An Old Story

Posted on August 14, 2024 by thezman

For a little over a year, it has been clear to people who have followed the war in Ukraine that there is no winning scenario for Ukraine. The sanctions on Russia failed to change the Russian approach to the war. The hundreds of billions in NATO weapons, planning and support were not enough to beat back the Russian army. The great Ukraine offensive of 2023 was a stunning failure that eliminated any possibility of the Ukraine army holding the line in the Donbass.

The question has been how does the war end. For Ukraine, the best outcome is a negotiated settlement that includes a change in Ukrainian attitudes. Maybe NATO abandons the project and the Russians install new leaders. Maybe Zelensky figures out that he is about to be cut loose and cuts a deal with the Russians. Maybe Washington, hoping to save face, backs Zelensky in making a deal with the Russians. No matter how, the best option for Ukraine was a negotiated settlement.

That appears to be off the table now that the Ukrainians have launched this crazy incursion into the Kursk region of Russia. It appears that the plan was to reach the nuclear power plant in Kursk and then use it as blackmail. The Ukrainians would not just demand negotiations but require a Russian withdrawal as a condition for negotiations or they would blow up the nuclear power plant. As ridiculous as that sounds, the other explanations for this gambit are even nuttier.

Of course, this plan sounds like it is from a poorly made Hollywood action thriller, rather than a sober-minded military operation. The reason for that is the people running Ukraine are actors. For going on three years now they have spent far more time crafting creative narratives about the war than thinking soberly about how they can avoid being wiped off the map. For people who imagine reality is just a clever written story, this operation sounded brilliant.

The supreme role of narrative for Western political elites is evident in how they have reacted to this new production. It seems they had no part in its construction, or at least they were not told about it in advance, so they were unprepared to play their role in selling this as the next great event in the drama. Western media was not provided with a script, so they had no idea what to say. Eventually they settled on this being bad for Putin’s narrative, a thing that does not exist.

It is another example of the total lack of realism in our political class. The Ukraine war is an unnecessary venture for everyone involved except the Russians. A thousand years of history says they will not allow Ukraine to fall into the Western orbit. Otherwise, everyone else involved has practical reasons for not having this war, but the good feelings that come from good narratives have been too much to resist. The result is an unfolding catastrophe for the West.

This total lack of realism in the West seems to have finally reached an end point with the Russians after this latest caper. In a recent press conference, Putin said that it is now impossible to deal with Ukrainian leadership. While not closing the door to negotiations completely, he has now ruled out dealing with Zelensky. Other Russian officials are floating the idea of regime change in Kiev as a necessary precondition for any negotiated settlement to the war.

What that means is that the eventual collapse of the Ukrainian army, which is now accelerating due to the nutty decisions made by Kiev, will be followed by a political collapse, by force if necessary. In other words, if the West deciders it is time to make a deal with the Russians, that deal starts by cutting Zelensky loose, which in the context of Ukrainian politics means the whole crew must go. They will not go voluntarily, so it means the end game includes a civil war in Western Ukraine.

The Ukraine war is a microcosm of what is happening in the West. Every decision is based only in the moment without any thought of what comes next. Things are done voluntarily that should have been avoided, not because they are part of a larger strategy but because they fit the current narrative. It is as if once the story is created, the writers are sucked into it, losing all control of the plot. All they can do is respond as if they are now unwitting characters in the story.

This is harmless in the low-stakes world of parlor games in which members of the political class evolve, but in the practical world, it is a disaster. It leads to a scenario in which no one knows if the current president is alive or dead. No one seems to care because his character has been written out of the story. Who is actually making decisions is a mystery. It is the dynamic that created the condition for war in Ukraine and is now pushing it towards catastrophe.

On the one hand, it certainly seems like the West is now governed by emotion and symbolism, rather than practical considerations. The Kamala Harris campaign can be boiled down to a promise of feel goods. The entire production is a collection of symbolic shapes and sounds to transmit the simple idea that it feels good or that the alternative will make you feel bad. To his credit, Trump is offering tangible things that have some connection to practical reality.

The lesson of the Ukraine war, however, is that reality still matters. All the feel-good stories and symbols has not changed the fact that the Russian army is chewing up the Ukrainian army. The clever narratives cannot conceal the massive cemeteries full of dead Ukrainian soldiers. The question that arises from this war is whether Western elites will learn that the clever stories by the managerial class will not keep them from the gallows if things start to crumble.

The great lesson of history is that there is always a price to be paid for failed leadership and that price is paid by the people, then their rulers. Joseph de Maistre famously said that the people get the government they deserve. He was wrong. The lesson of the French Revolution is that the ruling elite gets the people they deserve. A ruling class that is concerned more with clever narratives than practical reality will face a people, who out of practical necessity, decide they must get a new ruling elite.

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The End of Israel

Posted on August 7, 2024 by thezman

One of the myths of the 20th century that is slowly starting to wither away is the one about Israel just striving to exist. Since the wars of the 1960’s and 1970’s, the narrative has been that Israel is this plucky democracy fighting for its existence in the midst of savage not-democracies. The line, “Israel has a right to exist” has been the company slogan for Israel Inc. for close to fifty years now. Over the last year this official narrative, like so many others, has started to collapse.

It is clear at this point that Israel is not the victim of aggression, but the primary instigator of conflict in the region. The assassination of the Gaza leader in Tehran, on its face, is an unjustified act of war. Ismail Haniyeh was not just the lead negotiator for Gaza, but the most dovish of the Palestinian leaders with regards to making a deal with the Israeli government. The only reason to kill him was to foreclose further negotiations over Gaza and to bait the Iranians into war.

The Israelis, the Zionist and their supporters in the West will claim that there can be no peace as long as Hamas exists, so they are acting in self-defense when they assassinate the people on the other side of the peacemaking table. They also argue that there can be no peace as long as Iran exists as an Iranian state, so they are acting in self-defense when they attack Iran. Currently, they are arguing for Israel to pre-emptively attack Iran before Iran retaliates.

What we are seeing is an evolution of that myth from the 20th century. The original myth was that Israel just wanted to exist and it was the Arab world that refused to acknowledge Israeli’s right to exist. All the Arabs needed to do was not make war on Israel and there would be peace in the region. Now, the narrative is that Israel must make war on the region in order to secure peace. We have gone from supporting the plucky underdog to backing the savage master.

It is similar to an observation by Christopher Caldwell regarding the programs that sprouted from the civil rights revolution. It was first argued that these programs must be supported because their beneficiaries are too weak. Now it is argued that they must be supported because they are too strong. We see this with Israel. Fifty years ago, the Washington political class supported Israel because she was weak. Now they support Israel because the Israel lobby is too strong.

The thing is though, regimes in serious trouble often go on the offensive thinking it will lead to some breakthrough or change the situation in some way. Armies that are beaten will often stage one last great offensive. Ideological regimes will crack down on dissent, like we are seeing in the West. The Israel lobby is proudly intervening in American elections, because it fears support is faltering. Israel seeks war with Iran, because is it very unstable domestically.

There is no question that the ground has shifted over the last year with regards to support for Israel in the West, particularly America. In the United States, where it matters most, unconditional support for Israel is now limited to old white conservatives, primarily located in the Bible belt. Everyone else ranges from Israel fatigue to outright hostility to Israel. The actuarial tables tell us that support for Israel among American is in a death spiral that cannot be arrested.

This coincides with the decline of the American empire, especially in the Middle East, where decades of intervention have exhausted the military and exhausted the American people’s patience with the topic. The days of the American empire dictating policy to the region are drawing to a close. This is why Israel is desperate to start a regional war with the Iranians. They think it will bring their patron back into the region, even though it is clear that this is highly unrealistic.

On the domestic side, an area that gets little attention, Israel has some profoundly serious internal divisions. This post by Alastair Crooke describes some of it. The current Israeli government is caught in a vice. One jaw is the reality of the situation with regards to Israel and the Arabs and the other jaw is that “an eschatological Right-wing cult now holds the majority in cabinet – and wields a vigilante militia ready to attack the military establishment, and the Israeli state.”

The ideological cross currents within Israel reflect the demographic collapse that has been underway for a couple of generations. The once dominant Ashkenazi Jews, these are the Jews of the diaspora, are now in steep decline largely due to their low fertility rates and the relative high fertility rates of the other groups, particularly the ultra-orthodox and the Mizrahi Jews. These are the Jews who never left the Middle East, and who hold an expansive view of greater Israel.

The result of all of this is a hyper-aggressive Israel that is seeking a big war with all of its local enemies and a hyper-aggressive Israel lobby in the United States that is aggressively interfering in elections. One result is the collapse of the old narrative where Israel is the plucky democracy in a world of antagonistic not-democracies. In its place is a new narrative where Israel is instigating the final conflagration to settle all of these outstanding issues for good.

What all of this tells us is that Israel is in deep trouble. The underlying reason for it is the country was born in war. Countries that are the creation of war tend to end in war because they must always seek war. For Israel, “normal” is the endless state of emergency, the constant fear of another attack. This dovetailed well with the diaspora fear of you know who jumping out of the history books. It has evolved to the point where Project Israel cannot exist in peace, so it must seek war.

How this ends is not clear. The geezers currently running Israel must eventually give way to a new generation, but that new generation is more war-like and vastly less sophisticated about global matters. On the other hand, the Arab world is young and increasingly sophisticated about how the world is changing. Can the Israelis figure out how to live in the new world or will they seek to take the rest of the world with them into the abyss of the dying old world?

The Eighth Decade Curse

Posted on August 1, 2024 by thezman

Israel’s efforts to start a regional war in the Middle East took a big step forward when they murdered a Hamas official in Tehran and another in Beirut. The murder of Fuad Shukr in Lebanon is something the Israelis have been doing for a long time, but the missile attack killing Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran is both a clear violation of international law and a provocative escalation. Taken together it suggests that the Israelis want a war with Iran and are doing everything they can to provoke it.

The puzzle is why are they are doing this, especially now when it is clear that Washington is in turmoil and the American empire is stretched thin. Joe Biden is at best a caretaker at the moment. Netanyahu met with him last week, so he must know that Biden is a vegetable. He also has to know that it is not clear who will be in the White House six months from now. The only thing certain is it will be a new team running foreign policy, regardless of the results.

It may be that Netanyahu calculates that if the next administration inherits a regional war in the Middle East, they will have little choice but to continue whatever policy they inherit, so it is best to get everything in place now. It is not as if the Israelis do not have control of both parties. The neocons may think Trump wins the election, so leaving him with a regional war will cripple his term before it gets started. As a result, they are telling the Israelis to start the war.

Another theory floating around is that the Israelis have determined that Iran does not want a war right now, so their response to these moves will be limited. The Israelis can literally get away with murder, as long as the people they are targeting are not Iranian officials or important Iranian citizens. The two people they just murdered have been on their kill list for a long time. Targeted assassinations have always been a part of the Israeli toolkit, despite the civilized world’s protests.

Along the same lines, the Israelis may be looking at the way things are shaping up in the neighborhood and think they have to flip over the board with a war. Russia and Iran have close ties. China is now building relations with Iran. This has led the Saudis to end the petro-dollar agreement and begin to normalize relations with Iran now that they are both in BRICS. A new regional order is forming up where Russia and China supplant the American empire as the patron.

From the Israeli perspective, this is a catastrophe. Both Russia and China are wise to how the Israelis operates, and they have no Israel lobby in their countries. While both countries have always tried to maintain good relations with Israel, they both see Israel as part of the Global American Empire. It is not all that clear if they understand how the neocons use Zionism as a cover, but they certainly understand that Israel is a launching pad for American shenanigans in the region.

Instability has always been part of the Israel playbook too. Whether it is exploiting rivalries between its neighbors or rivalries inside its neighbors, the game has always been to maximize regional instability. This not only keeps the Arab countries on shaky ground, but it keeps the American empire involved. A war with Iran that draws in other Arab countries, thus forcing the American empire to get directly involved maximizes uncertainty and instability in the region.

One final possibility here is that the neocons may have decided that the Ukraine project is hopeless, so it is time to open a new front. Russia has strong relations with Iran, so war between the American empire and Iran would inevitably force the Russians to provide support to Iran. This would fit with the overall strategy laid out by the Rand Corporation five years ago and the philosophical outlook of the neocons going back to the end of the Cold War.

The question no one asks is if the American empire could wage a war against Iran and whether it could survive it. For decades it has just been assumed that the empire will win any war with any nation if it so chooses. A big part of the mythos of the American war machine is the assertion that the only wars the empire has “lost” are those it chose not to fight to win. This started with Vietnam and has been a fog that rests over any analysis of American war capacity.

The Ukraine war revealed this to be a myth. American wonder weapons either failed to live up to their promise or were quickly neutralized by the Russians. More importantly, NATO has been exposed as a paper tiger with regards to its ability to manufacture the sorts of weapons necessary for a long war. You can also throw in the failure to suppress the Houthis with expensive bombing campaigns. Clearly, the rest of the world learned something from thirty years of American war making.

Iran does not have the military industrial capacity of Russia, but it does have the support of Russia and China. Iran can also count on Syria and Iraq to help deliver weapons and men to the border of Israel. She can also count on OPEC not coming to the rescue when oil prices double overnight. In other words, whatever the motivations, a regional war that drags in the American empire to fight Iran could very well be a catastrophe for the American empire.

What all of this points to is exhaustion. The Israeli political culture is a chaotic mess that shows all the signs of being a spent force. It is a bunch of old guys living in the past, trying to cling onto life and power. This is not much different from the state of play in Washington, where it is a political class trapped in the last century. The flailing about that now defines imperial foreign policy is the result of yesterday men unable to come to terms with the reality of current age.

If this comes to pass, the American empire would not be the first to face its mortality in the Middle East. The Romans eventually learned that the Middle East was more trouble than it was worth. Perhaps it also spells the end of the Zionist project. It has been eighty years since the birth of the Zionist state, so maybe they are about to succumb to the curse of the eight decade. Of course, the Global American Empire is in its eighth decade as well, so maybe there is something to it.

The Ukraine Calendar

Posted on July 24, 2024 by thezman

Lost in the firehose of events this past month is the fact that there is a race against the clock going with regards to the Ukraine war. In fact, the decision to force Biden out of the race may have been tied to what is happening with Ukraine. The war that has become the defining feature of Joe Biden’s tenure is heading for a finale, but the timing of that final is unclear. The shape of the finale is what has Europe’s political class pacing the floors while following events in Washington.

The most important fact on the ground is that the Russians are steadily advancing across the entire front, with the exception of the south. The Russians have not gone on the offensive in that area for some reason, but that could be changing. There are reports of increased activity along that part of the front. Everywhere else, the Russian army is slowly and methodically grinding up the Ukrainian army and slowly advancing one village and stronghold at a time.

Since the summer of 2022, the goal of the Russians has been to limit their losses while maximizing Ukrainian losses, even if it meant not advancing along the front. One of the primary demands by the Russians before the war started was the demilitarization of Ukraine and now that is a primary goal of the war. Every day Russian drones circle over the front looking for men and equipment to destroy. As a result, the Ukraine army has been taking a steady beating for eighteen months.

As things stand, the Ukrainians have three main problems. The big one is they have no defense to Russian glide bombs. This means the Ukrainians cannot maneuver to counter Russian advances. As soon as they are spotted, a fifteen-hundred-pound bomb lands on their position. The second problem is the Russians are about to split the front, thus cutting the Ukraine army in two. This brings up the third problem which is the inability of Ukraine to coordinate across the front.

An army that cannot move, cannot defend itself against the enemy and cannot coordinate between its units is a sitting duck. The Ukrainian soldiers are tenacious and fearsome fighters, but they are now in an impossible position. Morale is becoming a serious problem as reality sets in on the troops. Insubordination is increasing and that means the military leaders have another constraint. Their soldiers now often refuse to go on the attack or defend their positions.

What the Russians ultimately want is for Zelensky or his successor to sign an agreement ceding the Russian speaking areas, Crimea, and whatever lands the Russians think will compensate them for the war. They also want Ukraine to agree to the other demands regarding demilitarization and plots to join NATO. The Russians think that if Ukraine signs a deal, Washington will have to recognize it. That may be a dream but that is what they are thinking.

That is the first deadline. The people running the Biden administration do not want this to happen under circumstances, much less before the autumn. Now that Biden is out of the picture, the goal is to set things up so Russia hawks infiltrate and subvert any efforts by the Harris team. Of course, if Harris proves to be too ridiculous even for the vote rigging schemes, then putting this tar baby in the lap of Trump is the goal and that means Ukraine holding on until January.

Sensing the clock is running out on him, Zelensky is now making noises about sitting down with the Russians. What he seems to understand is that if Trump wins, the Russians can dictate whatever terms they like to Ukraine. The reason for that is Trump is not only uninterested in continuing the war, but he remembers how Zelensky helped the Democrats impeach him. It is better to cut a deal before Trump wins the election than after, as Zelensky will then have no leverage.

There is another angle here for Zelensky. The so-called nationalists understand they are dead if Zelensky cuts a deal with Russia. Their only path to survival is the war continuing and then maybe devolving into a guerilla war. Of course, Zelensky understands this too. He has to decide if he must first order his army to move on these nationalist units, before or after he starts talks with Russia. His life literally depends on timing this out exactly right.

Of course, the Russians understand this as well. They most likely expect Zelensky to talk about a deal, maybe even start talking with the Russians, but not commit to anything, until it is clear which way the election will go. What is unclear is whether the Russians want Zelensky to sign the final deal or his successor. They may roll the dice and wait until the election, figuring either result is fine. Regardless, they now have time on their side so they can keep doing what they have been doing.

The other player in this drama is Europe. The European political class has bet everything on the Ukraine war. Now they face the prospect of Trump returning to power and then pulling the plug on Project Ukraine. Like Zelensky, they have to worry that Trump did not forget that European intel agencies helped his political enemies plot against him during his first term. Regardless, they now are in a race against the clock to “Trump proof” NATO regarding Project Ukraine.

The trouble with all of this, however, is the war may end much faster than anyone is expecting, except maybe the Russians. Most of Ukraine now has electric for only a few hours a day. This means the urban centers have water a few hours a day. It also means the no food that requires refrigeration. Of course, this makes the distribution of essentials nearly impossible in major cities. The constant pressure of the war could bring about a civilian collapse at any time.

The interesting and ironic aspect to all of this is the two players in this game with time on their side are Trump and Putin. Trump is under no pressure at all with regards to Ukraine, as he has no stake in it. Putin, of course, is now holding most of the cards, so he can wait until the others show their hands. Proof that the universe has a sense of humor will be that the two winners in Project Ukraine will be the two guys linked by the creators of project Ukraine in the Russian collusion hoax.

The Suicide Cult

Posted on July 10, 2024 by thezman

Note: If you are interesting hearing me gas on about a variety of things, then you are in luck as I was on Coffee and Mike yesterday. Listen here.

There is a big NATO summit going on in Washington right now and the main focus of the meeting is what to do about Ukraine. Here is Biden talking about doing something with the wife of the NATO Secretary General and then calling him an “intellectual wigger” for some reason. Perhaps Biden thinks this will get him more support in the black community or perhaps he has no idea where he is, but that is part of the background noise of this summit.

The point of NATO, formed up after the Second World War, was to keep Germany down, the Russians out and the Americas in. It is just assumed that NATO is an American creation, but it was created by the UK and France. The Treaty of Dunkirk was signed by France and the United Kingdom on 4 March 1947 with the express purpose of mutual defense in case of attacks by Germany or the Soviets. The real purpose was to bind the United States to Europe forever.

This formula worked throughout the Cold War, as the Red Army sitting on the border of Western Europe was a daily reminder for why the so-called free nations of Europe needed to stick together and under the protective shield of America. The fact that it was highly unlikely that the Soviets would move into Europe was never considered, as the threat was simply too convenient. The Warsaw Pact was formed almost a decade later in response to the formation of NATO.

This should be ancient history, as the Soviet Union is gone and the Cold War has been over for more than a generation, but it helps explain the present psychosis that has gripped the NATO countries. For half a century, their identity and therefore the reason for their political and economic elites to exist was based in this fear of the Russians flowing across the border. What it meant to be European came to mean fear of the bear and the desperate clinging to the eagle.

In other words, European elites need the bear and the eagle, because who they are literally and spiritually exist between the two. Much of what passes for European diplomacy over the last decade or so has been an effort to poke the bear into being the bear again and telling the eagle that she is still that majestic eagle of yore. This is why the Europeans flew into action at the start of the Ukraine war. Their reason to exist had finally returned and there was cheering in every European capital.

The trouble is the eagle is too old to fly. Biden hosting what will most likely be his last NATO summit is emblematic of the problem. The America that beat the fascists and secured peace for half a century is no more. The arsenal of democracy, like old family heirlooms of a once proud dynasty, has been auctioned off to the highest bidder and like Biden, is a shuffling husk of its former self. Biden mumbling crazy things on stage is the perfect image for the current moment.

One cannot help but wonder how the alleged leaders of Europe can sit in their chairs watching this desiccated husk cling to office and not see the problem. An America that produces a leader like Biden is nothing like the America that produced the young and reckless Kennedy or the sharp and charming Reagan. How is it possible for these people to not see what is plain to anyone who looks? How can they possibly think they can and should tempt war with Russia?

Of course, the main reason is that the European elites are just as dilapidated and broken down as the American elites. Look across Europe and you cannot find anyone who would be allowed to shine the shoes of great leaders of the past. Instead, it is managerial functionaries who have been elevated into positions with impressive titles and no real power because they are obsequious toadies. They may as well be actors hired from the local circus.

In truth, they are actors. Europe, having been remade in the image of the progressive masters across the sea, has the same problem we see in American politics, which is a system that selects for people willing to read their lines. It is why you never find anyone in European politics who had a job in the dreaded private sector. That is a disqualifier on a resume, so the politically ambitious avoid anything that requires practical knowledge and instead work on their obsequiousness.

Amusingly, many of these so-called leaders claim the Ukraine war is an existential crisis, apparently thinking “existential” means “external.” Even more amusingly, they are correct despite not understanding what they are saying. The Ukraine war is the result of an inner conflict in Europe. To be European no longer has any meaning, so what is the purpose of the institution set up to protect it? The so-called leaders have no answer when asked, “why defend Europe at all?”

The proof of this is the steady invasion from the south. The people terrified of an invasion from the east celebrate mass migration. So much so that they are now rigging their elections to prevent any efforts to stem the flow. Keir Starmer’s first act was to welcome boats full of Africans to the UK. The unsaid truth at the NATO summit is the answer to the question at the center of Europe’s existential crisis is suicide. They will end the question of Europe by exterminating it.

Maybe in the end that is the final point of NATO. Just as the people who run imperial foreign policy would rather blow up the world in a nuclear Armageddon than see their ancient enemy prosper, the so-called leaders of Europe would rather see the end of Europe than think about leading an independent Europe. This NATO summit is Jonestown, and the leader promising salvation is a deranged old man who everyone hopes brought the Flavor Aid.

The Dangerous Game

Posted on June 25, 2024 by thezman

During the Cold War, planners concluded that nuclear war would most likely result from two closely related factors. One was the breakdown of communications between Washington and Moscow at all levels. It was not just the red phone between the Kremlin and the White House, but communications across both systems. The other factor that would lead to war was uncertainty about the other side’s intentions. This fear could result in runaway escalation ending in nuclear disaster.

The remedy for this was to maintain communications at all levels of government with the other side so that both sides knew the nuclear posture of the other. The American military had a range of contacts with the Russian military. The spy agencies had contacts with one another across a range of issues and regions. Members of Western media and the academy developed contacts with their analogs on an unofficial basis on behalf of the intel agencies.

The main reason the Cold War did not end in nuclear annihilation is that the two great managerial systems institutionalized communications in such a way that it became a specialty with career opportunities. In Russia, being an expert in some aspect of America meant a good life as a member of the new class. In America, having some expertise on Russia meant a comfortable life in the clouds. The Cold War standoff became a jobs program for both sides.

The selection pressure on both sides was for second and third order thinking, as both sides had an investment in the status quo. Foreign policy advisors in America thought about the downstream consequences of their recommendations because it could have a direct impact on their employment prospects. Similarly, on the Russian side, the pressure was always there to think about how the Americans would react as getting that wrong could mean being posted to the Urals.

This is what makes the present so dangerous. Washington’s proxy war with Russia lacks both the incentives to prevent escalation and the sorts of people who see it as their purpose to prevent escalation. Washington has cut off communications with Moscow and works to prevent others from developing their own channels. Europe has little contact now with Russia. The primary goal of Washington is to isolate Moscow, which means isolating the West from the world.

We see how this works in the recent beach attack in Crimea. Washington provides Ukraine with long range guided missiles. Ukraine lacks the ability to use them, so the American military provides the targeting and guidance of them, while the Ukrainians operate the ground-based launchers. Over the weekend, one of the missiles, which was armed with cluster munitions, hit a busy beach, killing half a dozen civilians and wounding hundreds of others.

This was most likely an accident. Either the targeting was wrong, as there is a military base nearby, or the missile malfunctioned. It is possible the air defense system knocked the missile off course instead of destroying it. It is also possible that the Ukrainians, in league with their neocon handlers, did something to target the missiles at civilian infrastructure, which has happened in the past. There is the rumor that the real target was the big Orthodox cathedral nearby.

The point is no one knows and more importantly, no one in Moscow knows what the intent was behind this attack. The Russians have stated that they think it was deliberate and they blame Washington. Moscow summoned the American ambassador, presumably to deliver a warning about future reprisals. Putin made clear that Moscow will retaliate, and it may not be against Ukraine. Everyone is left to guess as to what they mean but the empire has targets all over the world.

What has developed is a game of chicken in which the Biden administration keeps escalating, daring the Russians to respond, while the Russians try to figure out what Washington is actually trying to achieve. There is no benefit to the Russians in escalation, so they seek to avoid it. Logically, there is no benefit to the West in escalation, but they keep escalating, so Russia is left to guess as to what is the real motivation behind these escalations.

Where this leaves us is a place that is the reverse of the Cold War. There is no communication between the two sides and neither side knows what the other side is thinking or planning. On the surface, the Russian position is clear, but Western propaganda has anathematized accepting it at face value. The coordinated attacks on Nigel Farage from the entire political class is a good example. Merely pointing out the obvious gets you called a traitor.

It is easy to see how this can end horrifically. If the Russians, for example, declare a no-fly zone over the Black Sea, it is likely that Washington will keep sending drones toward Crimea and the Russians will have to knock them down. Washington will then send manned aircraft or maybe a British ship to threaten the Russian fleet. Such a situation could easily spiral out of control because one side thinks it can do anything it likes, and the other side knows it has to draw the line somewhere.

That gets to the heart of the matter. Over the last thirty years in the absence of that old Cold War system, the neocons have taken control of the foreign policy establishment to the point where there is no dissent in Washington. The system is now controlled by fanatics who lack second order thinking. Like all fanatics, the neocons see only that which satisfies their fanaticism. As a result, they imagine every move is furtherance of their goal of destroying their ancient enemy.

There is also the fact that America is a fading empire that still assumes Francis Fukuyama was right and this is the end of history. Thirty years of selecting for people good at enjoying the fruits of victory has left the managerial class in the West stocked with obsequious, narrow-minded dullards. A Jake Sullivan is in his position because he never asks questions and never has an original thought. These people are easily manipulated by the psychopaths of the Kagan cult.

The ultimate question that is being answered at the moment is whether the Global American Empire will go out with a bang or a whimper. In the fullness of time that will be the real history of this age. The emerging great powers of the world are trying to manage the decline of the West and the transition to a multipolar world, while the people running the West play a game of chicken. The reckless management of the Ukraine war suggests it will not end well.

Gradually And Then Suddenly

Posted on June 19, 2024 by thezman

The Brits are set to have an election on July 4th, ironically enough, and everyone expects it to be a terrible result for the ruling party. The Tories have been in power for a long time and have managed to break every promise they made when they gained power and make everything worse that they promised to improve. On top of that they have gone through a series of ridiculous people as Prime Minister. The current person in the job is an Indian little person who has never run for office.

The reason the Conservatives called what the Brits call “snap elections”, is the people who actually run Britain are worried about new right-wing parties. Snap elections are those called on short notice in some parliamentary systems. The logic behind it is that the ruling party can more easily rig an election when they are out of favor by limiting the time for the opposition to mount a campaign. Democracy depends on institutional skullduggery to maintain its legitimacy.

According to current polling, which is as fraudulent as everything else in the West these days, the Conservatives are at 21%, which is their lowest rating ever. This is why there is a campaign called Zero Seats. The argument is that the only way to break the corrupt system is to eliminate one of the two main parties. Since the Tories are as popular as rectal cancer, they are the best target. While unlikely, it is possible to see a scenario in which they become a fringe party.

It is not all bad news for the Conservatives. Their historic dance partner, Labour, is polling at just 41%, which is terrible given the status of the Tories. Like America, the game of see-saw the parties play says that when one face of the ruling class is unpopular, the other face is popular. Right now, in the UK, both faces of the ruling class are unpopular, which is why they forced snap elections. No respectable person wants to see a new party rise up and challenge the system.

Just in case, the regime has brought Nigel Farage back from America where he was committed to stumping for Donald Trump. Farage is now the leader of the Reform Party, which is the heir to the Brexit Party. He created that after he successfully led the winning side in the Brexit referendum. The party was created to force the regime to follow through on the referendum, which they did not do. It is one of the reasons UK politics are such a mess now.

The only reason any of this matters is it is a good way to see how the system adjusts to defend itself from public discontent. The British regime is just the mini-me of the American regime, so it is a microcosm of what happens in America. The scale is smaller, and the system is slightly different, but we see all the same tricks used by the regime to make sure it is always heads they win and tails you lose. One of those tricks is to co-opt discontent into an acceptably pointless channel.

You can see how it works in the program the Reform Party posted on Twitter, now stupidly called X, the other day. They put immigration at the top because this is one of the top issues that is rustling the voters. To the untrained eye it all looks good, but to the trained eye the fraud is quite clear. The point of their program is to not question the moral claims behind immigration, but to put a fence around that morality so the question is how to best manage mass immigration.

Look at the first point. “Freeze non-essential Immigration.” The only reason to have the term “non-essential Immigration” is if you have “essential Immigration”, which is a moral claim held by the people Farage claims to oppose. Who decided that any immigration is essential and essential to whom? Was it the bankers who actually run the country or was it the managerial elite who adopted it as a luxury belief? Who decides what is and what is not essential about immigration?

Here is another example. “All asylum seekers that arrive illegally from safe countries will be processed rapidly, offshore if necessary.” Logically, the UK should never receive any asylum seekers as by law and logic, asylum seekers go to the nearest safe country for temporary refuge while the home country is in turmoil. The UK is a set of islands bordered by countries that are stable “democracies” so there can never be a case where anyone seeks asylum in the UK.

The point of this weaselly language is two-fold. One is it is the natural obsequiousness that infests all Western right-wing parties. They have the slave mentality, which means they are always bowing and scraping before the people they pretend to oppose with regards to the moral claims of the ruling elite. The other reason is it tend to work as people just see the headlines and never think about the qualifiers. Owning the libs is a universal concept in Western democracies.

Of course, putting an entertaining clown like Farage up as the front man is a great way to distract from this reality. People are mad and lack the sophistication to understand the issues in detail, so Farage provides a vent for their frustration by pretending to be on their side, when in reality he fully supports the moral framework that is the root cause of their frustration. Farage and his Reform Party are what James Carville once called “boob bit for the bubbas.”

The genius of the trick is it will work. Reform is now polling within a few points of the Tories at 16% in the government polls. In other polls they are in a statistical dead heat with the Tories. If they overtake them, then the people angry at the system will claim victory for having knocked out the Tories. Meanwhile, gangs of Muslims are chasing their daughters through the streets. If Reform flops, then they can focus their energy on being angry at Labour for a few years.

For Americans, this should sound familiar. The usual suspects co-opted the Tea Party to become a subsidiary of the Republican Party. What could have been a threat to the system was quickly neutralized. The current populist groundswell has been slowly co-opted by oleaginous grifters who run around wearing red caps and talking about Trump like he is Orange Jesus. Meanwhile, Trump’s platform is now no different from what Jeb Bush was offering in 2016.

This may sound black-pilling and depressing, but the white pill in what is happening with populist parties all around the West is they are gnawing away at the legitimacy of the system by forcing these reactions. The dullards in the UK fall for Farage, but there are lots of people who have gotten wise to this stuff by watching him work. In the U.S., the Trump phenomenon has opened the eyes of many to the reality of the system, simply by seeing the system react to Trump.

In other words, the process by which a system loses its legitimacy is through its various mutations to defend itself from challenges. The number of people wondering if the system should be saved is a measurable number now, thanks to the struggle the system has undergone to defend against even mild reform. The same is true all over as people increasingly notice the unwillingness of the system to give an inch on critical issues like immigration and culture.

The old line from Hemingway about bankruptcy being gradually then suddenly applies to all complex systems. Failed populist uprisings and Potemkin opposition movements are the gradually portion of the show. With every failure to get even a tiny concession from the system, the system loses legitimacy. At some point, and no one ever knows when it will happen, the suddenly part of the show begins. In order to get there, you have to work through the gradually part first.

The Euros And Ukraine

Posted on June 13, 2024 by thezman

During Covid, one of the questions that kicked around was how would the public react when they found out the government was lying? The answer is we do not know as the whole thing has been thrown down the memory hole for the most part. The truth about Covid has slowly seeped into the public consciousness, but no one asks them about it and no media outlet discusses it. The best anyone can tell is that the Covid lies have become a part of the general cynicism.

We will soon get another case to see how the public will respond when the truth is nothing like what they have been told by the media. In the case of Project Ukraine, this test will happen in Europe where the local media talks about the war in Ukraine in terms that have always been fanciful. It was European media that gave us the “Ghost of Kiev” and the babushkas knocking down fighter jets with canned goods. They continue to feed their public outlandish stories about the war.

Those with an interest in the war and access to the internet can find out what is actually happening on the battlefield. The facts are often blurred by the fog of war and the bias of the people doing the reporting, but with some patience you can get a good picture of what is happening in Ukraine. It is even possible to get a sense of what is happening outside the war zone as there are still plenty of Ukrainians posting stuff to popular apps like Telegram and Instagram.

Very little of this reality gets into Europeans media. Instead, they produce content like this from the UK Telegraph, which is supposed to be a serious media platform, not the typical British tabloid. Not only are they “reporting” that Ukrainian “wonder weapons are decimating the Russians”, but they also have a special section with high production quality explanations of those wonder weapons. In other words, this is a highly choregraphed bit of propaganda designed to deceive the public.

The wonder weapon stuff is mild compared to some of the other posts you will find about Ukraine in the Telegraph. This one claims the Ukrainians are about to seize Crimea because their squadrons of unicorns are showering the place with magical fairy dust they shoot from their ass. That is not an exaggeration, as magical farting unicorns would be more plausible than the contents of the actual post. The whole thing is a fantasy with no basis in reality.

It is not just the UK media that is gaslighting the public. The German media is full of similarly nonsensical stories. Here is the Ukraine page for Bild, which you can use Google to translate into English. Die Zeit is probably the most respected news site in Germany, and it just copies and pastes whatever Kiev, or the neocons send them about what is happening in the war. While not as ridiculous as the UK media, the continental media is gaslighting its public just as hard.

The problem is the war is going horribly for Ukraine. The Russian army is slowly and methodically grinding the Ukraine army into bits. Every month the Ukrainians are forced to fall back at some point along the line of contact. The Russians have knocked out the power grid of the country, which means there is no electric for up to twenty hours per day in some areas. The Ukrainian army is literally snatching men off the streets and sending them to the front due to a lack of manpower.

What Ukraine war watchers have known for a long time is that at some point, the Ukraine army will not be able to keep fighting. At some point, the Russians will decide it is time to end the war on its terms. Given that this is a proxy war between Washington and Moscow, the assumption is the fall is when things come to a head, just in time for the presidential election. Maybe it will happen sooner or maybe later, but at some point, reality will burst through those European headlines.

From a distance, it is hard to know if the firehose of nonsense about the war is fooling the European public. The recent elections suggest that at the minimum the public is tired of the ruling parties putting the welfare of Ukraine ahead of the welfare of the European people. It is possible that the Euros have been wise to the media nonsense about Ukraine, but simply care more about other things. Like Covid, it is hard to know as no one bothers to find out what the public thinks.

Unlike Covid, the collapse of Project Ukraine is not going to be easy to sweep under the rug by ignoring it. With Covid, the liars scurried off with their bags of cash and the pols declared victory as they let their foot off the neck of the public. The general public was simply happy to get back to normal. That is probably not going to work with Ukraine as there is no benefit to putting the topic in the past. There will simply be what the media claimed to be true and the truth, which is the opposite.

Compounding the problem in Europe is the fact that the leading politicians have made Ukraine their signature issue. In the U.S., the pols have been giving it a good leaving alone for a year now, other than the big funding push in February. Note that as soon as that bill passed, they changed the subject. In Europe, the political class has made Ukraine a test of their legitimacy. Therefore, when the Ukraine army surrenders, they cannot shrug and move on to other issues.

One of the lessons of the Soviet era was that the accumulation of lies eventually saps even the most repressive regime of legitimacy. The Soviet system fell apart when no one could think of a reason to support it, not even the people at the top of the system who benefitted from it the most. In this way, Ukraine and Covid may be analogous to Afghanistan and Chernobyl. These are events that delegitimize the system by making clear that nothing it says or does is on the level.

Death In Dollars

Posted on June 12, 2024 by thezman

Without much fanfare and no coverage in Western media, one of the most important agreements of the 20th century was allowed to expire last week. That agreement is the deal made between the United States and Saudi Arabia in 1974 that established what has been known ever since as the petro-dollar. Saudi Arabia would price its oil exports exclusively in U.S. dollars and invest its surplus oil revenues in U.S. Treasury bonds while the U.S. provided military protection to the kingdom.

The importance of this deal cannot be overstated. The demand for dollars has kept the currency strong and thus kept imports cheap. It also allowed the Federal Reserve to “export excess dollars” to developing countries with a need for dollars. The institutional demand for treasuries as a result of this agreement allowed for the low interest rate environment we have seen for decades. This has made it possible for the United States to build up massive debts both publicly and privately.

Another way to think about this deal is by pricing energy in dollars, the dollar became the default global currency because the dollar was a proxy for energy units. This made the Saudis the head of the mint and the Federal Reserve the global bank. The Saudis could control the flow of energy units around the world, a very profitable position, and the United States could skim from every transaction denominated in dollars, which was every transaction across national borders.

The reason for the lack of coverage of this historic event is two-fold. One is the mass media is now populated by zombies with no agency of their own, so until the regime hands them copy, they have nothing to say. The other is the financial world has no idea where this is going. Five years ago, no one imagined this deal would be allowed to expire, but years of mismanagement by the Biden administration has made a hash of things all over the world.

There is speculation that the Saudis are simply bargaining hard knowing that the Biden admin is desperate. Anthony Blinken is supposedly prepared to offer the Saudis a generous nuclear package, in addition to more military support, in order to continue the relationship, but of course it comes with a catch. The Saudis will have to normalize relations with Israel, something they are loath to do. There is no upside to them making a deal with a regime that routinely slaughters Arabs.

Now, the expiry of this deal does not mean much at the present. Half a century of pricing everything important in dollars will not be unraveled quickly. Tens of trillions in assets are priced in dollars, so the dollar remains the default currency, but it does open the door to alternatives. The Saudis will now accept other currencies for their energy products, which means OPEC will follow their lead. China can now buy oil in yuan, rather than swap yuan for dollars.

In the short-term this will not change much of anything, but over time it will result in a decrease in the demand for dollars. For example, if you trade with China for manufactured goods, it makes sense to trade in the yuan for energy products as it simplifies trade with China. The same is true for the Russian ruble, the Indian rupee, and the Brazilian real. Of course, it also means bypassing the American controlled banking system for settling these transactions.

The next shoe to drop in this process is a settlement system that operates outside the control of Washington. Project mBridge is a scheme for creating a digital currency to facilitate cross border transactions. The Saudis have recently joined this project, which is mainly supported by China. The Russians have recently shown interest in the project, despite years of resistance. The trade war launched by Washington has changed opinion in Moscow about dealing with the West.

That is another aspect to this. The Russian economy not only absorbed the sanctions blow, but it has also grown faster than the Western economies. Russia now has the fourth largest economy in the world. Sanctions forced the Russians to do thigs like replace the retail credit card system with their own system. They cleaned up their banking system to root out fraud and corruption. It was an inadvertent test case for creating financial systems outside of Western control.

Again, none of this signal the collapse of the dollar. The people screaming such things have no idea how the world actually works. What we are seeing is the slow decline of the American financial order. The countries that make things, fix things, dig things from the ground and invent things are starting to see that they do not need the countries that merely count things. This is especially true when the people doing the counting have a history of stealing from their customers.

What comes next is the slow decline in the demand for dollars and euros, which will make inflation a feature of Western economies. It will also mean the slow rise in borrowing rates in the West. If the rest of the world needs fewer dollars and euros it means they need fewer bonds denominated in dollars and euros. That leaves Western governments with the choice of cutting spending or printing money, which is the same thing but only less honest.

None of this was inevitable. After the Cold War, the United States could have remained the world’s banker and honest broker. Instead, the economic elites of America allowed the world’s most dishonest people to gain control of foreign policy. They used that power to launch a decades long crusade against their ancient enemies and in the process, they squandered the good name of the American people and destroyed global trust in the United States. Decline is now what must follow.

When Prophecy Fails

Posted on June 5, 2024 by thezman

Since the beginning of the war in Ukraine, the logic of the West has rested on the theory that the Russians cannot sustain a long war. In the winter of 2022 the argument was summed up by Francis Fukuyama in this legendarily wrong post. In that post he claimed the Russian army was about to collapse at any minute and maybe take the Putin government down with it. He then followed up on that claim with a similar post, in which he claimed to have been right, amazingly enough.

It is tempting to dismiss Fukuyama as just another brazen hustler that circulates around the managerial class, but he is one of the more successful ones. His famous book, The End of History and the Last Man, was a massive best seller primarily because he pushed all the right buttons for the post-Cold War elites. It was massively successful flattery because the people being flattered believed it. They continue to believe it, which is why they maintain a bellicose foreign policy.

Put another way, these grifters passing themselves off as intellectuals tell us something about the system that hosts them, but also the people they flatter. Fukuyama gets to travel around the empire passing as a sage, because the people hosting him think he is right and that is because they want him to be right. Meanwhile, a guy who has been consistently right, John Mearsheimer, gets called mean names, mostly because he is right and the people calling him names hate him for it.

This blinkered view is how we got the war in Ukraine. This almost religious belief that the triumph of the West in the Cold War was the beginning of the final journey into the promised land, the end of history, has shaped imperial policy, both foreign and domestic, for decades. Fukuyama wrote his book in 1992 and others have been building on it ever since. In his 1997 book, The Grand Chessboard, Zbigniew Brzezinski argued for the breaking up of Russia to finish the Cold War.

In other words, the war in Ukraine is not something that happened for no reason at all, but rather it is the product of a messianic outlook in the West that has existed since at least the end of the Cold War. In fact, the war looks like it comes right from the Western playbook to undermine and topple the Putin government. This study by the RAND Corporation, the most important think tank in the empire, talks specifically about this type of project as a tool to destabilize Russia.

The point of all this is to properly frame the war as part of the overall belief system of the West, rather than just something that happened for no reason at all. Washington expected this war because they had been planning for it for decades. Even though they were wrong in most of their assumptions, there is no reason to think that belief structure has changed. History shows that believers do not abandon their beliefs when faced with disconfirmation. They just believe harder.

That is important to understand when thinking about what comes next. The micro-countries of NATO are now yapping about war with Russia. Hilariously, tiny Estonia is offering security guarantees to Ukraine. The Estonia military is about the size of the Las Vegas police department and probably just as lethal. Lithuania is now inviting in the Germans to build defensive structures for the assumed Russian attack. Perhaps the Germans will bring their broomsticks with them.

The reason these small players are making these noises is the same reason Fukuyama wrote a book, calling the people he wished to flatter, the deliverers of mankind from the clutches of irrationality. These micro-countries organize their foreign affairs around flattering the powerful. Without NATO, Kaja Kallas is as well-known as the mayor of Wichita, but in NATO she can stand on the big stage, just as long as she tells Washington what they wish to hear.

This is what makes the moment so dangerous. Kallas is a simpleton, but an obsequious simpleton, so she often speaks the truth about her masters. Washington has no plan for ending the war other than the total defeat of Russia, something that can only happen if they launch nuclear weapons. The current debate about letting Ukraine use NATO weapons to attack inside Russia is mostly about normalizing the idea of NATO attacking inside Russia, something the Russians will never tolerate.

Compounding all of this is the fact that Ukraine is slowly being ground down by the Russian war machine. All of Ukraine is now forced to ration electricity. Major cities have long blackouts due to the lack of energy. The Ukraine army is desperate for soldiers, but all of the men have gone into hiding to avoid being grabbed off the streets and sent directly to the front. These raw “recruits” are being trained at the front, which means thrown into a trench with a rifle and a few grenades.

The point is we will soon see something like what Leon Festinger, Henry Riecken, and Stanley Schachter described in their study of a UFO cult. Western political leaders have been assured for decades that the promised land lies just after the final disillusion of Russia, which will come any day now. Like the people waiting for the space aliens, they have been waiting for regime change in Russia. Instead, they may be facing angry mobs outside their own palaces as the project collapses.

We live in an age of wonders, but the greatest wonder to be revealed will be when the regime realizes that the future promised to them by the neocons and their fellow travelers was never going to be reality. When the Ukraine army starts to buckle and the politics in Kiev become violent, how will the West react? Will reality suddenly descend upon Washington, or will they do like the cult members in When Prophesy Fails and find some way to internalize it and keep the faith?

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