The troops being sent to Gaza are going to be sitting ducks for anyone who wants to escalate things. If I were HAMAS, would attack them as soon as possible, and I might do it if I were the Israelis, too. This decision by Biden is just horrible.
Totally agree. Sounds like another inane “tripwire” move. Instead, we should be pulling troops out (Iraq, Syria). But no, Zhou and company only seem to know how to double down on stupid. Remember Tower 123?
Victor Orban is a smart guy.... and more importantly he is a leader who actually cares about his people and believes that elected officials should represent their peoples' interests. U.S. politicians: note and observe.
As regards the Pentagon and the CIA: I happened to view the Duran's video today with Tony Shaffer. If you don't know him, Google. He is a Reaganite with a background pretty high up in the military and also has a great deal of counter intelligence experience with a specialty in Russia. He is vehemently anti-Neocon; he was aligned with Mike Flynn in attempting to influence the first Trump administration to keep out folks like Bolton. He is still working to keep out such people from a second Trump admin.
Anyway, he says that the current "Intelligence" leadership (along the lines of Clapper and Brennan) are entirely politicized. They don't feed real intelligence assessments to the White House, only those items that support the preferred political narrative. Same with Austin and the DoD and the Generals within - all are political animals and all their actions are directed out of their personal ambition politically. Shaffer says that a new Trump admin will need to clear out the highest three levels of both the IC and the DoD. This is what has shocked European elites. They are now realizing they put their faith in people who are totally out of touch with reality and still refuse to recognize the truth of what is going on in Ukraine and Israel. A real cluster****.
Shaffer is working with Heritage Foundation to influence MAGA foreign policy appointments in a second Trump admin. They can use our prayers, IMO.
U.S. has thrown the kitchen sink at Russia, and Russia’s economy is growing, while Europe is in recession.
Powell’s higher interest rates are drawing down the Euro dollar.
And the Petro dollar is losing usage,
U.S. and Europe have destroyed their credibility as financial safe havens.
Summary - U.S. has over played the financial war gambit and is paying for it with continued dedollarization trend that is not stopping. The future Trend is very negative for the West.
Domain #2: Economic Warfare
I see no difference from #1.
The exception is how China has bought the U.S. elites to de industrialize the U.S.
Plus the U.S. and the West are destroying their economies with climate change / green agendas / Wef insanity.
Domain #3: Cyber Warfare
U.S. is incredibly susceptible in this area. U.S. government and private industry have been hacked A-Z by China. Great firewall of China makes it harder to hack into China by the U.S.
Domain #4: Information Warfare
In the West, the West still has an advantage due to all the censorship/ dis information/ mal information efforts by the Western Internet giants with government backing.
Domain #5: Deniable Sabotage
The U.S. seems to deliberately turn a blind eye to Chinese funding. On big stuff it’s hard to surpass Nordstream. British seem to do lots of projecting on Russia.
Domain #6: Biological Warfare
- there seems to be no difference between biological defense and offense. On the U.S. side we seem to have a Dr. Strangelove mentality, of hubris and incompetence.
Domain #7: Proxy Warfare
Ukraine has resulted in 500,000 Ukrainian’s killed and wounded, so that’s hard to surpass. Only cost what, $400 Billion? Plus the devastation of Syria. The Iranian use of proxies is driving the U.S. into fits, at a much lower cost.
For overall effect the West, they basically money bombed their proxies. With the decline of the Eurodollar and Petrodollar this may no longer be possible in the future. Plus all U.S. proxies have been burned.
Gut feelings on China, and how U.S. elites have been a combination of useful idiots, greed, and collaborators. I am sure there is a lot more I am not aware of yet.
1. U.S. allowed China to take advantage of U.S. companies with technology transfer deals. You want business, then give your technology.
2. It was only under Trump there was any pushback to Chinas economic policy.
3. Lots of U.S. technology companies were allowed to be find to China.
4. China was allowed to under price rare earths, that drive U.S. producers out of business.
5. Diane Feinstein became very rich by invite only deals. This is just the tip of the ice berg. I wonder what legislation helped China? Clinton allowed Loral to solve China’s rocket issues.
6. Allowing U.S. drugs to be produced in China with basically no supervision. And predatory pricing was also used to destroy U.S. production.
I would posit that this was brought about by a combination of cynicism and gullibility.
Cynicism of the ruling class to financialize the economy by selling our industry and the futures of Americans. I believe that the people behind this knew what they were doing and did it anyway out of self interest--to enrich themselves and let the rest take care of themselves.
Gullibility, because this insane program was cynically sold to Americans using the snake oil of Libertarianism--free trade and open borders and information jobs will make us all rich.
It turns out that the liberal socialist left is the party of the rich rentier class, out to keep the workers down by importing cheap labor for lawn and house care while exporting jobs that might otherwise create an uppity middle class. And white women are indoctrinated in this in college.
1st) Where's India on the list? Their going to support whoever provides them with natural resources.
2nd) Can China survive economic sanctions (#3) if they invade Taiwan? Economically, China's struggling right now. Will their people push back and potentially cause regime change?
3rd) I think most of the 1st 6 (maybe not all) will occur before proxy war (#7).
4th) US defense strategy has stagnated for 20 years. Russia and even China have evolved over time. The US hegemony has prevented us from thinking outside of the box and re-imaging future conflicts. Further impacted now with DEI center stage.
5th) the list of US/EU allies shown above is as suggested loose. I doubt this can be counted on especially with conflicts elsewhere in the Middle East.
6th) I don't see the CIA converting camel jockeys into intelligence assets anytime soon.
Thanks for the stimulation Mark and I'm sure Ray's (SoCal) list will be awesome.
#4 is huge. The fact that our defense industry is profit based rather than purpose based has made all the difference. No none in government has examined how our defense spending has supported strategic goals for the last 30+ years. It has been all about making money for the defense contractors - nothing else. For that matter, no one has even defined any strategic goals since the end of the USSR.
Yes, iirc in a recent Duran with Ambassador Chas Freeman, he states precisely that on the fall of the Soviet Union, the US failed to open its mind and rethink the world, bringing Russia into the fold and dropping the Cold War mindset. Such a wasted opportunity (talk about letting a crisis go to waste!) and which led Nato to transform itself from containment to agression….with carnage and devastation in Ukraine and a global majority looking for ways to contain us (US)!
The troops being sent to Gaza are going to be sitting ducks for anyone who wants to escalate things. If I were HAMAS, would attack them as soon as possible, and I might do it if I were the Israelis, too. This decision by Biden is just horrible.
Talk about 'taking ownership ,' hey?
Totally agree. Sounds like another inane “tripwire” move. Instead, we should be pulling troops out (Iraq, Syria). But no, Zhou and company only seem to know how to double down on stupid. Remember Tower 123?
Victor Orban is a smart guy.... and more importantly he is a leader who actually cares about his people and believes that elected officials should represent their peoples' interests. U.S. politicians: note and observe.
As regards the Pentagon and the CIA: I happened to view the Duran's video today with Tony Shaffer. If you don't know him, Google. He is a Reaganite with a background pretty high up in the military and also has a great deal of counter intelligence experience with a specialty in Russia. He is vehemently anti-Neocon; he was aligned with Mike Flynn in attempting to influence the first Trump administration to keep out folks like Bolton. He is still working to keep out such people from a second Trump admin.
Anyway, he says that the current "Intelligence" leadership (along the lines of Clapper and Brennan) are entirely politicized. They don't feed real intelligence assessments to the White House, only those items that support the preferred political narrative. Same with Austin and the DoD and the Generals within - all are political animals and all their actions are directed out of their personal ambition politically. Shaffer says that a new Trump admin will need to clear out the highest three levels of both the IC and the DoD. This is what has shocked European elites. They are now realizing they put their faith in people who are totally out of touch with reality and still refuse to recognize the truth of what is going on in Ukraine and Israel. A real cluster****.
Shaffer is working with Heritage Foundation to influence MAGA foreign policy appointments in a second Trump admin. They can use our prayers, IMO.
What matters is the trend.
Domain #1: Financial Warfare
U.S. has thrown the kitchen sink at Russia, and Russia’s economy is growing, while Europe is in recession.
Powell’s higher interest rates are drawing down the Euro dollar.
And the Petro dollar is losing usage,
U.S. and Europe have destroyed their credibility as financial safe havens.
Summary - U.S. has over played the financial war gambit and is paying for it with continued dedollarization trend that is not stopping. The future Trend is very negative for the West.
Domain #2: Economic Warfare
I see no difference from #1.
The exception is how China has bought the U.S. elites to de industrialize the U.S.
Plus the U.S. and the West are destroying their economies with climate change / green agendas / Wef insanity.
Domain #3: Cyber Warfare
U.S. is incredibly susceptible in this area. U.S. government and private industry have been hacked A-Z by China. Great firewall of China makes it harder to hack into China by the U.S.
Domain #4: Information Warfare
In the West, the West still has an advantage due to all the censorship/ dis information/ mal information efforts by the Western Internet giants with government backing.
Domain #5: Deniable Sabotage
The U.S. seems to deliberately turn a blind eye to Chinese funding. On big stuff it’s hard to surpass Nordstream. British seem to do lots of projecting on Russia.
Domain #6: Biological Warfare
- there seems to be no difference between biological defense and offense. On the U.S. side we seem to have a Dr. Strangelove mentality, of hubris and incompetence.
Domain #7: Proxy Warfare
Ukraine has resulted in 500,000 Ukrainian’s killed and wounded, so that’s hard to surpass. Only cost what, $400 Billion? Plus the devastation of Syria. The Iranian use of proxies is driving the U.S. into fits, at a much lower cost.
For overall effect the West, they basically money bombed their proxies. With the decline of the Eurodollar and Petrodollar this may no longer be possible in the future. Plus all U.S. proxies have been burned.
https://world101.cfr.org/global-era-issues/trade/what-happened-when-china-joined-wto
Gut feelings on China, and how U.S. elites have been a combination of useful idiots, greed, and collaborators. I am sure there is a lot more I am not aware of yet.
1. U.S. allowed China to take advantage of U.S. companies with technology transfer deals. You want business, then give your technology.
2. It was only under Trump there was any pushback to Chinas economic policy.
3. Lots of U.S. technology companies were allowed to be find to China.
4. China was allowed to under price rare earths, that drive U.S. producers out of business.
5. Diane Feinstein became very rich by invite only deals. This is just the tip of the ice berg. I wonder what legislation helped China? Clinton allowed Loral to solve China’s rocket issues.
6. Allowing U.S. drugs to be produced in China with basically no supervision. And predatory pricing was also used to destroy U.S. production.
Totally agree with all the above, but wouldn't you also trace this back to the Reagan years and, moving forward, people like Phil Gramm?
I would posit that this was brought about by a combination of cynicism and gullibility.
Cynicism of the ruling class to financialize the economy by selling our industry and the futures of Americans. I believe that the people behind this knew what they were doing and did it anyway out of self interest--to enrich themselves and let the rest take care of themselves.
Gullibility, because this insane program was cynically sold to Americans using the snake oil of Libertarianism--free trade and open borders and information jobs will make us all rich.
It turns out that the liberal socialist left is the party of the rich rentier class, out to keep the workers down by importing cheap labor for lawn and house care while exporting jobs that might otherwise create an uppity middle class. And white women are indoctrinated in this in college.
Wow; what a blog post. Packed to the gills.
1st) Where's India on the list? Their going to support whoever provides them with natural resources.
2nd) Can China survive economic sanctions (#3) if they invade Taiwan? Economically, China's struggling right now. Will their people push back and potentially cause regime change?
3rd) I think most of the 1st 6 (maybe not all) will occur before proxy war (#7).
4th) US defense strategy has stagnated for 20 years. Russia and even China have evolved over time. The US hegemony has prevented us from thinking outside of the box and re-imaging future conflicts. Further impacted now with DEI center stage.
5th) the list of US/EU allies shown above is as suggested loose. I doubt this can be counted on especially with conflicts elsewhere in the Middle East.
6th) I don't see the CIA converting camel jockeys into intelligence assets anytime soon.
Thanks for the stimulation Mark and I'm sure Ray's (SoCal) list will be awesome.
#4 is huge. The fact that our defense industry is profit based rather than purpose based has made all the difference. No none in government has examined how our defense spending has supported strategic goals for the last 30+ years. It has been all about making money for the defense contractors - nothing else. For that matter, no one has even defined any strategic goals since the end of the USSR.
Good point. Where's the incentive for R&D? Profit's are eroded by R&D.
Yes, iirc in a recent Duran with Ambassador Chas Freeman, he states precisely that on the fall of the Soviet Union, the US failed to open its mind and rethink the world, bringing Russia into the fold and dropping the Cold War mindset. Such a wasted opportunity (talk about letting a crisis go to waste!) and which led Nato to transform itself from containment to agression….with carnage and devastation in Ukraine and a global majority looking for ways to contain us (US)!
Rahm would be extremely disappointed.
How many of these BRICS, OPEC and SCO members and associates is the US counting on to back it in the Middle East?
Publicly or privately? Publicly I would venture to say all. Privately... not so much if their smart but again haven't shown this yet.
Mark, I made it about three parapgraphs before I had to stop and quote Barack Obama. "Let me be clear."
The Pentagon got it exactly right when they said that the CIA is "lacking in intelligence."
The issue is not, as the second quote says, an "intel gap." The CIA has all the data that it needs. They are simply, "lacking in intelligence."
They are lacking in incentive to apply any intelligence; or more fundamentally to examine data objectively as input to such examination.
Agreed. Patience is a key weapon for them, and one we no longer understand.