with all the anti Trump forces in the house and senate (democrats and eGOP).
I expect in a year Odessa will have been captured, and potentially Kiev, making Ukraine a landlocked nation that has been demilitarized, losing all the Russia speaking areas. There will be a Russian land bridge to The Russian part of Moldavia.
The U.S. will have a nice press release on pivoting to China, but it will be more hot air. Until the U.S. industrial economy and military industrial complex are fixed, nothing meaningful is possible. And this is not even bringing up all the dei infestation, and over extension of U.S. forces. Plus the effectiveness of U.S. military equipment.
Trump is going to focus more on domestic and economic issues for his first two years, including his death match cage fight against the Deep state.
What makes you think China is eating the US's lunch economically? Do not believe the economists as they are in the pocket of protecting the bankers. In Trump's first term, middle class wages rose against inflation for the first time in many years. And if you think the Chinese are great innovators, sorry, not so much. They are excellent at copying something that has already been done. New stuff, not so much. The entire history of their culture is not disposed to individual creativity. Plus, the central control of their economy is such a facade of success as to be unbelievable, other than to the money interests of the bankers. And those same bankers have exfiltrated so much wealth from the American middle class that our country is nearly ruined per that design. The one thing Trump will do and showed in his first term is to change that course.
I have huge respect for Trump on the economic side, and I have a lot of hope for the future.
Why China is eating us lunch economically…
Uniparty has exported manufacturing jobs to China, and been rewarded in the process. It makes more sense due to sec regulations and us tax code to outsource manufacturing, verses capital expenses in the us.
China has been in a trade war with the U.S., and with the exception of the Trump Administration, the U.S. has been asleep. Clinton selling of rocket technology is a great example of this. China requires tech sharing in order to sell into Chinese market. Bullet trains is another example. And money talks - Sf Bay Bridge - Chinese firm built and had massive rework and over cost. Another example of unfair trade practices is all the medicines made in China. China will lower prices to destroy competition, then raise them after competition destroyed. Raw earths mine in us was another victim.
Expansion of Chinese export markets into Central Asia, Africa, South America, and Central America.
U.S. develops technology, China either buys or steals it, and then produces it. Another example of this is Hawei (Chinese telecom manufacturer).
China is not hobbling itself as Europe is with green stuff driving de-industrialization due to higher energy costs and burdensome regulations. California is too, unfortunately. Some U.S. states are a bit saner than on energy and business policies.
China does not have dei tearing it apart.
China does not have lawyer tax that us does.
China does not have huge healthcare costs, thanks Obama, that is does.
Chinas schools are producing an incredible amount of engineers.
Fenatyl is the opium war 3. Chinas revenge for first two opium wars.
Multiple huge bubbles in us and out of control deficit spending.
China stays out of other countries business, in contrast to us out of control sanctions and willing to pressure on lgbt and other issues. Remember the lgbt flag in Kabul? U.S. diplomats now seem to be more dei hires.
China is willing to use bribes to get its way.
Top U.S. universities have largely become dei woke brainwashing factories, with admissions not based on ability.
Out of control crime in major U.S. cities. Thanks George Soros!
Horrible race relations - thanks Obama!
PhD programs in the hard sciences are full of Chinese, so we are training our competition.
Chinese culture values education. My child went to …. Watching Chinese mothers one up themselves using their kids is a sight. Tiger Mom is a true story.
China has a lot of challenges, falling birth rate is a huge one and another is their own financial bubble. Plus quality issues.
A quote from a top ranked economics teacher, is the headache with economics is half is right. Unfortunately economists don’t know which half. My view on economists is most are clueless and political hacks. The usual reference by them to the official inflation rate, that’s highly politicized and manipulated, is proof of that.
This article was discussed in a MoH post earlier this year,
https://americanaffairsjournal.org/2023/02/assessing-the-economic-value-of-military-materiel/
"[Not] all GDP is created equal. A dollar of GDP generated by a casino is fundamentally different from a dollar of GDP generated by extracting oil. Since economies like China and Russia have far larger mining and manufacturing industries, their relative economic importance is far greater than even a PPP-adjusted GDP figure shows. This goes a long way toward explaining why the Western sanctions did not cut the Russian economy in half, as President Biden promised, but instead created a severe energy crisis in Europe—and the continent now faces the horrifying prospect of deindustrialization.
Bad metrics can impose severe costs; that much is now clear. But can they also affect military planning? Could underestimating the relative size and power of a rival country’s economy go beyond economics and affect military readiness?"
And worse the Sanctions have actually improved Russias economy by decreasing imports, and creating Russian alternatives and Chinese imports.
I am tired of this analogy that Trump is somehow playing 4D Chess, whoever he talks to last he what he does, just like FDR did.
I'm with you on the 4D chess. I'd like to see the evidence of this.