The US Government's Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe (CSCE) holds a briefing on the "moral and strategic" necessity of partitioning Russia
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Jun 22, 2022·edited Jun 22, 2022Liked by Niccolo Soldo
Great piece. Spending time in DC a few years before Trump ran for president made me realize how far removed from reality the "thinkers" there were from the "flyover" parts of the country, let alone the rest of the world.
I don't doubt that; still they called our number on the vax - they got - conservatively - well over half the nation to line up for an experimental, barely tested, never before used on humans medical intervention for a supposed condition with a survival rate well over 99% (as Bill Gates ultimately conceded). So just who is removed from reality?
Great article as always. Thanks for providing an insightful counterpoint to the mainstream media's pro-American Empire agitprop.
Our leaders in the USA are quite the combination of nakedly corrupt, boundlessly arrogant, and hopelessly incompetent. They're behaving like caricatures of cartoon villains, as in, the one-dimensional "bad guys" in children's cartoons tend to be better developed and to be more sympathetic character-wise than the clowns governing America's empire, who are like an absurd caricature of an absurd caricature. One wonders how such people can even exist; yet they do, and they hold the reigns of institutional power in the USA.
What you describe in this article would be like if the crew of the Titanic had been focussed on making plans for breaking apart the iceberg with a hammer and chisel, after the ship had already started sinking and the passengers were desperately trying to board the lifeboats. This clownshow is not going to end well. I just hope when the SHTF, people remember who was at the helm when they rammed our civilization directly into the iceberg.
Jun 22, 2022·edited Jun 22, 2022Liked by Niccolo Soldo
Not just a great piece...an important one. This is truly shocking. Presidents from Eisenhower through to Reagan, possibly Bush 1, would have hit the roof over anything like this. Deliberate provocations against a nuclear armed power, during a war in which the US is a de facto co-belligerent should be inconceivable to any sane person. And make no mistake, China would be taking very careful note at any sign of official or semi-official US enthusiasm for separatism anywhere in the world. The same would be true for any number of countries, including allies, some of whom are super-sensitive about separatism (India, Indonesia, Turkey).
The Beltway has clearly learned nothing from the tragedy of Clinton era policy in Yugoslavia. Whatever one thinks of present-day Croatia or Serbia, the role of Washington (and London, Berlin etc) or the war there, the policies of the West at that time were ugly, unedifying and reckless. It seems particularly insane, given the increasing frequency and urgency with which people now talk of separatism within the USA itself.
Still, if there is a dollar in it, the think-tank, NGO and Beltway crowds will make themselves available. for anything.
Baker was also conspicuous in his insistence on extending personal courtesy to foreign diplomats. He understood that respect was essential. Whatever his faults, Baker was one of the last true foreign policy professionals.
Agree w/comments re Baker. It's especially interesting to see how of all the diplomats involved in this crisis, only Lavrov and the Russian Foreign Ministry act with reserve and the legal formalities of inter-state foreign policy. I give the Russians much credit for following the rules when no one else does so. It's embarrassing for the West to be so emotional in these diplomatic discussions.
McFaul, albeit now a former diplomat, is the most egregious case. Everything he says is couched in moralism, totally divorced from the realist aspects of international relations.
Jun 23, 2022·edited Jun 23, 2022Liked by Niccolo Soldo
McFaul is a perfect example of a man without insight at any level: confusing Foggy Bottom PR for ethics is bad enough, but he also confuses these ethics with power politics. Basically, he is a disgrace. His PhD was on KGB penetration in Central America of all things. His Russian language skills are reputed to be limited. He recently admitted at a conference (I think it was at Harvard) that the US lied to the Ukraine about the possibility of joining NATO and then literally laughed this off. Earlier this year he attracted a lot of flack on twitter after he made a statement about how successful he was, how expensive his home and how important his job. Smugness is to be expected amongst midwits at the top, but McFaul is in a class of his own. It is demoralising that a man as inadequate as that was ever ambassador to Moscow.
It also says something about the contrasting conditions of the West vs Russia. Lavrov, personally formed by the drab and self-consciously proletarian Soviet culture, values good manners and appears courtly and old world, while the Westerners, who glory in the class culture of a credentialled elite that is enamoured of consumerism, come across as coarse and plebeian.
“The selective advantage of dominant ideas” is Curtis Yarvin’s explanation for the seemingly endless litany of stupidity emanating from the empire.
Professor Deneen, post liberal order substack calls it the “political Gnosticism of the liberal imperium “ .
Either way the clerical elite that runs this world are pushing us towards hell. But that is human history, peace is an interruption of our natural state: war.
What is amazing is the reserve of the Russians. Imagine the reaction if the Kremlin sponsored events to discuss supporting white nationalists in Idaho or Black Panthers in Chicago? Or if China did the same for events to discuss the possibility of offering Chinese recognition to an independent Hawaii?
Does anyone in the Beltway realise that Russia may very well be propping up the US financial market? By continuing to make payments to overseas bond-holders Russia is frustrating or postponing the constructed default of the bond market that the Biden Administration has tried to effect. No one knows (or is acknowledging) the exposure of Western banks and hedge funds to counter party risk on Russian bonds and the implications of all this for the stability of the system. You get the impression that the best and brightest really are as dumb as rocks.
A bond default would transform an asset (the money invested in the bond) into a liability or loss for whoever owned the Russian bonds.
Since the bondholders have their own obligations to fulfill, any disruption in their business could be transmitted throughout the system. The money in the bond market could belong to anyone (individuals, firms, mutual funds, pension funds, governments, banks).
All we know for sure is that individuals and firms trading in oil and natural gas across jurisdictions always need to hedge their potential exposure to losses from variations in exchange rates and price changes. Traditionally the bond market has been one way pf doing this. Even worse, the regulations governing the banking system internationally (the Basel Accords) require that banks maintain reserves of liquidity to cover crises...and government bonds are one of the three standard means of doing this (cash reserves and gold are the other two).
The great danger is that highly leveraged or indebted firms may already be operating on the margin, as it were. Biden's sanctions injected vast amounts of difficulty, uncertainty and risk where none was needed. Words like thoughtless or reckless hardly come close.
Of course, one man's disaster is another man's opportunity. There would be insiders with a potential interest in snapping up devalued or disfavoured bonds at a fraction of their nominal value (they would plan on waiting till the sanctions were over and the bonds could be resold at a profit). The uber-kleptocrats have the kinds of money to enable that kind of long-term punt.
In addition, there would be some nasty types with an agenda in disruption. A crisis in the bond market would see institutions rush to the Fed for assistance. This opens up discrete opportunities for all kinds of people seeking to benefit from any restructure of the financial system. You can rest assured that there would be people at the top with well developed plans for the next emergency.
Biden is so far out of it he probably has no idea what is happening. My guess is that confusion is widespread. The geopolitical hardliners may want a crisis to burn as hot as possible so as to fortify the hostility towards Russia and help shape the global economy. One could speculate endlessly. Unless you are directly involved in what is going on, you are in the dark.
Thanks for the explanation. As I understand, you are saying some western banks, investment firms, etc., could be positioned to take advantage of such a collapse. Which is interesting -- a bifurcation of the global economy (BRICS v the West) might cause such an extreme event I suppose? But I really am just guessing at this point.
We are all just guessing, but I think it best to assume that the top insiders have access to information the rest of us don't and will use every crisis to further enrich and empower themselves.
A split between the West and the rest is becoming more likely by the day. Because of its military prowess and self-sufficiency in energy and food, Russia can provide leadership to the resource-exporting countries. The failure of the US in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria and Libya, coupled with the failure of NATO-proxy Ukraine opens a window of opportunity for countries that seek relief from the burden of using the US dollar (as opposed to currency swaps or a currency backed by commodities and/or precious metals) and supporting the US bond market. The implications are hard to exaggerate. I do not want to be a 'Chicken 'Little or a source of black-pills about any of this, just trying to be realistic.
“The behavior of any bureaucratic organization can best be understood by assuming that it is controlled by a secret cabal of its enemies.” ― Robert Conquest
They're not even secret. There are hundreds, nay, thousands of bureaucrats in the US who explicitly hate the US, hate white people, and want to see the human race exterminated. (Some have all three at once.)
Hatred is a very broad and vague category. In general, as far as policy is concerned hatred explains next to nothing (at the personal level it is definitely a factor).
I'd suggest that the ruling class and its privileged auxiliaries are mostly frightened of the potential cohesion of white Americans. To a degree some are also uncertain how to govern, while others are convinced that the stereotypes and prejudices that the elites hold of the masses are being realised.
The US, like all nation-states, is seen by some as an impediment to the mobility of capital, goods and people. White Americans are simply the constituency most closely associated with the US. As for humanity, I'd say they want to see it re-made along ultra-liberal or transhumanist lines.
The ruling class understand, mostly at an intuitive level, that they have a deep collective interest in the curated decomposition of society. They benefit from declining levels of trust and cohesion within the subordinate population. They benefit from eroding family and communal structures and the resulting atomisation..
Agreed this is idiocy. But don't overestimate the influence of these talking shops. The USA has scrupulously kept its own personnel and NATO personnel out of the fighting. I yield to no one in my loathing of Biden, but his administration and the US Military have been consistently cautious in this current mess, so one cheer for that. Uniformed US Military is fully aware of Russian nuclear arsenal. Criticism of the USA is legitimate, but we should not imagine that it is an all-seeing monster, and that these various talking shops full of academics in bow ties are really secret messaging channels reflecting deep policy, sending out cryptic signals. The USGov is far from coherent, and its hangers-on and wannabes have all kinds of opinions that will never be actionable. Watch what it does, not what paper-pushers and scribblers wish it would do. I hope they have a nice conference, and everyone gets to schmooze afterward, and maybe enjoy some cheese and crackers.
Agree on your comments regarding think-tanks, etc. These are often ways for those out of power to lay down markers - and the more newsworthy, radical the better - and signaling they are ready to join the next administration's NSC, OSD, etc.
But one should never UNDERESTIMATE the power of a "talking shop" operating at this level of stupidity to create catastrophe. The Russians (and the Chinese, Indians etc.) will all report on this conference in their respective medias which will have the effect of creating even more hatred of the United States, Americans and the West in general. And, no doubt, there will be many who will swear revenge. White hot hatred and contempt are the emotions that fuel vicious and long-lasting wars.
No blame intended. This is not the fault of the Russians and, of course, Russians should be aware of the intentions of some in Washington and Ottawa (I am in Canada). Please know that many North Americans are appalled by the anti-Russian actions and statements of our respective governments. But, as I'm sure you are aware, we are in the midst of a Marxist/Techno-Fascist takeover which aims to create chaos everywhere.
Some of them. It’s complicated and confusing. This article and the comments have motivated me to think about the nature of the USA. Is the USA nothing more than an imperialistic nationalist entity determined to bully the world?
I think the USA is a lot more and a lot better than that, but I need to clarify why I think so in my own head more clearly before I try to express it here.
As for Europeans, I will leave it to them to do their own clarification.
Asians of all kinds already seem to be clarifying.
Ukraine is not on the southern border of Russia? Why, then, is there a special operation?
As for assimilation, on the USA today that the basis of very angry disagreement. Our “Democrat” party calls it “identity politics.”
As for the various nationalities in Russia, don’t they speak Russian as well as their national language, and study Russian history? Don’t they consider themselves Russian citizens?
Whatever this statement reflects, i doubt it's incompetence and may not be delusion either. Instead it seems to fit nicely into the pattern of repetitive provocations that some of the ruling factions in the DC Regime hope will result in a Russian attack that can be manipulated into a wider war. These people on the CSCE say and do nothing without their master's orders, so it reflects the desire to provoke Russia. Why do they want war?
One, they don't believe that Russia will go nuclear, so they are banking on a conventional war. To what end? The Western financial system is collapsing. War has been the favored tool of tottering empires and sick regimes, both to rally unhappy populations for easier control and to implement radical societal changes otherwise intolerable to the people. War also makes the MIC filthy rich and the Regime is certain to cash in.
Perhaps it is delusional for the Regime to believe they can win a conventional war against Russia, but who will bear the brunt of the destruction? Likely Europe. Too bad for them, DC reasons. We will be left to reassemble the pieces, they think.
What the Regime cannot have is this slow, steady grinding victory by Russia that doesn't allow for escalation or worldwide condemnation. The Regime must get Russia off its game. This statement fits into all the other provocations we've seen these past months.
How far do you see the relationship between Russia and China going in the next 5 to 10 years? Is there possibility of an outright alliance?
Same question extends to Iran/Syria/Myanmar/African states - on Wikipedia it quotes the then CSTO secretary-general in 2007 saying that Iran could join if it wanted.
A marriage of convenience between RUS and CHN is already in place, but no formal defensive alliance will be made IMO because Beijing has purposely pursued the course of not tying themselves to anyone for the past few decades now.
Iran as part of CSTO? Sure. The others? Highly doubt it as they are too unstable. Burma has been dealing with multiple rebel insurgencies on its soil for decades now, for example.
Taking guidance from clowns with personal animus toward Russians (what, a Circassian, a Kyrgyz, an Uzbek, a Ukrainian, and some Peace Corps dope). The entire Western response to Russia is all about personal beefs and vendettas...
Jun 22, 2022·edited Jun 22, 2022Liked by Niccolo Soldo
LOL
As possible and real as the partition/deindustrialization of Germany according to Morgenthau's crazy fantasies towards the end of WW2
But the real issue here is...
These people will continue to exist as long as there are NGOs and commitees paid for by Soros and the UN and the uber dangerous "National Endowment for Democracy" ( NED, to its friends) and the rest of usual suspects.
Surplus bureaucrats working for solutions to imaginary problems.
Like having plenty of doctors but no sick patients...
However, I can foresee a future where Russia plays a diminished role ( if they dont do it by now.. the Cold war and Soviet Union have been dead over for 31 years !! ), and their not-too-stellar military performance in Ukraine has just confirmed that NATO is quite overstretched and overblown.
About "Hubris", its paywalled but I guess that unlike Russia, China is totally OK with the current status quo --- western countries doing economic seppukku by sending their manufacturing there , hey but the shareholder value has increased !!!, so who cares about blue collar workers? --- so they wont be willing that much to rock the boat, so to speak.
And they'd do whetever serves their interests best, and if that requires aligning with the West vs Russia..... they'll do just that.
These “experts” can’t even see past their own nose’s(no reference intended). A broken up Russia would lead to complete Chinese domination of most of Asia! Everything east of the Urals would be there for the taking.
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Here's a larger view of the map for those interested - https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Map_of_Dissolution_of_Russia.png
Great piece. Spending time in DC a few years before Trump ran for president made me realize how far removed from reality the "thinkers" there were from the "flyover" parts of the country, let alone the rest of the world.
Whom the gods would destroy, they first make mad.
I don't doubt that; still they called our number on the vax - they got - conservatively - well over half the nation to line up for an experimental, barely tested, never before used on humans medical intervention for a supposed condition with a survival rate well over 99% (as Bill Gates ultimately conceded). So just who is removed from reality?
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West is morally and fiscally bankrupt. All we export is usury.
And death
City on a Hill, sir.
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Great article as always. Thanks for providing an insightful counterpoint to the mainstream media's pro-American Empire agitprop.
Our leaders in the USA are quite the combination of nakedly corrupt, boundlessly arrogant, and hopelessly incompetent. They're behaving like caricatures of cartoon villains, as in, the one-dimensional "bad guys" in children's cartoons tend to be better developed and to be more sympathetic character-wise than the clowns governing America's empire, who are like an absurd caricature of an absurd caricature. One wonders how such people can even exist; yet they do, and they hold the reigns of institutional power in the USA.
What you describe in this article would be like if the crew of the Titanic had been focussed on making plans for breaking apart the iceberg with a hammer and chisel, after the ship had already started sinking and the passengers were desperately trying to board the lifeboats. This clownshow is not going to end well. I just hope when the SHTF, people remember who was at the helm when they rammed our civilization directly into the iceberg.
Not just a great piece...an important one. This is truly shocking. Presidents from Eisenhower through to Reagan, possibly Bush 1, would have hit the roof over anything like this. Deliberate provocations against a nuclear armed power, during a war in which the US is a de facto co-belligerent should be inconceivable to any sane person. And make no mistake, China would be taking very careful note at any sign of official or semi-official US enthusiasm for separatism anywhere in the world. The same would be true for any number of countries, including allies, some of whom are super-sensitive about separatism (India, Indonesia, Turkey).
The Beltway has clearly learned nothing from the tragedy of Clinton era policy in Yugoslavia. Whatever one thinks of present-day Croatia or Serbia, the role of Washington (and London, Berlin etc) or the war there, the policies of the West at that time were ugly, unedifying and reckless. It seems particularly insane, given the increasing frequency and urgency with which people now talk of separatism within the USA itself.
Still, if there is a dollar in it, the think-tank, NGO and Beltway crowds will make themselves available. for anything.
Bush I and the team around Scowcroft and Baker feared two things the most with respect to the breakup of the USSR:
1. nuclear weapons landing on the black market
2. global instability due to ethnic conflict among former USSR republics/regions within Russian Federation
They would not have tolerated this panel today.
Baker was also conspicuous in his insistence on extending personal courtesy to foreign diplomats. He understood that respect was essential. Whatever his faults, Baker was one of the last true foreign policy professionals.
Agree w/comments re Baker. It's especially interesting to see how of all the diplomats involved in this crisis, only Lavrov and the Russian Foreign Ministry act with reserve and the legal formalities of inter-state foreign policy. I give the Russians much credit for following the rules when no one else does so. It's embarrassing for the West to be so emotional in these diplomatic discussions.
McFaul, albeit now a former diplomat, is the most egregious case. Everything he says is couched in moralism, totally divorced from the realist aspects of international relations.
McFaul is a perfect example of a man without insight at any level: confusing Foggy Bottom PR for ethics is bad enough, but he also confuses these ethics with power politics. Basically, he is a disgrace. His PhD was on KGB penetration in Central America of all things. His Russian language skills are reputed to be limited. He recently admitted at a conference (I think it was at Harvard) that the US lied to the Ukraine about the possibility of joining NATO and then literally laughed this off. Earlier this year he attracted a lot of flack on twitter after he made a statement about how successful he was, how expensive his home and how important his job. Smugness is to be expected amongst midwits at the top, but McFaul is in a class of his own. It is demoralising that a man as inadequate as that was ever ambassador to Moscow.
McFaul's arrogance and stupidity are enough to make you go off television!
It also says something about the contrasting conditions of the West vs Russia. Lavrov, personally formed by the drab and self-consciously proletarian Soviet culture, values good manners and appears courtly and old world, while the Westerners, who glory in the class culture of a credentialled elite that is enamoured of consumerism, come across as coarse and plebeian.
Got to respect a man who said why he avoided involvement in Bosnia, in broad Texan, we have no dawg in that fight.
Karadzic and Mladic will now specifically start pleading "decolonization" as their motivation in their appeals.
https://mobile.twitter.com/markoah/status/1270307590061395968
“The selective advantage of dominant ideas” is Curtis Yarvin’s explanation for the seemingly endless litany of stupidity emanating from the empire.
Professor Deneen, post liberal order substack calls it the “political Gnosticism of the liberal imperium “ .
Either way the clerical elite that runs this world are pushing us towards hell. But that is human history, peace is an interruption of our natural state: war.
Nickie five cents is spot on as usual.
What is amazing is the reserve of the Russians. Imagine the reaction if the Kremlin sponsored events to discuss supporting white nationalists in Idaho or Black Panthers in Chicago? Or if China did the same for events to discuss the possibility of offering Chinese recognition to an independent Hawaii?
Does anyone in the Beltway realise that Russia may very well be propping up the US financial market? By continuing to make payments to overseas bond-holders Russia is frustrating or postponing the constructed default of the bond market that the Biden Administration has tried to effect. No one knows (or is acknowledging) the exposure of Western banks and hedge funds to counter party risk on Russian bonds and the implications of all this for the stability of the system. You get the impression that the best and brightest really are as dumb as rocks.
Phillip, what would be the impact of a bond default and why does Biden admin want that?
A bond default would transform an asset (the money invested in the bond) into a liability or loss for whoever owned the Russian bonds.
Since the bondholders have their own obligations to fulfill, any disruption in their business could be transmitted throughout the system. The money in the bond market could belong to anyone (individuals, firms, mutual funds, pension funds, governments, banks).
All we know for sure is that individuals and firms trading in oil and natural gas across jurisdictions always need to hedge their potential exposure to losses from variations in exchange rates and price changes. Traditionally the bond market has been one way pf doing this. Even worse, the regulations governing the banking system internationally (the Basel Accords) require that banks maintain reserves of liquidity to cover crises...and government bonds are one of the three standard means of doing this (cash reserves and gold are the other two).
The great danger is that highly leveraged or indebted firms may already be operating on the margin, as it were. Biden's sanctions injected vast amounts of difficulty, uncertainty and risk where none was needed. Words like thoughtless or reckless hardly come close.
Of course, one man's disaster is another man's opportunity. There would be insiders with a potential interest in snapping up devalued or disfavoured bonds at a fraction of their nominal value (they would plan on waiting till the sanctions were over and the bonds could be resold at a profit). The uber-kleptocrats have the kinds of money to enable that kind of long-term punt.
In addition, there would be some nasty types with an agenda in disruption. A crisis in the bond market would see institutions rush to the Fed for assistance. This opens up discrete opportunities for all kinds of people seeking to benefit from any restructure of the financial system. You can rest assured that there would be people at the top with well developed plans for the next emergency.
Biden is so far out of it he probably has no idea what is happening. My guess is that confusion is widespread. The geopolitical hardliners may want a crisis to burn as hot as possible so as to fortify the hostility towards Russia and help shape the global economy. One could speculate endlessly. Unless you are directly involved in what is going on, you are in the dark.
Thanks for the explanation. As I understand, you are saying some western banks, investment firms, etc., could be positioned to take advantage of such a collapse. Which is interesting -- a bifurcation of the global economy (BRICS v the West) might cause such an extreme event I suppose? But I really am just guessing at this point.
We are all just guessing, but I think it best to assume that the top insiders have access to information the rest of us don't and will use every crisis to further enrich and empower themselves.
A split between the West and the rest is becoming more likely by the day. Because of its military prowess and self-sufficiency in energy and food, Russia can provide leadership to the resource-exporting countries. The failure of the US in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria and Libya, coupled with the failure of NATO-proxy Ukraine opens a window of opportunity for countries that seek relief from the burden of using the US dollar (as opposed to currency swaps or a currency backed by commodities and/or precious metals) and supporting the US bond market. The implications are hard to exaggerate. I do not want to be a 'Chicken 'Little or a source of black-pills about any of this, just trying to be realistic.
“The behavior of any bureaucratic organization can best be understood by assuming that it is controlled by a secret cabal of its enemies.” ― Robert Conquest
They're not even secret. There are hundreds, nay, thousands of bureaucrats in the US who explicitly hate the US, hate white people, and want to see the human race exterminated. (Some have all three at once.)
Hatred is a very broad and vague category. In general, as far as policy is concerned hatred explains next to nothing (at the personal level it is definitely a factor).
I'd suggest that the ruling class and its privileged auxiliaries are mostly frightened of the potential cohesion of white Americans. To a degree some are also uncertain how to govern, while others are convinced that the stereotypes and prejudices that the elites hold of the masses are being realised.
The US, like all nation-states, is seen by some as an impediment to the mobility of capital, goods and people. White Americans are simply the constituency most closely associated with the US. As for humanity, I'd say they want to see it re-made along ultra-liberal or transhumanist lines.
The ruling class understand, mostly at an intuitive level, that they have a deep collective interest in the curated decomposition of society. They benefit from declining levels of trust and cohesion within the subordinate population. They benefit from eroding family and communal structures and the resulting atomisation..
- suppress their national self-expression and self-determination.
The map has a partition for Tyva, the supposed successor to Tannu Tuva, which was somewhat enthusiastic about joining the Soviet Union to begin with.
Agreed this is idiocy. But don't overestimate the influence of these talking shops. The USA has scrupulously kept its own personnel and NATO personnel out of the fighting. I yield to no one in my loathing of Biden, but his administration and the US Military have been consistently cautious in this current mess, so one cheer for that. Uniformed US Military is fully aware of Russian nuclear arsenal. Criticism of the USA is legitimate, but we should not imagine that it is an all-seeing monster, and that these various talking shops full of academics in bow ties are really secret messaging channels reflecting deep policy, sending out cryptic signals. The USGov is far from coherent, and its hangers-on and wannabes have all kinds of opinions that will never be actionable. Watch what it does, not what paper-pushers and scribblers wish it would do. I hope they have a nice conference, and everyone gets to schmooze afterward, and maybe enjoy some cheese and crackers.
Fair point. Thanks.
Agree on your comments regarding think-tanks, etc. These are often ways for those out of power to lay down markers - and the more newsworthy, radical the better - and signaling they are ready to join the next administration's NSC, OSD, etc.
But one should never UNDERESTIMATE the power of a "talking shop" operating at this level of stupidity to create catastrophe. The Russians (and the Chinese, Indians etc.) will all report on this conference in their respective medias which will have the effect of creating even more hatred of the United States, Americans and the West in general. And, no doubt, there will be many who will swear revenge. White hot hatred and contempt are the emotions that fuel vicious and long-lasting wars.
No blame intended. This is not the fault of the Russians and, of course, Russians should be aware of the intentions of some in Washington and Ottawa (I am in Canada). Please know that many North Americans are appalled by the anti-Russian actions and statements of our respective governments. But, as I'm sure you are aware, we are in the midst of a Marxist/Techno-Fascist takeover which aims to create chaos everywhere.
Some of them. It’s complicated and confusing. This article and the comments have motivated me to think about the nature of the USA. Is the USA nothing more than an imperialistic nationalist entity determined to bully the world?
I think the USA is a lot more and a lot better than that, but I need to clarify why I think so in my own head more clearly before I try to express it here.
As for Europeans, I will leave it to them to do their own clarification.
Asians of all kinds already seem to be clarifying.
I suppose I could add a statement and stand by it:
The USA and Russia have several things in common:
1. They are both continental powers extending from one great sea to another, with the Arctic Ocean to the north.
2. The both started with a clear idea of their destiny.
3. They both have serious problems on their southern borders.
4. They both had to assimilate many nations with diverse cultures.
(As for corruption in both places, I will leave that discussion for later.)
Ukraine is not on the southern border of Russia? Why, then, is there a special operation?
As for assimilation, on the USA today that the basis of very angry disagreement. Our “Democrat” party calls it “identity politics.”
As for the various nationalities in Russia, don’t they speak Russian as well as their national language, and study Russian history? Don’t they consider themselves Russian citizens?
Whatever this statement reflects, i doubt it's incompetence and may not be delusion either. Instead it seems to fit nicely into the pattern of repetitive provocations that some of the ruling factions in the DC Regime hope will result in a Russian attack that can be manipulated into a wider war. These people on the CSCE say and do nothing without their master's orders, so it reflects the desire to provoke Russia. Why do they want war?
One, they don't believe that Russia will go nuclear, so they are banking on a conventional war. To what end? The Western financial system is collapsing. War has been the favored tool of tottering empires and sick regimes, both to rally unhappy populations for easier control and to implement radical societal changes otherwise intolerable to the people. War also makes the MIC filthy rich and the Regime is certain to cash in.
Perhaps it is delusional for the Regime to believe they can win a conventional war against Russia, but who will bear the brunt of the destruction? Likely Europe. Too bad for them, DC reasons. We will be left to reassemble the pieces, they think.
What the Regime cannot have is this slow, steady grinding victory by Russia that doesn't allow for escalation or worldwide condemnation. The Regime must get Russia off its game. This statement fits into all the other provocations we've seen these past months.
How far do you see the relationship between Russia and China going in the next 5 to 10 years? Is there possibility of an outright alliance?
Same question extends to Iran/Syria/Myanmar/African states - on Wikipedia it quotes the then CSTO secretary-general in 2007 saying that Iran could join if it wanted.
A marriage of convenience between RUS and CHN is already in place, but no formal defensive alliance will be made IMO because Beijing has purposely pursued the course of not tying themselves to anyone for the past few decades now.
Iran as part of CSTO? Sure. The others? Highly doubt it as they are too unstable. Burma has been dealing with multiple rebel insurgencies on its soil for decades now, for example.
If China is unwilling to meaningfuly tie themselves to anyone else, how can the US be making a mistake going after both Russia and China at once?
Other than Chinese economic competition, which will happen regardless, it won't limit their ability to project power.
The difference between de facto and de jure is the answer to your question regarding alliances.
See history above: Russia-China are an old thing.
Taking guidance from clowns with personal animus toward Russians (what, a Circassian, a Kyrgyz, an Uzbek, a Ukrainian, and some Peace Corps dope). The entire Western response to Russia is all about personal beefs and vendettas...
Hvala brate
LOL
As possible and real as the partition/deindustrialization of Germany according to Morgenthau's crazy fantasies towards the end of WW2
But the real issue here is...
These people will continue to exist as long as there are NGOs and commitees paid for by Soros and the UN and the uber dangerous "National Endowment for Democracy" ( NED, to its friends) and the rest of usual suspects.
Surplus bureaucrats working for solutions to imaginary problems.
Like having plenty of doctors but no sick patients...
However, I can foresee a future where Russia plays a diminished role ( if they dont do it by now.. the Cold war and Soviet Union have been dead over for 31 years !! ), and their not-too-stellar military performance in Ukraine has just confirmed that NATO is quite overstretched and overblown.
About "Hubris", its paywalled but I guess that unlike Russia, China is totally OK with the current status quo --- western countries doing economic seppukku by sending their manufacturing there , hey but the shareholder value has increased !!!, so who cares about blue collar workers? --- so they wont be willing that much to rock the boat, so to speak.
And they'd do whetever serves their interests best, and if that requires aligning with the West vs Russia..... they'll do just that.
These “experts” can’t even see past their own nose’s(no reference intended). A broken up Russia would lead to complete Chinese domination of most of Asia! Everything east of the Urals would be there for the taking.