This situation seems like the overture of the "John Lennon's 'Imagine'" theory of geopolitics that has been fueled by hippie boomer idealism for more than half a century. Putin is the bad guy, and just like in the Marvel movies, the bad guys *don't win*.
As soon as I saw the stories about Lithuania, it became horrifically apparent to me that (if not all, at least enough of) these people *actually believe this sh*t*. They really are that stupid.
After 100 years of failed Wilsonian liberal imperialism, our intellectual betters in Congress and managerial elite still continue to drink this nonsensical kool aid while cheer leading Ukraine down the primrose path of destruction. Escalation is now oddly synonymous with diplomacy.
But realistically it would take decades for Ukraine to dislodge the Russian Federation from its occupied territories in the East without the assistance of NATO/American boots on the ground. Now the most viable option for Ukraine will to be concede territory to Russia, a notion that Henry Kissinger concedes that this the right thing to do and now even President Biden has said the quiet part out loud as well. But hey, in the mean time, our allies (protectorates) are frothing at the mouth for Joey to whip out his Black Amex card to bankroll a war with a forgone conclusion.
Outstanding! The US is now undeniably a co-belligerent in a war against Russia and the risk of the war escalating across Europe and beyond is high. Assuming that we are not all consumed in a nuclear exchange, the Ukraine can expect to see the Donbass and the entire Pontic steppe either directly returned to Russia or reorganised as independent territories aligned with Moscow, a buffer between Russia and the West .
The urgent questions are simple: how will the Ukraine remain financially viable without the hydrocarbon reserves (coal and natural gas) now in Russia's hands, who owns the liabilities on the burgeoning debts of Kiev and how long will the European public be able to afford paying premium prices for US-sourced energy once their industries have been rendered uncompetitive by the sanctions? The accelerated deindustrialisation of Europe guarantees the end of social peace and political moderation across the continent.
How soon before the US elite realise that the financial sanctions have dire implications for them too?
The US is setting up a constructed default of the bond market (by attempting to disrupt Russia making payments on its debts) and wrecking contract and property law (by seizing Russian assets without due process).
Biden is not just exposing any number of banks and hedge funds in the West to counter-party risks (with implications for the stability of the financial system in America), he is also setting the stage for the normalisation of asset-confiscation as a standard instrument of US statecraft.
This is useful for dealing with client-states and vassals, but how soon before this is used to settle scores within the US oligarchy itself? If Trump can be targeted as a pawn of Putin for the advantage of the Dems, how soon before other disfavoured or disruptive members of the oligarchy are targeted as commercial partners of the Kremlin? We indeed live in very interesting times.
The mistake, Curtis, was getting Ukraine to give up its nukes; by making Russia the sole nuclear power among the former Soviet Bloc states, we guaranteed Russia could reconstitute the Soviet Empire at will: Expanding NATO actually mitigated this mistake to some extent, but it would have been better to allow Poland and Ukraine to keep their nukes and form their own anti-Russian defensive bloc. That way, they could deter Russia and keep the US's hands clean---acting as a sort of circuit breaker against total escalation at the increased risk of partial escalation.
The other big mistake was not arming Ukraine before the conflict. If your goal is to deter an invasion, you do that by getting weapons in before. Obviously, this means the deep state wanted the invasion to happen in order to grind down Russia's military capacity.
We must not repeat this later mistake. We must arm Taiwan now. Anyway, Slava Ukraine and Fuck the Russians and the Chicom's now and forever.
I wouldn't overestimate the State Department influence in this particular case. Lithuania, as well as other Baltic states, has quite a large account to settle by itself, after 50 years of Soviet occupation.
(Also, Putin is not a reactionary. I can't stress this enough. He is a leftist using some reactionary rhetorics, opposite of Hitler, who was a rightist using some progressive rhetorics; future historians will have a very interesting time figuring out why both outcomes were so similar)
I read someone (a smart someone) who said we all secretly believe we live at the end of time, the end of history, the end of the world. I have a certain morbid curiosity, hum!
I'm an American living in Brussels - I've had several awkward dinner party conversations with standard pro-EU/western/liberal Belgians and French where I ask them straight out if they are willing to send Belgian troops to their death defending Baltic soil - they are quite sour about the idea and are sour on US running NATO but withdraw from NATO or change the relationship with the US - they can't conceptualize it...
Speaking from experience, fighting for your life in a war teaches you that, before the war there were alternatives. Once the war starts, there are only outcomes. Taking the bell off the tiger becomes much harder when the war starts.
Putin and Russia do diplomacy Solzhenitsyn style which is the current war. They escalate to de-escalate. This is what Russia does and the US and Western governments have never understood the Russian mindset so they spent decades demonizing Russia and Putin. This proxy war will end like all other proxy wars: when the US and West get tired of throwing billions at the problem and walk away.
They are making the same mistake with China. Have they put the bell on the wrong tiger?
I'm not unduly concerned. Putin is a monkey but he isn't that braindead. Besides, I'm prepared.
Honestly I wish the Ukrainians the best of luck. I don't have a problem selling them guns or Marshall planning them. Those are to our economic benefit, and to the detriment of geopolitical rivals - groups who will be our rivals no matter who is in charge.
Ultimately, there's no point in worrying. God or whatever else will deliver to us the future. Nuclear armageddon is a pathway to nature's freedom, in all its terrifying splendor. There's very little worth preserving in this society of last men. Being sent back to the bronze age isn't the end of the world.
It looks to me as if the Pentagon, Treasury, Democrat pollsters, and thus most of the Biden admin want to close this thing down and dump it on the Europeans. State (i.e. the Kagan Extended Family), most of Congress, and nearly all media want the US to do whatever it takes--including a "winnable" nuclear exchange--to avoid the perception of giving in to Putin. My guess is that the money people and the Obama faction will prove stronger than the neolib/neocon world remakers. The former will simply have to convince the latter that the big prize is China--and that Mr. Xi is at least as despicable as Mr. Putin if only they'll give him a chance.
I think this is one of those areas where our regime’s general decline in ability and competence since the days of FDR is actually a good thing. It’s more insane in some ways but at the same time I think their general inability to organize a Machiavellian plot to draw Russia into a trap will be the saving grace, fingers crossed
This situation seems like the overture of the "John Lennon's 'Imagine'" theory of geopolitics that has been fueled by hippie boomer idealism for more than half a century. Putin is the bad guy, and just like in the Marvel movies, the bad guys *don't win*.
As soon as I saw the stories about Lithuania, it became horrifically apparent to me that (if not all, at least enough of) these people *actually believe this sh*t*. They really are that stupid.
God have mercy on us.
After 100 years of failed Wilsonian liberal imperialism, our intellectual betters in Congress and managerial elite still continue to drink this nonsensical kool aid while cheer leading Ukraine down the primrose path of destruction. Escalation is now oddly synonymous with diplomacy.
But realistically it would take decades for Ukraine to dislodge the Russian Federation from its occupied territories in the East without the assistance of NATO/American boots on the ground. Now the most viable option for Ukraine will to be concede territory to Russia, a notion that Henry Kissinger concedes that this the right thing to do and now even President Biden has said the quiet part out loud as well. But hey, in the mean time, our allies (protectorates) are frothing at the mouth for Joey to whip out his Black Amex card to bankroll a war with a forgone conclusion.
Outstanding! The US is now undeniably a co-belligerent in a war against Russia and the risk of the war escalating across Europe and beyond is high. Assuming that we are not all consumed in a nuclear exchange, the Ukraine can expect to see the Donbass and the entire Pontic steppe either directly returned to Russia or reorganised as independent territories aligned with Moscow, a buffer between Russia and the West .
The urgent questions are simple: how will the Ukraine remain financially viable without the hydrocarbon reserves (coal and natural gas) now in Russia's hands, who owns the liabilities on the burgeoning debts of Kiev and how long will the European public be able to afford paying premium prices for US-sourced energy once their industries have been rendered uncompetitive by the sanctions? The accelerated deindustrialisation of Europe guarantees the end of social peace and political moderation across the continent.
How soon before the US elite realise that the financial sanctions have dire implications for them too?
The US is setting up a constructed default of the bond market (by attempting to disrupt Russia making payments on its debts) and wrecking contract and property law (by seizing Russian assets without due process).
Biden is not just exposing any number of banks and hedge funds in the West to counter-party risks (with implications for the stability of the financial system in America), he is also setting the stage for the normalisation of asset-confiscation as a standard instrument of US statecraft.
This is useful for dealing with client-states and vassals, but how soon before this is used to settle scores within the US oligarchy itself? If Trump can be targeted as a pawn of Putin for the advantage of the Dems, how soon before other disfavoured or disruptive members of the oligarchy are targeted as commercial partners of the Kremlin? We indeed live in very interesting times.
The mistake, Curtis, was getting Ukraine to give up its nukes; by making Russia the sole nuclear power among the former Soviet Bloc states, we guaranteed Russia could reconstitute the Soviet Empire at will: Expanding NATO actually mitigated this mistake to some extent, but it would have been better to allow Poland and Ukraine to keep their nukes and form their own anti-Russian defensive bloc. That way, they could deter Russia and keep the US's hands clean---acting as a sort of circuit breaker against total escalation at the increased risk of partial escalation.
The other big mistake was not arming Ukraine before the conflict. If your goal is to deter an invasion, you do that by getting weapons in before. Obviously, this means the deep state wanted the invasion to happen in order to grind down Russia's military capacity.
We must not repeat this later mistake. We must arm Taiwan now. Anyway, Slava Ukraine and Fuck the Russians and the Chicom's now and forever.
Hey, at least Lithuania is on the right side of history.
I wouldn't overestimate the State Department influence in this particular case. Lithuania, as well as other Baltic states, has quite a large account to settle by itself, after 50 years of Soviet occupation.
(Also, Putin is not a reactionary. I can't stress this enough. He is a leftist using some reactionary rhetorics, opposite of Hitler, who was a rightist using some progressive rhetorics; future historians will have a very interesting time figuring out why both outcomes were so similar)
I read someone (a smart someone) who said we all secretly believe we live at the end of time, the end of history, the end of the world. I have a certain morbid curiosity, hum!
I'm an American living in Brussels - I've had several awkward dinner party conversations with standard pro-EU/western/liberal Belgians and French where I ask them straight out if they are willing to send Belgian troops to their death defending Baltic soil - they are quite sour about the idea and are sour on US running NATO but withdraw from NATO or change the relationship with the US - they can't conceptualize it...
Speaking from experience, fighting for your life in a war teaches you that, before the war there were alternatives. Once the war starts, there are only outcomes. Taking the bell off the tiger becomes much harder when the war starts.
Putin and Russia do diplomacy Solzhenitsyn style which is the current war. They escalate to de-escalate. This is what Russia does and the US and Western governments have never understood the Russian mindset so they spent decades demonizing Russia and Putin. This proxy war will end like all other proxy wars: when the US and West get tired of throwing billions at the problem and walk away.
They are making the same mistake with China. Have they put the bell on the wrong tiger?
I'm not unduly concerned. Putin is a monkey but he isn't that braindead. Besides, I'm prepared.
Honestly I wish the Ukrainians the best of luck. I don't have a problem selling them guns or Marshall planning them. Those are to our economic benefit, and to the detriment of geopolitical rivals - groups who will be our rivals no matter who is in charge.
Ultimately, there's no point in worrying. God or whatever else will deliver to us the future. Nuclear armageddon is a pathway to nature's freedom, in all its terrifying splendor. There's very little worth preserving in this society of last men. Being sent back to the bronze age isn't the end of the world.
It looks to me as if the Pentagon, Treasury, Democrat pollsters, and thus most of the Biden admin want to close this thing down and dump it on the Europeans. State (i.e. the Kagan Extended Family), most of Congress, and nearly all media want the US to do whatever it takes--including a "winnable" nuclear exchange--to avoid the perception of giving in to Putin. My guess is that the money people and the Obama faction will prove stronger than the neolib/neocon world remakers. The former will simply have to convince the latter that the big prize is China--and that Mr. Xi is at least as despicable as Mr. Putin if only they'll give him a chance.
I think this is one of those areas where our regime’s general decline in ability and competence since the days of FDR is actually a good thing. It’s more insane in some ways but at the same time I think their general inability to organize a Machiavellian plot to draw Russia into a trap will be the saving grace, fingers crossed
Trivia: Kaliningrad is what was formerly known as Königsberg in East Prussia. The city of Kant and Hilbert. There must be some deep irony there.
In that vast warren of rodent and cockroach infested offices down at Foggy Bottom is there perchance a Danzig Corridor?
This bit of polemic by a cynical Jewish poet reminds me of a work by another cynical Jewish poet, which seems increasingly relevant:
https://youtube.com/watch?v=frAEmhqdLFs
Strange how there was none of this panic when soviet pilots were flying in Vietnam.