My Dad who was a member of the British army before he quit in 1969 due to disillusionment would take me as a kid to watch the major local football team, sometimes in the company of one, two or three of my great uncles who all fought in WW2. I remember one day when the attendance was announced at roughly 24,000 he told me to take a good long look at the crowd, before informing me of the fact that it would correspond to about the estimated number of mainly women, old men & children who died in the concentration camps run by the British. in Natal during the tail end of the Boer war. This was later followed by a 20,000 attendance to cover the Brits killed on the first day of the Somme & prior to me heading to Wembley for a cup final he told me between 8 to 9 times the attendance for WW1 & about 4 Wembley's for the WW2 follow up in which he included commonwealth forces including " The Forgotten Army " in which my Grandfather & one of my great uncle's served.
My father's departure from the RCAF was around the same time (1968), hastened in part by the Tri-Services elimination of distinctions between the branches of the Canadian Armed Forces. Fortunately he was not remotely a militarist and never wanted any of his 3 boys to follow in his footsteps. Were he still alive today he would be repulsed by the warmongers in our Western misleadership class.
Good to know - I think Dad would have got there eventually - just listening to my extremely cynical great uncles would have penetrated at some stage. Grandad left for Australia in 56 before I was born a very embittered man likely with undiagnosed PTSD due to his time in the Burmese jungle - he died aged 58 from alcoholism.
Actually no as but for Kamu he might not as he would likely have stayed on which would have meant little contact with Tommy, Eric & Albert as we would have stayed faraway from the hometown.
Indeed - I just looked up the estimated total KIA which stands at 8,700,000 - although it is disputed by some that figure would equate to 87 Wembley's which is mind boggling - let's hope for an outbreak of sanity in order to not reach the ultimate record with a nuclear total, which of course would include non-combatants.
I was supposed to carry on the family NCO military tradition but Dad had cooled on the plan by 69. We lived in Kenya between 63 / 65 as Dad ad been posted as part of the force to ensure order during the Kenyatta election. We were dirt poor working class who had the option of a Kikuyu houseboy which my Mum refused, but later agreed to as she had difficulty due to being pregnant having, 3 hyperactive young kids during very high temperatures. We got a fully grown man not a boy who became part of the family. My Dad kept in touch after we left through letters & Kamu at some stage related his experiences during the Mau Mau emergency - mainly in relation to the internment camps in which he & many others were imprisoned.
Dad was gradually able to verify his testimony through other means including members who were part of his eventual large military pen pal circle. Up until his death he researched British colonialism while reading historians like David M Glantz.
I learned a lot from him & am glad hat I was not dragooned into the army, as he said himself judging by my school reports with their constant repetitions of " He has a problem with authority " or words to that effect, the whole exercise would have been a total disaster. Still, I am pleased that I do not believe that Britain won WW2 which apparently 72% off Brits actually do believe.
I fear that we in the West (apologies to readers who identify as being non-Western) have not learnt a damned thing from this debacle and possibly or indeed probably will not do so.
Russia was never supposed to be defeated on the battlefield but though a combination of economic and information warfare, though for sure the shooty stuff was supposed to trigger the deadly duo. The problem is that Russia appears to have worked out well before that this was the cunning plan and put measures in place to counteract them. Well "we" seem to have forgotten to prepare a Plan B should "our" Plan A not succeed.
It seems to me that on the hoof we tried to convince ourselves that Russia's economy and society were in tatters and that it was lurching from one military defeat to another. And whilst I am sure that many know the truth, the reality we see from public sources continues to push this narrative. I am sort of left thinking that this is not information war but self-delusion. We actually tried to force a military defeat on Russia using Ukraine???
When Ukraine collapses it will be blamed on Trump, or the fact that Russia sacrificed millions of men in suicidal human wave attacks or something else. Maybe it snowed or something? It will not in my opinion be blamed on those who fatally failed to judge ahead of time the reality with any degree of accuracy, and who recklessly dragged the world as close to WW3 as I have known in my lifetime.
The tight control of the news cycle and information flow will ensure that whatever BS these people want to push will be by and large believed, and in undertaking such a programme, no lessons will need to be admitted to or still less learned. And these people seem to believe their own propaganda so their hermetic world will continue.
"economic and information warfare, though for sure the shooty stuff was supposed to trigger the deadly duo."
I never understood HTF that was supposed to work when they're backed by the country that actually makes all the stuff, including most of the computers.
I think that Kipling was even more cynical than is suggested by your discussion. " Indeed, the entire basis of Kipling’s poem is the suggestion that the disaster of the War is capable of teaching the British lessons which they should and will learn and apply."
Rather contemplate the final lines of this poem:
"So the more we work and the less
we talk the better results we shall get -
We have had an Imperial lesson;
it may make us an Empire yet!"
These lines suggests that those in power will twist this lesson, the one that earlier they seem to have learned, into a way to further those same foolish, deadly imperial aims.
I read Kipling only recently, after having heard he was an apologist for empire. I saw "Kim" as disavowing the entire idea of empire, but he does it subtly, by showing the interactions and motives of his characters, and by using irony and double-meanings. What his true feelings might have been, and whether they may have changed over time, I thank you for bringing this poem to my attention.
I'm not even sure that the majority of the British public know where things really are with the Ukraine conflict at the moment. To those who rely on the UK MSM for information and do not delve too deeply - which is probably still the majority of those over 30 years old - it may just appear to be dragging on into its third year in a sort of back-and-fore stalemate, with Zelensky's "victory plan" and the Kursk incursion being talked up. Certainly, the Daily Telegraph via news items and opinion pieces acts as little more than a mouthpiece for the UK Ministry of Defence. Eventually and possibly around next Easter, some sort of cessation and start of negotiation will occur which the West will try to spin as positively as possible and downplay the failure by maybe saying "well we tried to help them as best we could but the Ukrainians were not up to it in the end". Then there will be talk about greatly increased defence spending that will gradually fade out as economic stagnation deepens and other things are given priority.
Overall, I'd expect to see the effective defeat in Ukraine as just marking the start of a slight acceleration in Europe's economic and geopolitical decline, rather than a sudden existential crisis.
Here in the USA it is astounding what most people appear to have as models of this conflict, in their heads… It seems like a crude 2 dimensional cut out with a very limited range of movement, which gets discarded after a few lame attempts at movement….
One thing I;d bet on: the MIC will have a blank check to replace all those aging weapons systems sent for disposal….
One day we will pay the price for these pointless wars that our countries have inflicted on other parts of the world. Fomenting war for others to fight and die has been far too easy.
Your point about Kipling’s son (which I did not know) makes me recall that both Herbert Henry Asquith the 1908-16 British PM lost a son and Andrew Bonar Law a future PM lost two sons. Elites queued up to fight, as evidenced by the memorials in British Public Schools and at the older universities / Oxbridge colleges. I cannot imagine the offspring of any modern western politician fighting in a war.
It is all ver hard to imagine. Could European leaders agree on building a meaningful military force to counter that of Russia? All these politicians have been making a career on nebulous ideologies (DEI / Woke) and outright lies (climate change). If not they themselves, their bueaucrats will have no recourse but to include these into their efforts, which will sabotage them from day 1.
Then the public. Most young people are too involved with their smartphone and fear their actions will lead to global warming to be usefull additions to any army. And the other half, well, they are completely disallusioned with politics and will not be moved to fight for any of it. The idea of sending off one's son to some far away frontier to die for these despised politico's is just ridiculous. Instead, I think this song captures the sentiment quite well: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1q-Ga3myTP4
Yes climate change is real. Just the narrative that it is man-made is a hoax of epic proportion. But the climate changes all the time! Due to the sun, cloud cover (which by the way is not included in any of the IPCC models because that would make them way too big to handle for any computer) and many, many other factors. But the actions of man are not one of them. Please read: "Plunderers of the Earth" by Julius Ruechel. In this book he makes it very clear what actually is going on!
By the way: we have some very low lying islands here (Texel, Vlieland, Terschelling, Ameland and Schiermonnikoog) and not much is going on with them.
I concur, and the Catastrophic Anthropogenic Climate Change model is being used for rather sinister purposes, so there’s that.
When i encounter the Species Self Loathing that is part and parcel to this narrative, I am fairly certain that the user has digested the book by Uval HAriri….
Climate change is real and probably man-made but it's nowhere near its catastrophic consequences which the alarmists (and 99 percent of those who write about it in the press are alarmists indeed) promise.
Take the horrible threat of half the Earth being drowned. That's the level of bullshit never seen before. Serious rise of the ocean levels will take enormous time to happen. 99,9% of it come from thawing Greenland and Antarctic. But even if the speed of warming is twice as fast as today, Greenland will lose all of its ice in more than 3,000 years. And that will give us 6 meters rise of the sea level. That means, about 20 cm a century. For the human civilization, 20 cm per century is nothing, it probably doesn't even notice. And the Antarctic ice sheet is much much harder to thaw, it was there even in much warmer periods of Earth's history.
Ok so given the evidence that the Earth has seen swings in climate that dwarf anything ever recorded by our species what exactly is the concern. Sure we are plundering the planet but when (not if) the caps melt and the oceans rise it is unlikely to be driven by human influenced CO2. Furthermore who will that inconvenience. All the wealthy assholes are the ones continuing to buy coastal property… Are you worried about your grandchildren’s theoretical oceanfront estate?!
If you are catastrophizing about your carbon footprint, I know a way you can reduce it to ZERO
I'm not western, and I don't think we should all go into moral panic mode to the absolutely minor problems (my observations clearly show that those who go into a moral outrage about the stuff they have no immediate concern of, are usually exemplary hypocrites). The population of these islands is tiny and they can relocate, the time is plenty. Alternatively, they can start building dams like the Dutch or many others do for centuries.
Think about the greening of Sahel (you don't read it in the mainstream media but it goes for almost a couple of decades), or turning the ice hell of Canada and Russia into much more pleasant landscapes for humans (which by the way it had been during the Atlantic period 5000-7000 years go). Climate change is the norm, get used to it.
So that must be why so many Ukrainians are press-ganged into the army. Happened to people I know and their loved ones. They just can't wait to start fighting, they even fight with their own recruiters. And they are butchered in droves, by commanders who neither know nor care about how many are killed, any more than a farmer cares about veal calves, except to the extent they make him money.
Snark aside, when I lived in Ukraine, nationalists were almost univerally seen as freaks and losers. I was regularly assured that Russians and Ukrainians were one people.
What happened in the meantime, was that it was made clear to Ukraine that adopting an anti-Russian ideology, that declaring their relatives and their own parents to be enemies, was the price of admission to The Club, to The Golden Billion, to The Magical Land Where Institutions Basically Work.
No quarrel with the forced enlistment describe, though "press-gang" is perhaps not the word I would use. And some of the UKrainian refugees I have met have also been unable to cope with fighting. There are others who have joined up willingly. So ?
There was a long period in UKraine when nationalism was a refuge for various political movements, and it was tainted as a an ideal. (For that matter, I would be against all nationalisms, in the sense that one country is "better" or "more worthy " than another - does not stop one loving one's country.district/commune - though some political organizations and social structures (and people) might leave something to be desired.)
But for instance was Maidan, with all its complexities, really the expression of Russia and Ukraine being one people ? I might feel very friendly towards (some) Americans, but would I really want them coming to live in my country and run it ?
As for outside pressures, you seem to ignore those from Russia.
I am going to try to unpack at least part of this word salad.
1. That some Ukrainians volunteered does not mean that others were not press-ganged. I am sure that if Russia were using similar methods, you would have no issue with the term "press gang" - your issue is that the word "press-gang" describes to a tee what your pets are doing.
2. Maidan was something very simple - Ukrainians wanted The Goodies that they thought the West would offer them. (The West had no problem overthrowing a president that was elected in an election that the OSCE - no friend of Russia - described as "reasonably free and fair".)
The problem is that Eussia did not interfere in Ukraine, even as the United States undertook "the most blatant coup in history", took it upon itself to name the Ukrainian cabinet, had its ambassadoir openly campaign for the most nationalist candidate, and raised not a peep as the regime in Kiev undertook repression against anyone who spoke up against the nationalist direction. In my opinion, this was foolish on the part of Russia.
Didn't Victoria Nuland mention a sum of money, five billion, was it?
At the risk belaboring what seems obvious: 2014 ushered in a new level of USAn influence (cultural brainwashing and indoctrination) designed to turn Ukraine into even more of a blood soaked casino of corruption than is was prior….
I think western people usually underestimate the level of closeness of Russian and Ukrainian people. They compare them to English and Irish, or Serbs and Croats, but it's all wrong. Think that a minimum of third of Ukrainians (probably even more) have close blood relatives in Russia. There are millions of "ethnic Ukrainians" with the surnames finishing with -ko or -uk live in Russia and consider themselves Russian. And the other way around, millions of "ethnic Russians", surnames -ov or -in, view themselves totally Ukrainian. It's literally a question of personal choice.
"Popular Ukrainian video blogger “Pasha Bumchik” surprised his followers with a new video which shows him illegally crossing the Romanian border in the Karpaty mountains. He decided to undertake this audacious move after receiving a draft notice.
There was a soundtrack of choice in the video – the Ukrainian band Skriabin singing: “We’ve been duped, we’ve been cheated like suckers”. Identified as Pavlo Dvulychansky by the Myrotvorets site linked to Ukraine’s Security Service (SBU), “Pasha Bumchik” has over 430,000 followers on Instagram as well as large audiences on Youtube and Tiktok. It is safe to presume that he understands the current sentiments of his young Ukrainian audience well.
To what extent the other famous Ukrainian entertainer and the country’s current president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, is sensing the mood in society and among Ukraine’s allies is a big question. But there are signs that he might be drifting towards Skriabin’s diagnosis of the situation Ukraine finds itself in."
"Since Maidan, Ukraine has been one huge Russia-loathing psyop."
Doesn't matter, as long as it works. In 1914, Britons were urged to fight for "plucky little Belgium" and "brave Serrbia" even though the UK had threatened war against plucky little Belgium a few years before, for atrocities which made colonialism look bad, and brave Serbia was treated a semi-Turkish Balkan despotate that few Britons could find on a map.
living outside the UK, I have little idea what working class people anywhere in the islands might do, though I would be grateful for a link to the incarcerations you speak of. However I was encouraged by the recent racist riots - wrong-headed, maybe, but clearly spoiling for a fight. (Note: possible traces of irony]
My point was simply that some people, some times and in some places believe there is something worth fighting for. For many Israelis, that is the opportunity to continue their perpetual war, as the Stern gang successsors kill on the ground even as their Mr Nastyahoo is urged by army leaders to stop this nonsense. More examples from everywhere.
It seems that one lesson that will not be learned is how to live alongside others in this crowded world without trying to impose one's will, based on a sense of superiority, exceptionalism, and power and wealth hungry ever consuming predatory elites. In this crowded and technologically more even world, gunboat diplomacy doesn't work any longer. As such, being a pirate at heart should be beaten out of the West.
I hope the lesson that the U.S. learns is logistics, logistics, logistics. If the battlefield is dominated by artillery and glide bombs, and its location is across the Atlantic or the Pacific, well then, sit it out.
Furthermore, drones and high speed missiles are deadly for the numerous bases the U.S. maintains across the globe. The means to overwhelm our bases cannot be addressed quickly enough because of time and distance.
Our defense industry needs wholesale reform, both in weapon design and procurement.
Our defense policy needs reform too. We are really a naval power, but keeping trade routes open is a fool's game when climate change is the obvious threat to our well being. The naval power projection is great for our billionaires, but they are not paying the true cost for their navy.
Our country can still be a wonderful place to live. We should endeavor to make that so by giving peace a chance.
The lesson the U.S. needs to learn will be a hard one and it pertains to the end of empires. All those 800+ based are ripe for the picking and the best thing for actual USAns that are not benefactors of the MIC is to leave off the endless GWOT strategy and rebuild the somewhat hollowed out nation. You lost with maritime power and climate change, sorry.
Climate change is an Everest-size mountain of BS. The greatest threat to the West is the Great Replacement, essentially, white demographics becoming a minority.
RE: "...keeping trade routes open is a fool's game when climate change is the obvious threat to our well being." the suck of sorrow
For heaven's sake, Climate Change is a HOAX. CO2 is a trace gas and of insignificant effect in atmospheric temperature since the ideal gas law (PV = nRT) adequately describes reality and individual molecules of the atmosphere are not addressed, and there is NO greenhouse effect as warm air is unrestricted in rising unlike a real greenhouse.
John, the creed of anthropogenic climate change is one of the main anti-humanist dogmas, of what is beyond argument a religion.
You cannot argue someone out of religious convictions, because their identity is tied up in the religion. I hold that the only meaningful reaction is to briefly mock the practicant of the religion in question, because to keep silent is to implicitly consent.
To be fair species self loathing can be used to get the little people to accept all manner of outrageous things done to them. Heck….they will even do it to themselves.
"In and out! Twenty minute adventure! We'll be home before Christmas!"
The idea that "this time will be different" is something that we have always struggled with. Whether it's growth in finance or the idea of a war that can be won quickly and cleanly, the human drive to innovate and grow also means that we often make mistakes that are obviously retreads in abstract and in hindsight, or with a little perspective beforehand.
A quip attributed to one Donald McGill has remained with me since I read it many years ago. When asked if he liked Kipling, responded: “I don’t know, you naughty boy, I’ve never kippled.” I’m still a fan of the much maligned Kipling.
Thanks for a genuinely interesting and illuminating article
You described the game of countermeasures in a way that I have trying to express for years as events swirl around us. In a full scale scrap, all the bells and whistles that aren’t “bolted down” get swept away in a torrent of fire and we are back to WW1 conditions before the clock strikes Low Noon (midnight).
Merci pour ce beau texte mettant notre situation actuelle dans le bon contexte.
Avons-nous appris nos leçons? Les apprendrons-nous?
L'histoire de l'humanité n'est-elle pas une grande aventure, celle de maîtriser soi-même et de tirer les bonnes conclusions de nos actes?
L'homme occidental a pensé être la fin de l'histoire, la culture la plus haute avec le siècle des lumières, l'industrialisation, la domination de tout et de tout le monde. Une immense illusion qui nous est monté à la tête.
De tout côté, le modèle de ce monde touche à sa fin et ne sera très bientôt plus soutenable du tout. Après la grande fête aux dépenses des autres (et aussi de la nature), la leçon se profile dure. Seront-nous, pas seulement en occident mais comme humanité entière, comme individues, prêts à en tirer les bonnes conclusions? À faire cet effort?
L'humanité est à ses balbutiements. Elle a encore a apprendre bien des leçons, si elle est capable de prendre ce cap, difficile et dangereux.
Son futur:
Humble, bienveillant et responsable.
Je vous souhaite bonne continuation dans votre mission et vous remercie pour vos contributions avec esprit dans ce paysage souvent un peu grisâtre.
The blogger John Michael Greer (Ecosophia), has suggested that after Ukraine, the EU in particular will simply decide to try to "weaken" Russia somewhere else, most likely the Caucasus. He reasons they have no alternatives to trying to destabilise Russia and break it into smaller states which can be asset-stripped, as their natural resources are almost exhausted and their technologies are falling behind those of Asia. Nothing but steepening decline awaits them otherwise.
My own feeling is that soon there will be too much power in the hands of what the MSM call populists, for any more than a token effort to be made if any and this madness will end, but perhaps I am too optimistic.
The discussion on Climate Change is concluded. Let's stick to the topic of the essay, please.
My Dad who was a member of the British army before he quit in 1969 due to disillusionment would take me as a kid to watch the major local football team, sometimes in the company of one, two or three of my great uncles who all fought in WW2. I remember one day when the attendance was announced at roughly 24,000 he told me to take a good long look at the crowd, before informing me of the fact that it would correspond to about the estimated number of mainly women, old men & children who died in the concentration camps run by the British. in Natal during the tail end of the Boer war. This was later followed by a 20,000 attendance to cover the Brits killed on the first day of the Somme & prior to me heading to Wembley for a cup final he told me between 8 to 9 times the attendance for WW1 & about 4 Wembley's for the WW2 follow up in which he included commonwealth forces including " The Forgotten Army " in which my Grandfather & one of my great uncle's served.
My father's departure from the RCAF was around the same time (1968), hastened in part by the Tri-Services elimination of distinctions between the branches of the Canadian Armed Forces. Fortunately he was not remotely a militarist and never wanted any of his 3 boys to follow in his footsteps. Were he still alive today he would be repulsed by the warmongers in our Western misleadership class.
Good to know - I think Dad would have got there eventually - just listening to my extremely cynical great uncles would have penetrated at some stage. Grandad left for Australia in 56 before I was born a very embittered man likely with undiagnosed PTSD due to his time in the Burmese jungle - he died aged 58 from alcoholism.
Actually no as but for Kamu he might not as he would likely have stayed on which would have meant little contact with Tommy, Eric & Albert as we would have stayed faraway from the hometown.
Funny how pure chance can change everything.
20,000 people is approximately the number USSR was losing every day (on average) for almost 4 years, mostly civilians. Terrible.
Indeed - I just looked up the estimated total KIA which stands at 8,700,000 - although it is disputed by some that figure would equate to 87 Wembley's which is mind boggling - let's hope for an outbreak of sanity in order to not reach the ultimate record with a nuclear total, which of course would include non-combatants.
Same upbringing here about the experiences of the Wars. A whole generation of us never understood by those supposed to learn from their mistakes.
I was supposed to carry on the family NCO military tradition but Dad had cooled on the plan by 69. We lived in Kenya between 63 / 65 as Dad ad been posted as part of the force to ensure order during the Kenyatta election. We were dirt poor working class who had the option of a Kikuyu houseboy which my Mum refused, but later agreed to as she had difficulty due to being pregnant having, 3 hyperactive young kids during very high temperatures. We got a fully grown man not a boy who became part of the family. My Dad kept in touch after we left through letters & Kamu at some stage related his experiences during the Mau Mau emergency - mainly in relation to the internment camps in which he & many others were imprisoned.
Dad was gradually able to verify his testimony through other means including members who were part of his eventual large military pen pal circle. Up until his death he researched British colonialism while reading historians like David M Glantz.
I learned a lot from him & am glad hat I was not dragooned into the army, as he said himself judging by my school reports with their constant repetitions of " He has a problem with authority " or words to that effect, the whole exercise would have been a total disaster. Still, I am pleased that I do not believe that Britain won WW2 which apparently 72% off Brits actually do believe.
A good essay, one of your best.
I fear that we in the West (apologies to readers who identify as being non-Western) have not learnt a damned thing from this debacle and possibly or indeed probably will not do so.
Russia was never supposed to be defeated on the battlefield but though a combination of economic and information warfare, though for sure the shooty stuff was supposed to trigger the deadly duo. The problem is that Russia appears to have worked out well before that this was the cunning plan and put measures in place to counteract them. Well "we" seem to have forgotten to prepare a Plan B should "our" Plan A not succeed.
It seems to me that on the hoof we tried to convince ourselves that Russia's economy and society were in tatters and that it was lurching from one military defeat to another. And whilst I am sure that many know the truth, the reality we see from public sources continues to push this narrative. I am sort of left thinking that this is not information war but self-delusion. We actually tried to force a military defeat on Russia using Ukraine???
When Ukraine collapses it will be blamed on Trump, or the fact that Russia sacrificed millions of men in suicidal human wave attacks or something else. Maybe it snowed or something? It will not in my opinion be blamed on those who fatally failed to judge ahead of time the reality with any degree of accuracy, and who recklessly dragged the world as close to WW3 as I have known in my lifetime.
The tight control of the news cycle and information flow will ensure that whatever BS these people want to push will be by and large believed, and in undertaking such a programme, no lessons will need to be admitted to or still less learned. And these people seem to believe their own propaganda so their hermetic world will continue.
"economic and information warfare, though for sure the shooty stuff was supposed to trigger the deadly duo."
I never understood HTF that was supposed to work when they're backed by the country that actually makes all the stuff, including most of the computers.
I think that Kipling was even more cynical than is suggested by your discussion. " Indeed, the entire basis of Kipling’s poem is the suggestion that the disaster of the War is capable of teaching the British lessons which they should and will learn and apply."
Rather contemplate the final lines of this poem:
"So the more we work and the less
we talk the better results we shall get -
We have had an Imperial lesson;
it may make us an Empire yet!"
These lines suggests that those in power will twist this lesson, the one that earlier they seem to have learned, into a way to further those same foolish, deadly imperial aims.
I read Kipling only recently, after having heard he was an apologist for empire. I saw "Kim" as disavowing the entire idea of empire, but he does it subtly, by showing the interactions and motives of his characters, and by using irony and double-meanings. What his true feelings might have been, and whether they may have changed over time, I thank you for bringing this poem to my attention.
Excellent essay—one of your best
Agreed. It was quite outstanding.
Agreed…I’ve shared it with friends
I'm not even sure that the majority of the British public know where things really are with the Ukraine conflict at the moment. To those who rely on the UK MSM for information and do not delve too deeply - which is probably still the majority of those over 30 years old - it may just appear to be dragging on into its third year in a sort of back-and-fore stalemate, with Zelensky's "victory plan" and the Kursk incursion being talked up. Certainly, the Daily Telegraph via news items and opinion pieces acts as little more than a mouthpiece for the UK Ministry of Defence. Eventually and possibly around next Easter, some sort of cessation and start of negotiation will occur which the West will try to spin as positively as possible and downplay the failure by maybe saying "well we tried to help them as best we could but the Ukrainians were not up to it in the end". Then there will be talk about greatly increased defence spending that will gradually fade out as economic stagnation deepens and other things are given priority.
Overall, I'd expect to see the effective defeat in Ukraine as just marking the start of a slight acceleration in Europe's economic and geopolitical decline, rather than a sudden existential crisis.
Here in the USA it is astounding what most people appear to have as models of this conflict, in their heads… It seems like a crude 2 dimensional cut out with a very limited range of movement, which gets discarded after a few lame attempts at movement….
One thing I;d bet on: the MIC will have a blank check to replace all those aging weapons systems sent for disposal….
Spot on.
One day we will pay the price for these pointless wars that our countries have inflicted on other parts of the world. Fomenting war for others to fight and die has been far too easy.
Your point about Kipling’s son (which I did not know) makes me recall that both Herbert Henry Asquith the 1908-16 British PM lost a son and Andrew Bonar Law a future PM lost two sons. Elites queued up to fight, as evidenced by the memorials in British Public Schools and at the older universities / Oxbridge colleges. I cannot imagine the offspring of any modern western politician fighting in a war.
I was at Durham a long time ago.
There was a sepia photo in the entrance hallway of the college of the College VIII from 1912 or something. 7 of them died in the coming conflagration.
It is all ver hard to imagine. Could European leaders agree on building a meaningful military force to counter that of Russia? All these politicians have been making a career on nebulous ideologies (DEI / Woke) and outright lies (climate change). If not they themselves, their bueaucrats will have no recourse but to include these into their efforts, which will sabotage them from day 1.
Then the public. Most young people are too involved with their smartphone and fear their actions will lead to global warming to be usefull additions to any army. And the other half, well, they are completely disallusioned with politics and will not be moved to fight for any of it. The idea of sending off one's son to some far away frontier to die for these despised politico's is just ridiculous. Instead, I think this song captures the sentiment quite well: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1q-Ga3myTP4
Climate change is real. I have experienced it first hand. You need to visit some low lying island nations and see for yourself
Yes climate change is real. Just the narrative that it is man-made is a hoax of epic proportion. But the climate changes all the time! Due to the sun, cloud cover (which by the way is not included in any of the IPCC models because that would make them way too big to handle for any computer) and many, many other factors. But the actions of man are not one of them. Please read: "Plunderers of the Earth" by Julius Ruechel. In this book he makes it very clear what actually is going on!
By the way: we have some very low lying islands here (Texel, Vlieland, Terschelling, Ameland and Schiermonnikoog) and not much is going on with them.
I concur, and the Catastrophic Anthropogenic Climate Change model is being used for rather sinister purposes, so there’s that.
When i encounter the Species Self Loathing that is part and parcel to this narrative, I am fairly certain that the user has digested the book by Uval HAriri….
And I don't even touch POSITIVE consequences of climate change, which will be, and already have been, plentiful
Climate change is real and probably man-made but it's nowhere near its catastrophic consequences which the alarmists (and 99 percent of those who write about it in the press are alarmists indeed) promise.
Take the horrible threat of half the Earth being drowned. That's the level of bullshit never seen before. Serious rise of the ocean levels will take enormous time to happen. 99,9% of it come from thawing Greenland and Antarctic. But even if the speed of warming is twice as fast as today, Greenland will lose all of its ice in more than 3,000 years. And that will give us 6 meters rise of the sea level. That means, about 20 cm a century. For the human civilization, 20 cm per century is nothing, it probably doesn't even notice. And the Antarctic ice sheet is much much harder to thaw, it was there even in much warmer periods of Earth's history.
Do you live in the tropics?
Have you been to Maldives? Tuvalu?
Yes, they will drown probably in the next 300-400 years or maybe more. Still don't get the drama.
What percentage of Earth landmass are Maldives or Tuvalu?
Does this mean it is not important if it doesn't affect the West? Is your country going to take in the citizens of the affected countries
Ok so given the evidence that the Earth has seen swings in climate that dwarf anything ever recorded by our species what exactly is the concern. Sure we are plundering the planet but when (not if) the caps melt and the oceans rise it is unlikely to be driven by human influenced CO2. Furthermore who will that inconvenience. All the wealthy assholes are the ones continuing to buy coastal property… Are you worried about your grandchildren’s theoretical oceanfront estate?!
If you are catastrophizing about your carbon footprint, I know a way you can reduce it to ZERO
I'm not western, and I don't think we should all go into moral panic mode to the absolutely minor problems (my observations clearly show that those who go into a moral outrage about the stuff they have no immediate concern of, are usually exemplary hypocrites). The population of these islands is tiny and they can relocate, the time is plenty. Alternatively, they can start building dams like the Dutch or many others do for centuries.
Think about the greening of Sahel (you don't read it in the mainstream media but it goes for almost a couple of decades), or turning the ice hell of Canada and Russia into much more pleasant landscapes for humans (which by the way it had been during the Atlantic period 5000-7000 years go). Climate change is the norm, get used to it.
Tell that to the Ukrainians
So that must be why so many Ukrainians are press-ganged into the army. Happened to people I know and their loved ones. They just can't wait to start fighting, they even fight with their own recruiters. And they are butchered in droves, by commanders who neither know nor care about how many are killed, any more than a farmer cares about veal calves, except to the extent they make him money.
Snark aside, when I lived in Ukraine, nationalists were almost univerally seen as freaks and losers. I was regularly assured that Russians and Ukrainians were one people.
What happened in the meantime, was that it was made clear to Ukraine that adopting an anti-Russian ideology, that declaring their relatives and their own parents to be enemies, was the price of admission to The Club, to The Golden Billion, to The Magical Land Where Institutions Basically Work.
No quarrel with the forced enlistment describe, though "press-gang" is perhaps not the word I would use. And some of the UKrainian refugees I have met have also been unable to cope with fighting. There are others who have joined up willingly. So ?
There was a long period in UKraine when nationalism was a refuge for various political movements, and it was tainted as a an ideal. (For that matter, I would be against all nationalisms, in the sense that one country is "better" or "more worthy " than another - does not stop one loving one's country.district/commune - though some political organizations and social structures (and people) might leave something to be desired.)
But for instance was Maidan, with all its complexities, really the expression of Russia and Ukraine being one people ? I might feel very friendly towards (some) Americans, but would I really want them coming to live in my country and run it ?
As for outside pressures, you seem to ignore those from Russia.
I am going to try to unpack at least part of this word salad.
1. That some Ukrainians volunteered does not mean that others were not press-ganged. I am sure that if Russia were using similar methods, you would have no issue with the term "press gang" - your issue is that the word "press-gang" describes to a tee what your pets are doing.
2. Maidan was something very simple - Ukrainians wanted The Goodies that they thought the West would offer them. (The West had no problem overthrowing a president that was elected in an election that the OSCE - no friend of Russia - described as "reasonably free and fair".)
The problem is that Eussia did not interfere in Ukraine, even as the United States undertook "the most blatant coup in history", took it upon itself to name the Ukrainian cabinet, had its ambassadoir openly campaign for the most nationalist candidate, and raised not a peep as the regime in Kiev undertook repression against anyone who spoke up against the nationalist direction. In my opinion, this was foolish on the part of Russia.
Didn't Victoria Nuland mention a sum of money, five billion, was it?
At the risk belaboring what seems obvious: 2014 ushered in a new level of USAn influence (cultural brainwashing and indoctrination) designed to turn Ukraine into even more of a blood soaked casino of corruption than is was prior….
I think western people usually underestimate the level of closeness of Russian and Ukrainian people. They compare them to English and Irish, or Serbs and Croats, but it's all wrong. Think that a minimum of third of Ukrainians (probably even more) have close blood relatives in Russia. There are millions of "ethnic Ukrainians" with the surnames finishing with -ko or -uk live in Russia and consider themselves Russian. And the other way around, millions of "ethnic Russians", surnames -ov or -in, view themselves totally Ukrainian. It's literally a question of personal choice.
@Certorius: good point. Interesting range of views to be found in the English translation "Words for War" (ed. O Maksymchuk & M Rosochinsky)
"Popular Ukrainian video blogger “Pasha Bumchik” surprised his followers with a new video which shows him illegally crossing the Romanian border in the Karpaty mountains. He decided to undertake this audacious move after receiving a draft notice.
There was a soundtrack of choice in the video – the Ukrainian band Skriabin singing: “We’ve been duped, we’ve been cheated like suckers”. Identified as Pavlo Dvulychansky by the Myrotvorets site linked to Ukraine’s Security Service (SBU), “Pasha Bumchik” has over 430,000 followers on Instagram as well as large audiences on Youtube and Tiktok. It is safe to presume that he understands the current sentiments of his young Ukrainian audience well.
To what extent the other famous Ukrainian entertainer and the country’s current president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, is sensing the mood in society and among Ukraine’s allies is a big question. But there are signs that he might be drifting towards Skriabin’s diagnosis of the situation Ukraine finds itself in."
https://www.intellinews.com/ragozin-what-is-zelenskiy-s-real-plan-b-345349/
Keep in mind that Ukraine regularly murders dissenters.
Since Maidan, Ukraine has been one huge Russia-loathing psyop.
You really think the working class northerners being locked up for tweets by Keir Starmer will go to fight for him ?
"Since Maidan, Ukraine has been one huge Russia-loathing psyop."
Doesn't matter, as long as it works. In 1914, Britons were urged to fight for "plucky little Belgium" and "brave Serrbia" even though the UK had threatened war against plucky little Belgium a few years before, for atrocities which made colonialism look bad, and brave Serbia was treated a semi-Turkish Balkan despotate that few Britons could find on a map.
living outside the UK, I have little idea what working class people anywhere in the islands might do, though I would be grateful for a link to the incarcerations you speak of. However I was encouraged by the recent racist riots - wrong-headed, maybe, but clearly spoiling for a fight. (Note: possible traces of irony]
My point was simply that some people, some times and in some places believe there is something worth fighting for. For many Israelis, that is the opportunity to continue their perpetual war, as the Stern gang successsors kill on the ground even as their Mr Nastyahoo is urged by army leaders to stop this nonsense. More examples from everywhere.
Religion, the opiate of the masses, ie: slip'm a micky and rob'm blind.:
I could not dig: so I dared to rob:
Therefore I lied to please the mob.
When my lies are proved untrue
I'll be dead and so will you.
It seems that one lesson that will not be learned is how to live alongside others in this crowded world without trying to impose one's will, based on a sense of superiority, exceptionalism, and power and wealth hungry ever consuming predatory elites. In this crowded and technologically more even world, gunboat diplomacy doesn't work any longer. As such, being a pirate at heart should be beaten out of the West.
I fear we might have a few more generations of sabotage and derailing ahead of us…..they are going to do Georgia next it would appear…
I hope the lesson that the U.S. learns is logistics, logistics, logistics. If the battlefield is dominated by artillery and glide bombs, and its location is across the Atlantic or the Pacific, well then, sit it out.
Furthermore, drones and high speed missiles are deadly for the numerous bases the U.S. maintains across the globe. The means to overwhelm our bases cannot be addressed quickly enough because of time and distance.
Our defense industry needs wholesale reform, both in weapon design and procurement.
Our defense policy needs reform too. We are really a naval power, but keeping trade routes open is a fool's game when climate change is the obvious threat to our well being. The naval power projection is great for our billionaires, but they are not paying the true cost for their navy.
Our country can still be a wonderful place to live. We should endeavor to make that so by giving peace a chance.
The lesson the U.S. needs to learn will be a hard one and it pertains to the end of empires. All those 800+ based are ripe for the picking and the best thing for actual USAns that are not benefactors of the MIC is to leave off the endless GWOT strategy and rebuild the somewhat hollowed out nation. You lost with maritime power and climate change, sorry.
Climate change is an Everest-size mountain of BS. The greatest threat to the West is the Great Replacement, essentially, white demographics becoming a minority.
RE: "...keeping trade routes open is a fool's game when climate change is the obvious threat to our well being." the suck of sorrow
For heaven's sake, Climate Change is a HOAX. CO2 is a trace gas and of insignificant effect in atmospheric temperature since the ideal gas law (PV = nRT) adequately describes reality and individual molecules of the atmosphere are not addressed, and there is NO greenhouse effect as warm air is unrestricted in rising unlike a real greenhouse.
Dan Kurt
John, the creed of anthropogenic climate change is one of the main anti-humanist dogmas, of what is beyond argument a religion.
You cannot argue someone out of religious convictions, because their identity is tied up in the religion. I hold that the only meaningful reaction is to briefly mock the practicant of the religion in question, because to keep silent is to implicitly consent.
To be fair species self loathing can be used to get the little people to accept all manner of outrageous things done to them. Heck….they will even do it to themselves.
If the greenhouse effect isn’t real, please explain why the earth isn’t at -18C, the temperature we would expect from the Stefan-Boltzmann law.
Yup. Maybe start by cutting your military suit according to your cloth? Go home and stay home, is my advice.
"In and out! Twenty minute adventure! We'll be home before Christmas!"
The idea that "this time will be different" is something that we have always struggled with. Whether it's growth in finance or the idea of a war that can be won quickly and cleanly, the human drive to innovate and grow also means that we often make mistakes that are obviously retreads in abstract and in hindsight, or with a little perspective beforehand.
A quip attributed to one Donald McGill has remained with me since I read it many years ago. When asked if he liked Kipling, responded: “I don’t know, you naughty boy, I’ve never kippled.” I’m still a fan of the much maligned Kipling.
Thanks for a genuinely interesting and illuminating article
You described the game of countermeasures in a way that I have trying to express for years as events swirl around us. In a full scale scrap, all the bells and whistles that aren’t “bolted down” get swept away in a torrent of fire and we are back to WW1 conditions before the clock strikes Low Noon (midnight).
Bonjour Aurélien
Merci pour ce beau texte mettant notre situation actuelle dans le bon contexte.
Avons-nous appris nos leçons? Les apprendrons-nous?
L'histoire de l'humanité n'est-elle pas une grande aventure, celle de maîtriser soi-même et de tirer les bonnes conclusions de nos actes?
L'homme occidental a pensé être la fin de l'histoire, la culture la plus haute avec le siècle des lumières, l'industrialisation, la domination de tout et de tout le monde. Une immense illusion qui nous est monté à la tête.
De tout côté, le modèle de ce monde touche à sa fin et ne sera très bientôt plus soutenable du tout. Après la grande fête aux dépenses des autres (et aussi de la nature), la leçon se profile dure. Seront-nous, pas seulement en occident mais comme humanité entière, comme individues, prêts à en tirer les bonnes conclusions? À faire cet effort?
L'humanité est à ses balbutiements. Elle a encore a apprendre bien des leçons, si elle est capable de prendre ce cap, difficile et dangereux.
Son futur:
Humble, bienveillant et responsable.
Je vous souhaite bonne continuation dans votre mission et vous remercie pour vos contributions avec esprit dans ce paysage souvent un peu grisâtre.
Cordialement
The blogger John Michael Greer (Ecosophia), has suggested that after Ukraine, the EU in particular will simply decide to try to "weaken" Russia somewhere else, most likely the Caucasus. He reasons they have no alternatives to trying to destabilise Russia and break it into smaller states which can be asset-stripped, as their natural resources are almost exhausted and their technologies are falling behind those of Asia. Nothing but steepening decline awaits them otherwise.
My own feeling is that soon there will be too much power in the hands of what the MSM call populists, for any more than a token effort to be made if any and this madness will end, but perhaps I am too optimistic.