“They should have understood that they (The United States and it's proxy nations) have already lost from the very beginning of our special military operation, because its beginning means the beginning of a radical breakdown of the World Order in the American way. This is the beginning of the transition from liberal-globalist American egocentrism to a truly multipolar world – a world based not on selfish rules invented by someone for themselves, behind which there is nothing but the desire for hegemony, not on hypocritical double-standards, but on international law, on the true sovereignty of peoples and civilizations, on their will to live their historical destiny, their values and traditions and build cooperation on the basis of democracy, justice and equality. And we must understand that this process can no longer be stopped.” -Putin
Guys, I’m in the middle of a move from my one house in JiDa to Zhongshan, so things will be a bit scarce. I will try to keep things a flowing, but don’t freak out by the density of the work.
American “Democracy”
$270 million in new military aid to Ukraine; Officially Considering Supplying US War Planes
The United States on Friday signed off on another $270 million in military aid to Ukraine including four new Himars precision rocket systems.
The fresh aid will bring to 20 the number of M142 High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems sent to Ukraine and also includes up to 500 new Phoenix Ghost tactical drones, White House spokesman John Kirby told reporters.
Kirby also confirmed publicly the United States Air Force is considering donating U.S. A-10 “Warthog” ground-attack aircraft to Ukraine. This was reported verbally on the Hal Turner Radio Show a full 48 hours ago, but only now — 2 days later — is the Pentagon publicly confirming that earlier report.
Fork-Tender Pot Roast in the Oven | Roast Beef Recipe
Savory, fork-tender Pot Roast smothered in a rich brown gravy just might be the most wanted comfort food dish of all. This one, in particular, shines far above the rest thanks to a few simple steps other recipes are leaving behind. This is everything you need to know to make a killer Pot Roast every single time.
Today, in addition to a must-have recipe, we’ll cover the simple formula for a foolproof, perfectly tender pot roast, how to know if you’ve been searing all wrong, easy steps to add more flavor to your roast, and lastly, how to take your gravy from good to great without a reduction!
THE SECRET TO PERFECTLY TENDER POT ROAST
When it comes to making a perfect, fork-tender pot roast, it’s all about cooking the right cut of meat low and slow, at the right temperature, in the right amount of liquid…for the right amount of time. When all of these factors come together perfectly, you are guaranteed a fork-tender pot roast every single time. The best cut of beef for a fork-tender pot roast is beef chuck shoulder roast, and a three-hour braise is perfect for a 4-5 pound chuck shoulder.
Braising sounds technical, but all it means is that you are cooking something partially in liquid (not necessarily submerged), in a covered dish. Dutch ovens are going to be your best friend for this cooking process.
COOKING ROAST BEEF IN A DUTCH OVEN
Dutch ovens are by far the best product out there for braising meats, which is exactly how we are going to be cooking our pot roast. Using the Dutch oven for cooking your roast beef allows you to build an incredible amount of flavor in just one vessel. It is also an excellent even-heat distributor because of its thick cast iron makeup. Here is a simple overview of how we will cook out roast beef in the Dutch oven:
- Season and sear the meat.
- Sauté the vegetables.
- Add in the braising liquid and the roast.
- Cook low and slow for 3 hours.
ARE YOU SEARING THE WRONG WAY?
The perfect pot roast recipe is all about building flavor, and the sear is where the flavor begins. After the roast is seared, it leaves behind a plethora of savory fats and juices on the Dutch oven floor. Then, the vegetables take a turn in all that beefy goodness, picking up on all those left-behind flavors. Once the vegetables have softened slightly, a bold braising liquid goes in, picking up on everything both the beef and the vegetables had to offer.
But, before we can get to the end, we must start at the beginning, and as I said before, it all begins with a proper sear.
2 ESSENTIAL TIPS FOR SEARING MEAT
- To prepare the roast, you should first pat it dry with a paper towel to remove any excess water from the cut of beef. This step is essential to getting a good sear on the roast before braising, which in turn, equals flavor.
- When searing a roast, you want to be sure that your meat is not going into the Dutch oven ice-cold. For the best sear, allow your roast to sit out at room temperature for about 30 minutes.
DON’T FORGET TO SEASON LIBERALLY
Once the excess water has been removed, season the beef liberally with your favorite seasoning. Adding the seasoning directly to meat will help to build flavor. I use my personal favorite, TAK House Seasoning. It’s a mix of Kosher salt, black pepper, garlic powder, and onion powder, and it’s perfect for beef.
In addition to a fair amount of seasoning, we’ll also coat the roast in flour before searing.
THE OIL MATTERS AND THIS IS WHY
The type of oil you use for the process of searing is important. To get a good sear on the meat you must work with medium-high to high heat. Canola oil has a high smoke point, which means that it does not quickly burn, or quite literally begin to smoke as fast as let’s say, butter, which has a low smoke point. You can use an oil other than Canola, just make certain it has a smoke point of 400° or higher.
KEEPING THE VEGETABLES SIMPLE
After a nice crust has been developed from searing, the beef goes out, and the vegetables go in for a quick sauté. This is an elegant, yet simple pot roast, and calls for only onions and carrots from the vegetable department. The carrots add a subtle sweetness to an otherwise savory dish, and they’re absolutely perfect coated in a thick and luscious pot roast gravy.
A GRAVY THAT REQUIRES NO REDUCTION
To achieve a thicker consistency for your pot roast gravy, adding just a little flour to the vegetables before adding in your braising liquid is key. This approach also eliminates the need for any sort of stovetop reduction after the pot roast has finished its stint in the oven.
WHY YOU SHOULD USE WINE IN YOUR BRAISING LIQUID
Earlier, we touched upon a couple of things throughout the searing process that would help us to build flavor in our pot roast. Now, we’ll bring that flavor full circle with a perfect ending of red wine, beef broth, and fresh herbs. A bold red wine like merlot or cabernet sauvignon will enhance the flavor of your pot roast and take it from good to spectacular.
After you’ve added your braising liquid to the mix, your roast goes back in, the Dutch oven is sealed, and it will need to cook for three hours total. Half-way through the cooking process, you’ll turn your roast, ensuring both sides are picking up on all of those amazing flavors.
Remember, the braise is quite likely the most important part of the whole recipe, and allowing your pot roast to cook low and slow for the right amount of time will ensure a perfectly tender pot roast every single time.
As soon as the cold winds finally start to drift into Texas, we gladly welcome them with open arms. And naturally, I begin to yearn for those hearty and warming dishes we love so much, and I don’t know that there is another meal in existence that speaks more loudly to this craving than this here very pot roast.
Braised low and slow until fork-tender, smothered in a rich and savory gravy, and variegated with soft, sweet carrots. It is the epitome of comfort food. It’s a recipe that requires only simple preparation, time, and a hearty appetite.
The You-Tube Video
And, here’s the video on how to make the above…
How to handle a tricky situation…
I taught 8-year olds for a while. One morning a very sweet, sensitive-type, little boy proudly presented me with a small gift box that he had obviously taken great care to wrap and decorate. He insisted that I open it right away. I was shocked to open the box and find a very large pair of diamond earrings that appeared to be set in platinum. I’m an April birthday, and my birthstone is a diamond. I also have a very spoiling husband who has gifted me with lots of nice jewelry over the years. I could tell that these were definitely the real deal. I knew there was no way that he had purchased these for me with his allowance, yet he really wasn’t the type of kid who would maliciously steal from his mother. I didn’t want to embarrass him.
I thanked him and placed them in my desk drawer that had a lock. On my lunch break, I called his mom and explained the situation. She was a realtor and worked near the school. She dropped by and confirmed that those were her diamond earrings, and I, of course, returned them to her. She told me she would handle it gently at home.
The next day, the same little boy came in with another gift for me. He insisted that I open it right away. It was a little angel figurine (from the Dollar Store). He told me that his mom let him know that I was married and couldn’t accept jewelry from him and that he shouldn’t have taken his mom’s jewelry. She took him to the Dollar Store and let him pick out one item that he thought I’d like. He picked the angel “to protect me from the bad kids.” (I had a few kids that year that really acted out in class!) I kept that angel on my desk for the rest of my career!
This story happened back in the early ’90s! This “little boy” is now an adult with two sons of his own! I actually ran into him a few years ago, at a restaurant in the town that I used to teach in. He’s still sweet and shy. He told me that his mom still tells this story, too! :)
As a police officer, have you ever come across criminals who you truly respected?
We arrested a father just after he had killed his own adult brother that was living with the family. A doctor and the arrestee’s 11-year-old daughter’s statement made it clear that the uncle had raped the child many times over the last several months resulting in her getting pregnant, which is why she was taken to the doctor.
The family had been told to call us when the suspect got home, but the father got home first and shot his brother in rage when the suspect arrived. The father then called us, said he had killed his brother, made no effort to run, and was standing in front of his house with his hands up when officers arrived. We had no legal choice but to arrest him.
The result was that the case was carefully walked through the district attorney’s office to obtain a DA reject and the father was released the next day, no charges filed. I still smile when I think about the instant justice of this case and how the father was treated with empathy since any father would want to kill someone who had raped his 11-year-old daughter.
The low part of the trip to Vietnam
Imagine that! Americans surprised that they are not imagined as heroes, and Rambos…
Czeslawa Kwoka, Polish Catholic, 14 years old.
She died in the Auschwitz extermination camp on 18 February 1943 with an injection of phenol into her heart.
Shortly before the execution, she was photographed by the prisoner Whilem Brasse, who testified against the executioner of Czeslawa, a woman who, before the photo was taken, hit her in the face, as the haematoma on her lip shows.
We only see the face of a terrified little girl, who did not even speak their language and who had lost her mother a few days earlier.
She was one of about 250,000 children and minors murdered at Auschwitz-Birkenau.
The photo, originally in black and white at the Oświęcim Memorial, was coloured by Brazilian professional photographer Anna Amaral, who was impressed by Czeslawa’s photo and decided to make it available to everyone in colour.
Russia And China Officially Announce A “New Global Reserve Currency”
And once again, as happens often with consequential news in the United States and the West, no one has noticed and no one seems to care.
If you’ve blinked over the last month, you may have missed it…
China and Russia are taking their shot at the U.S. dollar. And as often happens with consequential news in the United States and the West, no one seems to notice or even care.
Since the beginning of the year, I have been writing about the possibility of Russia and China challenging the US dollar’s global reserve status. Now, it’s happening.
It shouldn’t be any surprise to those paying attention that Russia and China are strengthening their economic ties amidst continued Western sanctions on Russia as a result of the country’s war in Ukraine.
What may surprise some people, however, is that Russia and the BRICS countries, including Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa, are officially working on their own “new global reserve currency,” RT reported in late June. Nobody even seemed to notice.
“The issue of creating an international reserve currency based on a basket of currencies of our countries is being worked out,” Vladimir Putin said at the BRICS business forum last month.
And of course, as Russia has been cut off from the SWIFT system, it is also pairing with China and the BRIC nations to develop “reliable alternative mechanisms for international payments” in order to “cut reliance on the Western financial system.”
In the meantime, Russia is also taking other steps to strengthen the alliance between BRIC nations, including re-routing trade to China and India, according to CNN:
President Vladimir Putin said Wednesday that Russia is rerouting trade to "reliable international partners" such as Brazil, India, China and South Africa as the West attempts to sever economic ties. "We are actively engaged in reorienting our trade flows and foreign economic contacts towards reliable international partners, primarily the BRICS countries," Putin said in his opening video address to the participants of the virtual BRICS Summit.
In fact, “trade between Russia and the BRICS countries increased by 38% and reached $45 billion in the first three months of the year” this year, the report says. Meanwhile, Russian crude sales to China have hit record numbers during Spring of this year, edging out Saudi Arabia as China’s primary oil supplier.
“Together with BRICS partners, we are developing reliable alternative mechanisms for international settlements,” Putin said.
Putin continued, stating last month: “Contacts between Russian business circles and the business community of the BRICS countries have intensified. For example, negotiations are underway to open Indian chain stores in Russia [and to] increase the share of Chinese cars, equipment and hardware on our market.”
In June, Putin also accused the West of ignoring”the basic principles of [the] market economy” such as free trade. “It undermines business interests on a global scale, negatively affecting the wellbeing of people, in effect, of all countries,” he said.
Do not leave in a world consumed by hate…
Her name was Rebecca Miller. She was the younger sister of a high school friend, and she and I became good friends as well.
She was always a bit awkward, and until she met me, she had no other friends except her sister (my friend). She took every bit of criticism or pushback as a hostile attack. She never dated in high school, but she asked me out on a date once, to go bowling, and then she asked me to go to her senior prom (I was already in college in state, and still living at home). I found out years later, she did not ask me to go bowling because she liked me; she asked me as a test to see if I would be a decent date for the prom).
She hated everyone. I was still inferior in her eyes, but she wanted to go to the prom. She used to joke that she had a list of people she hated, that went all the way back to her kindergarten years.
After high school (and one year of a local college for me) all three of us wound up at the same university in California. The two sisters shared a dorm, and I was in a neighboring dorm. We were very close throughout college, but I always had to be careful about what I said or did. Not only was she hateful, but extraordinarily judgmental.
She was an outspoken atheist, and I am Jewish. I wasn’t extremely religious (I’m still not), but I loved my community and culture, and spent a lot of time at the Hillel Jewish Center at my university. I couldn’t talk about any of that with Rebecca or even mention the center at all, or she would call me things like superstitious (which couldn’t be further from the truth). She also called me a cult member a few times.
Looking back, I wish I had had the backbone to break off our friendship, but that would have meant losing her sister’s friendship as well (Rebecca controlled who her sister was allowed to be friends with).
Toward the end of my senior year in college, I stopped hearing from Rebecca and plans kept getting cancelled. It turned out that I had made her hate list. Her sister was not allowed to tell me why or see me again.
As difficult as Rebecca was, I was a little sad, because we did have some good times together. I saw the two of them almost as relatives.
Then I got a 19 page letter from Rebecca, telling me what a horrible person I am. Here are some of the reasons she gave for hating me:
- I was a sexual pervert for ogling women all the time in front of her (I am gay, and I wasn’t out then, but I never ogled women).
- I practiced a religion (Reform Judaism) which she equated with being ignorant and superstitious.
- I wasn’t as smart as she was (She was in MENSA; I took the MENSA test and only scored in the 96th percentile, missing admission by 2 percentiles)
- I majored in linguistics, and she majored in chemical engineering. She didn’t want to hang out with non-scientists.
So she disappeared from my life for a few years. About 5 years after graduation, I received another multi-page letter from her asking for forgiveness. She had been seeing a therapist and was all better now. Dummy me, I forgave her and agreed to pick up our friendship where we left off.
It went a little better this time,except that she and her sister lived together in California and I was back home in Las Vegas. They came to visit a few times, and I visited her and her sister once.
Then…out of the blue, I got another huge letter. This one was more brutal than the last. I don’t remember all the points of this letter, but I do remember her accusing me of lying about having cancer (I really did have cancer) and she mentioned that she suspected I was gay, but it seemed more of an attack rather than a real suspicion. Some of the things she said in her letter indicated that she was somehow spying on me, which was bone-chilling.
This letter was around 2000 or so, and that was the last contact I had with her. Later I found out what happened to her.
Her sister found me on facebook around 2010, and told me that Rebecca had committed suicide, after a decade of really hostile, bizarre behavior.
It seems she became deeply involved in the occult. Then she became a born again Christian. She tried to convert her sister (also an atheist) with no luck, and eventually cut ties with her, other than bombarding her mailbox with religious literature for 10 years.
Then one day, the sister was notified of Rebecca’s death. Rebecca had specifically put in her will that her family was not to be notified, but apparently that was against California law. The sister did not cry any tears. Their mother was destroyed over it though.
Rebecca had planned her death meticulously. She found homes for her two dozen cats, and went online to research the chemicals and methods needed for asphyxiation.
The funeral had only two people there: The clergy and Rebecca’s mother. Rebecca’s sister waited in the car.
I felt a little sad over the whole thing, but also free.
United States “defense” spending
China’s official government point of view.
Please use this understanding in all discussions about “what will China do, or how will China react to American XXXXX”…
The Story of Netflix
Netflix is just the latest victim of a highly predictable cycle which has been going round and round for decades that entertainment companies for some reason seem completely unable to learn from.
- Company introduces a service people like
- Industry gets greedy and overexploits the model, increasing prices for everyone
- Consumers find a way around paying ridiculous prices
- something new comes along that re-engages customers and starts the cycle again.
When TV was first introduced, everything was basically free at the point of watching. Then cable and satellite came along and started putting certain premium programmes behind a paywall. At first people were OK with it, they were paying but also getting a decent service, however the cable services diversified further and further, segregating movies, sports, and everything else behind further and further paywalls. In the early 2000’s, I remember my friend working out that if he wanted to see all the sport he wanted to watch on TV it would cost him £200 per month in various cable and satellite services. A lot of money in 2005.
As a result, people started stealing cable. In the 90’s and 2000’s it was incredibly common for people to steal cable, almost everyone knew someone who could set you up with a dodgy set top box or a cable hookup. This acted as a bit of a brake on the cable companies who knew that if they pushed too hard, more consumers would just jump to stealing it.
Then the internet came along and blew the doors off the system. The problem with internet piracy is that its effectively unstoppable and there’s approximately zero chance of consequences. 20+ years since it first became a major issue, governments and corporations are still basically powerless to stop it. The only things stopping people from streaming everything is that:
- People don’t like stealing. And,
- Its a pain in the ass. It’s often difficult to get a good stream to the show you want and it takes a while.
Then Netflix came along around 2010 and seemed to offer a solution that worked for everyone – for a low monthly fee you got legitimate access to a huge array of movie and TV services all packaged in a slick and easy to use format. It more or less removed the motivation to pirate for a huge majority of people, and people got out of the habit.
Now however, the exact same thing that happened with cable has happened again. Companies have seen the kind of money that can be made from streaming and are now taking their shows off Netflix and segregating their content behind more and more paywalls on their own subscription platforms. We are basically back where we were 20 years ago with cable where you are paying £200 for access to a dozen platforms if you want to access a similar level of content that early Netflix offered, only now there is an even easier way to steal content. What do they think is going to happen?
U.S. Attempts To Make China An Enemy Require A Lot Of Fantasy
The U.S. weapon industry needs U.S. enemies. Without those it is hard to justify an ever growing war budget. The most lucrative enemy, besides Russia, is of course China.
But there is a problem. China has no interest in being a U.S. enemy and certainly not in being THE enemy. In its view that only takes away resources that are better used elsewhere.
That is the reason why China avoids talks with the U.S. about military and strategic issues.
CIA columnist David Ignatius thus laments:
China wants to ‘reduce misunderstanding’ with the U.S. It could start by talking.
ASPEN, Colo. — Chinese Ambassador Qin Gang assured a foreign policy gathering here this week that Beijing wants “to reduce misunderstanding and miscalculation” with the United States. If that’s true, why does China continue to resist a U.S. proposal to discuss “strategic stability” between the two increasingly competitive countries?
What have talks about ‘strategic stability’ to do with reducing misunderstanding and miscalculation? The later can be achieved in very simple low level talks between ambassadors or politicians. There is nothing ‘strategic’ needed about them.
President Biden said on Wednesday, before his covid-19 diagnosis was announced, that he expects to talk with Chinese leader Xi Jinping in the next 10 days, and a senior administration official said the president’s agenda will include a renewed emphasis on the risks in the relationship, and the need to establish better communications. But, so far, the official said of the Chinese, “they haven’t taken us up” on a U.S. proposal for the stability talks.
The Chinese do not see and do not want instability so there is no need to talk about it. What they sees is a U.S. trick that would make it possible to designate China as an ‘enemy’.
Ignatius’ next paragraph demonstrates that:
This difficulty in developing a Sino-U.S. dialogue about strategic issues has frustrated the Biden administration. An important lesson of the Cold War was that nuclear-armed superpowers must communicate to avoid dangerous mistakes. But China has resisted arms-control talks even as it expands its nuclear arsenal, and as a result, it hasn’t learned a common language for crisis management in the way the Soviet Union did.
China is not in a Cold war with the U.S. It does not see itself as a U.S. enemy. There is no reason then to talk in Cold war language:
Biden first proposed the talks in a virtual summit with Xi last November, saying the two countries needed “common-sense guardrails to ensure that competition does not veer into conflict,” according to a White House statement at the time. Items on the agenda for such talks would include expansion of a 1998 agreement for avoiding maritime incidents, measures to avert dangerous military activities, and plans for a hotline and other crisis communication measures, the administration official said.
If there were more agreements over incidents and military activities would the U.S. be more or less aggressive in its action against China?
Why does the U.S. want a hotline and crisis communication? Would they not help the U.S. in provoking more incidents than it dares to do without them?
Rather than embracing what former Australian prime minister and China scholar Kevin Rudd calls “managed strategic competition” in a new Foreign Affairs article, Beijing insists the United States should return to its old policies of supportive engagement, which facilitated China’s rise. Like nearly every other Chinese diplomat I’ve encountered over the past decade, Qin often repeated the phrase “win-win cooperation,” which China sees as a cure-all for its increasingly testy relationship with Washington.
What is bad with a ‘win-win cooperation’? Why replace that with ‘strategic competition’?
China wants to have it both ways as a superpower: flexing its muscles without being seen as a bully. Xi has been explicit in his “Made in China 2025” plans for dominance of major technologies. But China “has difficulty in recognizing the relationship [with the United States] as competitive,” the senior administration official said. Instead, it responds to criticism from the U.S. and Asian regional powers with a wounded tone, as though to say, “Who, us?”
Lots of countries have lots of plans to have dominance in major technologies. The Netherlands (and German) have such a dominance in extreme ultraviolet (EUV) lithography, needed to make modern computer chips, as well as in several other fields. Other countries, France, South Korea, Japan, Russia, the U.S., have other industry sectors in which they are globally dominant. That is just the normal way of global capitalism in which countries seek to do their best not in all fields but in those in which they are better.
Framing a strong and sustainable U.S.-China policy remains the Biden administration’s biggest long-term challenge, despite the current preoccupation with the war in Ukraine. Beijing is the only competitor that could genuinely challenge the United States militarily, officials believe. But Ukraine has complicated U.S.-China policy — for both sides.
Now we come to the point. How please could China genuinely challenge the United States militarily? By invading Mexico and Canada or with a big landing force that threatens Los Angeles and New York? Why would China want do that?
Xi was surprised that the Biden administration, which the Chinese expected would be weak and ineffective abroad, has been able to rally global support for Ukraine. But despite Xi’s wariness of incurring sanctions, he remains firmly aligned with Russian President Vladimir Putin, the senior administration official said. Hopes that the war might encourage a break between Beijing and Moscow were misplaced.
Ignatius has forgotten to take his meds. The ‘global support’ is the NATO, EU and the 5-eyes spying cooperation. Those are some 34 countries out of the 193 UN member states. Why did anyone expect that China would not take the neutral stand that the majority has taken? Those who did should be send back to school to learn a bit about rationality.
Enough with that blubber. Ignatius, like many other people in the Washington DC bubble, does not understand China and makes no effort to learn about it. These people just mirror what they think the U.S. would do and project that on a country that thinks in very different terms.
Another example of these ‘thinkers’ is Elbridge Colby:
Elbridge Colby’s The Strategy of Denial offers a blueprint for containing and combating China’s rise in order to preserve American freedom, prosperity, and security—emphasis on security. The argument turns on a very specific vision of China’s plans, which Colby does not attempt to link to actual Chinese policy or strategy for achieving hegemony in East Asia. The resulting prescriptions, although they’ve been lauded by some, are fatally flawed. Colby, deputy assistant secretary of defense for strategy and force development from 2017 to 2018, believes that China could pursue a “focused and sequential strategy” of threatened or executed “wars against isolated coalition members,” starting with Taiwan. He fears Beijing would do this in such a way that does not trigger a regional war but culminates in Chinese hegemony in Asia. To prevent this, Colby believes the United States must pursue a “strategy of denial” to preserve U.S. dominance in Asia.
The problem is that there is no evidence that there is an actual ‘Chinese policy or strategy for achieving hegemony in East Asia’.
Colby provides no sources that claim such. He made up the ‘threat’ because he things that is what the U.S. would do if it were China.
The most glaring flaw is that Colby works off what he thinks China’s strategy should be, not the evidence about what it actually is. This is a particularly bad approach to analysis, because it makes mirroring or speculation easier to smuggle into predictions of adversary behavior. A good defense strategy requires an understanding of how the expected adversary plans to fight. Yet he does not engage with Chinese military doctrine, Chinese strategic thought, or the robust debate in the United States about Chinese strategy and ambitions. Instead, he argues that because of uncertainty about China’s strategy, the United States should simply focus on China’s “best strategy” for winning Asia. In Colby’s words, “a state’s best strategy does not ultimately depend on what the state’s leaders think it is” because it relates to “objective reality.”
In consequence of his ‘garbage in’ process Colby’s output is likewise garbage.
Building a response according to an adversary’s “best strategy” also makes you much more likely to miss what that adversary is actually doing. Colby defends his approach of strategizing based on China’s “best” strategy by claiming that “Defeating a bad strategy is easier and less costly than defeating a good one.” Therefore, if the United States prepares for China’s best strategy, any real Chinese strategy should be even easier to handle. In reality, the defense posture and investments needed to defeat an adversary’s “best” strategy might be significantly different from those needed to defeat an adversary’s second-best strategy.
Colby’s book is not about strategy but about spending as much money on a U.S. position of aggression towards China as possible:
Colby proposes that an American-led coalition impose a strategy of denial on China, blocking China’s ability to traverse the 80 miles of the Taiwan Strait. How to put the bell on the cat? “Defending forces operating from a distributed, resilient force posture and across all the war-fighting domains might use a variety of methods to blunt the Chinese invasion in the air and seas surrounding Taiwan.” The US and its allies might “seek to disable or destroy Chinese transport ships and aircraft before they left Chinese ports or airstrips. The defenders might also try to obstruct key ports; neutralize key elements of Chinese command and control … And once Chinese forces entered the Strait, US and defending forces could use a variety of methods to disable or destroy Chinese transport ships and aircraft.” Colby leaves what means we might employ here to the imagination.
Like the first reviewer of Colby’s book this one also criticizes his factless starting position:
It isn’t so much that Colby gives the wrong answers. He fails to ask pertinent questions about Chinese intent and technological capability. Instead, he gives us a pastiche of generalities that obscure rather than clarify the strategic issues at hand. In brief, Colby depicts China as an expansionist power eager to absorb territory, citing alleged Chinese designs on the Philippines and Taiwan on a half-dozen occasions – as if China’s interest in the Philippines were equivalent to its interest in Taiwan.
Garbage input producing garbage output topped with militaristic fantasies do not create a good strategy.
The problem is that in the next republican administration Colby will likely have another high Pentagon position.
That makes such dumb thinking a danger for the world.
Posted by b on July 22, 2022 at 15:59 UTC | Permalink
MM Commentary…
Historically speaking, people like Elbridge Colby and David Ignatius have a tendency to be killed in horrible, horribly ways. They live in a echo chamber bubble of reality that is insulated and isolated from reality.
When reality arrives at their front door, they typically do not survive it.
Obama piece prize holder…
Zelensky wants to talk to South America in a plea for more money…
On The Front Line: Chinese Artists Pay Tribute To Medics In The Fight With Coronavirus
Chinese artists created a sort of amazing illustrations to pay tribute to medical staff fighting the coronavirus. A lot of them are dedicated to Dr. Li Wenliang, the Wuhan ophthalmologist who warned of the coronavirus outbreak and who died from its effects in early February.
Million-Dollar Wine Heist Ends With Mexican Beauty Queen Arrested in Europe
MEXICO CITY — A Mexican beauty queen and her accomplice were arrested in Europe for allegedly stealing bottles of wine worth over $1.6 million.
Priscila Lara Guevara, a former Miss Earth 2016 contestant in Mexico State, and her partner Constantín Gabriel Dumitru spent months on the run after stealing the bottles from an upscale restaurant-hotel in Spain. They were arrested Tuesday while attempting to cross the Croatia/Montenegro border in Eastern Europe.
Guevara allegedly checked into the Atrio hotel in the western Spanish city of Caceres on October 27 using a false Swiss identification and wearing a wig and sunglasses, according to investigators who spoke anonymously with Spanish newspaper El País. Later that night, 45 bottles disappeared from the restaurant’s wine cellar, including a Chateau d’Yquem from 1806 valued at over $300,000.
The investigators who spoke with El País alleged the heist was well planned, claiming the pair had dined at its restaurant three times previously that year in June, August, and September. When they arrived in October, Dumitru never registered with the hotel and met Guevara for dinner. Afterward, the pair visited the hotel’s renowned wine cellar, which is reportedly a tradition after dining in the restaurant. Guevara and Dumitru then went to their hotel room.
Sometime after 1 am, Guevara reportedly called reception and asked if they could send her room service even though the kitchen was closed and only a receptionist remained on duty at that time. The receptionist agreed to make her a salad and left her post at the front desk.
Dumitru then snuck down to the wine cellar with several bags, used a keycard that he’d somehow stolen previously to open the door, and returned to the hotel room with 45 expensive bottles of wine hidden in the bags. The couple checked out of the hotel at 5 a.m., and left by foot.
While authorities quickly opened an investigation into the crime, it took them months to identify the culprits. Their first break came when they identified Dumitru in the security footage from the restaurant as a Romanian-Dutch national that previously was arrested in Madrid for stealing expensive wine from gourmet stores. But by the time they arrived at his Madrid apartment, Dumitru and Guevara had disappeared.
The pair reappeared in January in Romania when Dumitru renewed his passport, then vanished again. But their luck finally ran out on July 19 when authorities busted the couple attempting to cross the border of Croatia and Montenegro. They will reportedly be returned to Spain to face the charges.
But while the wine bandits may be in custody, they were not caught red handed. Not a single drop of wine has yet been recovered.
Chinese logic…
China is now able to compete against the best of Taiwan…
For Those About to Rock, NAM 2.0 Salutes You
NAM 2.0 drive – of which China is a key player – stands in stark opposition to how the Empire of Chaos – and Lies – wove its toxic net, via the war on terror, since the start of the millennium.
Those were the days, in 1955, at the legendary Bandung conference in Indonesia, when the newly emancipated Global South started dreaming of building a new world, via what became configured later in 1961 in Belgrade as the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM).
The Empire of Chaos – and Lies – would never allow a starring role for NAM. So it played dirty: everything from hardcore subversion and bribing to military coups and proto-color revolutions.
Yet now, the Spirit of Bandung lives again, via a sort of NAM 2.0 on steroids: a Newly Aligned Movement, with the leaders of Eurasian integration at the vanguard.
We just had a taste of which way the geopolitical wind is blowing at the gathering of a new power troika in Tehran. Unlike Stalin, Roosevelt and Churchill in 1943, Putin, Raisi and Erdogan did not meet to carve up the world. They met essentially to discuss how another world is possible – through bilaterals, trilaterals, multilaterals and an enhanced role for an array of relatively new geopolitical and geoeconomic institutions.
Russia – and China – have been on the forefront of all recent key decisions. Their diplomacy has brought Iran to join the SCO as a full member. Their pull is attracting key Global South players to join BRICS+. Russia has all but convinced Turkey to join BRICS+, the SCO and the EAEU, and facilitated the re-approximation of Tehran and Ankara as well as Tehran and Riyadh. Russia has largely influenced the remake/remodel process across West Asia.
This NAM 2.0 drive – of which China is a key player – stands in stark opposition to how the Empire of Chaos – and Lies – wove its toxic net, via the war on terror, since the start of the millennium. The Empire tried to subdue what it described as MENA (Middle East-Northern Africa) on the basis of two invasions/occupations (Afghanistan-Iraq); a total devastation (Libya); and a protracted proxy war (Syria). All eventually failed.
And that brings us to the stunning contrast between these two foreign policy approaches, graphically illustrated by the spectacular failure of the teleprompter-reading “leader of the free world” in his visit to Jeddah – he was not even allowed to go to Riyadh – compared to Putin’s performance in Tehran.
Not only we are witnessing the lineaments of a Russia/Iran/Turkey informal alliance; we are witnessing the alliance reading a soft riot act to the Empire: leave Syria, before you suffer yet another humiliation. And with a Kurd-directed corollary: keep away from the Americans and recognize the authority of Damascus before it’s too late.
Ankara could never admit it in public, but the fact is Sultan Erdogan – as much against US troops in Syria as Putin and Raisi – even seems to have swiftly calibrated his previous designs on Syrian sovereign territory.
The much-debated Turkish military operation in northern Syria in the end may be restricted to taming the YPG Kurds. The heart of the action will in fact revolve around how the Russia/Iran/Turkey/Syria alliance will make like impossible for Americans stealing Syrian oil.
As Russia is now on “take no prisoners” mode when facing the collective West – the mantra in every intervention by Putin, Lavrov, Medvedev, Patrushev – and on top of it firmly aligned with China and Iran, it’s inevitable that every other player across West Asia and beyond is giving undivided attention to the new game in town.
Go Caspian, Young Man
Interconnecting West Asia and Central Asia, the Caspian Sea has finally reached the geopolitical and geoeconomic limelight – complete with the groundbreaking consensus reached by the five littoral states at the Caspian Summit in late June to officially ban NATO from these waters.
Moreover, the leadership in Tehran in no time realized how the Caspian is the perfect, cost-conscious corridor from Iran to the heart of Russia along the Volga.
So it’s no wonder that Putin himself, in Tehran, proposed the construction of a key stretch of highway on the St Petersburg-Persian Gulf route, much to the delight of the Iranians. Cue to the nostalgic Great Game crowd in that former “rule the waves” island getting serial heart attacks: they could never imagine the Russian “empire” finally having full access to the warm waters of the Persian Gulf.
So we’re back to the absolutely crucial re-engineering of the International North South Transportation Corridor (INTSC) – which will play for Russia and Iran a parallel role the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) plays for China. In both cases, it’s all about multimodal Eurasia-wide trade and development corridors immune from interference by the imperial Navy.
And here we see the renewed importance of the hyper-strategic liberation of Mariupol and Kherson by the Russian and DPR forces. The Sea of Azov is now configured as a de facto Russian lake – and the same will eventually happen to what is bound to remain of the (currently Ukrainian) Black Sea coast, Odessa included.
So we have the ultra-strategic Caspian-Black Sea maritime corridor – via the Volga-Don canal – seamlessly connected to the Black Sea-Mediterranean, and up north, all the way to the Baltic and the fast developing Atlantic-Pacific connector, the Northern Sea Route. Call it the Russian Heartland Water Roads.
The NATO/Five Eyes/Intermarium combo has absolutely nothing to counteract these (overland) facts on the (Heartland) ground except to throw a pile of HIMARS into the Ukrainian black hole. And of course, keep de-industrializing Europe. In contrast, those across the Global South with a keen sense of history – as in the grand debate of ideas in a Hegelian sense – and also versed in geography and trade relations are busy getting ready to hit (and profit from) the new groove.
Have strategic ambiguity, will travel
As much as it’s a blast to survey all the instances of Russia playing strategic ambiguity to levels capable of baffling the entire, bloated “Western intel” apparatus, what is coming to the forefront is how Putin – and Patrushev – are now willfully turning up the pain dial to tactically exhaust not only the Ukrainian black hole but the whole of NATOstan.
Western governments are collapsing. Sanctions are being ditched – practically in secret. A Deep Freeze winter is a given. And then there’s the incoming economic/financial crisis, the Definitive Monster from Hell, as Martin Armstrong has made it quite clear: “There is no way they can get out of this other than default. If they default, they are worried about millions of people storming the parliaments of Europe…This is really a tremendous financial crisis that we are facing. They have been borrowing year after year since WWII with zero intention of paying anything back.”
Meanwhile, Moscow may be revving up the turbines to launch – this coming Fall? In the middle of Winter? Next Spring? – a multi-spectrum Mother of All Offensives, capitalizing on a rolling series of interconnected strategies that have already rendered dazed and confused every NATOstan “analyst” in sight.
That would explain Putin looking like he’s cheerfully whistling JJ Cale’s Call Me the Breeze in most of his public appearances. In his crucial intervention at the Strong Ideas for a New Time forum, he enthusiastically promoted the advent of “truly revolutionary” and “enormous” changes that would lead to the creation of a new, “harmonious, fairer and more community-focused and safe” world order.
Yet that’s not for everyone: “only truly sovereign states can ensure high growth dynamics.” What that implies is that the unipolar world order, followed by states in the collective West which are hardly sovereign, is condemned to fail, as it’s “becoming a brake on the development of our civilization.”
Only a self-confident sovereign who does not expect anything constructive from the collective West can get away with describing it as “racist and neo-colonial”, bearing an ideology that “is becoming increasingly more like totalitarianism.” In the old NAM days these words would be met with an assassination.
So will the “rules-based international order” be preserved? Not a chance, argues Putin: the changes are “irreversible.” For those about to rock, NAM 2.0 salutes you.
A message from a German Worker
“Greetings from a German worker who does not kill workers.”
According to urban legend, in a town in the Basque Country there was a bomb that reached the ground but never exploded.
The bomb was embedded in the middle of the central square of the small town.
The surprised and frightened villagers did not dare to move it, much less disarm it.
There it remained for years during the Franco government as a sobering symbol. It represented death, the power of the regime and the punishment of whoever revealed himself.
One spring day, in the morning, Julen got tired of the detail of the landscape that ruined the square.
He looked for tools, asked for help that he could not find, and decided to disarm and remove the artifact.
The first few hours he worked alone, before the distant gaze of his countrymen.
By noon he already had the help of his friends, because if you have to die of something, let it be with your friends.
By mid-afternoon, the entire town was in the square, expectant and collaborating as best they could.
Before nightfall they had disarmed her, put her on a cart, and decided that they were going to take her to the neighboring town, where the municipal seat of the region was located.
But what was interesting was what they found inside the warhead, (the tip or head of the bomb); the part that travels from the underside when a bomb is dropped and holds the detonator.
There, along with cables and pieces of metal, they found a handwritten piece of paper containing only a few words.
They thought that perhaps it indicated the place where it was made, its components, or some instructions for use, but in any case, it aroused the curiosity of the people.
It was clearly not in Basque, in Spanish, or in English. He was apparently German.
In the town, there was only one person who could decipher the writing: Mirentxu, who as a child, due to her father’s work, had spent some years in Hamburg. Mirentxu was naturally in the square.
She was requested and took the role.
It took a few seconds, which was no more than half a minute.
She ordered the words, the grammar, in her mind, and to cut the suspense, she said, looking at all her neighbors who at the same time looked at her in silence:
“Cheers. Of a German worker who does not kill workers.
No one moved from the square for the next few hours.
They discussed, made conjectures, and interpreted the manuscript in a thousand ways.
Finally, before midnight, the people unanimously decided that the bomb would not go away, it would even return to its place.
From that moment on, the bomb in the square began to symbolize resistance, the end of fear, and the power of a class-conscious people.
All this as a gift from a German worker who, in the midst of the Nazi dictatorship, risked his skin, and made it clear that neither fear nor the regime were going to be able to make him kill workers.
A legend to remember those German workers who risked their lives sabotaging howitzers in the civil war in which they left notes of encouragement to the republicans.
When did you realize that some traditional Western ideas were wrong?
From Quora…
Living in an Asian country I realized that modern Western values of “rugged individualism” are silly… There’s a certain charm to it, but the multi-generational households of many non-Western nations are far superior in my view. I know many elderly Western people who take great pride in how “they’re still living independently on their own at eighty!” or whatever.
Then they turn, say, 85, 86. Their health begins to worsen. Children and grandchildren stage some sort of mini-intervention and… grandpa or grandma gets sent off to the retirement home. Is visited a few times a year, sometimes more, sometimes less. Withers away. Dies in about a year or two, tops.
In non-Western countries, I see elderly people living with their sons and daughters. They grow old surrounded by grandchildren and great-grandchildren. Some manage to hold a great-great-grandchild before they pass. Children, cousins, nieces and nephews live in houses nearby. Old friends at a walking distance.
And I don’t know, but these old people who simply rely on family, to whom a thought of wanting to be “super independent” never occurs, who aren’t ashamed to “bother anyone” and live and die surrounded by younger relatives… they seem happier. More vibrant.
My grandfather wanted to die the moment he got old to the point of losing some of his mental powers, his physical prowess, his skills. He lessened and had to rely more on others and he was always taught from an early age: “sink or swim”. He told me of old inuit walking into a snowstorm and freezing to death because they were “useless” and how he’d wish to get lost in a blizzard somewhere and die in a white blaze of glory…
It’s immensely sad to me that he couldn’t have shared a household with me or one of my siblings and our kids. In another culture he might never have felt like a failure when Alzheimer’s hit him and he ‘lost it’. But in the West, he did.
Russia and America compared…
Real life “John Wick”
I present to you Julian Sinanaj (pronounced Youleean Sea-nah-naay), an Albanian contract assasin that worked as a lone wolf. Trained by the Russians, he operated initially in Greece and later in Albania. In the first page of his notebook he wrote “Don’t say anything to anyone or you’re going to get killed”.
He operated for 15 years in Athens where he comitted over 20 assassinations. When he felt threatened by his clients there, he decided to move to Albania where he comitted another 6 assassinations, until he was cought by the Albanian police in 2014.
All it took to organize a hit was to write a Gmail address named after the children’s socialist era movie “Beni walks by himself”. His nickname was “the cleaner”. Julian could shoot with both hands, with the same precision. In Albania he also took a full course on criminology in order to avoid detection and capture. (It didn’t work out that well)
Julian also had some rules he went by. He did not accept commissions out of anger. Or he would not attack the target when accompanied by his wife and children. You know, the “clean conscience” affair.
His capture was organized as an ambush when he lowered his guard, without an exchange of fire (which is how Albanian police usually operates). When the agents went to grab him, he offered quite a resistance despite being much smaller and thinner.
As a trained assassin he remained silent but his girlfriend buckled under pressure. She gave them his address and there they found weapons, explosives and a notebook with detailed information about his targets, including pictures.
Julian Sinanaj was able to avoid life in prison by confessing to everything. He was sentenced to 30 years in prison. Italian writer Andrea Galli wrote a book about him titled “Sicario. How to become a killer. A true story”
The rules of the brotherhood…
UK Agency Re-working Law to ALLOW INSECTS as Human Food!
The United Kingdom “Food Standards Agency” has announced plans to review using INSECTS in — and as — human food.
Earlier this month, the Food Standards Agency put out this public notice:
The fact tthat any government, anywhere, is even THINKING of this, is astonishingly bad.
In 81% of the “edible insects” studies have found parasites of which at least 30% are known to be potentially harmful to humans.
Not only that, but these insect parasites literally mess-up your gut bacteria, also known as your microbiome. You can read that lengthy (and highly technical/boring) study HERE
There are also stories claiming that earth’s TOPSOIL is fading fast, and “will be gone in 60 years” thereby necessitating that humans develop new food supplies You can read that story HERE.
There are also alerts coming out now that levels of Plankton in the Atlantic Ocean have fallen so dramatically, that the Atlantic Ocean is all but “dead” from a Plankton food perspective, and that without Plankton, the supply of fish will quickly dwindle to zero, because Plankton are the base of the entire sea food chain.
An Edinburgh-based research team says plankton, the tiny organisms that sustain life in the seas, has all but been wiped out. The team’s spent two years collecting water samples from the Atlantic and in a dire warning says this means the Atlantic’s ‘pretty much dead’.
At the bottom of the food chain, plankton is consumed by the krill which are fed on by the fish that, in turn, provide nutrition for terrestrial animals including billions of humans.
You can read about that study, HERE.
All in all, the world seems to be going in a very dire direction on many, many, levels.
Domino’s Pizza
Lemon-Pepper Ribeye Filets with Roasted Tomatoes
Ingredients:
- 4 beef Ribeye Filets, cut 1 inch thick (about 4 to 6 ounces each)
- 2 cups red and yellow grape or cherry tomatoes, cut in half
- 2 teaspoons olive oil
- 1 teaspoon dried thyme
- 2 cloves garlic, minced
- 1/4 teaspoon salt
- 1-1/2 teaspoons lemon pepper
Cooking:
- Heat oven to 400°F. Combine tomatoes, oil, thyme, garlic and salt in medium bowl; toss to coat well. Arrange tomatoes, cut sides up, on metal baking sheet lined with aluminum foil. Roast in 400°F oven 30 to 35 minutes or until skins are wrinkled and begin to brown.
- Meanwhile, press lemon pepper evenly onto beef Ribeye Filets. Heat large nonstick skillet over medium heat until hot. Place filets in skillet; cook 10 to 14 minutes for medium rare to medium doneness, turning occasionally. Remove to platter; season with salt, as desired.
- Serve filets with tomatoes.
Safe Handling Tips:
- Wash hands with soap and water before cooking and always after touching raw meat.
- Separate raw meat from other foods.
- Wash all cutting boards, utensils, and dishes after touching raw meat.
- Do not reuse marinades used on raw foods.
- Wash all produce prior to use.
- Cook beef until temperature reaches 145°F for medium rare steaks and roasts 160°F for ground beef.
- Refrigerate food promptly.
Questions of our times…
Is this just someone’s opinion or is it objective fact?
"Truly revolutionary transformations are gaining momentum more and more. They are, of course, irreversible. Both at the national and global levels, the foundations of a more just, socially oriented world order are being worked out. An alternative to the existing unipolar world, which is becoming a brake on civilization. The model of total domination of the "golden billion" is unfair! Exclusivity based on the illusion divides peoples into first and second class, and therefore is racist and neocolonial. And globalist ideology is increasingly acquiring the features of totalitarianism. It seems that the West simply cannot offer the world its model. The West did not accidentally became powerful, but it gained its position largely due to the plunder of other nations. Therefore today its elites are panicking that other centers may present their own development models."
Hum…
Some of these statements are absolutely true. “We’re in for Truly Revolutionary Transformation”. And it is Irreversible.
And we’re all hoping that it will be “the foundations of a more just, socially oriented world order”. I for one believe that the root of ALL conflict IS perceived Injustice. It is very broad, and perhaps even difficult to know where to start. I think it is most important to start internationally. But we are completely at effect of various ministries of foreign affairs, many of which have a term of 4-5 years. Five years is too long to maintain “wrongheaded” policies, in these fast moving times.
So the populations are precluded from effective action by this bureaucratic momentum. The western nations, being of origin Christian, are all hoping for a savior. Now, Russia has been given this savior role, (in our minds), because they have finally stood up to western billionaires. It will crack a lot of nuts.
But will Russia take on this role to save the world? I highly doubt it.
Why should NOT Europe and America, and the other pipsqueak Australians and Canadians stew in their own juices? All of their acquiescent populations have failed to clean out the “corruption of conflict and violence” that runs their country, and sequesters their wealth to destroy peace on earth. Most often, increased stress is met with increased repression.
It is only billionaires that benefit from conflict. But it is always you that has to pay their way, in both gold and in blood.
Will the western populations make a move? It is not that they are asleep and could eventually wake up. They can’t. They are in 100’s of years of “going with the flow”, and avoiding all risks.
They were forced into 2 world wars with false flags and skewed reporting, but I am talking about the population’s inner desires.
The best way to avoid these risks is with blinkers, (those things they put on a horse to limit its peripheral vision). They put them on themselves. To try to change those 100’s of years of acquiescence will only produce immense
befuddlement, and lashing out.
Acquiescence is a social stage when reliance on “Our Laws” has been
achieved to uphold our present state of well-being, (for that part of
the majority that enjoys control).
In itself it is not necessarily bad or wrong. But movement from one social stage to another is very slow, even when conditions on the ground warrant it. Actually Russia was in the very same predicament, but then fortuitously the one word, NAZI, triggered a 70 – 80 year reset, and they are now fully willing to take
action.
The risk (of not taking any risks), is that the savior won’t come. You have to do it yourself. So no matter how positive armchair generals view Russian tactics and progress, and their potential against NATO: NOTHING IS ASSURED.
I view these discussions of an inevitable move toward social justice as dis empowering diversions, that keep the billionaires in power.
One day this will be you…
”Twice this week, I have watched an elderly individual, fade into the busy life in which we all live. One man just needed Panadol for his wife but the shop assistant simply said it’s in ‘6’. But he struggled to navigate the supermarket and as I watched him go in the wrong direction, I left all my groceries and took him where he needed to go.”
“Today, I watched an elderly man struggle in the heat, who had obviously had a fall with a huge scrape and blood on his leg. He walked past people in the cafe, while he slowly made his way to his car. Not one person stopped. Or looked. Or acknowledged him. I took him to his car and checked he was ok. He told me he had a fall and wasn’t sure how the air con worked in his car so he just didn’t use it. I sat with him, until his air con kicked in and heard him talk about the old frail body that he is in, that fails him now, every single day.”
“When you see an elderly person walking down the street, searching in the supermarket or struggling to their car, take a minute out of your busy schedule and ask them if they need a hand. Think about your grand parents and your parents and how pissed you would be if someone didn’t stop to help them. But more, think of them as you.”
“Once upon a time they were you. They were busy, they had work, they had children, they were able…. Today, they are just in an older body that is not going as fast as it used to and this busy life is confusing. They deserve our utmost respect and consideration. One day it will be you, it will be us. I wish more people gave a sh*t about them and acknowledged them for their admirable existence and geez I hope someday, not that far away, someone does it for me.”
MM Comments
When I was studying Aerospace Engineering at Syracuse in Upstate New York, I would take the bus back and forth from the campus. I was living with an older German family on the “East Side”. This is a German – Italian enclave.
At that time there was a big thing going on about enforcement of age restrictions on buses, and other venues. I thought that it was silly, but it really didn’t concern me.
Or so I thought.
One day, this little old woman… frail and old. Maybe 95 years old! Well, she tried to get on the bus, and the asshole bus driver would not accept her as being a Senior Citizen and wouldn’t give her the discount. He insisted that she pay full fare.
She started shaking and crying, but still he persisted.
The other people got up and started yelling at the driver.
But I, well at that time I was young, scruffy, with long hair and a beard and carting my mathematics and aerospace textbooks. I didn’t have enough money, but I did have enough to pay her fare. So I paid it, and then I said “come on Bushia (polish for grandmother) sit with me.”
I rode the bus until she got off. Skipping my stop, missing my class, and being late for my other class.
But it was worth it.
She said that I reminded her of her great grand son, and she wished that a fine man like myself would someday meet a nice girl worthy of me.
I didn’t think anything of it. And I forgot all about this event.
Until now.
Reading the Runes of War
Putin’s policy of cleansing the Augean Stables of ‘predatory western capital’ is music to the ears of the Global South, Alastair Crooke writes.
Of course, the conflict, to all intents, is settled – though is far from over. It is clear that Russia will prevail in the military war – and the political war too – by which is meant that whatever emerges in Ukraine after the military action is complete will be dictated by Moscow on its terms.
Plainly, on the one hand, the regime in Kiev would collapse were it to have terms dictated to it by Moscow. And, on the other hand, the entire western agenda behind the Maidan coup d’état in 2014 would implode, too. (This is why an off-ramp, short of a Ukrainian rout, is next to impossible.)
This moment thus marks a crucial point of inflection. One American choice might be to end the conflict – and there are many voices calling for a deal, or a ceasefire, with the understandably humane intent of ending the pointless slaughter of Ukrainian young men sent to ‘the front’ to defend indefensible positions, only to be cynically killed for no military gain, merely to keep the war going.
Though rational, the argument for an off-ramp misses the bigger geopolitical point: The West is so heavily invested in its fantastical narrative of imminent Russian collapse and humiliation that it finds itself ‘stuck fast’. It cannot move forward for fear that NATO might not be up to the task of confronting Russian forces (Putin has made the point that Russia had not even begun to use its full force). And yet, to cut a deal, to move back, would be to lose face.
And ‘losing face’ roughly translates to the liberal west losing.
The West thus has made itself hostage to its unrestrained triumphalism, posing as info-war. It chose this unrestrained jingoism. Biden advisers however, reading the runes of the war – of relentless Russian gains – have begun to scent another foreign policy débacle fast heading their way.
They see events, far from reaffirming the ‘rules-based Order’, rather the stark laying bare before the world of the limits to U.S. power – giving front of stage to not just a resurgent Russia, but one carrying a revolutionary message for the rest of the world (albeit a fact to which the West has yet to awaken).
Moreover, the western alliance is disintegrating as war fatigue settles in and as European economies stare at recession. The contemporary instinctive inclination to decide first, and think later (European sanctions), has landed Europe in existential crisis.
The UK exemplifies the wider European conundrum: The UK political class, frightened and in disarray, first ‘determined’ to knife its’ leader, only to realise afterward, that they had no successor to hand with gravitas to manage the new normal, and no idea how to escape the trap in which it is ensnared.
They dare not lose face over Ukraine and have no solution that meets the coming recession (except a return to Thatcherism?). And the same can be said for Europe’s political class: they are as deer caught in the headlights of an oncoming fast vehicle.
Biden and a certain network which spans Washington, London, Brussels, Warsaw and the Baltics view Russia from a height of 30,000 feet above that of the Ukraine conflict. Biden reportedly believes he is in an equidistant position between two dangerous and ominous trends engulfing the U.S. and the West: Trumpism at home and Putinism abroad. Both, he believes, present clear and present dangers to the liberal rules-based order in which (Team) Biden passionately believes.
Other voices – mainly from the U.S. Realist camp – are not so besotted with Russia; for them, ‘real men’ take on China. These want just to keep the Ukraine conflict at a face-saving stalemate, if possible (more weapons), whilst the pivot to China is activated.
In a speech at the Hudson Institute, Mike Pompeo made a foreign policy statement that clearly had an eye to 2024 and his taking the Vice-President spot. The gist of it was about China, yet what he said about Ukraine was interesting: Zelensky’s importance to the U.S. was contingent on his keeping the war going (i.e. saving western face). He did not explicitly refer to ‘boots on the ground’, but it was clear he did not advocate such a step.
His message was weapons, weapons, weapons to Ukraine, and ‘move on’ – through pivoting to China NOW. Pompeo insisted the U.S. recognise Taiwan diplomatically today, irrespective of what occurs. (i.e. regardless of whether this action triggers war with China.) And he rolled-up Russia into the equation by simply saying that Russia and China effectively should be treated as one.
Biden however, seems moved to let pass the moment, and to carry on with the present trajectory. This is also what the many participants in the boondoggle want. The point is that Deep State views are conflicted, and influential Wall Street bankers certainly do not warm to Pompeo’s notions. They would prefer de-escalation with China. Carrying-on therefore is the easy option, as U.S. domestic attention becomes fastened on economic woes.
The point here is that the West is comprehensively stuck: It cannot move forward, nor back. Its structures of politics and of the economy prevent it. Biden is stuck on Ukraine; Europe is stuck on Ukraine and on its belligerence towards Putin; ditto for the UK; and the West is stuck on its relations with Russia and China. More importantly, none of them can address the insistent demands from Russia and China for a restructuring of the global security architecture.
If they cannot move on this security plane – for fear of losing face – they will be unable to assimilate (or hear – given the ingrained cynicism that attends any words spoken by President Putin) that Russia’s agenda goes far beyond security architecture.
For example, the veteran Indian diplomat and commentator, MK Badrakhumar writes:
“After Sakhalin-2, [on an Island in the Russian Far East] Moscow also plans to nationalise Sakhalin-1 oil and gas development project by ousting U.S. and Japanese shareholders. The capacity of Sakhalin-1 is quite impressive. There was a time before OPEC+ set limits on production levels, when Russia extracted as much as 400,000 barrels per day, but the recent production level has been about 220,000 barrels per day.
The overall trend of nationalising the holdings of American, British, Japanese and European capital in Russia’s strategic sectors of economy is crystallising as the new policy. The cleansing of theRussian economy, freed of Western capital, is expected to accelerate in the period ahead.
Moscow was well aware of the predatory character of Western capital in Russia’s oil sector — a legacy of the Boris Yeltsin era — but had to live with the exploitation as it didn’t want to antagonise other potential western investors. But that is history now. The souring of relations with the West to almost breaking point rids Moscow of such archaic inhibitions.
After coming to power in 1999, President Vladimir Putin set about the mammoth task of cleaning up the Augean stables of Russia’s foreign collaboration in the oil sector. The “decolonisation” process was excruciatingly difficult, but Putin pulled it through”.
Yet that’s just the half of it. Putin keeps saying in speeches that the West is the author of its own debt and inflationary crisis (and not Russia), which gives rise to a great deal of head scratching in the West. Let Professor Hudson however, explain why much of the rest of the world sees the West having taken a ‘wrong turn’ economically. In brief, the West’s wrong turn has led it to a ‘dead end’, Putin implies.
Professor Hudson argues (paraphrased and rephrased) that there are essentially two broad economic models that have descended through history: “On the one hand, we see Near Eastern and Asian societies organized to maintain social balance and cohesion by keeping debt relations and mercantile wealth subordinate to the general welfare of the community as a whole”.
All ancient societies had a mistrust of wealth, because it tended to be accumulated at the expense of society at large – and led to social polarization and gross inequalities of wealth. Looking over the sweep of ancient history, we can see (Hudson says)that the main objective of rulers from Babylonia to South Asia and East Asia was to prevent a mercantile and creditor oligarchy from emerging and concentrating ownership of land in their own hands. This is one historic model.
The great problem that the Bronze Age Near East solved – but classical antiquity and Western civilization have not solved – was how to deal with mounting debts (periodic debt jubilees) without polarising society and ultimately impoverishing the economy by reducing most of the population to debt dependency.
One of Hudson’s key tenets is how China is structured as a ‘low cost’ economy: cheap housing, subsidised education, medical care and transport – means that consumers do have some free disposable income left over – and China as whole, is made competitive. The financialized debt-led model of the West, however, is high cost, with swathes of the population becoming increasingly impoverished and bereft of discretionary income after paying debt servicing costs.
The Western periphery however, lacking the Near Eastern tradition, ‘turned’ to enabling a wealthy creditor oligarchy to take power and concentrate land and property ownership in its own hands. For public relations purposes, it claimed to be a ‘democracy’, and denounced any protective government regulation as being, by definition, ‘autocracy’. This is the second grand model, but with its overhang of debt and now in an inflationary spiral, it too is stuck, lacking the means to step forward.
That latter model is what occurred in Rome. And we are still living in the aftermath. Making debtors dependent on wealthy creditors is what today’s economists call a ‘free market’. It is one without public checks and balances against inequality, fraud or privatization of the public domain.
This neoliberal pro-creditor ethic, Professor Hudson asserts, is at the root of today’s New Cold War. When President Biden describes this great world conflict aimed at isolating China, Russia, India, Iran and their Eurasian trading partners, he characterizes this as an existential struggle between ‘democracy’ and ‘autocracy’.
By democracy he means oligarchy. And by ‘autocracy’ he means any government strong enough to prevent a financial oligarchy from taking over government and society and imposing neoliberal rules – by force – as Putin has done. The ‘democratic’ ideal is to make the rest of the world look like Boris Yeltsin’s Russia, where American neo-liberals had a free hand in stripping away all public ownership of land, mineral rights and basic public utilities.
But today we deal with shades of grey – there is no truly free market in the U.S.; and China and Russia are mixed economies, albeit ones leaning to prioritising a responsibility for the welfare of the community as a whole, rather than imagining that individuals left to their own selfish devices will somehow result in maximising national welfare.
Here is the point: Adam Smith economics plus individualism is ingrained in the western zeitgeist. It will not change. However, President Putin’s new policy of cleansing the Augean Stables of ‘predatory western capital’ and the example set by Russia of its metamophose toward a largely self-supporting economy, immune to dollar hegemony, is music to the ears of the Global South and to much of the Rest of the World.
Taken together with Russia and China’s lead in challenging the West’s ‘right’ to set rules; to monopolise the means (the dollar) as the basis for settling inter-state trade; and with BRICS and SCO steadily acquiring ‘bottom’, Putin’s speeches reveal their revolutionary agenda.
One aspect remains: How to bring about a ‘revolutionary’ metamorphosis, without incurring war with the West. The U.S. and Europe are stuck. They are unable to renew themselves, as the structural political and economic contradictions have locked their paradigm solid. How then to ‘unstick’ the situation, short of war?
The key, paradoxically, may lie with Russia and China’s deep understanding of the flaws to the western economic model. The West is in need of Catharsis to ‘unstick itself’. Catharsis can be defined as the process of releasing, and thereby providing relief from, strong or repressed, emotions attached to beliefs.
To avoid military catharsis, it seems that the Russian and Chinese leadership – understanding the flaws to the western economic model – must then visit the West with an economic catharsis.
It will be painful, no doubt, but better than nuclear catharsis. We may recall the ending to CV Cafavy’s poem, Waiting for the Barbarians,
Because night has fallen and the barbarians haven’t come.
And some of our men just in from the border say
there are no barbarians any longer.
Now what’s going to happen to us without barbarians?
Those people were a kind of solution.
Australian Reasoning…
.
.
Do you want more?
You can find more articles related to this in my latest index; A New Beginning. And in it are elements of the old, some elements regarding the transition, and some elements that look towards the future.
New Beginnings 4.
Articles & Links
Master Index.
- You can start reading the articles by going HERE.
- You can visit the Index Page HERE to explore by article subject.
- You can also ask the author some questions. You can go HERE to find out how to go about this.
- You can find out more about the author HERE.
- If you have concerns or complaints, you can go HERE.
- If you want to make a donation, you can go HERE.
.