Trotsky’s Revenge

Posted on May 19, 2022 by thezman

One of the interesting revelations in Tucker Carlson’s book, Ship of Fools, is that Bill Kristol said privately what he denied publicly about the Iraq war. That is, the war was about Israel and not American security. Saddam was never a threat to American interests in the region but taking him out was good for Israel. The neocons have always denied this, usually claiming it is anti-Semitic to suggest it, but every time they get caught in a lie they squeal “anti-Semitism” so this is not new.

The thing is though, a schemer like Kristol could have been lying to Carlson, hoping he stepped on the same landmines as Pat Buchanan. Carlson was always a war skeptic and a natural conservative, so Bill Kristol would have seen him as a threat. The main play of the second generation neocons has always been the Hitler card. They look for some way to accuse their opponents of being anti-Semites, so that the focus shifts from the neocon schemers and onto the accusers.

Putting that aside, subsequent events suggest that the crusade against Islam launched in the Bush years was never about Israel. The real target for the neocons was the ancient enemy in the east, Russia. Neoconservatism, after all, was born out of a hatred for Russia during the Cold War. The cover story was that these radicals had turned on communism, but in reality, they were reacting to what was happening on the Left with regards to relations with the Soviet Union.

Soon after the fall of the Cold War, the neocons running foreign policy under the first George Bush engineered the first Gulf War. They did this by baiting Saddam Hussein into invading Kuwait. The American ambassador to Iraq at the time was April Glaspie, who met with Saddam before he launched his invasion. It is clear from the notes that he was not committed to war. It is also clear that Glaspie gave him the impression that America was not committed to defending Kuwait.

Why would the neocons want a war with Iraq? It seems like a lifetime ago, but Iraq was a longtime client of the Soviet Union. Once the Soviet Union fell, the Russians were in no condition to help her allies as in the past. This made it a perfect time to take this piece of the board. Given the behavior of the neocons in Ukraine over the last decade, it is not a stretch to think they baited Saddam into war. After all, they have been trying to bait Russian into invading Ukraine.

If we look at the crusade against Islam as a proxy war against Russia, the last thirty years of foreign policy adventures makes more sense. The second war with Iraq was about finishing the job and preparing for the planned attack on Iran, which so happens to be a Russia ally. The creation of ISIS as a weapon against Syria, another ally of Russia, now also makes sense. The occupation of Afghanistan never made sense as a response to 9/11, but it did make a nice forward operating base.

Long forgotten in all of this is how the neocons pushed the Clinton administration into bombing Serbia during the Balkan war. The Balkans have always been a mess, so there was never a reason for America to take sides. This should have been a European matter, worked out in endless meetings, like everything else in Europe. Instead, the neocons pushed for an aggressive stance toward Serbia, which so happens to be a longtime Russian ally. There is a pattern here.

Fast forward to the present and the pattern is clear. The neocons started the Russo-Georgian war by trying to bring Georgia into NATO. Give or take, Georgia is about 3,000 miles from the North Atlantic, thus making her an odd fit for a military alliance based in the North Atlantic. That was never the point, of course. The point was to pick away at the borders with the ancient enemy. NATO expansion has never been about defense, but always about offense.

In more recent times, the neocons have tried to color revolution Belarus, they have stirred up trouble in Kazakhstan and they are probably involved in the tensions between Armenia and Azerbaijan. Then there is the Ukraine situation. Half of Washington has been taking bribes from Ukrainian oligarchs, which has concealed the fact that the neocons have been plotting trouble there for over a decade. The same people behind the color revolution in the Obama years are in charge now.

The point of all of this has been to weaken Russia by nibbling away at her border, forcing her to commit resources to all of these different conflicts. At some point, the current government becomes too weak to defend itself. Maybe with some outside help, the government falls. This opens the door for regime change and the long dreamed of break up of Russia. This is not idle speculation. A few years ago, the Rand Corporation provide the playbook for those interested.

The old line about the neocons being Trotskyites was mostly a way to point out that they were not conservatives in the traditional sense. Many were communist in the middle of the last century. Their “conversion” was never about the things that had long defined conservatism, but rather the temporary needs of the moment. They cared more about beating Russia in the Cold War than anything else. They simply embraced the rest of the conservative program as a means to an end.

One of the underappreciated aspects of the last five years is the exit of the neocons from Buckley conservatism. They have their own publications and regularly attack their old friends on the Right. Of course, they were outlandishly opposed to trump and the pro-American sentiments he embodied. Their primary complain was that he was soft on Russia and Russian allies. This transformation suggest the paleocons were right about the neocon conversion being less than genuine.

There may have been more to the Trotsky line. In radical politics, it was long held that the Bolshevik revolution was hijacked by Stalin. The Trotsky wing never forgave the Russians for allowing the revolution to turn into Tsarism. This fueled the deep hatred for Russia among Trotskyites of a certain persuasion. The neoconservative persuasion was driven by this animus in the Cold War. After the Cold War, it has driven by the berserk obsession for Russia by the second wave of neocons.

What America, and by extension the West, has been experiencing over the last thirty years is Trotsky’s revenge. Resentment at the failure of his faction in the revolution was probably the second to last thing that went through his head. His followers, however, have had it in the forefront of their minds. The current generation of neocons, lacking the intelligence to understand any of this, are simply left with a seething hatred of Russia that has driven America foreign policy for a generation.

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European Zionism

Posted on May 18, 2022 by thezman

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One of the queer things about American politics is that you can be enthusiastically in support of Israel, even though Israel advocates an ideology that is expressly banned in American politics. The Israelis are ethno-nationalists. The official policy of the state of Israel is blood and soil nationalism. Ben Shapiro once advocated for the “removal” of non-Jews from Israel and he faced no backlash. In fact, this position boosted his standing on the American Right.

In contrast, if you say that America should not let everyone in who shows up at the border, you are called a white nationalist. The mainstream media celebrates the “great replacement” but if you question the decency of the great replacement, you are condemned as some sort of monster. If you notice anything about demographics, you could have a mob at your door. What is celebrated with regards to Israel is the most heinous crime you can commit in America.

There are lots of people who recognize the contradiction, but the fact remains, most white people in America are fine with it. As long as they can celebrate Israel there is no price they refuse to pay. For most white people in America, loving Israel brings a sense of peace in a troubled world. The reason, of course, is it is an acceptable outlet for ethnocentric impulses. Israel does not exist as a real place for Americans. She is an abstraction, an allowable team to support for cultural reasons.

A stark example is the contrast between Greg Johnson, the author of The White Nationalist Manifesto and Yoram Hazony, the author of the Virtue of Nationalism, two books on the exact same subject. Both books make the exact same claims about people and human organization. Both argue for nations to organized around the interests of a dominant ethnic group. Both authors demand a homeland for their people that is only for their people.

Greg Johnson has been made into a pariah, suffering in a form of internal exile, while Yoram Hazony gets to run big expensive conferences funded by Western oligarchs and attended by famous people. The difference, of course, is Hazony is a famous outspoken Zionist from Israel and his efforts are on behalf of the Jewish state. Johnson is a white nationalist who advocates for white people. The typical white person in America does not find this contradiction troubling in the least.

This contradiction has been obvious for a long time and it has been pointed out by various groups when it suits them. The Left used to criticize Israel for being a fascist or apartheid state. That is not as popular today, but it does come up from time to time, an issue Hazony addresses in his writings. On the Right, patriots have often pointed out that they simply want policies acceptable in Israel, like immigration control, to be applied to the United States. The contradiction persists, however.

It has been popular with certain types to blame this contradiction on some sort of conspiracy, but events in Europe suggest it is something else. The war in Ukraine has suddenly brought nationalists, who have been marginalized for generations, in league with internationalists, in opposition to Russia. Nationalists across Europe are now blindly in support of Ukraine and in opposition to Russia. Most of them repeat the agit-prop that comes from Washington.

The insanity on display cannot be overstated. Nationalists will claim with a straight face that they oppose Russia because it is an aggressive empire. Yet, they are throwing in with the Global American Empire, which is promising to erase the last vestiges of European culture and replace it with consumerism. Nationalists may as well put corporate logos on themselves. Perhaps add their own color to the rainbow flag that is the symbol of Americanism around the world now.

It is a bizarre spectacle. For decades, European nationalists had nothing much to say about Russia, other than some observations of the fact that she had not been homogenized into generic American culture. The Visegrád nations have also come in for admiration from nationalists for resisting the cultural decline. Otherwise, nationalists have not had much to say about the East. Now, they are obsessed with Russia and swear they have always been at war with Eurasia.

The most bizarre example of this is Finland. The tiny country tucked away in the northeast of Europe has long been a neutral player in European politics. This was how she maintained herself as an independent country. Finnish nationalism was built on a nuanced understanding of her neighbors, especially Russia. Today, Finnish nationalism is nothing more than unthinking hatred of Russia. They repeat Washington talking points and sound like unhinged neocons in support of empire.

What is happening in Europe is opposition to Russia is now an acceptable outlet for the natural ethnic pride of Europeans. The West is underwriting literal Nazis in Ukraine, but that is acceptable because they oppose Russia. Nationalists now feel they can come out of the shadows, as long as they too hate Russia. In fact, many nationalists have signed on to fight in Ukraine. Every day there are reports of foreign mercenaries being killed or captured in the Donbas.

Just as being a Zionist is an acceptable outlet for nationalist impulses in America, being anti-Russian is an acceptable outlet for nationalism in Europe. The nationalists have even picked up on the idiotic claim that Russia is a multi-racial empire, which is a staggeringly ignorant argument. It is one thing for provincial clodhoppers in America to say such a thing, but Europeans should know better. Their emotional need to be a part of something, however, has overrode their intellects.

That is another interesting piece to this. In America, most white people are as ignorant of Israel as they are everything else about the world. Americans are famously provincial, so the Zionist-White Nationalist parallels are not obvious. Ukraine is in the backyard of European nationalists. Many are anti-Semites. Despite this, they fully support a puppet regime of Washington run by a Jewish comedian, doing the bidding of the neoconservative cabal that runs American foreign policy.

What is happening in Europe is what we have seen in America. The nativism and national pride of the heritage population is being channeled into activism on behalf of the Global America Empire. In America, this energy goes to support Israel, while in Europe it will be channeled into hatred of Russians. It is no surprise that Yoram Hazony is trying to attach himself to this new anti-Russian sentiment in Europe. Look for his next conference in your country this summer.

The usual suspects, of course, will claim that this is the work of the usual suspects, but there is another example of this that says otherwise. In the Covid panic, many in the HBD community, who had been living in the shadows of the biological sciences, jumped on the Covid madness with the zeal of a lunatic. People who spent careers criticizing media claims about biology suddenly accepted everything the media had to say about the Covid pandemic, no matter how ridiculous.

The driver in the HBD-to-Covidian lane was the fact that smart people who had been excluded from polite society suddenly sensed an opening. Instinctively they sensed they could join the conversation, as this was their wheelhouse. They tackled the issue with all the enthusiasm they could muster. Inevitably they signed onto the most draconian measures by people who say sex is a social construct and demand you announce your pronouns when entering a room.

Of course, this never provided a lane back to respectability for them, which should be a lesson for both Christian Zionists and European Nationalists. The morality of the Global American Empire is the morality of the Western managerial elite. That morality is entirely situational, based on partisan concerns. Today, certain nationalists are acceptable because they serve present needs, but tomorrow their supporters will be thrown in dungeons, because it serves the elites.

In the end we are left with two parallel phenomena. The contradiction of American Zionism serves the interest of empire. It was Christian Zionist who supported the wars in the Middle East. Now European nationalism is being retarded to oppose Russia on behalf of the empire, which explicitly rejects European nationalism. In the former case, a distant enemy is used to conceal the enemy at home. In Europe, a local enemy is used to conceal the enemy across the sea.

Finally, and most importantly, a kernel of truth lies at the heart of the deception. In the case of American Zionism, the truth is that people naturally want to be organized around their racial and ethnic identity. In the case of this new European Zionism, the kernel of truth is that people naturally resist empire. In the former, the truth is channeled away from questioning the logic of empire. In the latter, the truth is channeled away from opposing the empire. In both cases, it is seeds cast among stones.

Good Evening Vietnam

Posted on May 12, 2022 by thezman

With the overwhelming support of both parties, Congress just passed another military aid package to Ukraine. This one is for forty billion in weapons, but like most things that come from Congress, it has other items. There is money to resettle Afghans into your neighborhood and money for friends of the empire. This package is on top of similar packages passed this year and the passage of lend-lease, which will let the neocons managing Biden flood Ukraine with weapons.

Unlike prior aid bills, only the dullest, most insulated members of Congress were out in front of the cameras taking credit for it. That means it was the leadership of both parties and select lifers with no connection to their home state. Most were nowhere to be found, as they suspect their vote was not a great career move. A few Republicans opposed the bill and made sure to let everyone know it. This latest package has the feel of last call at a party that should have ended long ago.

The aid package, of course, will have no impact on the war. The situation has settled into a decidedly one-sided affair. The Russians pound the Ukrainians with missiles, artillery and rocket fire. The Ukrainians lack the ability to do much about it other than hunker down in their fortifications and hope for the best. Artillery shells are cheap, so the Russians are happy to rain steel on Ukrainian positions, slowly grinding them down until one day soon the army collapses.

This was not what the State Department promised. By now, the Russian economy was supposed to be collapsed, the army in chaotic retreat and Putin awaiting execution by the revolutionary mobs. That was what the planners promised the Biden administration, who made the same promise to NATO and the EU. The plan was to make sure the Ukrainians could hold out for a few months. The magic of the economic shock and awe campaign would do the heavy work against Russia.

Not only have none of the promises materialized, but it is also becoming clear that the war against Russia was poorly conceived and executed. It has had little impact on the Russians, but the West is taking it on the chin. Energy costs in parts of Europe are 30% higher than the start of the war. Food prices are rocketing upward with the promise of more to come later this year. Then there is the ten million or so Ukrainian refugees that are camped out in various parts of Europe.

Reason should lead Washington and its various puppet governments in Europe to reconsider the war in Ukraine. No one cares about Ukraine, but the point of this war was to harm Russia, maybe even bring about regime change. The payoff would then be easy access to Russian natural resources. The West would get cheap energy from Russia as its war booty. With that off the table, logic says it is time to rethink the strategy and maybe cut a deal with Russia.

On top of the geopolitical blinders, the plan also seems to have been remarkably tone deaf with regards to domestic audiences. The massive public relations campaign at the start of the war worked on the dullards who also always fall for these things, but a large minority remained skeptical. Having been conned by the Covid swindle, many people are simply unwilling to accept anything from the media now. A good forty percent of the public in the West is now permanently skeptical.

The economic cost of this war is bringing the politics of the war back to the usual ground that favors the skeptics. In the United States there is a long list of things that are not working and could use government attention. The southern border is the most obvious example, but the leaders of both parties call you a bigot and demand the FBI investigate you if you mention it. Ukraine is looking like another boondoggle to avoid addressing domestic concerns.

A similar problem is turning up in Europe. The deranged dingbat installed as head of the EU, Ursula von der Leyen, has been trying to engineer a boycott of Russian energy products, but that plan has collapsed. The stated reason was that the member nations needed time to find new energy sources. The real reason is the mood in Europe is darkening as reality settles in with the puppet governments. They have little power, but they are still subject to popular revolt.

The question that is starting to circulate around Western capitals is if there is an off-ramp for this growing disaster. Ideally, the EU would be tasked with engaging the Russians in high level talks to put an end to the war. Everyone knows what the Russians want as they have made their position clear. Zelensky will have to accept the deal the EU makes, as he is just an actor hired to play a role. He and his co-stars have already been granted British passports.

The problem is Washington and many EU leaders have branded Putin a war criminal and declared there can never be a deal with Russia. The problem is obvious. If you declare someone evil and then turn around a make a deal with that person, you are now in league with evil. Washington has been demanding regime change in Russia, calling on locals to assassinate him if necessary. It is safe to assume the Russians are not going to be overly generous in negotiations.

There is also the greater problem of the situation on the ground. Putin is the moderate in the Russian political elite. The military wanted to vaporize the Ukrainian strongholds with airpower, but Putin insisted on the slow approach. Now that success on the ground is guaranteed, those hardliners are not going to go along with a deal that does not get the Russians more than they wanted before the war. They will demand the south and east of Ukraine as reward for their support.

What is shaping up for the West, particularly America, is a modern version of the Vietnam conflict in the 1970’s. The political class is locked into a strategy that cannot work, but they cannot reverse course. They believe their only option is to keep doing the same thing, despite the results. At the same time, the public is becoming quickly skeptical of the enterprise, but unable to find a political outlet for it. This makes for a very unstable political situation.

The big difference between Ukraine and Vietnam is that America has not committed troops to the war. On the other hand, this is the age of privatization of government policy, which means there are private military contractors operating in Ukraine, being paid for by the Pentagon. It will not be long before the extent of this becomes clear as foreign fighters are captured on the battlefield. Vietnam started with loads of advisors initially and then led to troops on the ground.

The other difference is that in the 1970’s there were realist in the political class who understood the problem. Nixon was able to craft a way out of Vietnam, even though it cost him his presidency. The political class in the 1970’s was also more in touch with the general public than it is today. Most of Washington is so deranged now they think it is good politics to mock the baby formula shortage as Putin propaganda. No one in 1970’s Washington was this demented or obtuse.

In the 1970’s, Vietnam was a cancer on the American empire. It was not the only cancer, but it was a serious one. The ruling class recognized it and removed that cancer from the body politic. A series of difficult reforms were implemented that removed the disease from the system. This was possible because the country was still dominated by a sensible middle-class and the political class had plenty of reasonable men who actually cared about the country.

This new cancer on the body politic promises to be much more aggressive, because the body is much weaker. The public is atomized, cynical and exhausted by years of revolution from the top. Of course, the demographics are much different. The millions of paperwork Americans created over the last thirty years lack the human capital to survive the required surgery. The political class is now devoid of anyone who cares enough about the country to champion the necessary reforms.

In another example that shows the universe has a sense of humor, baby boomer politics were forged in the antiwar protests of the 1960’s. The end phase of baby boomer politics will now be determined by the pro-war policies of the boomers. The people who cut their teeth shouting “baby killer” at men in uniform are now baby killers demanding that young men put on a uniform and fight a pointless war of choice. The baby boomer generation of politicians have become the thing they hated.

Civilizationalism

Posted on May 9, 2022 by thezman

Note: The Taki post is up. I offer some unsolicited advice to the richest man in the world as he embarks on his Twitter venture. The Sunday Thoughts podcast is up behind the green door for subscribers.

In the eastern part of the European continent, today is Victory Day, which marks the surrender of the Nazis to the Soviet Union. The official surrender was signed on May 8th, 1945, but it was already past midnight in Moscow. It was the biggest public holiday in the old Soviet Union. Now it is celebrated in most of the former republics, with parades and public commemorations. Under Putin, the Moscow military parade was brought back after a hiatus under Boris Yeltsin.

It is hard for Western people, especially Americans, to grasp why Victory Day is so important to the people of the Russian Federation. The events of the war, when remembered at all, are recalled for the purpose of promoting current narratives rather than a sense of national pride. Of course, the memory of the war in Europe is highly stylized and fictionalized. For the people in the East, the war and the triumph over the Nazis is an important part of their national identity.

America lost about 400,000 soldiers in the war. The Brits lost about the same and the French lost close to 600,000. For narrative purposes, the Axis powers are not allowed to talk about their dead. The Soviet Union lost twenty million people. Countries like Poland, Hungary and the Baltic states lost close to ten percent of their population as a result of the Nazi invasion and then the Soviet invasion. This is why the war still looms so large in the consciousness of those people.

The war is why the word “Nazi” resonates much more with the people of eastern Europe than even the nuttiest social justice warrior in America. In America, the cartoon version of the past turns villains like the Nazis into hollow figures who represent whatever the current year harpies fear about themselves. For eastern people, the word conjures memories of an existential threat to their existence. The Great Patriotic War, as the Russians call it, was a war for the survival of their people.

This civilizational angst is what lies at the heart of the war in Ukraine. The Russians see themselves fighting a war for the survival of their civilization. Volunteers from all over the Russian Federation are now fighting in the Ukraine because they see themselves at war with a West that threatens their existence. Washington is not threatening genocide, but something almost as bad, the erasure of their national identity. The Chechens like being Chechen and they will die for it.

This civilizational sensibility is hard for Western people to grasp. America, of course, has no real identity. It is a collection of economic and political slogans that holds together a continent full of strangers. Europe still has some vestiges of national identity, but that has been anathematized by the ruling elite of the continent. Nationalism is now a synonym for fascism. In its place is the concept of European which is even less meaningful than American sloganeering.

Civilizationalism got the people of the East through the war, but it also carried them through communism. Despite the homogenizing ethos of Marxism-Leninism, the national character of the people of the Soviet Union survived. It was this sense of self that has been the basis of revival after the collapse of the Soviet Union. The same sensibility that allowed the people of Eurasia to survive the Mongol invasions has allowed them to survive the invasion of Wall Street bankers in the 1990’s.

Again, this is hard for Western people to fathom. Unlike communism, liberal democracy has been highly effective at reoriented its victims to see themselves in purely economic terms, shedding their cultural identity. Western people are baffled as to why Russians would give up drag queen story hour to seize the Donbas. Western planners even assumed the people of the Russian Federation would rather have McDonalds than a connection with their ancestors.

Washington’s war on Russia brings up two bits of irony. One is the people of the East overcame communism only to find the alternative was worse. The communists promised to steal your labor and the dignity that arises from it. Liberal democracy promises to steal your soul and replace it with consumerism. The communists built monuments to the workers while the liberal democrats destroy the monuments to your ancestors and replace them with planned developments.

The other bit of irony in all of this is that if the West is going to survive it is going to need to embrace civilizationalism as well. The promise of the EU was that it would unite the countries of the Europe for the common good. The trouble is the elites embrace the cancer of multiculturalism. That cancer will have to be removed and replaced with a civilizational sensibility that respects the variations within the culture, traditions and demographics of people with a common history.

This concept is not entirely alien to the West. Europe rallied to defend Christendom against the Muslims. It was not nationalism that led Sobieski to lead his men against the Turks at Battle of Khotyn. It was a civilizational identity that saw the Turks as alien invaders who must be repelled in order to preserve Western civilization. Into the last century, there was an understanding among Western people that despite their differences, there was a West and he had to be defended.

Perhaps the psychosis of liberal democracy will finally be beaten out of the West in what is looking like another futile and pointless war of choice. Despite the disparity in wealth, the Russians merely have to continue to exist in order to win. For the West, liberal democracy requires the unconditional surrender of Eurasian identity to the homogenizing forces of Liberal democracy. History shows that this is every bit as futile as the crusades against Islam.

The big difference between this civilizational war launched by the West and the one launched against Islam is that the East matters. The West has deep economic connections to the East. That means this war will have real costs to the people of the West, in terms of living standards. It is unlikely that the people will be willing to sacrifice the only benefit of liberal democracy for an abstract war against a people who they naturally see as civilizational allies.

The Art Of The Deal

Posted on May 2, 2022 by thezman

Note: The Monday Taki post is up. Not related to the topic of today, but I think it is a good summary of the Twitter story. There is a Sunday Thoughts podcast up behind the green door. Remember to take a look at the merch we are trying out. Please feel free to share feedback here or via e-mail.

In the business world, all negotiations start with a central question. Is there a deal to be made that both sides will accept? There is no point in negotiating if one or both sides is not willing to strike a deal. Salesmen are trained to think about this question whenever they engage with a prospective client. Unless they can show that a sale is possible, they should not waste their time. In order for negotiations to make sense, both sides have to want to make a deal and think a deal is possible.

Related to the primary questions are the questions about the shape of the deal, as in what will both sides accept and what will they never accept. Negotiations are often about both sides coming to accept that they will have to take less than what they initially wanted in the deal in order to get the deal done. The two questions that loom over negotiations are “what would we like?” and “what will we accept?” The latter becomes the starting point of an agreement.

War is a form of negotiation. In almost all cases, the attacking side would prefer a negotiated settlement, but they determined that the other side was not prepared to do what was required to make a deal possible. One or both sides is unrealistic about what they can get and what they will accept. The war resets the negotiations. If one side wins convincingly, then they can dictate the terms of the final deal. The important thing about wars is they always end in a settlement.

This is the great puzzle in Ukraine. The war will end eventually. If the West is right and Ukraine is clearing the Russians from the field, then the Russians will have to accept the terms of the Ukrainian victors and their NATO backers. If the maps are right and Russia is slowly destroying the Ukrainian army, then the Ukrainians will have to accept the terms offered by Russia. More important, Ukraine’s Western backers will have to strike a deal with the Russians to close the books on the war.

Of course, the third option is some sort of stalemate in which both sides can either claim victory or deny being defeated. This seems to be the hope on the Ukrainian side, as they have broken off negotiations. Presumably, the West has promised unlimited arms shipments if the Ukrainians keep fighting. The logic is the Russians have plenty of weapons, but a finite number of troops, while Ukraine has unlimited troops but has a finite number of weapons, until now.

This is what makes the whole thing baffling. Before the conflict, the Russians demanded a return to the Minsk agreements. This was a set of protocols to bring peace to the Donbas, which had been in a civil war since 2014. Kiev had signed this deal in 2015 with the support of France and Germany, which brokered the deal. Kiev and Moscow would demilitarize the two sides, peacekeepers would be sent in and the two provinces would have elections and some degree of autonomy.

Compared to war, that looked like a great deal for Kiev, but for reasons that have not been explained, Kiev rejected the offer. Once the Russian army crossed into the Donbas, the Russians made a new proposal. Autonomy for the Donbas, recognition of Russia’s claims in the Crimea and the neutrality of Ukraine. That last part was in response to efforts by Washington to bring the Ukraine into NATO. Oddly, Kiev accepted this but rejected the other demands from Russia.

Here we are in the third month of the war and it is clear that the Russian deal, if an offer is coming, will be much different. The Kherson region in the south is preparing to join the two regions in the Donbas in demanding separation from Ukraine. There are rumors that Odessa is in negotiations with Russia to do the same. In the northeast, the Kharkiv region is rumored to be breaking away. This may simply be the result of the Russian occupation and elimination of Azov in the area.

Barring a radical change to the facts on the ground, the deal Ukraine can now get from any negotiations with Russia is much worse than two months ago. Rumors of Polish troops on the border with Ukraine, where many people speak Polish and identify as Polish, suggests the deal could get a lot worse in a hurry. This raises a rather important question. Why is Kiev and its Western backers, unwilling to make a deal? What deal do they think will materialize in a month or a year?

One possibility is Washington thinks Ukraine is winning and just needs time, which goes back to that belief she has unlimited manpower. Given the facts on the ground, this seems unlikely, but war makes people crazy. The leaders on both sides of the Great War staggered on sure they were about to break the other side. War often warps the ability of the planners to properly interpret reality. They stick to the plan despite the obvious failures of the plan. The Somme is a good example.

What this says is the only deal the West will accept is the total surrender of Russia, which conforms what the Russians have said from the beginning. Their reason for going into Ukraine was that Washington was planning to use Ukraine as a launching pad for war against Russia, both culturally and economically. What the Russians are now seeing is that there can never be a deal with the West. She will have to guarantee her own economic and territorial security.

What this means is that there is no walking back to some early point when a deal could have been struck between the sides. The West now demands unconditional surrender, which means they cannot relent on the sanctions. At some point that means cutting off all imports from Russia. The limited sanctions have sent prices soaring, which means Western leaders are committed to a massive reduction in the quality of life of the West in order to win this war with Russia.

The irony here is that the people who plotted this war, the neocons who control American foreign policy, appear to have made the same blunder Athens made in the Peloponnesian war. The irony is that the neocons are obsessed with that war, seeing themselves on the side of Athens. In that war, Athens recklessly attacked Sicily and was defeated at the battle of Syracuse. This eventually led to the over all defeat of Athens by the Spartans and the end of the Athenian empire.

A forgotten lesson of the Peloponnesian war is that Athens had many chances to make a deal with Sparta but could not stop provoking the Spartans. If the Athenians had viewed the conflict as a negotiation and set realistic conditions in order to strike a deal, she would have avoided disaster. Instead, she just assumed victory was inevitable, so no negotiation was required. In the end, Athens would prevail and the terms would be whatever suited Athens.

This seems to be the position of Washington and Brussels. Various leaders keep popping up demanding the unconditional surrender of Russia. They are making clear that they will fight forever. Given the deal they could have gotten from Russia just a few months ago, this new deal sounds dreadful, which suggests they are not the brilliant tacticians they imagine themselves to be. In the fullness of time, the Minsk agreements may look like the best deal that was ever possible in Ukraine.

Willing Victims

Posted on April 18, 2022 by thezman

Note: The regular Taki post is up. The subject is related to the post here. There was no Sunday Thoughts due to Easter. There is a post about what is happening with the conduct of the war for those interested.

Word has begun to trickle out of Ukrainian and Russian channels on-line that the Zelensky government has ordered the remaining holdouts in the city of Mariupol to fight to the last man. Many have surrendered but there is a remnant that has refused to give into the reality of their position. On Sunday, the Russians gave them one last chance to walk away alive. The word from both sides of the information war is that the Zelensky government instructed them to die with honor.

The Russians have been slow to take the necessary steps to clear this part of the city of the remaining militants. One reason is pointless slaughter is not something any professional military enjoys. The other reason is they were hoping to minimize damage to the steel works. The slow progress of the war has been due to the Russian desire to minimize infrastructure damage. Given that the Russians will have to rebuild these territories after the war, this makes sense.

The other reason is that the remaining group of fighters is composed of elite Azov soldiers, including some high level leaders. It also has a group of foreign mercenaries trained by NATO. The Russians say they have detected seven European languages in the radio traffic. There is a strong possibility there are high ranking NATO advisors in this group. The Ukrainians have made several attempts to extract people from this site, so the Russians would like that prize if possible.

This is one of those glimpses into the heart of the issue. The Ukrainian government does not care at all about the Ukrainian people. These nationalists, like the civilian population, are just low value pieces on the board. The real issue is the long running proxy war against Russia. Zelensky is just a cat’s paw for the neocons in Washington who are running this war. They back him because he does what he is told and he does what he is told because he will retire an extraordinarily rich man.

Of course, the nationalist who rushed to back the Zelensky regime now find themselves supporting a craven lunatic. This is the trouble with living in the world of abstractions and theoretical concepts. You can easily find yourself on the same side as the people who want you dead. That is where many nationalists now find themselves. They are backing Ukraine against Russia, which means they are supporting the Global America Empire, which would like to exterminate them.

This is part of the greater lesson of Ukraine. A sense of identity that is built around old grievances or opposition to some externality usually leads to disaster. The obvious lesson is Irish nationalism during The Troubles. The IRA and Sinn Féin were defined entirely by their opposition to Britain. That has led Irish nationalists to let Ireland be consumed by the EU and globalism. The Irish are now free to important as many Africans as can make it to their island.

You see the difference between positive and negative identity in the reactions of Poland and Hungary. Polish identity is strongly linked to hatred of Russians. Hungarian identity is about the uniqueness of the Hungarian people. The Polish government is going overboard to support Ukraine against Russia, while the Hungarians have chosen to stay out of the fight. The result is Poland is being used as a flophouse and launching pad by NATO, paying the cost for all of it.

The deadliest example is in Ukraine itself. If the people calling themselves nationalists actually cared about the welfare of the Ukrainian people, their history, language and culture, they would not be acting this way. Their zeal for Russian blood is destroying the things they claim to defend. Tens of thousand of Ukrainian men will die and millions of Ukrainian people will be displaced because the so-called nationalist care more about their hatreds than the Ukrainian people.

The example they should have followed was the Finns. At the start of the Second World War the Finns found themselves invaded by the Soviets. The Finns staged a heroic defense of their homeland in the Winter War. Finnish leaders, however, actually cared about the survival of the Finnish people so they struck a deal with the Soviets that cost them land and some dignity. Finnish nationalists put their people before abstract concepts and arrived at the proper decision.

This is the fundamental problem with modern nationalism. It is nothing more than a bundle of hatreds and complaints tarted up with aspirational language that has no practical application. This is why nationalist parties in Europe do poorly. They are great on the high minded concepts and critiques against globalism, but they are short on a practical agenda that promotes a positive sense of identity. Note that Le Pen has been buoyed by her focus on bread and butter issues in France.

It is why nationalists movements have done so poorly in America. The critiques against global trade and open borders go back to the 1970’s when the paleo-conservatives started making them. The fact that Pat Buchanan was right about everything thirty years ago has made no difference. Cheap consumer goods, on-demand degeneracy and powerful pharmaceuticals are not much of a culture, but they beat the lack of a positive alternative vision of life.

Of course, the main reason for this is nationalism has been defined by the enemies of it and that definition has been accepted by the nationalists. The negative identity is defined by what the enemy opposes. Therefore, nationalism has been defined by the people who oppose it, which means it is a cartoon version of the real thing. Until nationalists start with a clean sheet of paper, put their enemies out of their head and sort out what they offer, they will remain the willing victims of their enemies.

World War III

Posted on April 6, 2022 by thezman

The war that the Global American Empire has launched against Russia is just the beginning of a global war it believes will bring about the end times. That sounds extreme but the top foreign policy people of the regime are quietly talking about regime change in both Moscow and Beijing. The main focus right now is Moscow, but they also have Beijing in their crosshairs and maybe even New Delhi. They believe the war is the final phase of the end of history.

This sounds insane given that Russia has more than enough nuclear weapons to reduce the empire to dust. Despite this reality, the people in charge of the empire have the current figurehead demanding Putin be arrested for war crimes. This is a new reality that needs to be acknowledged. Joe Biden is not in charge of anything. That was made clear when Barak Obama visited the White House recently. Biden was completely ignored by everyone, including Obama.

Putting that aside, the Global American Empire seems to have determined that the next war to end all wars and usher in the end times will be a financial one. Their response to Russian defensive measures in the Ukraine have revealed this thinking. The Ukrainians have been begging for air cover, heavy weapons and even troops. What Washington has organized for them is a series of Twitter campaigns intended to cancel Putin and all Russians, along with an organized economic war against Russia.

In a way, Ukraine is the proof of concept for the empire. They are fully committed to an economic war with Russia that transcends Ukraine. What happens a month from now when the war is over? The Russians will destroy the Ukrainian army in the east and that will force a deal. Either Zelensky is killed by his own people or he flees. The alternative is Russia simply partitions Ukraine along ethnic lines and imposes the deal on Ukraine that matches what has been proposed.

Will these sanctions last forever? Will the West simply acknowledge reality and strike a deal with the Russians? It seems pretty clear that Washington will not allow Zelensky to make a deal with Russia, so what happens when the Ukrainians get tired of dying and kill Zelensky instead? Will his replacement be recognized? These simple questions make clear that this war Washington has launched against Moscow goes well beyond the events in Ukraine. It is a war of conquest.

There is another front in this war. Beijing correctly understands that they are also in Washington’s death pool. This is why they have backed Moscow and why they will probably look to join the fight sooner rather than later. The reason for that is they know the empire cannot win a two front war. Slapping sanctions on Russia will impoverish the imperial subjects in Europe, but not those in North America. A trade war with China, on the other hand, will hit Americans very hard.

China also has the long term objective of capturing Taiwan, which will open the way for China to being the dominant power in the region. Look at a map and it is clear that Taiwan is the Malta of the China Sea. Whoever controls it controls access to the Pacific and control of the sea lanes to Asia. As long as the Global American Empire controls Taiwan, China is a landlocked power walled off from the sea by countries financially and militarily tied to the American empire.

There are some questions that are unanswered at the moment. One of them is whether China would prefer a shooting war with America or an economic one. If it is the former then the only way to do that is to make a hard play for Taiwan. That would start with blocking access to the Taiwan Straits. This would force the United States to send the navy to open the straights, which would expose those ships to attack. This would give both sides reason to organize for war over Taiwan.

If it is an economic war, then the logical play is to openly and aggressively defy the sanctions regime on Russia. This would lead to sanctions from Washington, which would be answered with sanctions from Beijing. The Chinese could pick a range of strategically important products to withhold from the West. This would have a real impact on the imperial subjects living in North America. Imagine a shortage of clothing and vehicle tires or a shortage of car parts.

There are good arguments for both scenarios, but no one seems to know how China sees this war unfolding. They have certainly studied it. Back in 2013 the Pentagon learned that the Chinese have been studying the relative human capital between China and the GAE. To their shock and horror, they learned that the Chinese do not think diversity is our strength. The Chinese have also been studying Pearl Harbor, which suggests they are thinking about a shooting war as well.

China is not the only other front in this burgeoning global economic war. India has been hostile to the empire since the war on Russia started. Saudi Arabia has also been unpleasant about the sanctions regime. Most likely the pending Iran deal has been scuttled to keep Riyadh from changing teams. Then you have the global south, which will suffer first in this war. How the West keeps them from moving north en masse is a question no one seems to ask.

What Washington has done is organize the West for a global economic war against the rest of the world. It is a conflict of visions. China and Russia imagine a multipolar world while Washington demands a unipolar world. This conflict began and will end around the global economic arrangements. Of course, economic disputes often lead to military disputes, so that is always on the table. No one knows if Washington has thought this through, but we do know who will pay the price.

Fighting Time

Posted on March 30, 2022 by thezman

One of the puzzles from the Great War is how the leaders on both sides allowed themselves to get drawn into the war. There are plenty of reasons why each country would want war, including the infamous one that caused a certain Austrian fellow to coin the term “the big lie.” The problem with all of the reasons is they made little sense in light of the obvious costs of war. As a result, the Great War is a great example of how events can tale on a life of their own.

The remarkable thing about that war is that once it settled into trench warfare no one realized the hopelessness of it. One can understand how the initial events would spiral into a global conflict. That is not a new phenomenon. Similarly, you can see how the initial moves in the war made a lot of sense to the leaders on both sides. This was the first industrial war, so they had a lot to learn. New weapons needed new tactics but few people realized that at the start of the war.

The great puzzle of the war is that the sides did not see the hopelessness of the situation once in settled into a stalemate. Both sides were losing tens of thousands of men with each attack, only to gain a few yards of ground. The Battle of the Marne and the subsequent race to the sea made sense. The losses were high, but both sides had hope for quick victory. Two years later the French and Germans lost over a million men at Verdun and the winner got nothing for their trouble.

A century on and we are getting some fresh insight into why the Western leaders in the Great War were incapable of seeing things clearly. The war in Ukraine is proving to be nothing like Western planners imagined. They assumed the Ukrainians would stall the Russians into a stalemate of urban warfare. The world would rally to the sanctions regime and it would quickly be a question of how long the Russians could suffer the economic consequences of the sanctions.

After just one month it is clear this is not happening. The Russians did not fight like the NATO planners imagined. Instead of rushing to Kiev, they pinned the Ukrainian army in the north, using classic maneuver tactics. Meanwhile their main army is systematically destroying the Ukrainian army in the south and east. It also appears the Russians were well prepared for the Ukrainian tactic of digging into urban areas. It is now just a matter of time before the Ukrainian army in the east is lost.

That is just one miscalculation by the West, but it should be concerning. The Russians are not doing anything novel in Ukraine. They are using classic tactics that have been used in Europe since Napoleon. Further, they are following a doctrine they evolved in the Second Chechen war. That was a doctrine Vladimir Putin created as the guy running that war for Russia. It seems that no one in the west bothered to study the man they claim is the new Hitler.

That is only one small part of the miscalculation. The decision to cutoff the Russian central bank appears to have been a massive blunder. The Russians, faced with the threat of their dollar and Euro assets being seized by Western banks have told the West they must pay for goods in rubles. Otherwise, they are forced to send product to the West but not be paid for it. Alternatively, they would have to make concessions in order to get their assets unfrozen by the West.

Why anyone in the West thought this was a good idea is a mystery. It turns out that the Biden administration did not consult with the Federal Reserve. Europe appears to have just followed along without questioning the policy. Now that Russia has countered their move, Europe is in a terrible position. They either support the ruble with massive purchases or they face an imminent shortage of natural gas. That means rationing of energy products could happen as soon as next month.

Of course, the words “shortage” and “rationing” will trigger the natural response, which is hording and price gouging. That will also mean a political response. The German political elite appear to be embracing their inner Marie Antoinette by telling the Germans to wear a sweater as they shiver in the dark. Presumably, they will tell the people to eat bugs when the food shortages hit this summer. Maybe German TV will start celebrating the Turnip Winter as a way to motivate the public.

In fairness, we have to no idea how the Russians and Chinese are viewing this thing as Western media refuses to cover that aspect. We should assume the lack of food riots and social unrest in Russia means they are not teetering on collapse. This was the prediction at the start of this war. The best and brightest in the American managerial elite predicted the Russians would have collapsed by now. They also assumed China would be wavering in their support at this stage.

The point is, we are seeing in real time how supposedly clever political leaders can stagger from one blunder to the next. Unlike the Great War, this war has one side that seems to have updated its thinking since the last century. The Russians are planning for tomorrow, while the West is planning for 1985. The Biden people actually thought his speech in Poland would be his Brandenburg Gate moment. That is the most terrifying event of this crisis so far.

There we see the best parallel to the Great War. The men moving pieces on the board were men of a prior age. They were trying to fight the old wars. Similarly, the political leaders were operating in a 19th century mindset. The trouble was they were armed with 20th century weaponry. Today, the West is led by 20th century men desperate to maintain 20th century arrangements. Their opponent is not Russian, China or the new world order, but the passage of time.

The China Trap

Posted on March 28, 2022 by thezman

Note: I did a 90-minute interview with the Friends of Aquinas channel. I have to say it was a very enjoyable conversation. The Monday Taki post is up. Of course, Sunday Thoughts is up behind the green door along with Thursday War Talk.

The Western media has been set to frame the war in Ukraine as a replay of the events in the 1930’s, with a healthy does of American moralizing. Putin is Hitler, of course, and Ukraine is the totally innocent victim. The narrative this time is different, because the “good guys” were ready and they have lured Putin into a trap. Biden made public what has been said privately, which is that Washington is planning regime change for Russia and then will move onto regime change in China.

It is entirely possible that this admission is not the result of a Biden gaffe or a bit of 4-D chess by his handlers. instead, this may be part of a trap laid by China, and to a lesser degree, Russia. Joe Biden admitted what most world leaders have understood since the war in Iraq. That is, the Global American Empire has no respect for the politics of other countries, so if they see those politics as a hindrance, they will try to decapitate the government and install a friendly regime.

Further, the reckless response by Washington to the Russian invasion has caused most of the world to rethink the global financial system. Saudi Arabia is now talking with China about doing business in something other than dollars. India has struck a deal with Russia to do business in rupees. India and Russia are now using China’s alternative to the SWIFT system for bank communications. Suddenly there is a race to build parallel financial structures by most of the world.

The primary beneficiary of this result is China. The reason the world prefers to do business in dollars and use US treasuries as collateral is the system of rules governing global finance are rooted in the dollar as the default currency. Those rules benefit America at the expense of the world, but the trade-off has been a fixed and predictable set of rules, including responsible management of the global currency. That trade-off no longer makes sense thanks to Washington’s actions.

That has been the primary result of the sanctions. Washington broke the basic rules of the system to launch this attack on Russia. Cutting off Moscow has been seen by most of the world as a violation of the basic promise of the system. Cutting of the Russian central bank without consulting the rest of the world is probably going to be viewed as the great mistake of this whole affair. That is supposed to be a punishment agreed upon by the world in only the worst cases.

The question no one is asking is whether China saw this as a potential outcome of the Russian invasion. They seem to have been prepared for it. Similarly, Russia seems to have been prepared for the assault. The ruble declined but stabilized after the Moscow central bank stepped into stabilize it. China was ready to meet with India and Russia to work out a joint response. Even South Africa seems to have been in the loop on what to do if Washington came down hard on Russia.

The fact is, Russia never would have gone into Ukraine without knowing the Chinese would backstop them financially. Russian is a big powerful country, but it is a relatively poor country so it cannot go it alone for too long. It is true that Iran has figured out how to get around the sanctions regime, but Russians have had a taste of the good life and would no doubt tire of the hardships. With China and India bucking the sanctions regime, those hardships are now greatly minimized.

Reports indicate that Washington was telling Beijing that Moscow was plotting the invasion and may have signaled their response. China has plenty of spies embedded in Washington, as well as the big social media companies. People forget that China downloaded the data from the Office of Professional Management. They have lots of close friends in Washington politics. The point being is that China probably had a good idea of what America was planning as a response.

If you look at a map, what you see is that most of the world is not going along with the sanctions regime on Russia. Instead of the West isolating Russia, it looks like it is the rest of the world isolating the West. More important, the cost of the sanctions regime is hitting the West where they feel it, their wallets. Prices are soaring in Western countries for food and fuel. Britain is about to experience the biggest drop in the standard of living since records have been kept.

It very well may be that the reason Russia invaded Ukraine is it was part of a much larger plan to deal with the Global American Empire. Russia saw the chance to reassert her ancient claims in eastern Europe and weaken NATO. China saw the chance to bait Washington into smashing its own financial system. The rest of the world is objectively looking at things and seeing a new multipolar world. They want to be on good terms with all of the new power centers of the future.

It is too soon to know if Washington is being played, but the indications thus far suggest they do not see what is happening. Allegedly, the Biden people did not talk to the Federal Reserve about their sanctions regime. This is why cutting off the Moscow central bank has blown up in their face. That is the sort of error that suggests the decision makers are not thinking things through. They also seem to have fell for the military assessments from the Pentagon.

We will know much more in the coming months, but it is possible that what we are seeing is the result of a clever trap laid out by Beijing and Moscow. The war in Ukraine is just one piece of a larger puzzle. This is a puzzle clear to everyone but Washington, which is still high off the fumes of the 1990’s. They still believe they are at the end of history and leading the world to the promised land. Instead, they may be leading the West into a massive financial disaster.

The Evolution of War

Posted on March 24, 2022 by thezman

Comments: I know the spam filter has become annoying to some. I am working on an alternative to what I am using. In the interim I have made a few changes and will keep tinkering with the current system. Thank you for your patience.

The first men to go to war with men from another tribe no doubt went to that first battle with the weapons they used to hunt. We have no record of that first battle, but we can safely assume it involved spears, clubs and probably rocks. It is possible that the throwing rock was developed just for these battles, as the thrown rock is much more effective against men than animals. The throwing rock is probably the first weapon developed just for killing other men.

One day a group of men decided to raid the territory of another tribe and they were met with a terrifying new weapon, the bow and arrow. Again, we have no idea when this happened, but logic says there was a first time use for the bow in war. A group sorted out how to launch a small version of their spear at an animal. This was much safer than getting up close and personal. The next logical step was to use this cool new weapon against invaders from another tribe.

Maybe it was the sling or maybe it was the bow, but most likely it was the fear of projectile weapons that led to the shield and the use of it. Shields are useful against spears, but they limit offensive ability. Again, we will never know, but most likely there was a first battle where the shield was used. The guys with bows were stunned to see this new terrifying weapon. Instead of raining death down on their enemy, their enemy was able to advance under the cover of their shields.

We are seeing this playout in Ukraine. The Russians are probably the world’s best at tank strategy. They have a lot of them and they have always been at the top in terms of tank technology. Russia is a land power, so it makes sense that they are the best with the dominant weapons of land warfare. In the Second World War it was the T-34 that beat back the Nazis and drove them back to Berlin. It remains the most popular tank in the world, despite being 80-years old.

The terrifying counter is the anti-tank weapon. The concept is pretty simple. You launch a missile at a tank that can penetrate its armor. The trick is either in hitting the tank from beyond its range or getting close enough to hit it from a blind spot. This is where the modern anti-tank weapons have become so important. The Javelin system allows a team of two to get close, fire from cover and take out a tank. The weapon is cheap and it can be used by the dumbest infantrymen.

The effects of this weapon are clear in Ukraine. Instead of leading with their armor, the Russians have been forced to use artillery and cruise missiles to soften up the line of contact and then use infantry to clear the way for tanks. This has not made the tank obsolete, but it has forced a change in its use. It now has to be deployed initially as a stand-off weapon, like an artillery piece. Instead of being the tip of the spear for ground forces, it is now a follow on weapon.

As an aside, this is a good example of the knock-on effect. Since the anti-tank weapon neutralizes the tank, the counter is the use of artillery. In the second Chechen war and now in Ukraine, the Russians are relying on their massive artillery advantage, which is turning the defensive positions into rubble. In other words, the Ukrainians will still lose and they will have their cities reduced to dust. The anti-tank weapon is making war bloodier and costlier to the civilian population.

The West thinks this is all good news, but there is bad news for the Global American Empire in Ukraine. For starters, the Russians have had the chance to test their S-400 surface-to-air missile system against serious opposition. It turns out to be as lethal as advertised, able to take out aircraft from over 250-miles away. It is cheap, mobile and easy to deploy in a wide range of conditions. It is to American air power what the Javelin missile system is to Russian tank warfare.

The American way of war is to gain air superiority and then pound the enemy from the sky until their mobility and communications are broken. Then the ground forces come in to attack the weakened enemy positions. The S-400 suddenly turns those 100-million dollar aerial weapons platforms into expensive target practice. Since these systems are cheap and getting cheaper, they will proliferate. It is why America threatens every country that buys them with sanctions.

That is not the only bad news. The Russians have been testing what the media is calling a hypersonic missile. The Kh-47M2 Kinzhal air-to-surface system is probably not a hypersonic weapon, given the technical issues involved with the technology, but that does not matter. It is fast enough, lethal enough and cheap enough to pose a serious problem for a sea power like America. The ability to strike a relatively small target from over a thousand miles away is a game changer.

The reason this is important is it means those carriers America relies upon to project air power will quickly become expensive target practice. Some have argued that this has already happened with land-based anti-ship weapons, but that is disputed. This new system ends the debate. If America wants to deploy carriers to protect Taiwan, they will soon need to find a way to make them invisible. Otherwise, they are billion dollar monuments to man’s innovative nature.

Of course, these innovations that are neutralizing the strengths of great power militaries are not new. The grinding deadlock of the Great War was due, in part, to the ability of all sides to neutralize offensive weapons, other than artillery. Both sides were left to pound one another from extensive trench systems. In this age, it means both sides are left with stand-off systems like missiles. It also makes the use of nuclear weapons more attractive as a way to break the deadlock.

This being the modern age, the trenches will be virtual. America launched the equivalent of a race to the sea by breaking all promises and declaring financial war on the Russian economy. The Russians have responded but have yet to launch their best financial weapons. China and India are now joining the fight, America has announced sanctions on China in response. Instead of trench war, this century’s great war will mean barriers to trade and capital.

Instead of reducing Europe to a moonscape, it will bring about a global depression that will set off unknown consequences. The world will have a food shortage this year due to the halt of agricultural products from Russia. Energy prices are rising, which will amplify the inflation pressure. Like the Great War, we are about to enter a test of wills where all sides try to bring the other to the breaking point economically. Washington is betting you can starve longer than Russians or Chinese.

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