Suicidal Thoughts

Posted on March 13, 2024 by thezman

The French National Assembly approved the security accord with Ukraine struck by Emmanual Macron last month. The vote was largely symbolic and as much to do with the summer elections as policy with Ukraine. The mythical “far-right” has been doing well in the polls due to immigration and the economy, so Macron hopes to make the election a referendum on supporting Ukraine. The opposition sat out the vote, so the bill passed with a wide margin.

The security agreement means little, as it is mostly about sending equipment and money to Ukraine, something France has been doing for ten years, along with the rest of the NATO countries. The new thing here is that it opens the door for France to send troops into Ukraine with the approval of Kiev. Macron has been talking tough about doing this, but he has been cagey about if it will happen. So far, he has been trying to round up support from other NATO countries.

Meanwhile, the Russians have made clear that anything used by Ukraine in their war effort is fair game for Russian strikes. Putin recently made it clear what that means in an interview with Russian media. He said, “It would be right for Macron to remember how it ended for Napoleon and his soldiers, more than 600,000 of whom were left lying in the damp earth.” Obviously, Putin is referring to the famous defeat of the French army by the Russians that brought down Napoleon.

A reasonable question is just what the French could bring to the table if they choose to send troops into Ukraine. The French military is equipped with all the latest high-tech gear and it has over one hundred thousand people, but that includes the Foreign Legion and reserves. Realistically, the French army is about ninety thousand regular military, but how many are combat ready is unknown. France also has troops stationed around the world in former colonies.

Then there is the division of labor. The French military is split in thirds among the Air Force, Army, and Navy. There would be no role for the French navy in this war, so that leaves about sixty thousand people. Of course, they could bring in the Foreign Legion, which has most likely been operating in Ukraine since the start of the war and France can call up its reserves, so using the base of one hundred thousand is about right, using publicly available figures.

Realistically, what this means is the French could put twenty thousand ground troops in the trenches after months of preparation and assembly. Most of the French military, like every military, does not fight. Instead, they support the fighting units, with logistics, equipment repairs, planning and intelligence. To put that number in perspective, Ukraine is losing about thirty thousand men per month and that is according to the optimistic figures provided by Western sources.

Now, the French could bring in their Rafale jet fighters and CAESAR 155-millimeter self-propelled howitzers, which in theory would help Ukraine. The problem with the howitzers is the fact that there are no shells for them, and many have already been destroyed in Ukraine. The jet fighters would have to operate out of Ukraine airfields, which would need new air defenses and upgrades in order to base these planes there without the Russians destroying them on day one.

If you look at the other militaries in NATO, you see a similar story. In most cases, they would not be able to field anything without U.S. help. Even in the cases of countries like France and Poland that have significant military assets, they are not built for what is happening in Ukraine. If the French were to send troops into Ukraine to actually fight the Russians, they would be wiped out in a month. This is something that military planners have known long before the war started.

Surely the French military knows this, so they must have told Macron that his scheme to send in French troops is madness. On the other hand, generals are politicians and that means they tell the politicians in charge what they want to hear. We saw that with General Milley in the run-up to the Ukraine summer offensive. He told the politicians it would work and when it failed, he retired. That could be happening here. They could be telling Macron what he wants to hear.

Another possibility is that this is a bluff. Again, this new security deal is nothing new accept the Ukrainian permission to bring in French troops. Even that is symbolic as we know French troops have been operating in Ukraine. The Russians put a missile inside the hotel where French “mercenaries” were quartered. We also know that French troops were trapped in Mariupol when the Russians captured the city in 2022, so nothing really changes here other than the language.

If it is not a bluff and it is not just domestic political theater, then the most likely plan here is to try to repeat what was done in Syria. When Washington tried to regime change Syria, the Russians came into support Assad, who was able to weather the storm, but faced a Western backed army in the south. The U.S. then put troops, including French troops, in Syria as a trip wire. The idea was to buy time and hope to wear out the Assad regime.

Just because that failed to work does not mean it is not a great idea, so that could be what is happening here. France and some other NATO countries will garrison troops behind the lines, daring the Russians to advance further. Macron seems to have developed an obsession with Odessa, so parking French troops there would be a red line that NATO would draw this summer. This assumes the Russians would not put a missile on these garrisons.

The trouble with this scheme is that time is not on the side of the West. This has been the fundamental mistake from the start. The reason Boris Johnson was parachuted into Kiev to scuttle the peace deal in April of 2022 was that the neocons were sure that Russia could not sustain a long war. All the Ukrainians needed to do was weather the initial storm and then Russia would run out of gas. Instead, the reverse has proven to be true, and it is the West that is being bled white.

This is one of those times when logic says it must be a bluff or merely a political stunt in the context of the elections. Rational people cannot accept the irrational option, but the history of this war says that is the way to bet. For the last two years we have seen Western leaders pick the worst option, as if they have a death wish. Maybe that is the way to understand this thing. It is a long slow suicide of the West, and they will not be stopped until they bring the whole thing crashing down.

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Death Of The Middle Man

Posted on March 12, 2024 by thezman

Imagine you are a rich guy, maybe a banker working at an investment house, and your neighborhood starts to have a crime problem. Maybe you get mugged on the way to your car or perhaps you start hearing about break-ins in the area. All of a sudden, your safe world is no longer safe. You think that maybe it is time to hire some private security to enforce the rules, but you find that they do not exist. All of a sudden, your cash is not all that important to maintaining your lifestyle.

That is the position of Western political elites as they come to terms with the reality playing out on the Ukraine battlefront. The West has lots of cash. They can literally create what they need from thin air. Sure, it has created inflation for the Dirt People, but only a sucker cares about them. Ukraine is what matters. Even though Congress is slow walking the next pile of cash, there is still plenty to send Ukraine. The EU and now the U.S. are plotting to “loan” Ukraine the money.

The trouble is dollars and euros are not much use on the battlefield. What Ukraine needs is machines, ammunition for the machines and men to run the machines, but that is something the West is struggling to produce. CNN has a story up that reports the Russians now produce three times the number of artillery shells as America and Europe combined, which is probably an understatement. The production numbers cited are more theoretical than actual for the West.

The industrial aspect of this war has been a topic of discussion around here since the war started, but like the rich guys living in their fantasy world of wealth and access, the political class of the West has not thought about it. Making stuff, inventing stuff and fixing stuff is for the Dirt People. Cloud People need their time and energy to think about new ways to describe the glorious future or turn bits of invented money into more bits of invented money so they can underwrite their lifestyle.

What the war in Ukraine is doing is reminding the world that the strength of a country is not magical numbers in reports that no one reads, but the hard cold reality of making stuff, fixing stuff, and inventing new ways to make and fix stuff. You can probably throw in food production, which is a form of making stuff, but a unique form, along with digging stuff out of the ground, like energy products and minerals. Countries good at these things will be strong countries.

The West no longer does these things. America and Europe still grow lots of food but the war on food production, as part of the Gaia cult, is threatening to kill off whole swaths of farm production. The war on digging up the ground is mostly about aesthetics, as the Cloud People hate seeing people do dirty work like farming or digging minerals out of the ground. Manufacturing employment in the U.S. has dropped by half over the last half century, despite the population growing by a third.

This is why the West is losing this proxy war with Russia. Despite having a far smaller population and smaller GDP, Russia still makes things and has the facilities and work force to make more things. If you can grow your own food in vast excess, supply your own energy needs, plus much more for export and you make things that people around the world want to buy, you are going to be immune from the machinations of the money changers in New York and London.

It goes beyond this though. China is the world’s biggest manufacturer and the world’s biggest consumer market. India is the second largest consumer market, and it is emerging as a manufacturing powerhouse. Russia is now the fifth largest economy in the world, despite the sanctions. What is happening here is the places where things are made and dug out of the ground are getting rich, which means they can also buy things, like the stuff they make for Western markets.

What we are seeing here is the death of the middle-man economy. For the last half century, America has positioned itself to be the money lender, the regulator, and the facilitator of economic activity, rather than the producer. To finance this, much of the manufacturing base was auctioned off and the economy became reliant on the production of credit to the global economy. To a lesser degree, the EU has done the same thing, as the junior partner of the United States.

What the war on Russia is revealing is that in a street fight, the banker has no chance against the guy who works on a factory floor. Sure, the banker has a Brazilian Jujitsu trainer and access to the finest steroids, but the working man knows how to fight and win, so it can never be much of a match. Further, in the contest of countries, it is the rules of the street that matter, not the rules of the boardroom. The competition of nations is always a street fight.

Long ago, the paleos made the point that you cannot have an economy based on everyone doing each other’s laundry. The great transition from an industrial economy to a service economy was cheered by the Cloud People but people like Pat Buchanan and Ross Perot warned that it was unsustainable. A generation on and the world is learning that those old guys were right. A country that does not make things, fix things, and invent things is no longer a serious country.

Twenty years ago, Yuri Slezkine observed in his book, The Jewish Century, that the American economy had been transformed into one that primarily served the interests of the facilitators and middle-men. Jews, he argued, were unusually skilled at these tasks and that is why they have been so successful. According to the Atlantic, the golden age of American Jews is ending, and probably taking America with it. It turns out that the middle-man economy is not sustainable.

Three-Legged Blob

Posted on March 7, 2024 by thezman

The abrupt retirement of Victoria Nuland caught everyone by surprise as she was just recently in Kiev promising to blow up the world. Naturally, everyone assumes there must be a clever reason for her sudden departure. The statement put out by Anthony Blinken reads like the statements that come from ball teams when they fire a manager, which has led to speculation that she was sacked. Alternatively, some suspect she is just the first rat off the sinking ship that is project Ukraine.

As is always the case with regime-ology, the answer is going to be a guess from a set of possibilities, rather than a clear answer. In this case, Nuland is a senior member of the Kagan cult, by virtue of her marriage to Robert Kagan. The entire foreign policy establishment is controlled by neocons. Her now former boss, Anthony Blinken, is a neocon, and her replacement is also a neocon. Whatever the reason for her departure, it is not because the administration has turned on the neocons.

The place to start is with the reality of American foreign policy, which is not controlled by the political class but by three distinct parts of permanent Washington. The most important part is the foreign policy establishment, centered around the State Department, which is where the Kagan cult is based. They control the foreign service and the thicket of think tanks and quasi-academic outposts that recruit and develop those who will serve in the foreign policy establishment.

Nuland’s career is a great example. She started out working for Strobe Talbott in the Clinton administration then worked in the Bush administration. She got bumped up in the Obama admi8nistration where she ran Ukraine policy. She took a holiday during the Trump years, but came back when Biden was installed. Notice that the changing of administrations had no impact on her career. Note also that her replacement is also a protege of Strobe Talbott.

Next you have the military industrial complex which is based in the Pentagon and represents the interests of the military and the vast array of companies that make weapons for and supply services to the military. Their primary concern is to keep the flow of money coming from the taxpayers. If war is good for business, they are in favor of war, but if war is bad for business, they oppose war. Unlike the foreign policy establishment, the MIC is mostly free of ideologues.

Finally, you have the intelligence community. Like all bureaucracies, they have succumbed to Pournelle’s iron law of bureaucracy. Their primary concern is with maintaining the flow of money and avoiding political oversight. They are happy to help the Pentagon and the State Department in their endeavors, but always do so in a way that serves the narrow interests of the intel community. Like all intelligence services, this is the most cynical and calculating of the three.

Project Ukraine has always been a State Department operation. The Pentagon has gone along with it as it meant more money, but the events of the last two years have strained this relationship. The flow of weapons to Ukraine has drained the armories but has not resulted in new cash for suppliers. Similarly, the spooks have supported the project because a return of the Cold War is good for business. No one writes novels about James Bond spying on MAGA people.

Until now, the three legs of the blob that controls American foreign policy have been working together on Project Ukraine. They were happy to tell the political class what they needed to hear, at home and abroad, in order to get the political cheerleading they wanted for the project. Six months ago, the Pentagon told the pols that the great counter-offensive would smash the Russian lines. A year ago, the spooks said the Russian were in political disarray.

The events of the last six months have put the lie to all of it. The Russians have broken through Ukrainian lines and have the initiative everywhere along the front. Ukrainian losses have spiked higher as Russia gains control of the air space. We are now hearing Ukrainian leaders talking about evacuation of major cities this summer, expecting a major Russian offensive. Two years of grinding away at the Ukraine army is showing results and the tide is now turning strongly in favor of Russia.

The first sign of trouble was the stalled package of aid which House Republicans refuse to pass that would hand sixty billion to the Pentagon. This money would be laundered through Ukraine back to the Pentagon and then the arms dealers, but the MIC’s favorite political party has been stalling. The reason is the cupboards are bare, so the MIC is not going to get much from this scheme. The only reason the Republicans are stalling is they have the full support of the MIC on this.

Last week, the CIA planted a long piece in their favorite regime outlet, the New York Times, in which they made clear that they have gone well beyond what should have been expected with Project Ukraine. The article detailed all of the great work they have done inside Ukraine going back to 2014. Not long after, we get the leak of the German military plotting a strike on Russia. The source of that leak is probably based in Asia and could very well have ties to American intel.

That leaves the foreign policy establishment, which remains committed to the project for ethnic and ideological reasons. The trouble is they are now left holding the bag for a project that could turn into a massive political crisis. For two years the politicians were told this will be a huge win for the good guys. Instead, the bad guys are about to win, and it is putting the political future of the collective West in jeopardy. Losing the first global conflict of the 21st century will not go unnoticed.

That brings us back to Nuland. Given that she is part of the Kagan cult, which is a subculture within the greater neocon subculture, it seems unlikely that she was fired for performance, even though her departure is out of the blue. Further, she is a fanatic and fanatics see only that which supports their fanaticism. It is unlikely that she looks at what is happening and sees failure. At every failure in the project, she and the rest of the neocons have found reasons to plow ahead.

Instead, what this suggests is that things are much worse for Project Ukraine than anyone is letting on in public. Anticipating political panic in Washington this summer, the neocons have decided to stash the architect of the disaster in retirement, thus making it hard for the Republicans to subpoena her. This makes it tough for the Republicans to lay the blame at the feet of the White House. The new guy will be given some latitude because the Republicans are this dumb.

On the other hand, there may be some unknown unknown at play. In politics, people who suddenly retire do so for a cash grab or to avoid scandal. The fact that someone was able to put that recording of German officials in the hands of the Russians suggest there could be other material of a similar nature. It is not as if Nuland has ever been careful about talking about her schemes. It may be that she was caught on surveillance again, perhaps when she was in Kiev last month.

There is always the possibility that she looked around at the politics in Washington and decided that there was nothing more to gain. The neocon war against their historic enemy is a long-term project. It is a forever project and Ukraine was always just one chapter in the long story of their struggle. They could have decided that all the juice was squeezed from this lemon, and it was time to move on. She will return to the hive and begin plotting the next project for a future administration.

What all of this suggests is that behind-the-scenes things are far bleaker for Project Ukraine than has been revealed to the public. The game now is what we always see in managerialism and that is blame shifting. The CIA fired the first shot with that Times article and now the neocons are scurrying for cover. As always, the goal of this blame game will be to leave the politicians holding the bag. Perhaps Biden’s usefulness all along was to be the fall guy.

The Bunglers

Posted on March 4, 2024 by thezman

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Last week the media outlet Russia Today, which is analogous to PBS or the BBC, released an audio recording of what it claimed were senior German military officials planning how to launch a strike on Russia. Specifically, they were discussing how to attack the Kerch bridge in Crimea with German Taurus missiles, but doing so in such a way that would not implicate Germany. Later, the German government acknowledged that it was German air force officials, and the audio was authentic.

This should be a massive, government toppling scandal in Germany, but that would require government officials capable of shame. It would also require a free media, which no longer exists in the West. Instead, the German government ordered social media companies to ban people who posted the audio on their networks. The German media, has declared that the leak is part of a sinister plot by Putin to discredit the West and draw attention away from the death of Alexei Navalny.

Of course, this comes on the heels of German Chancellor Olaf Scholz blabbering in public about the French and the British having people on the ground in Ukraine to operate the long-range missiles they have supplied to Ukraine. That recorded conversation among German military officials confirms this. The Germans also admit that there is no way for the Ukrainians to use the German version of these missiles without German personnel doing the bulk of the work.

The fact that NATO people are providing direct support to Ukraine is one of the worst kept secrets of the war thus far. The United States has been providing targeting information to the Ukrainians from surveillance drones operating over the Black Sea and from satellites stationed over Ukraine. Most likely, American techs have been operating the Patriot missile batteries stationed around Kiev. The French have sent their mercenaries to Ukraine with many of them being killed.

Aside from the scandalous nature of the call and the fact that someone, presumably Russia, was able to capture the call quite easily, there is the question as to why the Russians would publish this audio. If you have the ability to listen in on your enemies without them knowing about it or caring about it, you have an edge. Now that this is public, every European country will be doing a security review and making sure to plug any holes they have in their communications.

Of course, there is the strong possibility that the Russians did not do the recording, but a third country was involved. Some of the principles on the call were in Singapore, which is known to have a first-rate security service. They may have recorded the audio and sent it along to the Russians. On the other hand, it could be someone inside the German government who is unhappy with Scholz. In the wilderness of mirrors, there are many potential suspects in this case.

However the Russians got the audio, they thought it was more important to make it public than to conceal the fact that they have it. The reason is they want the Europeans to know that they are not fooled by what is happening. If Taurus missiles hit Russian territory, the Russian will consider it an act of war. Technically, supplying the Ukrainians with the ability to strike Russia is an act of war all by itself, but providing the technical support to use the weapons seals the case.

Further, by releasing this audio, the Russians are letting the Europeans know that the Russians have been restrained to this point. They have known from the start that NATO people are on the ground helping Ukraine, but they have not raised the issue or responded to it with force. In other words, the Russians are telling the Europeans that they should not press their luck. This is especially important with the rumors of basing “Ukrainian” F-16’s in Romania.

There is some irony here. Ten years ago, the Russians captured audio of Victoria Nuland plotting with the American ambassador to Ukraine about how to topple the Kiev government and install a puppet regime. Nuland was just in Kiev to celebrate the tenth anniversary of the coup. She was also bragging about secret plans to strike Russia in the near future, so maybe the Russians took the opportunity to celebrate the tenth anniversary in their own way by releasing this audio.

Putting all of that aside for a moment, the truly shocking thing in this call is the fact that these complex weapons do not work very well. According to the Germans, they would need six months to get them ready to use, but then would need months to program them for specific targets. The lead time for getting them into Ukraine is not the issue, but the programming time is shocking. The Germans also admit that the Russians will quickly figure out how to defeat them as well.

These missiles cost between one and two million dollars each. The plan was to use two waves of fifty missiles on the Kerch bridge. The reason for so many is the dense Russian air defense systems in Crimea. Even assuming they could hit the bridge, there is no guarantee they would knock it out. The Brits used a truck bomb on it last year and the Russians rebuilt it in a few months. In other words, it will cost the Germans one hundred million dollars to maybe damage a bridge.

This is not a sustainable approach to war fighting. Another point in the call was that the Brits and French are now out of these missiles. It turns out that the missiles are not just expensive to produce, but it takes a long time. If this public relations stunt went forward, it would change nothing as the Russians would still be dropping thousands of rounds of artillery on the Ukrainians every day. The Russian air force would still be dropping massive bunker busting bombs on Ukrainian fortifications.

The other point worth mentioning about the call is the participants were strangely comfortable with lying. The point of the call was to devise a plan where Germany could launch missile attacks on Russia but do so in a way that would make it look like the Ukrainians did it. The casual way in which they discuss this scheme suggests these are men who are comfortable with lying. The call offers a rare glimpse into the sociopathic nature of the ruling elite of the West.

The primary takeaway from this affair is that it will have no impact on Western leaders, who are simply too incompetent to learn from their error. The German government will eventually go forward with this scheme. Maybe they get a public relations boost from it or maybe it fails completely. It will have no impact on the war. The institutional incompetence of the West is irreversible. The only question is whether they bumble the world into a nuclear war.

Failure Management

Posted on February 28, 2024 by thezman

Note To SubscribeStar Users: I was told that their payment processor made some changes, so that screwed up some of the renewals. The usual suspects continue to harass credit card processors who do business with normal people. It is a hassle, for sure, but a reality of life these days.

The term “deep state” has been overused and abused to the point where it is meaningless, but the concept behind it remains useful. Conceptually, it simply means the permanent state, the individuals and institutions that lie behind the facade of our democratic processes and institutions. Politicians come and go but there is a permanent managerial elite that runs the important institutions. The C.I.A., for example, does not change after a presidential election brings in a new president.

That is what makes this long piece in the New York Times about the C.I.A. operating in Ukraine an interesting bit for regime-ology. There is not a single punctuation mark in that piece that was not vetted by the C.I.A. Senior people in the agency wanted that piece in the “newspaper of record” so they made sure the senior people at the paper put reliable stenographers on the job. It is why it reads like a marketing piece extolling the accomplishments and capabilities of the agency.

The part that is getting the most attention is that the agency has been operating secret bases in Ukraine since the U.S. led coup in 2014. The newly installed spy chief of Ukraine was in contact with British and American spy agencies on day one, which is a strange thing to make public. On the one hand, the agency wants the world to know that they have been trying to undermine Russia from bases in Ukraine for a decade, but at the same time they were invited into to do the work.

One way to read this is as a signal to Russian intelligence that when the war is over there will be no hard feelings. It is just the old game. While the agency did the task assigned to it by the political side of Washington, the agency bears no ill-will to the Russians with regards to Ukraine. In the article there are several examples of how the agency supposedly told the Ukrainians that they were not so conduct assassinations or terrorist operations inside of Russia.

That sounds like something out of a John le Carré novel, but like the rest of permanent Washington, the C.I.A. is still stuck in the Cold War. This is not the first time that stories planted by the agency have made the point that the Ukrainians have been operating outside the parameters set by the C.I.A., so it is fair to assume that this is a point that is important to the agency for some reason. It could have to do with internal politics between factions in Washington.

Another way to read this is as a way to prepare the ground for the very bad news that is coming out of Ukraine this year. Again, that Times piece reads like marketing material for the agency, which may be intended to shield it from criticism when Project Ukraine falls apart this summer. They can tell the politicians that they did what they could to help Ukraine, but the warmongers in the State Department, along with their puppets in Ukraine, screwed it up.

This interpretation is supported by the panic we are seeing in the political class over the last couple of weeks. Chuck Schumer is now threatening House Speaker Mike Johnson over the Ukraine money. The people controlling Joe Biden are putting on a full court press to get that money, even threatening a government shutdown. In Europe, French president Emanual Macron held an emergency meeting of EU countries to discuss sending troops from EU countries to Ukraine.

The reason for the panic is the war has taken a bad turn. The Russians broke through a key stronghold called Avdeevka. This was a fortified city that secured a key part of the front in the Donbass. This has opened up a hole in the Ukrainian defenses and has the Ukrainians scrambling to build new defensive lines further West. In the north and the south, the Russians are slowly taking ground and inflicting heavier and heavier damage to the Ukrainian army, which is showing signs of breaking.

While no one expects the Ukrainian army to collapse anytime soon, it is clear that it is no longer about if the army will break but when it will break. They are running out of men to fight, as the losses have been staggering over the last year. They also have critical shortages of essential materials like artillery shells. This is why Macron is floating the idea of sending troops to Ukraine. It is also why NATO secretary-general Jens Stoltenberg wants Ukraine to target Russian cities with missiles.

Meanwhile, the public face of the Kagan cult that controls the State Department is making the rounds, threatening to kill Valdimir Putin. Victoria Nuland is doing what these people always do and that is double down on failure. As far as Nuland is concerned, the deteriorating situation in Ukraine is proof that the West must pour even more resources into the Ukraine project. If it means nuclear war with Russia, that is just the price that must be paid to finish the job in Ukraine.

What all of this suggests is that the people operating behind the curtain are deeply worried about project Ukraine. Things may be worse than what the general public can see through social media and local reports. That New York Times piece extolling the glories of the C.I.A. is a glimpse of the jockeying that is going on behind the scenes to see who takes the blame for the failure. More precisely, to see who gets to blame which politicians for the failure of Project Ukraine.

A Price For Everything

Posted on February 19, 2024 by thezman

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A tenet of the old right was that some things are too important to a society to be subjected to the crucible of reason. Traditions, for example, not only bind people to their ancestors, but to one another in the shared understanding of the past. Treating traditions as mere superstition inevitably leads to their abandonment and the loss of their associated social capital. A society without tradition and history is a temporary, ad hoc collection of deracinated individuals.

Reason is not just questioning and demanding proof. The marketplace is a manifestation of reason in the exchange of goods and services. Sellers compete with one another to attract buyers. Buyers compete with one another through the mechanism of price in order to determine the best good or service. Reason states that if you have a competitive and open market, you end up with the best products and services winning over those of lesser quality or higher price.

The old right would agree to the theory behind open market economies but point out that some things are too important to subject to the market. The moral claims of a society, for example, should not be up for bid. The marketplace would no doubt decide that slavery in certain areas is the superior option, as it has for all of human history, but we have decided that owning other humans is immoral. Therefore, we do not make this moral claim subject to the crucible of the marketplace.

We are getting a real-world glimpse of this with regards to the war in Ukraine which the Western managerial elite insist is a moral crusade. Helping Ukraine, they say, is proof that we worship the god called democracy. The Munich Security Conference just ended and speaker after speaker insisted that the god of democracy demands we empty our wallets to help Ukraine. The Danish prime minister went so far as to say that the West must give all of its weapons to Ukraine.

No one really knows, because the cause is too important to waste time on accounting, but the West has supplied Ukraine with weapons and money in amounts many times more than Russia is committing to the war. Hundreds of billions have been given to Ukraine with hundreds more lent though various contrivances. The sorts of people who perform at events like the Munich Security Conference are fond of talking about how the arsenal of democracy is going to save Ukraine.

The trouble is the weapons supplied to Ukraine have not made much of a difference and in many cases have been worthless. French supplied armored vehicles are nothing more than expensive death traps. British Challenger tanks are great on the parade route but unsuitable for actual combat. The German Leopard tanks were sitting ducks against Russian artillery in the summer offensive. Despite the economic advantages, Western weapons have not made much of a difference.

The reason gets back to the tenet of the old right. There is a story in the German tabloid Bild that takes a look at how Germany is supplying armored vehicles. Instead of producing or selecting vehicles best suited for the war, it is an elaborate financial scam that profits the arms dealers and their foreign suppliers but results in expensive and poorly suited vehicles to Ukraine. The German taxpayer is paying three- and four-times retail for equipment that is useless in the war.

To give some perspective, the Russians probably spend the equivalent of one hundred thousand dollars for an armored vehicle. The Germans are paying six hundred thousand dollars, but for the wrong sort of vehicle. This is a pattern that repeats across the Western supply chain to Ukraine. Either suppliers see a chance to unload useless junk at inflated prices or their top-line equipment, in the case of Western tanks, is proving to be ill-suited for the actual fighting.

The Russians, meanwhile, work from that old right tenet. Some things, like fighting land wars on their border, are too important to be subjected to the marketplace. There is competition within the Russian military industrial base, but the winners are not picked by the invisible hand of the marketplace. They are picked by the demands of the military for the situations they are facing. One reason Russian arms tend to be simple compared to American arms, is the military doctrine of the Russians.

It is tempting to think this old right idea applies only to something narrow like war fighting, but war fighting is a consequence of other factors. After the Cold War, the Russians did not embark on a process to ship their manufacturing base to low-cost countries as happened in the West. One reason for that is the Russians do not make profit the singular goal of their society. They set about modernizing their manufacturing base and now they are reaping the rewards.

This is a pattern we see all over the West. Open borders, like slavery in the ancient world, are profitable for society, but it erodes the social capital. It attacks the customs and habits of the people, the things that bind them together as a people. Once you have monetized the social capital of the people and carried it off to vaults in New York, it is no longer available when the crisis comes. It turns out that national borders should not be subject to the crucible of reason.

The crisis surrounding Ukraine, and make no mistake that crisis is spilling over into the West now, is a microcosm for what awaits the West. The reason for that is Western managerial elites turned their societies into for-profit enterprises. The decision point in every matter is whether it profits the managerial elite. Even the abrogation of ancient rights is merely a defense of the bottom line. It turns out that when everything has a price, nothing has value, not even your society.

Plotting The Collapse

Posted on February 7, 2024 by thezman

On 24 February 2022, Russian president Vladimir Putin went on television to announce the Special Military Operation in Ukraine. Russia is a legalistic society, so Putin did not declare war or even say it was an invasion, as those terms carry meaning within Russian law that would trigger other parts of the law. We are now fast approaching the two-year anniversary of what everyone involved thought was going to be a quick and largely bloodless path to a negotiated settlement.

For the last eighteen months Russian leaders have talked about the conflict lasting years, as it is now a proxy war between Russia and its partners and the United States and the vassal states of the West. Some have suggested this war is like the Thirty Years War in that it will radically change the moral and political order in Europe, eventually seeing the United States exit Europe entirely. Others see this as another sign that the West is in crisis and headed for dark times.

Putting aside the big picture aspects of the war, things may be running ahead of schedule, at least from the Russian perspective. The first big item to start the year is the stalemate in Washington over Ukraine funding. To the shock and horror of the neocons and their fellow travelers, the public is not interested in the issue, which means there is no risk to opposing more money for Ukraine. The result is money for Ukraine is probably a dead issue for 2024.

That will have enormous implications for Ukraine. The billions flowing from Washington to Kiev do three important things. First, Zelensky uses the money to buy loyalty, as he is Washington’s bagman. This allows him to buy off the various factions in Ukraine and make sure pro-Washington people are in the government. It is why he has faced little opposition to cancelling the elections. Those inclined to speak out against this have either been bribed or jailed by those being bribed.

That brings up the second thing the money does for Ukraine. Those dollars are not just dumped on Ukraine. Instead, the dollars are converted into Ukrainian hryvnia, which are then deposited into the Ukraine banking system. Of course, Ukraine also gets euros from selling energy products and agricultural products to the EU on special deals and those are converted to hryvnia. This is what allows Kiev to pay government employees and mask the money printing to pay the soldiers.

The final piece of the puzzle is the corruption around converting dollars and euros into weapons that can be used in the war. Even regime media has been forced to admit that a lot of the weapons have ended up on the black market. No one knows how much has been stolen or who is doing the stealing, but Ukraine is a pirate’s cove now, with privateers, official and unofficial, stealing everything they can. Even Kiev is getting worried about the degree of theft.

If the flow of dollars stops or even significantly declines, all three legs of the Ukrainian side of the racket will snap. We may be seeing the first signs of this in the drama between President Zelensky and General Zaluzhny. It has been known for months that Zelensky wants to fire Zaluzhny, but so far, he has not been able to do it. Zaluzhny simply refuses to cooperate by resigning or taking another position. Instead he posts pics of himself with the leader of the ultra-nationalist faction.

When the president of a country wants to fire his top military officer, the officer usually resigns in order to save some face. In some cases, the civilian leader will fire the man in order to make a point. Truman fired MacArthur in order to send a message and underscore the subordination of the military to the civilian government. When the civilian leader cannot fire the top military commander and that commander is openly challenging the civilian leadership, there is a crisis.

Not to put too fine a point on it, but the head of the Wagner organization repeatedly challenged the authority of the Russian government. He even went so far as to stage a ceremonial march on Moscow. The Russians foolishly thought they could tolerate the behavior of Prigozhin until that point. They realized their error and it was not long before Prigozhin’s plane was falling out of the air in pieces.

You also have to add in the fact that Ukraine is a lawless, corrupt kleptocracy now flooded with weapons and soldiers. Last year, one of Zaluzhny’s lieutenants was blown up by a grenade hidden in a gift intended for Zaluzhny. Someone tried to poison the head of the secret police, Kyrylo Budanov, but missed and poisoned his wife and some of his staff instead. Of course, the Russians mysteriously got the coordinates of Budanov’s location and tried to take him out with a missile.

In such conditions, it is not hard to see how the end of dollars from Washington could set off a political crisis. If that is not enough, the war is going poorly for Ukraine as the Russians slowly ramp up the pressure on all fronts. According to Ukraine, they need thirty thousand new recruits a month to keep up their numbers, which means they are losing a thousand men a day in this war. Many of those men are trained, experienced soldiers who cannot be replaced with raw recruits.

As of this writing, the Russians have broken through one of the biggest strongholds in Ukraine, a place called Avdiivka, or often spelled Avdeevka. Since 2014 the Ukrainians have been building this place up with tunnels, bunkers, mine fields and heavy weapons, to be an anchor point of the front line. Reports from Ukraine say the Russians have entered the city and have trapped Ukrainian forces. That would mean a starving out operation will be followed by a surrender.

There are similar stories around smaller fortifications along the front and all of it is due to the shortage of men and material. According to Ukraine, they have mobilized close to a million men so far and they have plans to mobilize half a million more. Those kinds of losses are added pressure on a political system that has major cracks. If the money runs out, it is not long before some factorions think about what sort of deal they can cut with the Russians to end the war.

Collapse is like the famous Hemingway line about bankruptcy. It happens a little at a time and then all of a sudden. Armies collapse slowly over time then they begin to surrender in great waves. Governments collapse over a period of time, punctuated by crises until the principles either flee or end up dead in a final crisis. The current crisis in Ukraine could be just one chapter, but not the final chapter. Maybe the Republicans will produce the money and save the day.

Regardless, all of this points to a catastrophe down the road and probably right around the November presidential elections, which will make for great drama. Eventually the reality of Ukraine will come home to Washington, no matter how hard they try to pretend it does not exist. Like all bankruptcies, the failure of imperial foreign policy proceeds a little here and a little there, all leading to a point when the whole project collapses, maybe taking the empire with it.

The Setting Sun

Posted on January 30, 2024 by thezman

According to news reports the United States is about to get more directly involved in the slowly evolving regional war in the Middle East. The Biden administration is planning to authorize attacks on Iranian assets in response to the attacks on the American bases in northern Iraq and Syria that killed three American soldiers. The nature of the attacks on Iranian assets is unknown, but reports suggest they will focus on militia groups that operate in the Iraq and Syria, allegedly backed by Iran.

Most of the analysis suggests that this is part of a game by the neocons running Biden policy to instigate a war with Iran. They want this game of tit-for-tat, hoping Iran will take the bait and do something the administration could then use as a reason to launch a full-scale attack on Iran itself. Others suggest the administration will avoid hitting anything important in order to avoid escalation. The United States is not prepared for war with Iran, so will try to avoid it.

This raises an important question. Could the United States ever reach a point where it could have a winnable war with Iran? Conventional wisdom does not contemplate this question, as conventional wisdom remains stuck in the 1990’s when the American military was able to blitzkrieg the Iraqi army in Desert Storm. Since then, it has been assumed that every opposing army is no better than the Iraqi army and the results would be the same if they messed with the U.S.

The war in Ukraine should have dispelled that myth. Modern war is not much like Desert Storm, especially when it comes to powerful countries. Iran is a powerful country in the region and she can project power well outside her borders. The fact that the Houthis are firing relatively inexpensive missiles at Israel all the way from Yemen should give everyone pause when thinking about a war with Iran. The Iranians have a vastly better missile program than the Houthis.

In other words, missile technology has changed modern war. The Israelis are finding this out in the now bogged down war in Gaza. They are able to take out most of the rockets and shortrange missiles with their air defenses, but not all. The cost of defending against these missiles is very high, while the cost of producing rockets and missiles is relatively low. That is the major change in modern war. It is about the relative cost of technology between weapon systems.

This brings us back to the dreamed of war with Iran. The dream says it will not be a regular war with an invading army but a massive air assault. The dream of the shock and awe campaign never dies. The trouble is the Iranians have very good air defenses that can take down cruise missiles. Again, this is a lesson from the Ukraine war where the Ukrainians were initially able to defend against Russian missiles. The Iranians would not be able to defeat every missile, but many of them.

This is where things get tricky. The Russians learned that the only way to effectively use their missiles was to first defeat Ukrainian air defenses. They did this by flooding the system with missiles and cheap Iranian drones. Those attacks on Ukraine energy facilities were about draining the stock of Ukraine air defense missiles. Once the Russians depleted the Ukraine air defense, they then started attacking the launchers, radar stations and command centers.

It took the Russians about a year to defeat the Ukraine AD system. They launched an estimated seven thousand missiles of various types and massive numbers of cheap drones that they now produce on their own. The United States has about four thousand cruise missiles it could throw at Iran. It does not have cheap drones it can use to flood the Iranian air defense system. It is not clear how many dummy missiles the United States has for attacking air defenses.

You can quickly see the problem. The way to attack a modern air defense system is not with super smart and super expensive missiles. The air defenses simply keep pace so the cost-benefit ratio never changes. The way to defeat the Iranian air defense system is the way the Russians defeated Ukraine’s system. You throw masses of relatively cheap missiles and drones at it until they run low on ammunition and then you attack the air defense system itself. The U.S. cannot do this.

Then there is the reverse problem. The Iranians have built up their anti-ship systems to the point where they could hit U.S. surface ships operating in the Persian Gulf, which presents an obvious problem. American ships have sophisticated air defense systems but they are not equipped with unlimited missiles. Iran could throw waves of drones at these ships, much as the Russians did to the Ukraine system. This is also what the Houthis have been doing in the Red Sea.

There is a bit of irony to all of this. The long-forgotten Iran – Iraq war was a foreshadowing of the future battlespace. Both Iran and Iraq had relatively expensive aircraft they could deploy against enemy positions, but they dared not risk them against relatively inexpensive air defenses. Iran in particular was able to neutralize the superior Iraq air force this way. The result was something like we are seeing in Ukraine where both sides relied on artillery and massive mine fields.

The microprocessor revolution has allowed air defenses to catchup to even the best air assault weapons in terms of effectiveness. More important, it has allowed air defenses to surpass air power in cost effectiveness. On the other hand, cheap technology has resulted in cheap drones that can evade and overwhelm expensive air defense systems with the result being a stalemate in the air. Like land war after the introduction of the machine gun, air war is now a war of attrition.

The post-Cold War assumption was that American technology was such a force multiplier there was no need to focus on the production of cheaper weapons, especially cheap air weapons. America’s high-tech air force and missile systems would own the skies in any war. The result of this technological revolution is that American air power is no longer unchallengeable and that means the American military is no longer an unstoppable force that can bully the world.

One final change makes war with Iran unlikely. In the two Iraq wars, the United States could muster forces in Kuwait and Saudi Arabia. In the first war they also had forces in Turkey, but the Turks refused in the second war. This created a logistical problem leading to a much slower invasion. In a war with Iran, the Saudis would not host American troops and the Turks would certainly not do it. In other words, America no longer has the local support for a land war in the region.

This is why there will not be a war with Iran. Even if the United States does something stupid and attacks Iran itself, the Iranians know time is on their side. America cannot maintain those bases in Iraq and Syria much longer. Iran can use local militias to attrit those facilities until they must be withdrawn. In the next decade the United States will not be a player in the region. This is why the Saudis are in BRICS and why Iran can bide its time and avoid a war with the United States.

The Biden administration will put on a show by attacking caves and bunkers in Iraq and Syria, but avoid hitting anything important. There is a good chance they warn Iran in advance in order to make sure nothing bad happens. A flunky from the administration will come out and explain why these attacks were important and the slobbering toadies in regime media will dutifully repeat it. Meanwhile the sun sets a bit more on the American empire in the Middle East.

Fifth Column State

Posted on January 4, 2024 by thezman

No one knows for sure who coined the term “fifth column” but it seems to have originated in Spain during the civil war. Legend has it that Franco said in a telegram that there were four Nationalist columns approaching Madrid, and a fifth column waiting to attack from the inside. Given that the telegram was discovered long after the phrase was in use suggests another source, but maybe Franco used this phrasing in other formats and that is how it got into circulation.

A fifth column is a group of people that conspire to undermine a larger group from within by disguising themselves as supporters. It is not just random individuals who disagree with official policy, like protestors. The members of the fifth column coordinate their efforts with an outside group, usually an enemy of the group. Unlike spies, who are usually motivated by greed or resentment, the members of the fifth column have a primary loyalty to the outside group for whom they work.

This is all relevant today as the client list of Jeffrey Epstein makes the rounds and is used by partisans in the usual partisan way. Lost in the usual bellowing is the fact that Epstein was an agent of a foreign state. The most likely explanation for his existence is that he was paid to get dirt on prominent Americans. He was running what people in the wilderness of mirrors call a honey trap. He used girls and boys to play on the sexual weaknesses of his targets on his island in the Caribbean.

Of course, the foreign state for whom Epstein worked was Israel. His long-time paramour was Ghislaine Maxwell, daughter of Ian Robert Maxwell, whose real name was Ján Ludvík Hyman Binyamin Hoch. Maxwell was a high-level intelligence officer for Mossad his entire life. So high level, in fact, that when he died, all of the living leaders of Israel showed up at his burial. More important, six former heads of Mossad were there, and Maxwell was buried on the Mount of Olives in Jerusalem.

It could very well be a one in six million coincidence that Epstein was hooked up with the daughter of the most prominent spy in Israeli history, but the law of parsimony says that this was not a coincidence. It does not take long to see gaps in Epstein’s official biography, so we know he was not a middling school teacher who suddenly discovered he was an investment genius. Someone was underwriting his operation, and the most likely culprit is the state of Israel.

Espionage is as old as nations, so it should come as no surprise that Israel spies on America and Americans. It relies on American stupidity and generosity to underwrite the Zionist project, so informational asymmetry is important to them. It is why Israel stole nuclear material from a United States company, even though it resulted in a massive contamination of an area around Pittsburgh. The Apollo Affair was just part of a program to use America to further the Zionist project.

The Epstein case and the Apollo affair have another link. Unlike most espionage cases, the people doing the treachery were not motivated by greed. The oldest and most successful way of turning someone into a spy is to give them money. As George Washington said, no man is so virtuous as to refuse the highest bidder. Most men with secrets to sell are not particularly virtuous. In the case of Israeli spying, money was not the primary motivation for these crimes.

This is where the fifth column concept comes into the picture. One of the most aggressive and powerful lobbies in Washington is the Israel lobby. This is something everyone knows, but most people are afraid to discuss. Pat Buchanan was anathematized for pointing out the obvious. The Israel lobby does not limit itself to bribing politicians. It is everywhere in America. These documentaries (here, here) done by Al Jazeera a few years ago are a good primer.

The American Israel Public Affairs Committee, AIPAC, is one of the wealthiest and most powerful lobbying groups in America. Their primary reason to exist is to convince Americans, especially politicians, that the interests of Israel are the primary interest of America, and therefore can never be questioned. It is right there on their website, so it is not as if they are hiding it. Prominent Zionist like Joel Pollak and Ben Shapiro make this precise argument every day.

Up until now, no one has cared about this as the cost of underwriting Israel was small and times were generally good. Times have changed and people are naturally wondering if a luxury item like money to Israel is a good idea. Billions in Israel funding is jammed up in Congress because the line of foreigners demanding billions is getting long and the needs of Americans are not being met. Millions of foreigners are flooding over the border and Biden is worried about Israel and Ukraine.

What all of this points to is a defect of democracy. The American concept of democracy is a continent sized town hall meeting. It is a marketplace of ideas where competing interests hash it out with one another. Since it is a marketplace, it means everything, and everyone is for sale. This is how foreign interests like the Israel lobby are able to turn the instrument of American democracy to their favor at our expense. It is also how economic elites can undermine public will.

Imagine you are the king of a country and one of your advisors, a fellow with unusual headgear, is constantly lobbying you on behalf of a principality. At first you think he just favors that prince but then you learn he is related to that prince. Not only that, but he is also part of a network that is loyal to that prince. You will have that advisor sent to the tower because that person has misrepresented himself and he has worked to undermine you to the benefit of a potential rival.

In American style democracy, this logic is flipped on its head. The people’s representatives all come with a price tag on their chest. Anyone, foreign or domestic, can buy their loyalty. The reason the Israel lobby exists at all is the system rewards those who lavish politicians with money. It is the reason that every congressman quickly moves from representative of his people to Washington to Washington’s representative to the people of his district.

It is why America is a fifth column state, because it is defined by the players who operate like fifth columns. Israel is just one of the best at the game, but every country has a similar operation going in Washington. People forget that the Chinese bankrolled the Clinton operation. Charlie Trie was just a good ol’ boy from Arkansas, when he was not a bagman for the Chinese government. When everything has a price, nothing has any value and that is what we get from our political system.

The Long Collapse

Posted on December 18, 2023 by thezman

Note: Our good friend Ed Dutton has a new book titled, The Naked Classroom: The Evolutionary Psychology of Your Time at School. While watching paint dry I intend to read it and post up a review this week. Please but two copies, one for yourself and one for a friend or family member.

Note: Behind the green door I have a post titled Eloi, Morlocks and the Cable Guy, a post titled Missing The Executioner, and the Sunday podcast. You can sign up for a green door account at SubscribeStar or Substack.

Societal collapse is a topic that has always had a following, especially on this side of the great divide, despite the fact that there are no signs of it. You can point to current trends and say they could one day lead to collapse, something like the systemic abuse of the money supply or the degradation of the American military. On the other hand, liberal democracies have shown an ability to self-correct. The money supply and the military were a mess in the 1970’s until they were fixed.

The closest we have come to witnessing the collapse of a complex society was the disintegration of the Soviet Union. Over a thirty-year period, the member nations of the communist bloc had slowly integrated their economies and military, under the umbrella the communist world, so when these countries broke free, what followed was a period of chaos that eventually spread to Russia itself. The 1990’s were a dark time in Russia, marked by lawlessness and social chaos.

Even so, these countries that made up the the communist world did not disintegrate after the fall of the Soviet Union. The captive nations quickly reoriented themselves economically and politically toward the West. Russia had a dark period of chaos and confusion, but eventually regained itself. In other words, these societies did not collapse, even though the political-economy collapsed. They simply had to refashion their economics and politics, which they did.

Another example might be Iraq after the United States toppled Saddam. The main reason Iraq fell into chaos and the American military had to fight a guerilla war to gain control of the country was the old system collapsed. Of course, that would not have happened if not for the thousands of tons of explosive dropped on the country by the American military. It was more of a self-controlled demolition more than a collapse of a complex society in the Joseph Tainter sense of the phrase.

The coming year may provide some examples that are not quite what Tainter described, but not quite like the recent examples either. Ukraine, for example, seems to be on the cusp of collapse after two long years of war. The political class is in turmoil, leading many to predict a coup against Zelensky. The army is running out of men and material to hold back the Russians. Both Europe and Washington are now slow-walking future aid due to the growing problems in the country.

It is possible that we see something like Iraq, where a guerilla army forms up after the regular army collapses. The Bandera elements could try to seize power, leading to a civil war between them and other factions. The minority groups in the West could see this as a chance to gain their freedom. The term Carpatho-Ruthenian could start appearing in Western media. There could also be a general collapse of civil order, including the operation of the infrastructure.

Unlike Iraq, there is a sidecar to this that bears watching. For two years much of the political class in the West has been convinced that Ukraine just needs to hold the line, as the Russians will eventually collapse. This was the prediction made at the start by the neocons who control Western foreign policy. We are seeing some glimpses of politicians waking up to reality. No one knows what will happen when reality comes rushing in like a winter wind blowing open the door.

It is not just a credibility issue here. Hundreds of billions of booty have been promised by those politicians to powerful interests. For example, Blackrock has been buying up land rights in Ukraine, expecting a Ukraine victory. What happens when the new Ukraine government repudiates these deals? No one really knows how much money has changed hands on the assumption that Western oligarchs will get to plunder the place after the Ukrainians defeat the Russians.

It is easy to forget that the imaginary world in which our rulers operate is their reality, so when that reality slams into genuine reality, there will be consequences. We tend to think of collapse in terms of practical things not working but collapse also applies to narrative frameworks and beliefs. For over thirty years the Global American Empire has rested on the assumptions that arise from being an invisible force. When that premise is no longer valid, there will be consequences.

Of course, there are important elections coming in the next year. The most significant of which is un the United States. The only Ukraine skeptic is Donald Trump, who could be forced off the ticket for that reason. People forget that Trump’s primary crime against the regime, as far as the regime is concerned, is his opposition to the neocons. They slimed him with the Russian collusion hoax and then impeached him over Ukraine. A collapse of Ukraine will add some spice to this already spicy stew.

If they do force Trump off the ballot, that means the candidates in the general election will be Ukraine fanatics controlled by the neocons. Imagine the 2008 election was between John McCain and John Bolton, against the backdrop of the Iraq fiasco and you have a glimpse of a possible future. If on the other hand Trump is on the ballot, imagine him pounding away at this every day until election day. It is possible that 2024 makes 2016 look like a debate at the philatelic society.

Closer to home, in the dissident sphere, a weird subculture has developed around Ukraine and the war. This debate provides a nice summary of their beliefs. It is as if the people in that pro-Ukraine subculture were given a potion by the neocons that causes them to repeat all of their most absurd claims, without realizing they are parroting the people they claim to oppose. If Ukraine collapses, we could witness something similar to what happened with the Seekers in this famous study.

Failure has consequences and collapse is a form of failure. Unlike a typo or a math error, collapse takes with it whole systems of thought and belief because it is the result of those systems and beliefs. Maybe all of this is avoided, and Ukraine bumps along to some new arrangements that avoids a catastrophe. That is something Tainter observed about the modern age. Collapse is much more difficult because all human systems are interconnected, so they have external support.

Ukraine will provide a test of that in 2024. Russia does not want collapse, as that just makes their task more difficult. The Poles do not want millions more Ukrainian refugees, so they do not want collapse. There are forces withing Ukraine that would like a soft landing, even if it means capitulating to Russia. Maybe Tainter is right, and the structure of the West will prevent collapse. On the other hand, the failure of Project Ukraine is just one step in the collapse of the West.

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