In the past I’ve written at some length about the International North–South Transport Corridor, which would provide a sea - rail links stretching from Mumbai to St. Petersburg. In between, it would draw most of the Middle East and Central Asia into a vast network for international trade. But that’s only part of it, because sea links would stretch eastward to China, through South Asia. Here’s
The US diversion of resources to overseas adventuring that were best utilized in securing and defending its own hemisphere, is already resulting in serious consequences. I'd very much like to know your thoughts about this and what the implications are in the context of Eurasian trade restructuring.
The American goal of achieving (maintaining?) Global Hegemony is a lofty goal, especially given the rise of China since Nixon/Kissinger, with its trade surpluses, multiplying GDP and enormous population, and also given the inherent power and wealth of resurgent Russia, the richest country in the world in terms of value of its natural resources. Add in the Global Hegemon's need to control all those OPEC (and OPEC+) countries and the rest of the BRICs and you've got a very tall order. The stalemate (at best) in Ukraine raises innumerable questions regarding the likely success of the Global Hegemon's quest to control the rest of the world by military power.
I would add to these physical and military challenges of Global Hegemony a metaphysical challenge: What is the Purpose?
Putting it another way: What is the purpose...today...of the United States of America?
Since we have abandoned (or banned?) the religious ideals of our earliest forefathers who risked their lives to come here and we have effectively shut down the churches...and since the Elites no longer believe in the fundamental Constitutional individual freedoms which for decades attracted millions to our shores...and since the act of family formation and sexual relations has become largely unrelated to reproduction...and since work has become optional as the American Oligarchs have found it extraordinarily lucrative to simply offshore the millions of jobs making the things which Americans use and consume in their daily lives...what's the point anymore? We don't even grow our own food anymore as millions of undocumented farm workers have crossed our southern 'border' to take care of that for us. What is left for us to do? I am reminded of the hammock-dwelling fatso humans in the animated cartoon movie Wall-E...Remember them?
And they seek relentlessly to take away our arms and our rights to self-defense.
Seriously. With nothing spiritual left to believe in...without the security of the knowledge that we can build our lives knowing that our individual freedoms of self-actualization are protected...without meaningful, productive work or the fundamental motivating reality of family and children...and perhaps without the right to defend ourselves...what's the point?
And we should listen to our 'betters' to find the answers? We should listen to this fraction of a percentage point or two of the residents of this country with enormous power who control our giant corporations and our technologies and our media and our elections and our universities? And who live in material luxury in a handful of gated communities and wealthy enclaves separated from almost all of the rest of America?
We should look for answers to these people who have amassed fortunes small and large enabling them to live fantasy lives of opulence and leisure? Look at the iconic American success story: Jeff Bezos. His genius in distributing consumer goods for pennies less to hundreds of millions of Americans has helped destroy the American Main Street (along with Walmart, etc) but allows him to build and own an enormous $500 million yacht on which he plays pretend-royalty cavorting with his silicone-enhanced Frankenstein-esque 'girl'-friend...I'm sure he's onboard his yacht right now...probably entertaining Megan Markle and her husband. There are plenty more just like him.
Even the minions and bag carriers of American princelings who live, for example, in the zipcodes around DC who go to meetings and type emails for work enjoy incomes multiple times greater than the ordinary Americans in the heartland who used to make GM and Ford cars, and Maytag washers, and RCA tvs, and Schwinn bikes and Keds sneakers, and Wrangler jeans, and Louisville Slugger bats and GE ovens...and who now work as hospital orderlies or in UPS stores or Walmarts or Starbucks or DMVs. If they work at all.
Then look at the obesity crisis in America and the epidemics of chronic disease. Who, over the age of 40 or 50 in America, isn't morbidly obese or struck with some debilitating or life-threatening cancer or heart or lung disease or some new manifestation of an obscure auto-immune disease. Look at the mental health of Americans and the dispensation of anti-depressants and the consumption of alcohol and marijuana and other drugs. Look at the mortality arising from use of illegal opioids and fentanyl.
It seems past debate that we are a sick and unhappy people living meaningless lives doing purposeless make-work for the ultra-rich and powerful.
Perhaps I exaggerate. After all, we do have Global Hegemony to achieve and China and Russia to subjugate. Look no further than multi-millionaire Republican leader Mitch McConnell, who has told us that, “providing assistance for Ukrainians to defeat the Russians is the number one priority for the United States right now according to most Republicans. That's how we see the challenges confronting the country at the moment.”
Putin's a strategic thinker and the Danube has probably played a role in Russian thinking for a while. In particular, it probably explains the intensity of fighting over Snake Island last year. After territorial control of the Danube mouth itself, Snake Island and the largest nearby port, Odessa, are the most important elements for controlling entry and exit from the Danube.
It also raises an intriguing possibility. Russia is clearly trying to unite Russian-speaking areas, which include Odessa and Transnistria. Southern Bessarabia (aka Budjak) is the coastal part of Bessarabia, the USSR separated it from what is now Moldova in WWII. If Russia were to offer Budjak to Moldova in exchange for Transnistria, could Moldova say no? They would gain in territorial terms and having a coast would help a lot in alleviating the grinding poverty in the country. We already know Odessa is in Russia's sights, it is an historically Russian city with a large Russian population. If Odessa falls to Russia, Budjak and Snake Island become indefensible for Ukraine. If Moldova took the deal, it would move closer to Russia and away from the EU, and with Odessa and Snake Island, Russia would have effective control of the Danube's mouth, allowing it to extert a lot of pressure over Eastern Europe in aid of its efforts to change the political situation there.
There are a lot of what-ifs in play. The history behind it goes back much further than WW2. Few Americans have heard of these places and their historical connections to Russia, but Russians like Putin do.
The rail links through China are already built or being built sometime in the near future goods will be able to be shipped for the far east to Europe over a land route. Also, there have been talks about a tunnel connecting the Bering Straits which will connect North America to the land network. The City of London have fought this for centuries as they controlled the choke points for worldwide shipping thus they had the color revolution in Russia in 1914 (I may be wrong on the year) was a British operation to stop Russia form completing the overland route.
Eventually this will be true, but it will take a while. I expect other issues sooner will cause more crises in the EU threatening its survival.
In the short term Iran will keep Improving its leg if the North South Corridor, especially adding new rail lines. Russia has a huge incentive as a way to bypass Europe.
That Ukrainian territory is in the map of probably not taken by Russia if I remember correctly, but if there is a large ethnic Hungarian population perhaps that changes the map?
Looking at languages of Ukraine, perhaps Russia will annex a Southern Corridor to Hungary? Cutting off Ukraine even more.
Thank you for giving context to Alex Krainer’s excellent post! It's fascinating watching all this unfold. I feel sorry for my German relatives, who are all in complete denial about what is happening. The husband of one cousin votes for AfD and she accepts they have different political views, but the rest of the family judges him harshly for this.
I am reading Anna Funder’s excellent nonfiction book Stasiland which recounts stories from former East Germans who endured life in the GDR. It is a fascinating insight into the German mind and their desire for order and compliance. Brilliantly written and highly enjoyable.
Thanks for the rec, I'll have to check it out sometime. (Right now, keeping up with current events is exhausting and distressing, so at the moment I am reading books exclusively for escapism.)
I know what you mean! I mostly do the same with books - and TV and streaming too. I read a lot of old British crime novels because I like the clarity of that moral universe and the fact that good always triumphs over evil in the end. I watch old movies from the 70s and 80s (and pre-70s if I can find them) and old British crime dramas for the same reason 😊
True. Unfortunately, that pretty much applies to most of us living in the West. Trudeau certainly doesn't have my or other Canadians' interests at heart.
The US diversion of resources to overseas adventuring that were best utilized in securing and defending its own hemisphere, is already resulting in serious consequences. I'd very much like to know your thoughts about this and what the implications are in the context of Eurasian trade restructuring.
Nice River Cruise along the Danube from Vienna to the Black Sea, except it bypasses the Ukraine border. My guess using a canal.
https://www.vikingrivercruises.com/cruise-destinations/europe/capitals-of-eastern-europe/2024-vienna-bucharest/index.html
It is very early in the morning in northern Europe where I sit today so I will ramble a little bit here.
Over the past few days @Louis Bingo and I have been discussing the goals of the US elites in Russia and at home. Here: https://meaninginhistory.substack.com/p/more-on-expeditionary-war-a-moral/comment/21606365?utm_source=activity_item. We don't directly touch on the larger game for Global Hegemony which Mark discusses in this post, but, of course, they are all related.
The American goal of achieving (maintaining?) Global Hegemony is a lofty goal, especially given the rise of China since Nixon/Kissinger, with its trade surpluses, multiplying GDP and enormous population, and also given the inherent power and wealth of resurgent Russia, the richest country in the world in terms of value of its natural resources. Add in the Global Hegemon's need to control all those OPEC (and OPEC+) countries and the rest of the BRICs and you've got a very tall order. The stalemate (at best) in Ukraine raises innumerable questions regarding the likely success of the Global Hegemon's quest to control the rest of the world by military power.
I would add to these physical and military challenges of Global Hegemony a metaphysical challenge: What is the Purpose?
Putting it another way: What is the purpose...today...of the United States of America?
Since we have abandoned (or banned?) the religious ideals of our earliest forefathers who risked their lives to come here and we have effectively shut down the churches...and since the Elites no longer believe in the fundamental Constitutional individual freedoms which for decades attracted millions to our shores...and since the act of family formation and sexual relations has become largely unrelated to reproduction...and since work has become optional as the American Oligarchs have found it extraordinarily lucrative to simply offshore the millions of jobs making the things which Americans use and consume in their daily lives...what's the point anymore? We don't even grow our own food anymore as millions of undocumented farm workers have crossed our southern 'border' to take care of that for us. What is left for us to do? I am reminded of the hammock-dwelling fatso humans in the animated cartoon movie Wall-E...Remember them?
And they seek relentlessly to take away our arms and our rights to self-defense.
Seriously. With nothing spiritual left to believe in...without the security of the knowledge that we can build our lives knowing that our individual freedoms of self-actualization are protected...without meaningful, productive work or the fundamental motivating reality of family and children...and perhaps without the right to defend ourselves...what's the point?
And we should listen to our 'betters' to find the answers? We should listen to this fraction of a percentage point or two of the residents of this country with enormous power who control our giant corporations and our technologies and our media and our elections and our universities? And who live in material luxury in a handful of gated communities and wealthy enclaves separated from almost all of the rest of America?
We should look for answers to these people who have amassed fortunes small and large enabling them to live fantasy lives of opulence and leisure? Look at the iconic American success story: Jeff Bezos. His genius in distributing consumer goods for pennies less to hundreds of millions of Americans has helped destroy the American Main Street (along with Walmart, etc) but allows him to build and own an enormous $500 million yacht on which he plays pretend-royalty cavorting with his silicone-enhanced Frankenstein-esque 'girl'-friend...I'm sure he's onboard his yacht right now...probably entertaining Megan Markle and her husband. There are plenty more just like him.
Even the minions and bag carriers of American princelings who live, for example, in the zipcodes around DC who go to meetings and type emails for work enjoy incomes multiple times greater than the ordinary Americans in the heartland who used to make GM and Ford cars, and Maytag washers, and RCA tvs, and Schwinn bikes and Keds sneakers, and Wrangler jeans, and Louisville Slugger bats and GE ovens...and who now work as hospital orderlies or in UPS stores or Walmarts or Starbucks or DMVs. If they work at all.
Then look at the obesity crisis in America and the epidemics of chronic disease. Who, over the age of 40 or 50 in America, isn't morbidly obese or struck with some debilitating or life-threatening cancer or heart or lung disease or some new manifestation of an obscure auto-immune disease. Look at the mental health of Americans and the dispensation of anti-depressants and the consumption of alcohol and marijuana and other drugs. Look at the mortality arising from use of illegal opioids and fentanyl.
It seems past debate that we are a sick and unhappy people living meaningless lives doing purposeless make-work for the ultra-rich and powerful.
Perhaps I exaggerate. After all, we do have Global Hegemony to achieve and China and Russia to subjugate. Look no further than multi-millionaire Republican leader Mitch McConnell, who has told us that, “providing assistance for Ukrainians to defeat the Russians is the number one priority for the United States right now according to most Republicans. That's how we see the challenges confronting the country at the moment.”
Couple of things are driving the US and European Ukraine Policy:
1. Greed / Corruption, and fear of this being exposed
2. Anti Russian Hatred
3. Hubris
4. Pro Woke Jihad
5. American Hegemony- destroy all competitors
6. Using Ukraine as an emergency to restructure the European Economy away from cheap Russian Energy
7. Protect the US Dollar as the Worlds Reserve Currency
8. Distract from Biden's domestic failures?
Yep - I’m just not cynical enough.
And also distract from the Wests COVID’s response failures.
It seems so 1984 with a 2 minutes of hate. 1984 was not supposed to be an instruction manual, as instapundit has quipped.
Putin's a strategic thinker and the Danube has probably played a role in Russian thinking for a while. In particular, it probably explains the intensity of fighting over Snake Island last year. After territorial control of the Danube mouth itself, Snake Island and the largest nearby port, Odessa, are the most important elements for controlling entry and exit from the Danube.
It also raises an intriguing possibility. Russia is clearly trying to unite Russian-speaking areas, which include Odessa and Transnistria. Southern Bessarabia (aka Budjak) is the coastal part of Bessarabia, the USSR separated it from what is now Moldova in WWII. If Russia were to offer Budjak to Moldova in exchange for Transnistria, could Moldova say no? They would gain in territorial terms and having a coast would help a lot in alleviating the grinding poverty in the country. We already know Odessa is in Russia's sights, it is an historically Russian city with a large Russian population. If Odessa falls to Russia, Budjak and Snake Island become indefensible for Ukraine. If Moldova took the deal, it would move closer to Russia and away from the EU, and with Odessa and Snake Island, Russia would have effective control of the Danube's mouth, allowing it to extert a lot of pressure over Eastern Europe in aid of its efforts to change the political situation there.
There are a lot of what-ifs in play. The history behind it goes back much further than WW2. Few Americans have heard of these places and their historical connections to Russia, but Russians like Putin do.
Sounds like opportunity for USA if you ask me.
The rail links through China are already built or being built sometime in the near future goods will be able to be shipped for the far east to Europe over a land route. Also, there have been talks about a tunnel connecting the Bering Straits which will connect North America to the land network. The City of London have fought this for centuries as they controlled the choke points for worldwide shipping thus they had the color revolution in Russia in 1914 (I may be wrong on the year) was a British operation to stop Russia form completing the overland route.
Eventually this will be true, but it will take a while. I expect other issues sooner will cause more crises in the EU threatening its survival.
In the short term Iran will keep Improving its leg if the North South Corridor, especially adding new rail lines. Russia has a huge incentive as a way to bypass Europe.
And Hungary borders Ukraine.
The territory formerly known as Ukraine!
And Serbia borders Hungary.
Gets interesting.
That Ukrainian territory is in the map of probably not taken by Russia if I remember correctly, but if there is a large ethnic Hungarian population perhaps that changes the map?
Looking at languages of Ukraine, perhaps Russia will annex a Southern Corridor to Hungary? Cutting off Ukraine even more.
https://www.monomakhos.com/interesting-times-in-ukraine/
New substack:
https://mearsheimer.substack.com/p/the-darkness-ahead-where-the-ukraine?r=6o004
Thank you for giving context to Alex Krainer’s excellent post! It's fascinating watching all this unfold. I feel sorry for my German relatives, who are all in complete denial about what is happening. The husband of one cousin votes for AfD and she accepts they have different political views, but the rest of the family judges him harshly for this.
I am reading Anna Funder’s excellent nonfiction book Stasiland which recounts stories from former East Germans who endured life in the GDR. It is a fascinating insight into the German mind and their desire for order and compliance. Brilliantly written and highly enjoyable.
Thanks for the rec, I'll have to check it out sometime. (Right now, keeping up with current events is exhausting and distressing, so at the moment I am reading books exclusively for escapism.)
I know what you mean! I mostly do the same with books - and TV and streaming too. I read a lot of old British crime novels because I like the clarity of that moral universe and the fact that good always triumphs over evil in the end. I watch old movies from the 70s and 80s (and pre-70s if I can find them) and old British crime dramas for the same reason 😊
That's why I love Agatha Christie novels: not emoting and narcissism, just good solid characters and morals. Makes me feel safe!
Same! I also love Ngaio Marsh (NZ), PD James and Dorothy L Sayers.
Sleeping Murder is my favorite. Written in the 30s, she withheld it from pub until after her death.
Haven't heard of that one. My daughters have stockpiled dozens of AC books and I'm working my way through them. Very relaxing!
Yep.
I like and reread Jim Corbett's man-eater books, Giovanni Guareschi's Don Camillo stories, Jane Austen and Anthony Trollope for feel good.
A defensible position. Before I go to bed I indulge in that myself.
Germans seem to be in one of those classic abusive relationships you hear about.
True. Unfortunately, that pretty much applies to most of us living in the West. Trudeau certainly doesn't have my or other Canadians' interests at heart.
Yes, and still engulfed in masochistic guilt from World War Two. Self-abasement doesn't even begin to explain it.
Would “suicidal” do?
Indeed it would, ML.