60 Comments

Thank you Aurelien for this excellent summary. I really liked the picture of the western political class and it was striking ! I have noted for a long time that my opinion about Western politicians is that they seem to be bred so alike, I am sure that they go through a long process of observation, selection and training, where talent does not matter, only servility and the slavish execution of centrally issued directives, regardless of whether how does this affect the population of the country led by them ! Currently, there is no one ( maybe Mr Orban ) in the West who is as charismatic and talented a politician as De Gaulle, Kohl, Schröder , Kekkonen, etc., etc. If we look at today's female politicians, I have the feeling that their admission requires mandatory stupidity, von der Leyen, Sandu, Kaili, Baerbock and the others ! I can't think of a western politician who would look after the interests of his country, they are indifferent to it, just look at Keir Starmer, when he was asked yesterday if he wasn't afraid that a nuclear response would hit Great Britain, he just grinned ! In conclusion, we citizens of European Union countries have apparently fallen into a trap, because a conspiring group is holding the citizens of the Union dressed as leading politicians and they do not care what fate awaits us, is there any hope for them or the nuclear winter will end our world !

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@Kun Bela

At this point, my only hope lies in the belief that nuclear war would be bad for real estate values.

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Well, my fear is not small, since my loved ones live in the countries considered the main targets by the Russians !

As for the properties and their owners you mentioned, their owners can hope in the insane delusion that if such an unpleasant factor as humanity ceases to exist, then after a few years they could take the planet as their sole owners ! In this case, I hope the Russian or other leadership will have such a sense of humor that the geographical coordinates of their hiding places have already been programmed into their missiles as the number one target !

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It would certainly put prices up in New Zealand, but there might not be anyone to buy.

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That other existential threat, the happening as I type has been bad for real estate values with no (good) end in sight.

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*In Cape Cod, climate change is devastating beachfront property values*

'Luxury seaside homes are dropping to bargain prices due to beach erosion'

https://therealdeal.com/national/2024/08/18/climate-change-driving-down-oceanfront-property-values/

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*Forget prices and interest rates, climate is real estate’s biggest threat*

'Declining property values, accelerating risk and fewer safety nets reveal a grim outlook'

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"The winds ripped the roof off of Tropicana Field and knocked the crane at a John Catsimatidis project into the Tampa Bay Times building. Tornadoes spawned across Florida and tore through homes. And the totality of the damage from Hurricane Milton is still being assessed.

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What is known about Milton’s impact is that it could have been much worse. The storm formed as a Category 5 over the Gulf of Mexico, and fortunately weakened to a Category 3 by the time it made landfall on Wednesday night. Milton came on the heels of Hurricane Helene, which ravaged large swaths of the American South and has a death toll that is still growing.

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Damages from both storms could cost as much as $200 billion.

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The realities of climate change means the world is facing more extreme, more frequent catastrophes as witnessed in the aftermath of the recent hurricanes, as well as the Southern California wildfires.

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While the Airport Fire in Orange and Riverside Counties is now 95 percent contained, according to the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection, a reported 160 structures were completely destroyed, and another 34 damaged. More than half of the properties wiped out were homes, according to published reports.

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The losses from these events are extraordinary examples of the kinds of risks homeowners and real estate investors face now and well into the future."

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https://therealdeal.com/national/2024/10/13/climate-damages-are-greatest-threat-to-real-estate/

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The home insurance industry is not long for this world either.

It's not just the Western elites who are guilty of denial and magical thinking. On the other hand, Western elites have sure forked out a lot of money over the last decade for dooms day luxury bunkers with extra robust air conditioning.

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At least some of the problem lies in the US Young Leaders programme. America seems to think it will be safer/wiser to turn out European Leaders to their specification and turn their countries into vassal states instead of intelligent allies. It was ever thus: de Gaulle advised JFK to stay out of Vietnam and we know how that advice turned out. Same thing with Chirac's advice about Iraq (+that of Germany and Russia) in 2003. Since, French presidents: Sarkozy, Hollande and Macron have been of the vassal school. America has only just started to get what it has developed for itself. A barrage of shots to the foot.

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This has recently been confirmed by the retired colonel Larry Wilkerson. 20 years ago he was working in the state department. After the refusal of so many European allies to go along with the war in Iraq they established a program to get the right people elected overseas, "with overt and covert means". Which is probably one of the reasons we are stuck with the pliable morons ruling us now. Interview with Wilkerson:

https://youtu.be/UnPl1ETy_C8?si=l8gi19yOhVv9Vz_z&t=2501

One former member of the German Green Party (Jutta Ditfurth) told the Spiegel in an interview around 2012 that any partymember traveling to the US was approached by the henchmen of the US government. Today the party leaderships consists basically only of the useful idiots of the state department.

There are probably also cultural reasons, the interaction between social media and our democracy, but to a large part the degeneration of the European political class was the result of deliberate manipulation.

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Excellent !

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I think Aurelian puts his finger on a root problem: the imperatives of success in bureaucracies leads to a certain kind of individual who never admits failure and never lets go of the sunk costs of failure. This means that all the advantages of failure -- learning and adaptation -- are lost. Stupid people just keep doubling down.

This dovetails nicely with David Brooks' recent essay in the Atlantic "How the Ivy League Broke America." This is a critique of an educational system whose definitions of "success" and merit are based on IQ and test-taking prowess. The resultant inbred PMC is a caste of careerist, conformist, arrogant and narrow leaders.

https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2024/12/meritocracy-college-admissions-social-economic-segregation/680392/

Once in power, they select underlings just like themselves who are "superior" in this narrow sense, leading to more in-breeding and narrowness. This dovetails nicely with Cippola's five laws of stupidity. Law #1 is deadly and relevant to this essay, i.e.:

"#1. Always and inevitably, each of us underestimates the number of stupid individuals in the world."

A corollary is that we underestimate the number of stupid individuals in positions of power. We think promotions in bureaucracies is a selection process that leads to more ability (less stupidity), but the exact opposite occurs. Stupid people prefer the protective blanket of other stupid people around them. The donor class also seems to prefer stupid people who can simply take a bribe and follow orders. So there is really no check against the rise of the stupid.

https://psychology-spot.com/basic-laws-of-human-stupidity/

Case in point: Joe Biden--one of our stupidest Presidents in recent history.

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To be fair, Halfwit Joe (his best days were a long time ago, and his best days were never very good) is one of the few presidents in recent memory never to have attended any Ivy League school.

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What the hell is this assumption of " west innocently fighting wars" ever since 1945?

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And if you're a stupid President (Biden), you need an even stupider VP (Kamala Harris).

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If one were previously historically literate (or have followed this series on "maneuver warfare")?

https://bigserge.substack.com/p/the-history-of-battle-maneuver-part?triedRedirect=true

One will repeatedly have read assessments of when any plausible route to an effectual "victory" end state was possible/became impossible for the Axis powers (especially Germany) during WWII, along with analysis of what a meaningful "victory" might even HAVE BEEN.

With those lessons in mind, a good number of rank military amateurs (including my little, old, 4F at age 18 self!) have been GOBSMACKED as our deep state first dropped the hammer on this exercise in wishful thinking conducted with live ammo, then apparently believed their own propaganda and continually cherry picked their analysts & advisors from those who reinforced their own prejudices + wishful thinking.

And here we are today.

Well past any possibility that the self deluded Brzezinski/RAND acolyte neoliberal ruling class administrators desired outcome (permanently subjugating all of Asia!) is possible, with these same tools of our rulers now needing to choose their best path between bad and worse (not OUR best outcome, THEIRS).

Going by the behaviors of Germany and Japan during the second phase of WWII after the point at which a cold, rational assessment of relative industrial/raw material & logistic chains alongside manpower considerations would show that it was past time to quit attacking, I do NOT expect a rational plan from USA/NATO leaders in light of either the physical reality of materiel & manpower nor realistic interpretations of what Russian Federation actually SAY they are after, culturally/emotionally need to feel secure or clearly intend to do about all that.

These tools show signs of riding this down in flames a bit further, possibly all the way to ground level. History doesn't repeat but it certainly does rhyme.

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I largely agree but there’s a problem: the lack of contact with reality in combination with the obvious lack of tangible successes means that the nato-crowd keeps escalating with no regard for consequences.

I have been hesitant to do so, but I am starting to agree with those that say that Russia needs to hit something substantial on nato territory just to make every one aware of that this is a real war fought in the real world.

Hitting something murrican would be a bad idea, but luckily the English just entered the fray by attacking the Kursk region with a swarm of storm shadows.

So hitting a military base in England could be an option especially since, let’s be honest, nobody in Europe likes the English anyway.

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Russia territory is as sacred as NATO's territory

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An italian translation, as usual:

"Una strana sconfitta.

Un fallimento della comprensione in Ucraina."

https://trying2understandw.blogspot.com/2024/11/una-strana-sconfitta-un-fallimento.html

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Thanks as always Marco.

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there's certainly a distinct underpants gnomes vibe to the western approach

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@Adrian Smith

Hey, guys, what WAS step 2?

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For the average frustrated western politician, public servant or policy intellectual, getting kicked out of The Serious People Consensus is the worst fate imaginable.

Anyway, The West called Putin’s bluff. Again..The West will continue to escalate, intentionally abusing The Sunk Cost Fallacy. Expect Taurus missiles next, probably before the inauguration in the US, which is the only thing in europe that matters, since europeans have less independence than whipped dogs.

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You, yourself, are exhibit A of the cluelessness exhibited by western political leadership. You're constantly prattling on about bluffs, humiliation, fixated on short term events with no appreciation or recognition of strategy. The idea of admitting wrongness is anathema, so onto the next, relatively meaningless news story to prove why this time you will most definitely be right!

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Since it is Russia that has always been reactive and not proactive, continually making idle threats and getting called out, keep it up!

Western missiles hitting Russia is surely a sign of winning, right?

Had Russia used adequate force from the beginning, the war would be over and the point moot. However, I refuse to make excuses for failure.

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All you do is make excuses for your own failure. You don't have to repeat your mantra again, you've made a profession of being wrong on the internets. By screeching about how Ukraine is winning, you're just subjecting yourself to further humiliation.

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I never said Ukraine was winning so quit arguing with strawmen. Ukraine is losing, but NATO will step in once Ukraine gets too wobbly, as the West smells blood.

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Oh dear, keep digging. This is what you just wrote in the comment above:

"Western missiles hitting Russia is surely a sign of winning, right?" There is only one way to interpret that, so no straw manning on my end.

It's quite amusing that you think Russia is intimidated by NATO stepping in. You don't seem to understand the balance of power or the very essence of this conflict. Did you even read the essay by Aurelien? You also clearly know nothing of Russians nor Ukrainians.

For some of us, this isn't a spectator sport, our friends and family are fighting and dying. I actually live within range of those Western made missiles that you are getting so excited about. The idea that I, or any of my neighbors, consider them a threat of any kind is laughable. You need to quit your armchair analysis and leave this conflict to those who take it seriously.

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So tell us what you think will happen. Not your sad attempts at insult but concrete prediction. For that matter Aurelien has been predicting Ukrainian collapse for a long time now, but it never seems to happen.

And I lived in Russia and Ukraine for much.of my adult life and speak both languages, so tell us who died and made you the Slav Whisperer.

For that matter, I am not happy about western intervention. I detest the regime in Kiev and seek its destruction. But I also know enough to know that what I want is not necessarily what will happen.

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This statement got me philosophical:

> Yet as the situation deteriorates and Russian forces move forward everywhere, there is no real sign that the West is becoming more reality-based in its understanding, and every probability that it will learn nothing, and continue to live in its constructed alternative reality until it is dragged out forcibly.

"Reality" is a moving target, but I do think there are tacks and strategies that face toward more difficult things, as well as those that are more evasive and escapist.

I think it is human nature to always seek the easiest route, the easiest solution, and to kick the can down the road for as long as possible. When people come along and say, "we should face some of the music; this is going to come back to bite us later; this is going to enslave or swallow our grandchildren," we don't like hearing that, so instead we'll listen to someone who speaks more softly and encouragingly, perhaps panderingly.

It's not fun to be a part of the downward turns in these historical cycles. Any helpful or encouraging advice welcome.

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A really good read, and many thanks.

Oddly enough, just before reading this I finished off the 1960's series on WW1, replete with the fall of empires and the impact of years of attrition - the final 3 or 4 episodes are very instructive IMHO to what we see today. This was made in the 1960's when we still had serious people with memories of the events, and also having just prevailed in WW2. I doubt such a series could be made today, such is the bubble that the good and great choose to inhabit. Anyway, the point I am trying to make is that I agree that "we" have forgotten how serious matters are dealt with and resolved. We believe we are much smarter than our forebears, but the reality is we (collectively in the West) are intellectual lightweights and unwilling to accept the need for clear thinking and "hard men for hard times". The impact with reality is proving difficult.

For those that are interested: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Great_War_(TV_series) Worth a watch with an eye to our world over 100 years later. For a TV documentary it is remarkably accurate and stands the test of time.

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Robert Ryan was a good narrator too.

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I believe that the inability to understand logistical matters doesn't come from dependence of delivery chains, on the contrary, they ought to have taught the westerners of how they work and that they were indispensable.

The inability comes from the disdain for production and material matters in general. Production is something they have left to the Chinese to deal with, they deal themselves with patents, copyrights, financial wheeldealing and political extortion. Or they thought they could do it.

And, as I pointed out last week, the triumph of this kind of thinking was linked to the triumph of a class fraction, the rentiers, that stepped into power when the big industrial corporations turned to them for help during the overproduction crisis in the 60s-70s. They set their reward high. And the society at large was unable to stop them.

Rentiers don't have to think. They are just used to see their money coming in.

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Very good essay. Thanks. A couple of very brief points:

1) The current wars of the neoliberal West have many facets before reaching armed confrontation. I think they are called hybrid wars and they include colour revolutions to induce the people to rise up and change the government, terrorist groups (ISIS, DAESH, etc.), disinformation wars, proxy wars, etc. They have little to do with previous world wars and the objectives may be to get Russia to change its government by an internal coup, making life unsafe or maintaining the war for years. After all, it was already achieved by other means with the fall of the Berlin Wall: History will tell us how the USSR was able to accommodate Gorbachev. Easier to understand is how Yeltsin governed for a few years by selling off Russia's resources piecemeal. Therefore, the objective of this war seems similar and quite clear. And if they don't succeed in Ukraine, they will try later in other countries bordering Russia.

2) Pro-Western governments know that not everyone understands the narrative they create and the media spread. Within the governments themselves, Orban (albeit of an insignificant state) is constantly reminding people of this, Fico of Slovakia almost paid his life for going against the official narrative. Italy, a country still occupied by the US, can hardly say anything against it, but its current government would certainly bet on recovering Italy's traditional trade with the Middle East, Russia, Iran and the ex-Soviet republics. Outside the governments, the strict laws on disinformation and fake news that are being applied indicate that different opinions are known to exist and must be silenced.

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Yes, That about sums things up. Great essay.

For anyone interested in the internal social organisation and leadership of armies, "On the Psychology of Military Incompetence" by Norman F. Dixon is an endlessly fascinating read. And for the illness of Liberal induced 'managerialism', and associated short-sightedness generally, there is a good short article in 'The Guardian'', at:

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2006/mar/12/theobserver.observerbusiness5

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From today's events, we can see that NATO attacks on Russia are in fact kind of a big deal, otherwise Russia would not have responded the way it did.

About time that Russia did so. Let's see how NATO (aka "the United States, followed by its loyal catamites") responds.

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It cannot be denied that your portrait of the western political class is appealing to many people, Aurelien. Yet: what makes you think that there isn't a deeper plan at play, consistent with the realities of the xxi century? You're relying on publicly available data, after all, and by your (and mine) own admission, the media is so rotten nowadays that we cannot expect anything reliable coming out from there. How can it be possible that we are, indeed, governed by a bunch of idiots? I mean, you wouldn't just pick out a Foreign Minister from the customers of a pub, would you? Everything you say is logical, reasonable, and the (available!) data fits your interpretation, but...

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I agree with the analysis except two parts:

1.

Putin really did think he could topple Kiev with a lightening strike. It is an error to overestimate the strengths of your opponents and I think you have done that here. What is also true is that once the lightening strike did not work, the Russians over 2022 adjusted their political goals to taking the eastern portion of Ukrainian territory.

2.

The French failure in 1940 is also cultural and moral: the French were exhausted from losing ~4% of their population in WW1 hence the shift to a purely defensive military strategy from an offensive one, and they were riddled with political incompetence and intrigues that created sufficiently domestic strife and discontent to erode warfighting desire, let alone capability.

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WIth all the enthusiasm over deposing Putin and weakening Russia, I wonder what western planners thought the eventual end game would be? From the western perspective, Russia is weakened, so mission accomplished. But from the perspective of ordinary Russian people, they got a strong leader who, while imperfect, oversaw two decades of solid growth. And then foreign powers depose their leader and weaken their country. Isn't this a recipe for Russians voting in a hardliner who will be even less friendly to the West? Isn't this what happened with Iran?

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The Western plan to to break Russia up into numerous pieces, the better to loot and to prevent a unified Russia from challenging the West.

One might say that Ukraine is one of those pieces.

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