I've featured articles by Alastair Crooke in the past, but somehow lose sight of his work from time to time. Yesterday Friend George drew my attention to his recent publications, which comprise to closely related articles. I think they're insightful for the big picture of where things stand for the collective West with regard to the war on Russia. For an idea of who Crooke is, I refer readers to
Mark, thank you for taking such pains to highlight and elucidate the main threads (“bubbles!) in these two formidable outpourings by Crooke. I have sent them along to some French friends who are also experiencing the “ jitters”re the toxicity and absurdity of the Russia/Ukraine/US/Europe Gordian knot. Mille mercis!
The real tragedy of Biden's largess toward Ukraine is that little of the cash and few of the weapons actually make it to the troops to which they were ostensibly to benefit. The military equipment is frequently siphoned off into the black market and the cash simply disappears (10% to the Big Guy?). Thus, Ukraine's continued pleas to Biden for more, more, more of both.
We already know that Biden's drawdowns from our Strategic Petroleum Reserves were, until recently when it became an electoral liability, not going toward lowering our price at the pump, but to Ukraine, Europe and China(!) to prop up their economies.
Mark, thanks for citing Alastair Crooke. I found the Strategic Culture Foundation is up and running or at least I am able to access it again. The second article mentioned the importance of energy and the elites misunderstanding of the role fossil fuels play in politics:
"One egregious misunderstanding and neglect, however, concerns the nature of politics and the role played by fossil fuels. Energy is in fact at the heart of this. How could the current Ruling Class in Washington ‘forget’ that the Western real economy is a physics-based network system, powered by energy? Modernity is contingent on fossil fuels. A smooth transition to green energy over time, therefore is too, largely dependent on the continued availability of plentiful, cheap fossil fuel. Without energy of the right kinds, jobs disappear, and the total quantity of goods and services produced falls steeply."
Great point! A deeper discussion on this topic can be found at:
It's long, but I think helps understand the larger problem we are faced with and how the current administration and it's NATO allies pushing The Green Agenda is likely to send us back to the real "Dark" ages.
Great summary as usual of the current state of the madness. And all of it self-inflicted. As someone in the heart of Europe (Switzerland) I can conform the trance like mindset here. Sure, we have an inkling that bad stuff is coming, but everything looks and feels so normal. Halloween is going to be big this year, the Xmas stuff is already on the supermarket shelves, and the MSM is churning out comforting lies and diversions. The penny (or centime) really hasn't dropped yet.
I read today that Uke casualties are realistically around 200k.
Let that sink in for a minute.
Wil Schryver Tweeted "Documents leaked from the AFU high command reported ~90k KIA at the end of June ... so 200k is not implausible at this juncture."
OSINT estimates are even higher with 387,000 KIA, including mercs and volunteers from Poland and Romania.
Not sure who to believe concerning the casualties. The Russkies and pro-Russia bloggers say that the Ukrainian casualties are astronomical, but who knows? I suspect they are more on the side of truth, even if the numbers are a bit exaggerated.
The United States armed forces have been losing combat capabilities while costing more and more money for at least 30 years. God forbid that the neocon axis of evil gets their dreamed of super fantastic war with Russia. In a peer to peer conflict our military will become over extended and unsupportable very quickly. A prime example of the stupidity is the F-35 program, costs way too much, low mission capability rate, Russian air defense systems can probably track it almost as well as non-stealth aircraft, should have been canceled instead of put into production.
In another lifetime I worked on the first three-axis stabilized geosynchronous generation of GOES weather satellites. This was contemporaneous with us building large, geosynch commercial communications sats for Intelsat and other customers. It always drove me a bit crazy back then that the active components used on the GOES program were over-spec'ed and screened to the highest quality, fantastically expensive levels normally reserved for manned space flight instruments. Each lot of very long lead time items had to have a number of pieces undergo destructive physical analysis, thermal cycling, and other slow, expensive tests. We used to joke that GOES was flying in a different outer space than all the other birds.
The Epoch Times has an interesting article this week about another risk, or in terms of this discussion, a fourth bubble, that is bursting that no one is talking about. That is the incredible shrinking birth rate throughout the western and what we think of as the developed world.
The authors point out that the populations are dropping so fast that the effect will be to make much of this discussion moot. For instance they say that Taiwan's population is shrinking to the point where it will soon not be necessary for China to invade as there will be not enough population left to be worth while.
That's my conclusion from reading both discussions. Find the article and read it. There aren't enough babies being born and they is nothing that can be done to change the dynamic at this point
Great point, Joseph. Even white supremacists who bemoan the possible disappearance of white people never seem to bring this up: if you don't have kids, you won't be part of the future. The numbers are staggering. Nations like Spain, Italy and the Baltic States seem to have given up completely.
"There are a lot of moving parts there" and kudos for making mention of all the pertinent. issues. You mention "risks (both political and economic) whose gravity, western leaders seem unable (or unwilling) to grasp." Does anybody fathom what it means when one of the big three Swiss banks risks going belly-up with rising interest rates? Can anybody imagine a depression with massive pubic and private debt and very little productivity? Not only has our regime very little credibility abroad, but domestic public support is minimal. What will be?
They work on my PC ... but not immediately. And they definitely are troublesome to get to work on my phone. I tried a second and third browser on the phone, but was still getting the same initial response as Pat Dooley on those also. Finally figured out I just have to keep hitting reload on the phone and it will eventually load. Even the main site, thealtworld.com is hard to get up. Thinking maybe "they" don't like it!
"...Assesses the U.S. military is at "significant risk" of being unable to win a single major regional war.” Why is this news? This has been the case for the last 70 years.
I actually knew what it meant. Not because I'm a super intellectual - far from it - but because I'm in a French-speaking country and as a tutor, have been studying the lead-up to WW1. The French in 1910 were very, very "revanchist" against the Germans about losing Alsace and Lorraine to them back in 1871. They got their "revanche" in 1918. Having to speak French has taught me how many of our English words come from that language.
Mark, thank you for taking such pains to highlight and elucidate the main threads (“bubbles!) in these two formidable outpourings by Crooke. I have sent them along to some French friends who are also experiencing the “ jitters”re the toxicity and absurdity of the Russia/Ukraine/US/Europe Gordian knot. Mille mercis!
Proszę bardzo.
The real tragedy of Biden's largess toward Ukraine is that little of the cash and few of the weapons actually make it to the troops to which they were ostensibly to benefit. The military equipment is frequently siphoned off into the black market and the cash simply disappears (10% to the Big Guy?). Thus, Ukraine's continued pleas to Biden for more, more, more of both.
We already know that Biden's drawdowns from our Strategic Petroleum Reserves were, until recently when it became an electoral liability, not going toward lowering our price at the pump, but to Ukraine, Europe and China(!) to prop up their economies.
Mark, thanks for citing Alastair Crooke. I found the Strategic Culture Foundation is up and running or at least I am able to access it again. The second article mentioned the importance of energy and the elites misunderstanding of the role fossil fuels play in politics:
"One egregious misunderstanding and neglect, however, concerns the nature of politics and the role played by fossil fuels. Energy is in fact at the heart of this. How could the current Ruling Class in Washington ‘forget’ that the Western real economy is a physics-based network system, powered by energy? Modernity is contingent on fossil fuels. A smooth transition to green energy over time, therefore is too, largely dependent on the continued availability of plentiful, cheap fossil fuel. Without energy of the right kinds, jobs disappear, and the total quantity of goods and services produced falls steeply."
Great point! A deeper discussion on this topic can be found at:
https://ourfiniteworld.com/2022/10/18/why-financial-approaches-wont-fix-the-worlds-economic-problems-this-time/
It's long, but I think helps understand the larger problem we are faced with and how the current administration and it's NATO allies pushing The Green Agenda is likely to send us back to the real "Dark" ages.
Great summary as usual of the current state of the madness. And all of it self-inflicted. As someone in the heart of Europe (Switzerland) I can conform the trance like mindset here. Sure, we have an inkling that bad stuff is coming, but everything looks and feels so normal. Halloween is going to be big this year, the Xmas stuff is already on the supermarket shelves, and the MSM is churning out comforting lies and diversions. The penny (or centime) really hasn't dropped yet.
I read today that Uke casualties are realistically around 200k.
Let that sink in for a minute.
Wil Schryver Tweeted "Documents leaked from the AFU high command reported ~90k KIA at the end of June ... so 200k is not implausible at this juncture."
OSINT estimates are even higher with 387,000 KIA, including mercs and volunteers from Poland and Romania.
Staggering losses, if true.
Not sure who to believe concerning the casualties. The Russkies and pro-Russia bloggers say that the Ukrainian casualties are astronomical, but who knows? I suspect they are more on the side of truth, even if the numbers are a bit exaggerated.
The United States armed forces have been losing combat capabilities while costing more and more money for at least 30 years. God forbid that the neocon axis of evil gets their dreamed of super fantastic war with Russia. In a peer to peer conflict our military will become over extended and unsupportable very quickly. A prime example of the stupidity is the F-35 program, costs way too much, low mission capability rate, Russian air defense systems can probably track it almost as well as non-stealth aircraft, should have been canceled instead of put into production.
In another lifetime I worked on the first three-axis stabilized geosynchronous generation of GOES weather satellites. This was contemporaneous with us building large, geosynch commercial communications sats for Intelsat and other customers. It always drove me a bit crazy back then that the active components used on the GOES program were over-spec'ed and screened to the highest quality, fantastically expensive levels normally reserved for manned space flight instruments. Each lot of very long lead time items had to have a number of pieces undergo destructive physical analysis, thermal cycling, and other slow, expensive tests. We used to joke that GOES was flying in a different outer space than all the other birds.
Great article, Mark. I think someone else mentioned this today-your time, writing and resources are invaluable.
Seconded. But one question: do you ever sleep? :)
The Epoch Times has an interesting article this week about another risk, or in terms of this discussion, a fourth bubble, that is bursting that no one is talking about. That is the incredible shrinking birth rate throughout the western and what we think of as the developed world.
The authors point out that the populations are dropping so fast that the effect will be to make much of this discussion moot. For instance they say that Taiwan's population is shrinking to the point where it will soon not be necessary for China to invade as there will be not enough population left to be worth while.
That's my conclusion from reading both discussions. Find the article and read it. There aren't enough babies being born and they is nothing that can be done to change the dynamic at this point
Great point, Joseph. Even white supremacists who bemoan the possible disappearance of white people never seem to bring this up: if you don't have kids, you won't be part of the future. The numbers are staggering. Nations like Spain, Italy and the Baltic States seem to have given up completely.
True. And of all the green hysteria. But the trend was there long before both of those factors. Modern people just don't want kids.
Japan can't be that far behind.
"There are a lot of moving parts there" and kudos for making mention of all the pertinent. issues. You mention "risks (both political and economic) whose gravity, western leaders seem unable (or unwilling) to grasp." Does anybody fathom what it means when one of the big three Swiss banks risks going belly-up with rising interest rates? Can anybody imagine a depression with massive pubic and private debt and very little productivity? Not only has our regime very little credibility abroad, but domestic public support is minimal. What will be?
Hmmm. Work for me.
They work on my PC ... but not immediately. And they definitely are troublesome to get to work on my phone. I tried a second and third browser on the phone, but was still getting the same initial response as Pat Dooley on those also. Finally figured out I just have to keep hitting reload on the phone and it will eventually load. Even the main site, thealtworld.com is hard to get up. Thinking maybe "they" don't like it!
Keep hitting reload. Or look at them on your PC (mine loads, but has a delay).
"...Assesses the U.S. military is at "significant risk" of being unable to win a single major regional war.” Why is this news? This has been the case for the last 70 years.
I looked up revanchist too: same root as revenge; the policy of a government intent on the recovery of lost territory.
I actually knew what it meant. Not because I'm a super intellectual - far from it - but because I'm in a French-speaking country and as a tutor, have been studying the lead-up to WW1. The French in 1910 were very, very "revanchist" against the Germans about losing Alsace and Lorraine to them back in 1871. They got their "revanche" in 1918. Having to speak French has taught me how many of our English words come from that language.
Yep. Personally, I'm waiting until he uses the word, "Juxtaposition" before I agree to call him an intellectual heavyweight.
LOL! I grew up in a house that was full of books. I still rarely go anywhere without a book in case of a spare moment.