Sunday Roundup: Poland Again, Plus Mike Johnson's Goofy Idea

Regular readers will recall that in mid-November—just when Poland was scheduled to form a new government after its elections—the former German ambassador decided it was time to raise the topic of establishing a permanent Bundeswehr presence. The Poles do actually remember 1939, and of course the Russians remember 1941. In the event, the Poles put off forming a new government for another month, but the German ambassador’s statement did raise eyebrows—and temperatures—in Warsaw.

That wasn’t the end of the matter, however. A German Lieutenant General, who happens to be NATO’s European logistics chief, has now suggested creating a “military Schengen Area.” For those not familiar with the concept,

The Schengen Area is an area comprising 27 European countries that have officially abolished passports and many other types of border control at their mutual borders.

So a military Schengen Area would allow participating coutries—presumably including all NATO, like Germany and Poland—to send their militaries here, there, and everywhere. The Bundeswehr might decide to relocate to Poland on little or no notice, for example. That used to be called an “invasion”, but things are different now. Maybe. The idea behind this is said to be to allow for rapid deployment of armies to counter the much feared Russian invasion.

Simplicius is talking about this today:

SITREP 11/25/23: Major Avdeevka Breakthroughs as NATO Plans Forever War

So this military Schengen Area is supposed to be part of NATO’s (meaning Neocons’) plans for a Forever War on Russia. Simplicius begins by quoting someone I’m not familiar with—without a link, which is a bit obnoxious, he does that a lot—who claims this plan is to push Eastern European armies into war with Russia to keep Russia occupied, and the new Schengen thing would facilitate supplying those armies. I speak loosely, of course. I suppose you could say that Poland, for example, has an “army”. It might keep a serious Russian move occupied for a week or two. I don’t take this idea seriously. Germany and Poland have largely disarmed themselves by sending their frontline equipment to Ukraine where it gets recycled by the Russians.

Simplicius himself admits that most of this chatter about European military preparedness is nothing new and is basically just chatter:

Recall how a while back, when there was a big fuss about Stoltenberg’s announcement for a 300k rapid reaction force on Russia’s borders, I had revealed that this same “300k force” was a long-shelved plan talked about from the mid-2010’s onward, and rolled out of its grave at the start of the SMO, seemingly again without effect.

In this case, it’s the same thing. In fact we can see that this very same “military Schengen” was talked about from 2017 onward. And there are many new and coming obstacles that could throw a wrench into this whole plan. 

Slow news day? And so Simplicius advances the idea that this is part of a plan to keep Russia occupied until America can take an insurmountable lead in AI technology. I’m still not buying this.

Russia, as we noted above, is well aware of what happened the last time the Wehrmacht moved East, so they felt compelled to point out that this is a bad idea:

Kremlin responds to NATO’s ‘military Schengen’ plan

The move is another escalation of the US-led alliance’s confrontation with Russia, spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said

I haven’t seen what the Polish reaction has been. Polish politics is in a situation that is somewhat similar to US politics. They have something like our Uniparty, especially with regard to Russia. On the other hand, public opinion appears to be decisively against escalation of any conflict with Russia. German plans to move into Poland seem certain to raise hackles in Poland.

Andrew Korybko also addresses this development:

NATO's Proposed "Military Schengen" Is A Thinly Disguised German Power Play Over Poland

Korybko’s idea is that the Neocons are behind this strategery. The plan would be for German to take leadership in Europe in opposition to Russia. That way America could pivot to China. The biggest obstacle to this scheme is Polish nationalism, but the globalists are putting their hopes in the devious Polish PM presumptive, Davos Ueber Weenie Donald Tusk:

If Tusk improves ties with the EU like he promised, complies with any EU Treaty changes despite unconvincingly claiming to oppose them, and the “military Schengen” is imposed upon his country, then German forces could return to Poland en masse on the pretext of defending the EU from Russia. This doesn’t contradict the de-escalation trends pertaining to the NATO-Russian proxy war, but complements them since it could be spun as compensating for the lack of Article 5-like guarantees to Ukraine.

…

It goes without saying that they’d have to transit through Poland and could easily end up deployed there indefinitely, whether as a so-called “deterrent to Russian aggression” or as part of a preplanned response to an artificially manufactured (i.e. false flag) border incident. After having voluntarily subordinated itself to Berlin under Tusk as is soon expected for the reasons that were explained, the restoration of German hegemony over Poland would therefore be completed without firing a shot.

In that scenario, which Polish conservative-nationalists are powerless to prevent and can only be offset by unlikely variables beyond their control, Germany would essentially be tasked by the US with “containing” Russia in Europe as part of Washington’s “Lead From Behind” stratagem. Once that country’s continental hegemony is fully secured through the means that were described in this analysis, America can then more confidently “Pivot (back) to Asia” to focus on containing China.

There are a lot of problems with this plan. The new Tusk government in Poland, if it comes to pass as expected, is likely to be a weak one because of the disparate character of the coalition behind it. Korybko maintains that Polish nationalists would be powerless to prevent a German takeover, but I’m very skeptical about that. I can see Poles objecting to becoming a battleground between Germany and Russia for—how many times would this be? Nor is the Bundeswehr in any condition to force the issue. Further, German politics are increasingly unstable—no time for foreign adventures, even if Poland were welcoming.

Overall, this sounds to me very much like Neocons rearranging deck chairs on their Titanic. It’s the usual “Great Chessboard” idea, where countries are moved around like pawns in the minds of the Neocons, without regard to national character and preferences. Which isn’t at all to say that the Neocons won’t attempt something stupid. We’ve seen what they’re capable of.

Lastly—and cueing off the theme of stupidity—on the US political front, Jim Rickards has a worthwhile article that was picked up by Zerohedge:

No, Don't Do It!

Here’s the intro:

Almost 10 years ago, I sat in a secure conference room at the Pentagon and explained to a group of U.S. national security officials from the military, CIA, Treasury and other agencies that the overuse of the U.S. dollar in financial warfare would eventually drive countries away from using dollars in international transactions for fear that they could become the next target of U.S. displeasure.

I said to the military and intelligence community, “I don’t think other countries can destroy the dollar, but we can do it ourselves. We are our own worst enemy.”

I’ll keep this brief by simply quoting the last paragraphs. Rickards builds up to that point by documenting how big a failure our sanctions war against Russia has been—it’s all worth reading. No, nobody took his good advice. Then:

Which brings me to the recently elected speaker of the House, Mike Johnson…

The Good

After several weeks of seeming chaos in October, the House of Representatives finally elected a new speaker of the House, Mike Johnson.

…

He got off to a good start by separating financial support for Israel from support for Ukraine. Both bills will probably pass, but by separating them, Johnson avoided the trap of having to vote for Ukraine in order to support Israel. Many members support the latter but oppose the former and now they can make their voices heard with separate votes.

So far, so good.

The Bad

Now Johnson has committed a blunder so egregious that it could rock the global financial system and cause a financial panic.

…

Right now, the U.S. holds about $300 billion of Russian assets that were frozen after the Ukraine war broke out in February 2022. Most of those assets came from the Central Bank of Russia and consist of U.S. Treasury securities.

Technically, those assets have not been converted to U.S. ownership; they have merely been frozen and still belong to Russia even though Russia cannot use them. Now Johnson wants to convert those assets to U.S. ownership and use the proceeds to pay for the war in Ukraine.

Johnson said, “It would be pure poetry to fund the Ukrainian war effort with Russian assets.” It would be pure stupidity is more like it.

Default!

Such an action would amount to a default on U.S. government debt since the securities were legally owned by Russia.

Nations around the world would take note and accelerate their dumping of Treasury securities and their flight from the U.S. dollar. This would increase interest rates in the U.S. and hurt everyone from homebuyers to everyday consumers.

It would make U.S. debt permanently more difficult to sell and less desirable to hold. It would introduce a new risk premium on U.S. debt over and above the existing inflation premium.

At its worst, it could trigger a dollar panic and full-scale flight from the dollar. Johnson is playing with fire and has no idea what he is doing.

Let’s hope he receives some sound advice before he goes too far.

Where do we find these people? Is there nobody in DC with any idea of how to make America great again? It’s surely not through theft and global war. As Rickards says, hopefully somebody will get through to him. But it’s still disturbing to have someone in the presidential success saying such stupid things out loud.