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Hey, remember “Extending Russia,” also from our friends at Rand? How’d that work out? Russia has indeed extended, or grown, economically, militarily and spiritually…while the brain trust at Rand doubles down on more of the same. Utterly clueless, paranoid ideologues.

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Ideologues don't learn from mistakes because they simply don't acknowledge that their ideology is mistaken. They keep pursuing the same goals, only changing tactics. Maybe.

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Yes, maybe not even changing tactics, as we see the same attempt to stoke resentment and conflict in Georgia…Ukraine bis repetita.

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Concur. Like the part of alienating the population of "deplorables." Who do you think traditionally made up the majority of the US Armed Forces?

The rest of the report....what a joke. A casual observer could have reported the same.

for the USA To fight a major war today....

Industrial base..... insufficient

Logistical base...insufficient

Cultural base....insufficient

Intelligent governmental spending allocations......HAHAHAHAH

Military strength and cohesion. insufficient

Capability and capacity of allies...insufficient

Military and civilian leadership....insufficient

Nuclear Capability....sufficient.

Many have said, for years, that The US Armed Forces were good only to bomb and attack Third world countries who did not have the strength to give a decent initial defence.

But.

Maybe if war was declared and we suffered a mid-sized ground defeat and a sinking of an aircraft carrier... and.....then the enemy left us alone for two years...

Then the USA would have enough time to realize the stupidity and weakness of throwing away its traditional culture and also have enough time to re-tool and build up capacity/capability.

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Arnaud Bertrand @RnaudBertrand

To my knowledge, this is the first time we hear such a senior US official as Mark Milley (Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff until last year) admit that "it's clear we are in a multipolar world", with "3 great powers: the US, China and Russia".

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Wow! Russia wasn’t supposed to make the cut!

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Luckily, there's no way they can pull that off. I call them the Incompetent Evil Empire.

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The concept of an ‘indispensible nation’ has the tinge of the odor of the hubris behind zionist ethnocentrism, and hubris leads to adventurism and poor judgment.

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War economy with the backing of civil society, sounds eerily like the Ukraine.

It’s interesting the Western media hasn’t covered the forced conscription going on in the Ukraine, maybe because it’s coming to a theatre near you?

I wonder if socialists, Gays and Transvestites will be the Western equivalent of Azov.

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Nazi's in drag! Lol!!

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1) nuke the rand corporation

2) america is over, but like every empire that came before it, it won't go out without a war that decisively puts an end to it.

3) The military can't recruit because nobody supports the adventurism and warmongering. Big drafts will result in big fragging.

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Exactly US is not Ukraine. There are 600 million guns on the street many can shoot a half a mile plus. You'd have to force conscript the "recruiters" it would be such a dangerous position.

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https://www.unz.com/article/a-heroic-preference-for-self-destruction-is-taking-hold-in-israel/

In this article, Alastair Crooke explores the same dilemma that the RAND Corporation addresses in its appraisal of the US NDS. How to maintain US global hegemony...

While the RAND appraisal focusses on a call for something like a total war-footing-type mobilisation, including a military draft, moar money-printing, and preparation for multi-theater war around the Eurasian landmass, Crooke looks at the Middle East to understand the apparent military strategy which the US and Israel will employ to achieve (maintain?) hegemony.

So what means does Crooke think the United States and Israel will employ? "Well", Crooke submits, speaking of the Middle East, "what is available – if your objective is to found Greater Israel – is ‘war without limits’ [i.e positively seeking huge collateral deaths] – a war without limits such as that which Genghis Khan practised: the total annihilation of other peoples and the suppression of their separate identities. A single power – the Hobbesian ‘Leviathan’ – achieved through disarming everyone. The ultimate aim being to suppress any plurality of wills."

So this is how we plan to insure US Global Hegemony? We'll go on a global war-footing and attempt the total annihilation of all our 'enemies'?

Some plan. Crooke explains in the article what could go wrong.

SPOILER ALERT

Crooke quotes Israeli Maj. Gen. (Res.) Itzhak Brik, a former senior IDF commander and a former long-serving IDF ombudsman – regarding the likely outcome of this strategy, at least insofar as Israel is concerned.

"Netanyahu, Gallant and Halevi are gambling with Israel’s very existence… they never think for a moment about the day after. They are disconnected from reality and exercise no judgment … When the catastrophe strikes, it will already be too late … These three megalomaniacs imagine that they are capable of destroying both Hamas and Hizbullah and ending the ayatollahs’ regime in Iran … They want to accomplish everything through military pressure, but in the end, they won’t accomplish anything. They have put Israel on the brink of two impossible situations [–] the outbreak of a full-fledged war in the Middle East, [and secondly] continuing the war of attrition. In either situation, Israel won’t be able to survive for long. Only a diplomatic agreement has the power to extricate us from the quagmire into which these three men have dragged us."

And , how, one might ask, will things turn out differently for Israel's co-partner in the war for Global Hegemony?

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Thanks for posting your comments, Cass. I also read the Crooke article over at Unz. What I found interesting is the use of Ghengis Kahn to invoke the mental picture of total destruction. He has been known through history as one of the foremost conquerors who wreaked death and destruction where ever his tribe went. One fact not stated is that whenever the Mongols approached a city or people they wish to conquer they gave them an option, surrender and live or fight and be destroyed. When the target of their army was confronted in this fashion and surrendered the common people lived while the Mongols would always mark their leaders for death. The thinking was the leaders could not be trusted and therefore they must die or else they would be a constant source of disruption as they seek to regain their power. Hmm, that idea resonates with me.

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Thanks for sharing some of your older articles and specifically on the Mongols and the Jacques Baud from April. I may have missed that one. Having said that I was not referring to you when I said "missing", I meant from the current Crooke article. Not much gets past you, Mr. Wauk. I had done some reading on Genghis and his successors and while most think of them as blood thirsty conquerors they actually were more enlightened than cultures of the West during the period of the Mongol rise then fall.

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Of course 'die or else' cuts in numerous directions, including perpetuating violence...

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Yes, it does, doesn't it.....

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Macgregor approaches this in a slightly different way talking to DD today, starting around 51:00. He says a realist always looks at what could go wrong--what the upsides and downsides are and how to measure them against each other. In Israel, he says, they only see the upside. They wind up:

Mac: have they sorted through this carefully? you tell me--I don't think so.

DD: doesn't look like it. looks like they're still operating on primarily wishful thinking and emotions and that's a really bad combo to base strategy off of.

I believe in earlier videos or articles Crooke also speaks of the dominance of emotion in Israeli calculations.

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I agree.

In ordinary game theory, a realist considers all possible outcomes.

In a contest btw nuclear-armed adversaries...

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Macgregor is, I believe, in substantial agreement with Crooke. Within the past week, I think I wrote this up, he says that Israel is engaged in a war of extermination. He's quite explicit on that.

Re nuclear powers, today he said:

you're talking about a regime [Israel] with a weapons arsenal that includes our own [the US].

That makes them think they're invincible. But, he adds, what the Israelis and their fellows in the US are missing is what's going on behind the scenes in the rest of the world. DD agrees and says, this is all going to bite us in the butt pretty hard at some point.

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Now I get why I've been seeing more commercials in the past 2 years that suggest "Invest in Gold now" to secure your financial future.

These people are nuts. Bad assumptions all around. I don't see the people of the U.S. signing up for this even if their representatives are bought.

Yeah, lets mix it up in the Pacific with China... we don't need them for trade purposes anymore. Right. No wonder we have 700 military bases scattered around the globe. Forward force projection to keep our hegemony top of everyone's mind.

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Thanks Mark. If you have time check out my book "Our Country Then and Now" which explains that the Council on Foreign Relations put forth a plan for total global US military hegemony in 1940-1941. That was three-quarters of a century ago. So what has changed?

You can order it here: https://www.amazon.com/Our-Country-Then-Richard-Cook/dp/1949762858

And oh, by the way, the US military and Big Pharma have gone to considerable pains to destroy the health of the American people with their COVID vax "Scamdemic" over the past four years. But they now expect us depleted Americans to give our all for more of their globalist wars. Or else--or else what?-- or else they're going to kick our butts I guess. What a swell group of guys--and gals--and whatever else they are. Actually, Mark, I think this country is dead meat.

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Oct 30·edited Oct 30

Missing in the above are the words / topics:

- sanctions

- dollar

- reserve currency

- Covid

- defense industry break up

- military industrial complex (corruption of revolving door)

- incompetence of senior military leadership - gentlemen warriors with promotion dependent on degrees has failed

- education disfunction

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The final sentence

"What may head all this off is the coming economic and financial reckoning."

was intended to cover most of that.

This post was mostly supposed to cover the mind set of the Anglo-Zionist establishment in America--in that regard, check out the personnel at Rand--rather than the likelihood that their schemes can succeed. It should be clear to most readers that those schemes will not succeed.

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My take on the uniparty mindset is just throw more money on it.

What I found interesting is the blind spots. I’ve not read the report, just your summary.

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Blind spots are of the very nature of ideology--as opposed to the love of wisdom, philosophia. Ideology is about the will to power and domination. As such it must simplify, which entails blind spots--unquestionable certitudes. If you check out the backgrounds of the people at Rand you will find a heavy Zionist presence.

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“Blind spots:”

“And why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother's eye, but considerest not the beam that is in thine own eye?” Matthew 7:3

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and Diversity, Inclusion, and Equity (DEI) unless that is implied in the context of "cultural".

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Oct 31·edited Oct 31

Agree on dei.

I was in a hurry and that was my quick thoughts.

More thoughts:

Clinton’s lawyers ruling combat operations.

The weight issue is another challenge. Maha is so needed.

Tax system that favors outsourcing and short term thinking.

And the over priced, low effectiveness of US weapons and a broken procurement system. Weapon choices are made more on employment across multiple congressional districts, rather than effectiveness.

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Well said, Ray.

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I'm starting to think David Icke is right.

The Anglo-Zionists are reptiles wearing skin suits.

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Is it possible that all this one option only policy making and the need to call for the draft and spend quadrillions the US doesn't have is not about perpetuating a global hegemony or creating an unbeatable (woke) force to defend US national interests?

Maybe wars are no longer meant to be won.

The clue to what's going on may be essentially gearing up to putting the nation on a war footing with all the bells and whistles that that brings. Like States of Emergency and assuming unconstitutional Emergency Powers.

Anyone else see the US (and not forgetting its allies) on the wrong side of Iron Curtain 2.0?

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I'm surprised RAND did not include a hunger games in there.

That dystopian future sure sounds like their actual recommendations.

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These people are really stupid. They live in some kind of dream world where pigs can fly and if you just think it you can make it real.

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Oct 30·edited Oct 30

Rand always seems to strike me as the "Mistakes Were Made" Cleanup Crew. While the Pentagon Papers materials that Daniel Ellsberg brought forth out of Rand were legitimately scathing and damaging, every review that Rand does these days seems to be something along the lines of "here's how we do more of the same, but better (and different, you see!), the next time."

Wasn't it Rand that wargamed Ukraine in 2020-ish and showed things invariably headed south for us and potentially nuclear? What has changed? Could be mistaken, though, as it may have been an Aspen Institute (or similar) tabletop exercise.

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