Colonel Kilgore and Madeline Albright, what a team. "I love the smell of burnt children in the morning!" Abraham only had two children to offer up, Madeline did them in bulk and plugged her ears in case her god said stop.
This is all very good stuff Señor Aurelien, the sort of deep but practical political thinking that you just don't see in the mainstream media. I'm sure that in the past you have sat at the big table in the committee room and read the briefing documents, but once you get pushed to the fringes you can see many things and say many more things that were not previously possible.
I have for sometime now been interested in the process by which some clan or cult or underground society rises from the fringe to the center of political power. Gaining the monopoly on the use of legitimate violence is of course the key, but only the final result, The power of violence comes first before it becomes legitimated later.
This is the old old story of the mandate of heaven, after the battle the winner is king and the loser is an outlaw, so the bandit becomes emperor and the emperor a bandit. We can see this in the deep roots of our own King Charles III today. How many generations did it take for the Viking raiders to become Dukes of Normandy and then Kings of France and England ? They never gave up the sword and the axe and after each victory they became more powerful and more legitimate.
Now we don't really tolerate Norsemen sailing their longboats over the North sea to sack villages anymore but the dynamic is still the same, just more underground. There are plenty of men living half in and half out of the shadows very comfortable with the sword and the pistol who will move into a power vacuum when the opportunity presents itself.
Closer to our own time, Dr. Sun Yat Sen used the underground criminal networks of the Tongmen "Heaven & Earth" Triads to knock off the ailing Qing dynasty and become the first president of China. He is still revered today by both the Red and Blue Chinese and his tomb is a great shrine situated on the same sacred mountain as the tombs of the ancient Ming emperors.
As for bandit warlords today who are on the cusp of becoming legitimate kings, you have already mentioned Hezbollah and other factions of militant Islam, the history of their religion gives them an obvious path to political legitimacy.
Another cluster of underground bandits that might have a path to gaining real political power are the Narco gangs of south America, now operating on both sides of the Rio Grande. They have shown the ability to mobilize thousands of soldiers or "Sicarios", armed with modern weapons, riding armored vehicles, equipped with sophisticated communications, and so on and so on. They certainly have assassinated many government officials, so it's fair to assume they have de-facto arrangements with many more. Start with a local businessman, then a city Alderman, then the Mayor, then Governor, Senator, and so on and so on and so on.
After the election the criminal becomes the Chief of Police and the Chief of Police becomes a criminal.
Sun Yat Sen started like 5 failed uprisings. They were funded by Chinese American immigrants, USA, Japan, SE Asian Chinese diaspora, and the triads you mentioned, in turn (off the top of my head, probably forgot some sponsors). The uprising that succeeded to overthrow the Imperial Government, actually occurred when he was in Denver, lol. Obviously, the circling sharks would just keep hammering China with “color revolutions”, until it was broken.
The Islamic fundamentalists don't particularly desire to invade the West or something, they mostly just want to kick out Westerners, so they stop destabilizing the region and bleeding it dry.
Narco cartels are unlikely to openly take over entire countries (maybe some tiny Central American one, at most), definitely are not a serious threat to US. They are tied at the hip to the US intelligence clique, a convenient source for off-the-books funding. Remember Iran-Contra? They took over management of Northern Mexico briefly, because their operation requires relative stability. Having to administer a large population - is not something they want to really mess with.
Interesting - I have read (Dmitry Orlov) that during the collapse of the USSR, the societal breakdown resulted in many areas in exactly what you describe when you say that, if the Islamists or the drug dealers are the ones with the power to protect you, then they are the ones who will get your loyalty. Interesting also that, over time, at least some of those outlaw groups gradually migrated to positions of comparatively legitimate power, and formed the basis of new societal order. In this context, at least some of what we regard in the light of "good" and "evil" has more to do with practical concerns of survival.
It reminds me on the words of Col. D. MacGregor in his todays interview on his YT canal.
Foccussing on your topic :
- Disruption of the west European continent-, especially its military capabilities, and even its “decomposition” ( á la the old STASI method of “Zersetzung”) from within using cultural Marxism IS ONE OF THE TOP REQUIREMENTS for the so called “Great Reset” the WEF-DAVOS-Satanist Clique has envisioned. – Sadly, you stopped there and left that out of your sight. When a matter of such far reaching consequenses as a nations, even a continents, military is touched there are aims the major players have in mind. In politics nothing comes without an intent.
- As Klaus Schwab, the Mother-WEF-er himself, declard so loudly : they have in all of the + 200 nations on earth THEIR People installed in the power apparatuses. And not only did/ and does- their cultural Marxism work, it is also the syncronicity with which they operate : Be reminded of the outbreak of the so called Corona scam-pandemic : Nearly the same measures in all of the + 200 nations on earth at ONCE. THAT was one show of who-is-who. Meaning : after the end that you foresee there IS very much more to come. And if we all do not want THAT, well, then better get started sooner.
- One of the nightmare scenarios you described : the drug cartels as warlords to which people have to go if they wish some level of protection and safety on future planning. I I would rather call that the Mad-Max-World. Exactly this is what the WEF-ers would love to see : as they assume people would turn to them for “help” and stability. Thereby accepting all measures that would be considered unacceptable before.
- Result : I rather suggest that, instead of thinking through a possible instable world, it is advisable to erect now in everydays small steps a world that makes the national-& international superstructures and companies, the oligarchs, the finance giants such as Blackrock at. al. unnecessary. Have that alternate form of existence thought through and developed. And I am not only thinking only about all-day-cash-day, or going local and creating local currencies. Coming to military security : WE ALL, it seems to me, should – in these terms – talk also about the recent assault on the health of all of the earths populace by a handful of oligarchs who like to drastically reduce population by 15 out of 16. THAT is the real security matter.
Just for the interested reader : An answer to the question : “ How did we get here ?” is given by : Whitney Webb. Just look her up, for instance her recent interviews on the two volume book about the national security and – control state in the US.
What in the world are you talking about? Why reference some obscure, long dead GDR "Zersetzung" stuff, when we have over half a century of "COINTELPRO" far more people are familiar with?
"Cultural Marxism IS ONE OF THE TOP REQUIREMENTS for the so called “Great Reset” the WEF-DAVOS-Satanist Clique has envisioned" - What is this nonsense? Are you just writing down all the "scary" words you know, or something? What does Marxism have anything to do with it?
Another factor to consider is wokeness in what is left of western militaries. The constituent ethnicities of Western nations and especially their heterosexual, male portions have taken notice of it - They are signing up in ever diminishing numbers. The US army was said yo have wound up 25% short of its recruiting target in 2022 and that includes all non-combat positions. The shortcome was probably more than 25% if considering only combat positions. The situation is exacerbated, of course, by birth rates in these ethnicties that are not only low but often catastrophically so. The consequence is less and less of a heterosexual, male, ethnic core to these militaries like the one that used to be their mainstay and backbone above all else. What Western "nations" end up with are oh-so "diverse" militaries and paramilitaries permeated by homosexuals, femininity, ethnic and religious tensions, gang members and the like, all to the point of outright subversion. It stands to reason that these militaries might break down rapidly if required to deploy in a high-intensity, high-casualty situation like the one currently unfolding in Ukraine. The West is getting away with it only by placing the load of going to fight and taking casualties on allies that haven't been affected by wokeness to the same degree - chiefly Ukraine itself, Poland, Romania, Georgia.
The cultural dimension is, I think, where Aurelien's question meets Schmitt's: who is going to protect me from whom, and how?
There is a well known story among IR tyopes (which illustrates that poli sci ppl do have common sense, even if it is drowned out by institutional-cultural norms): in 1950s, if there were fights between Jewish and Italian kids, the situation was inevitably dealt with by the public school principal and the nun who was the principal of the parochial school, with the cops not being involved because "they are Irish."
There is a lot to unpack here, but the most obvious points that I want to draw are that you expect institutions you are culturally part of to lend you protection and the internal makeup of the institutions necessarily lead to those institutions becoming part of cultural spheres. You turn to people who are "like you" (like the parochial school principal, if you are Italian in 1950s NYC.) to lend you protection. Even when institutions are nominally independent of cultural connections, like public school principal or the cops, they are absorbed into the cultural sphere because public schools presumably had disproportionate share of Jewish kids and the police force was largely Irish. Maybe the principal was actually an old Yankee without recent cultural ties and there were Jewish and Italian cops, but that did not matter since they were part of de facto cultural institutions. It helped that the principals of public and parochial schools talked civilly with each other often, they were genuinely interested in maintaining civil relations with each other and between communities, and they headed "cultural" institutions trusted and respected by relevant communities--again, because of the cultural ties.
Fast forward to today, who commands that kind of respect at a "cultural" level, that can satisfactorily negotiate for "security," whether in domestic context or in international context? For all the "multiculturalism" stuff, there aren't institutions like the Catholic church and associated organizations were to 1950s Italian Americans in NYC. There are many self claimed "multicultural" leaders, but the truth is that they are almost invariably distant from their alleged communities and are trusted far more by the mainstream elite, mostly by parroting the "multicultural" tales spun by the mainstream elite, largely out of their own fantasies, or worse, stereotypes. Often, they justify their existence by stoking tensions instead of resolving them and adding to the preexisting distrust (I could very easily be talking out of various "pro western" leaders in many countries--like, say, Zelinski--or most "community leaders" in US, I suppose). At many levels, as noted by Aurelien in other essays, communities have been broken down, most people don't have a sense of "citizenship" in their communities, so we increasingly don't know not only who would protect us, but also who exactly we need protection from and how that protection is to be provided. (One might say that this is great because Italian kids are not Jewish kids' enemies or whatever...but the fact is that if Italian kids beat up Jewish kids or vice versa, the fact is that there was a fight between "cultural" communities for whatever reason and denial does not unmake that fact. But it helps if there are institutions within and between communities so that they can reassuringly convince all that it's not "the Jews" or "the Italians" but just some kids who happen to be members of the communities whom the communities would credibly rein in.) But we do know thst we are insecure and in need of protection.
I think this is exactly the most dangerous combination one could face. This opens the path for so many potentially dangerous developments.
Good article. I have argued that it will be Russia as the premier state of the 21st century because Russia has energy, food production, resources, an educated workforce, an industrial base,. and a population with direct memory of suffering and privation China does not have liquid fuel energy, and limited land to feed the population. The United States and Canada also have the necessary elements, except for a population familiar with suffering, and unless and until that population understands they need to take a drastic change in standard of living nothing will happen. However, I think it is wrong to assume that the United States is unable to vastly retool all industry, and build such industry, if it so chooses. That is the thing that makes the United States so dangerous, this ability to suddenly shift when the need become clear. Pwrhaps that ability lies now in the past, but this ia a huge assumption.
I only take exception to this statement: "It’s not simply that the industrial capability to produce weapons in volume no longer exists; it’s also impossible to recreate it without divine intervention, and it’s also impossible, as things stand, to see the re-creation of the massive organisational, technological and support structures it would need."
This is accurate only under peacetime conditions. Any of the Western nations, should they elect to fully mobilize, could get on the path to resolving the military industrial problem.
The issue is that Western militaries' focus is, to a very significant extent, also a hack to run up huge budgets without forcing societal participation and/or approval. Without this explicit support, what's left are LIC type "wars" and MIC-driven expensive toys.
Explicit support is needed to redirect energy, metals, manpower and money from population scale snivel gear to industrial warfare scales of artillery shells, missiles, rockets and bullets. The EPA wrote a report on the US explosives industry of 1971 - the height of the Vietnam war. The industry consumed 198 bcm of natural gas and the equivalent of 8.4 Terawatt hours of energy overall. 198 bcm is more than 3/4 of the Russian natural gas supplied to Europe in 2021, 50 years later.
This was certainly a very significant percentage of US energy consumption that year; redirecting this scale of energy into ammunition can't be done without materially impacting standards of living, hence the need for explicit approval and/or mobilization of the population.
Redirecting the resources will take years: during WW2, for example, US started mobilizing for war, incrementally, in 1939 or even earlier. Started mobilizing more overtly in 1940--peacetime conscription and all that. But US industries and manpower were not "fully" mobilized until mid 1943 at earliest and most ppl who served during WW2 did not go anywhere near actual war zone (depending on how "war zone" might be defined, I suppose) because the war was already nearing the end when they would have been ready to go there. And this was in a setting where political tools for direct govt intervention in the economy were numerous and people were much more receptive to it, in the aftermath of the Great Depression.
I don't think there will be another Pearl Harbor moment: I thought 9/11 was one, but it wasn't. US government did not bother trying to mobilize the nation seriously: maybe they knew it wouldn't work so well this time or they were blinded by their ideology, who knows? I'm not so sure if there will be another and, if there were one involving Russia or China, we won't live through it anyways. So maybe the industries and populations could be mobilized...or not. We can't be sure now.
I agree with what you wrote in a directional sense, but I don't think you have looked closely enough at the literal quantitative differences between WW2 and now.
For one thing: there is no benefit whatsoever for the US to be building 3 Liberty ships every day. Even if these were usable, the reality is that cruise and hypersonic missiles coupled with modern radar and satellite reconnaissance would make any number of Liberty Ship Mk2022, literally suicidal.
The same can be said for weapons platforms. GM was making literally thousands of tanks per month at their peak. In comparison: the entire US armored corps today is 6600. Ukraine started the conflict with 1462 tanks vs. Russia having 10000 tanks in existence and probably 3000 or so in active service.
Granted, the weapons platforms of WW2 are not the qualitative same as today - but it isn't like WW2 tanks were made of papier mache. Sherman tanks were 40 tons vs. Abrams 75 tons, for example.
So while I would certainly agree that there would be material and technology challenges to re-arming today - the raw material inputs plus modern manufacturing capabilities, coupled with industrial innovation to replace Ukraine's losses, for example, would be a small fraction compared to the output of the US in World War 2 at full mobilization.
The far greater issue is that the US would need to go on a full war footing in order to do this - which would require active American population support and curtailment of standards of living. 9/11 was not a full mobilization - it was a bump up of budgets but with little accountability. The same can be said for the ongoing "arming" of Ukraine: the literal emptying of US and European warehouses of multi-decade old weapons sprinkled with a dusting of more modern systems, for which both the old and the new(er) are sadly undersupplied with ammunition.
Just to give you a basic idea, how tank production used to work.
1963 - Collaboration with FRG, on MBT-70 started.
1969 - MBT-70 is shaping up to be impressively capable, gets canceled. By the time production price was calculated, it was 5(five) times the original estimated cost.
XM1 program starts, attempts to save parts of MBT-70 work.
1976 - First prototypes by Chrysler and GM delivered for testing. Chrysler Defense won.
1979 - M1 Abrams Low Rate Initial Production spooling up
1980 - M1 enters Army service.
1982 - 1000+ M1 tanks delivered. General Dynamics Land Systems buys out Chrysler Defense, takes over the contract.
1985 - 3,273 M1 Abrams
Switched to M1A1 and produced many more (Got tired of writing this out).
The US didn't start producing thousands of thanks per month in WW2 immediately. It took 2+ years to hit that point under full mobilization, and that was with basically the full cooperation of the US population.
I'd also note that the timeline you put above regarding the M1 and variants was also not under a full mobilization scenario.
Certainly there would be enormous challenges due to basic materials production: steel to start with as well as basic chemicals, energy, metals and commodities and more. And equally certainly, US industry (or European) no longer dominates in terms of raw industrial output.
But could the US produce 1000-M1 tanks if the US economy and population were fully mobilized? i.e. willing to sacrifice standard of living and sacred cows in order to meet a core survival requirement?
I think it would be very naive to think it is impossible. It might take 2 or 3 years or longer but the absolute level of inputs required is simply not that high in full US economy terms.
Did you have a chance to check out the article? It's about "Ajax" program, the new UK AFV, sorta like the US M2/M3 Bradley.
(BTW, watch "Pentagon Wars" to understand what a shitshow that development program was. Despite of it being a comedy, they did not have to invent additional silly plot points, mostly.)
So the "Ajax" is a Spanish design from the 90s. The company was bought out, and an updated version got the contract from UK MOD in the 2010. None have passed trials, or have been accepted into service, as far as I understand. The year is 2023. 90s design, already previously mass manufactured for Spain and Australia. The list of issues still present is extensive.
This is the same company, "General Dynamics," that bought out the Chrysler's defense branch and was in charge of manufacturing the Abrams tanks. I wrote about these 2 examples together for a reason.
I mean, look at any new defense program, what came on time, within budget, and fully delivered as advertised? It's the same in civilian market, remember the randomly nose-diving new Boeing jumbo jet, that had to be grounded? All the buried by hype issues with new Teslas?
America lost much of it's professional manufacturing labor force. Many, seemingly basic, practices have to be re-discovered and re-implemented. When you offshore your real industry, and become a service/marketing/finance based economy for decades, shutting down most factories—you can't just as easily move it all back later.
Everyone was laughing at Russian military industry, that kept designing and producing tiny batches of new equipment because the funding was so minimal. Like the few dozen nearly hand-made Armata tanks. I think that "budget optimization crowd" is currently discovering, how astronomical the price is, for resurrecting dead sectors of manufacturing.
I don't need any convincing that the Western military platform procurement strategy is 99% about profit generation or that Western military industrial policy is bad.
But yet again, this is under peacetime conditions.
My view is that peacetime military procurement is like peacetime military officer advancement. In peacetime, the beancounter, suckup, political types flourish in the military officer corps just as the profiteers and junk salesmen profit in the military industrial suppliers.
The problem is that all the money thrown away by the West, so far, is not the last of the money the West possesses. The West can continue to throw away hundreds of billions for at least a few more years - until de-dollarization hits it apex. Even then, the US is the 3rd largest country by population, 2nd largest by area, and 2nd wealthiest in absolute terms with the EU being not far behind - meaning the economic and manpower potential is still there.
The exposure of the US and EU militaries' lack of artillery supplies, for example, has to have been noticed. Ditto the performance of pretty much every Western system deployed in Ukraine thus far - certainly net quality and quantity impact has clearly been underwhelming.
My point is still the same: it is a mistake to think that the US/EU could not field a competitive military force if either/both of those societies chose to mobilize.
Russia is doing well at least partly because it has always maintained higher levels of both military industrial mobilization and field force mobilization relative to its population and size of economy, but don't mistake that for outright dominance under any and all scenarios or for more than the most short term of periods.
A great assessment of the current situation. However, perhaps saying:
"Western aircraft could successfully gain and hold air superiority against, say Russia or China, provided the enemy agreed to limit the engagements strictly to air-to-air combat out of the range of anti-aircraft missiles."
Even without the presence of ground-to-air missiles, all US aircraft are now inferior to similar Russian and Chinese planes. in most ways The only advantage the US has over Russia is in numbers (- if they could get them to Europe in a war situation), and as for China, not even that. EU forces are hardly worth mentioning, they are even more disadvantaged in all ways.
US armaments are produced to make profits - Russian and Chinese for effective defence. There is a long and ever growing list of failures in US armaments. A sample would include:
F-35 - vastly inferior in speed, range, manoeuvrability etc. to any enemy it is likely to meet, and still not fully certified for combat, ongoing and increasing list of faults and problems, difficult to maintain,
F-22 - production cancelled early because of cost, low availability because of very high maintenance, unable to be easily upgraded, (B-1 bomber - similar)
'Littoral Combat' ships - unable to do the job intended, inadequate armament, 'literally' falling to pieces as they sail,
New super-carriers - lifts don't work, launch system doesn't work, etc.
Abrams tank - proved vulnerable to IED's in Iraq, turbine power uses much more fuel than diesel
"the industrial capability to produce weapons in volume no longer exists; it’s also impossible to recreate it without divine intervention" touché... I very much doubt He will intervene
I know it may be a flawed comparison, but the wests military capabilities seem to match Japan c.1940. Some outstanding individual weapons and units (especially in the Navy), but without the industrial capacity to back them up. In launching their Pacific War, Japan were entirely dependent on their small collection destroyers, carriers, super battleships and Zeroes to smash the western powers in a series of rapid blows. But once it turned into a war of attrition they had no chance whatever.
The Japanese were at least aware of this and has a sort-of strategy to avoid it (although obviously that strategy depended on Washington being weak, impulsive and stupid, which is entirely reasonable, but not an assumption you should base your countries future upon). I do wonder how much policy makers in the West are aware that other powers have strategies too, and are perfectly aware of the strengths and weaknesses of the US military (as Europes military hardly counts much these days).
Of course, it may be that the Chinese (for example) might be stupid enough to try to trade blows on equal terms with the USAF and USN, but I very much doubt it.
Just wanted to say how lucky I feel to stumble upon this blog. Your measured thought-provoking intellectual style is in stark contrast to the majority of information and analytics sources these days. Sometimes I find myself wanting to read you more frequently, but then I feel that if you were writing more frequently then it would not give me enough time to digest previous articles. Thanks a lot, good sir!
That's very kind, thank you. In the end, I decided I'm not very good at polemic, so I'd stick to what I thought I could do. There's too much noise around anyway, and not enough signal.
In addition to the factors mentioned, Europe also no longer has the industrial capacity to rearm; while Russian energy may once again be flowing westward, albeit via Turkey or other middlemen, it is unlikely to be in sufficient quantities to enable Europe to reindustrialize to the point where it once again could pose a military threat to Russia. All blessings in disguise, yet more protection against any inclination to military adventurism, we may hope.
While the external dynamics of Europe to come are intriguing, to me they dissappear into the background of the internal power dynamics you describe, where essentially rival paramilitary groups divided along neo-ethnic lines are the future. Highly technical security forces in the capital cores, Moslem gangs running the suburbs of most major cities and autochtone groups operating in the countryside. Most of the groups being to some extent financed externally and used to direct the politics of the failed states.
Ie, western Europe being transformed into Lebanon, with eastern Europe acting as the centre of power.
I do wonder if you yourself see this as the most likely scenario or if you have something to add as to the future internal power dynamics?
The US has neglected investing in the traditional "hardware" of warfare and instead focused its efforts on cyber warfare and genotype-targeted biological warfare. The COVID-19 plandemic and democide by "vaccine" was just a test run. Stay tuned, there are more, deadlier ones to be unleashed.
Celine's First Law readeth thusly:
"National Security is the chief cause of national insecurity."
Or, as Madeline Albright croaked: "What's the point of this incredible military you've got, if you don't use it?"
Colonel Kilgore and Madeline Albright, what a team. "I love the smell of burnt children in the morning!" Abraham only had two children to offer up, Madeline did them in bulk and plugged her ears in case her god said stop.
“To be America’s enemy is dangerous,
but to be her friend is fatal.” – Henry Kissinger.
NATO countries are hopeless.
This is all very good stuff Señor Aurelien, the sort of deep but practical political thinking that you just don't see in the mainstream media. I'm sure that in the past you have sat at the big table in the committee room and read the briefing documents, but once you get pushed to the fringes you can see many things and say many more things that were not previously possible.
I have for sometime now been interested in the process by which some clan or cult or underground society rises from the fringe to the center of political power. Gaining the monopoly on the use of legitimate violence is of course the key, but only the final result, The power of violence comes first before it becomes legitimated later.
This is the old old story of the mandate of heaven, after the battle the winner is king and the loser is an outlaw, so the bandit becomes emperor and the emperor a bandit. We can see this in the deep roots of our own King Charles III today. How many generations did it take for the Viking raiders to become Dukes of Normandy and then Kings of France and England ? They never gave up the sword and the axe and after each victory they became more powerful and more legitimate.
Now we don't really tolerate Norsemen sailing their longboats over the North sea to sack villages anymore but the dynamic is still the same, just more underground. There are plenty of men living half in and half out of the shadows very comfortable with the sword and the pistol who will move into a power vacuum when the opportunity presents itself.
Closer to our own time, Dr. Sun Yat Sen used the underground criminal networks of the Tongmen "Heaven & Earth" Triads to knock off the ailing Qing dynasty and become the first president of China. He is still revered today by both the Red and Blue Chinese and his tomb is a great shrine situated on the same sacred mountain as the tombs of the ancient Ming emperors.
As for bandit warlords today who are on the cusp of becoming legitimate kings, you have already mentioned Hezbollah and other factions of militant Islam, the history of their religion gives them an obvious path to political legitimacy.
Another cluster of underground bandits that might have a path to gaining real political power are the Narco gangs of south America, now operating on both sides of the Rio Grande. They have shown the ability to mobilize thousands of soldiers or "Sicarios", armed with modern weapons, riding armored vehicles, equipped with sophisticated communications, and so on and so on. They certainly have assassinated many government officials, so it's fair to assume they have de-facto arrangements with many more. Start with a local businessman, then a city Alderman, then the Mayor, then Governor, Senator, and so on and so on and so on.
After the election the criminal becomes the Chief of Police and the Chief of Police becomes a criminal.
Sun Yat Sen started like 5 failed uprisings. They were funded by Chinese American immigrants, USA, Japan, SE Asian Chinese diaspora, and the triads you mentioned, in turn (off the top of my head, probably forgot some sponsors). The uprising that succeeded to overthrow the Imperial Government, actually occurred when he was in Denver, lol. Obviously, the circling sharks would just keep hammering China with “color revolutions”, until it was broken.
The Islamic fundamentalists don't particularly desire to invade the West or something, they mostly just want to kick out Westerners, so they stop destabilizing the region and bleeding it dry.
Narco cartels are unlikely to openly take over entire countries (maybe some tiny Central American one, at most), definitely are not a serious threat to US. They are tied at the hip to the US intelligence clique, a convenient source for off-the-books funding. Remember Iran-Contra? They took over management of Northern Mexico briefly, because their operation requires relative stability. Having to administer a large population - is not something they want to really mess with.
Interesting - I have read (Dmitry Orlov) that during the collapse of the USSR, the societal breakdown resulted in many areas in exactly what you describe when you say that, if the Islamists or the drug dealers are the ones with the power to protect you, then they are the ones who will get your loyalty. Interesting also that, over time, at least some of those outlaw groups gradually migrated to positions of comparatively legitimate power, and formed the basis of new societal order. In this context, at least some of what we regard in the light of "good" and "evil" has more to do with practical concerns of survival.
Very much appreachiated your essays – THX.
It reminds me on the words of Col. D. MacGregor in his todays interview on his YT canal.
Foccussing on your topic :
- Disruption of the west European continent-, especially its military capabilities, and even its “decomposition” ( á la the old STASI method of “Zersetzung”) from within using cultural Marxism IS ONE OF THE TOP REQUIREMENTS for the so called “Great Reset” the WEF-DAVOS-Satanist Clique has envisioned. – Sadly, you stopped there and left that out of your sight. When a matter of such far reaching consequenses as a nations, even a continents, military is touched there are aims the major players have in mind. In politics nothing comes without an intent.
- As Klaus Schwab, the Mother-WEF-er himself, declard so loudly : they have in all of the + 200 nations on earth THEIR People installed in the power apparatuses. And not only did/ and does- their cultural Marxism work, it is also the syncronicity with which they operate : Be reminded of the outbreak of the so called Corona scam-pandemic : Nearly the same measures in all of the + 200 nations on earth at ONCE. THAT was one show of who-is-who. Meaning : after the end that you foresee there IS very much more to come. And if we all do not want THAT, well, then better get started sooner.
- One of the nightmare scenarios you described : the drug cartels as warlords to which people have to go if they wish some level of protection and safety on future planning. I I would rather call that the Mad-Max-World. Exactly this is what the WEF-ers would love to see : as they assume people would turn to them for “help” and stability. Thereby accepting all measures that would be considered unacceptable before.
- Result : I rather suggest that, instead of thinking through a possible instable world, it is advisable to erect now in everydays small steps a world that makes the national-& international superstructures and companies, the oligarchs, the finance giants such as Blackrock at. al. unnecessary. Have that alternate form of existence thought through and developed. And I am not only thinking only about all-day-cash-day, or going local and creating local currencies. Coming to military security : WE ALL, it seems to me, should – in these terms – talk also about the recent assault on the health of all of the earths populace by a handful of oligarchs who like to drastically reduce population by 15 out of 16. THAT is the real security matter.
Just for the interested reader : An answer to the question : “ How did we get here ?” is given by : Whitney Webb. Just look her up, for instance her recent interviews on the two volume book about the national security and – control state in the US.
What in the world are you talking about? Why reference some obscure, long dead GDR "Zersetzung" stuff, when we have over half a century of "COINTELPRO" far more people are familiar with?
"Cultural Marxism IS ONE OF THE TOP REQUIREMENTS for the so called “Great Reset” the WEF-DAVOS-Satanist Clique has envisioned" - What is this nonsense? Are you just writing down all the "scary" words you know, or something? What does Marxism have anything to do with it?
Another factor to consider is wokeness in what is left of western militaries. The constituent ethnicities of Western nations and especially their heterosexual, male portions have taken notice of it - They are signing up in ever diminishing numbers. The US army was said yo have wound up 25% short of its recruiting target in 2022 and that includes all non-combat positions. The shortcome was probably more than 25% if considering only combat positions. The situation is exacerbated, of course, by birth rates in these ethnicties that are not only low but often catastrophically so. The consequence is less and less of a heterosexual, male, ethnic core to these militaries like the one that used to be their mainstay and backbone above all else. What Western "nations" end up with are oh-so "diverse" militaries and paramilitaries permeated by homosexuals, femininity, ethnic and religious tensions, gang members and the like, all to the point of outright subversion. It stands to reason that these militaries might break down rapidly if required to deploy in a high-intensity, high-casualty situation like the one currently unfolding in Ukraine. The West is getting away with it only by placing the load of going to fight and taking casualties on allies that haven't been affected by wokeness to the same degree - chiefly Ukraine itself, Poland, Romania, Georgia.
The cultural dimension is, I think, where Aurelien's question meets Schmitt's: who is going to protect me from whom, and how?
There is a well known story among IR tyopes (which illustrates that poli sci ppl do have common sense, even if it is drowned out by institutional-cultural norms): in 1950s, if there were fights between Jewish and Italian kids, the situation was inevitably dealt with by the public school principal and the nun who was the principal of the parochial school, with the cops not being involved because "they are Irish."
There is a lot to unpack here, but the most obvious points that I want to draw are that you expect institutions you are culturally part of to lend you protection and the internal makeup of the institutions necessarily lead to those institutions becoming part of cultural spheres. You turn to people who are "like you" (like the parochial school principal, if you are Italian in 1950s NYC.) to lend you protection. Even when institutions are nominally independent of cultural connections, like public school principal or the cops, they are absorbed into the cultural sphere because public schools presumably had disproportionate share of Jewish kids and the police force was largely Irish. Maybe the principal was actually an old Yankee without recent cultural ties and there were Jewish and Italian cops, but that did not matter since they were part of de facto cultural institutions. It helped that the principals of public and parochial schools talked civilly with each other often, they were genuinely interested in maintaining civil relations with each other and between communities, and they headed "cultural" institutions trusted and respected by relevant communities--again, because of the cultural ties.
Fast forward to today, who commands that kind of respect at a "cultural" level, that can satisfactorily negotiate for "security," whether in domestic context or in international context? For all the "multiculturalism" stuff, there aren't institutions like the Catholic church and associated organizations were to 1950s Italian Americans in NYC. There are many self claimed "multicultural" leaders, but the truth is that they are almost invariably distant from their alleged communities and are trusted far more by the mainstream elite, mostly by parroting the "multicultural" tales spun by the mainstream elite, largely out of their own fantasies, or worse, stereotypes. Often, they justify their existence by stoking tensions instead of resolving them and adding to the preexisting distrust (I could very easily be talking out of various "pro western" leaders in many countries--like, say, Zelinski--or most "community leaders" in US, I suppose). At many levels, as noted by Aurelien in other essays, communities have been broken down, most people don't have a sense of "citizenship" in their communities, so we increasingly don't know not only who would protect us, but also who exactly we need protection from and how that protection is to be provided. (One might say that this is great because Italian kids are not Jewish kids' enemies or whatever...but the fact is that if Italian kids beat up Jewish kids or vice versa, the fact is that there was a fight between "cultural" communities for whatever reason and denial does not unmake that fact. But it helps if there are institutions within and between communities so that they can reassuringly convince all that it's not "the Jews" or "the Italians" but just some kids who happen to be members of the communities whom the communities would credibly rein in.) But we do know thst we are insecure and in need of protection.
I think this is exactly the most dangerous combination one could face. This opens the path for so many potentially dangerous developments.
Good article. I have argued that it will be Russia as the premier state of the 21st century because Russia has energy, food production, resources, an educated workforce, an industrial base,. and a population with direct memory of suffering and privation China does not have liquid fuel energy, and limited land to feed the population. The United States and Canada also have the necessary elements, except for a population familiar with suffering, and unless and until that population understands they need to take a drastic change in standard of living nothing will happen. However, I think it is wrong to assume that the United States is unable to vastly retool all industry, and build such industry, if it so chooses. That is the thing that makes the United States so dangerous, this ability to suddenly shift when the need become clear. Pwrhaps that ability lies now in the past, but this ia a huge assumption.
Excellent article.
I only take exception to this statement: "It’s not simply that the industrial capability to produce weapons in volume no longer exists; it’s also impossible to recreate it without divine intervention, and it’s also impossible, as things stand, to see the re-creation of the massive organisational, technological and support structures it would need."
This is accurate only under peacetime conditions. Any of the Western nations, should they elect to fully mobilize, could get on the path to resolving the military industrial problem.
The issue is that Western militaries' focus is, to a very significant extent, also a hack to run up huge budgets without forcing societal participation and/or approval. Without this explicit support, what's left are LIC type "wars" and MIC-driven expensive toys.
Explicit support is needed to redirect energy, metals, manpower and money from population scale snivel gear to industrial warfare scales of artillery shells, missiles, rockets and bullets. The EPA wrote a report on the US explosives industry of 1971 - the height of the Vietnam war. The industry consumed 198 bcm of natural gas and the equivalent of 8.4 Terawatt hours of energy overall. 198 bcm is more than 3/4 of the Russian natural gas supplied to Europe in 2021, 50 years later.
This was certainly a very significant percentage of US energy consumption that year; redirecting this scale of energy into ammunition can't be done without materially impacting standards of living, hence the need for explicit approval and/or mobilization of the population.
Redirecting the resources will take years: during WW2, for example, US started mobilizing for war, incrementally, in 1939 or even earlier. Started mobilizing more overtly in 1940--peacetime conscription and all that. But US industries and manpower were not "fully" mobilized until mid 1943 at earliest and most ppl who served during WW2 did not go anywhere near actual war zone (depending on how "war zone" might be defined, I suppose) because the war was already nearing the end when they would have been ready to go there. And this was in a setting where political tools for direct govt intervention in the economy were numerous and people were much more receptive to it, in the aftermath of the Great Depression.
I don't think there will be another Pearl Harbor moment: I thought 9/11 was one, but it wasn't. US government did not bother trying to mobilize the nation seriously: maybe they knew it wouldn't work so well this time or they were blinded by their ideology, who knows? I'm not so sure if there will be another and, if there were one involving Russia or China, we won't live through it anyways. So maybe the industries and populations could be mobilized...or not. We can't be sure now.
I agree with what you wrote in a directional sense, but I don't think you have looked closely enough at the literal quantitative differences between WW2 and now.
For one thing: there is no benefit whatsoever for the US to be building 3 Liberty ships every day. Even if these were usable, the reality is that cruise and hypersonic missiles coupled with modern radar and satellite reconnaissance would make any number of Liberty Ship Mk2022, literally suicidal.
The same can be said for weapons platforms. GM was making literally thousands of tanks per month at their peak. In comparison: the entire US armored corps today is 6600. Ukraine started the conflict with 1462 tanks vs. Russia having 10000 tanks in existence and probably 3000 or so in active service.
Granted, the weapons platforms of WW2 are not the qualitative same as today - but it isn't like WW2 tanks were made of papier mache. Sherman tanks were 40 tons vs. Abrams 75 tons, for example.
So while I would certainly agree that there would be material and technology challenges to re-arming today - the raw material inputs plus modern manufacturing capabilities, coupled with industrial innovation to replace Ukraine's losses, for example, would be a small fraction compared to the output of the US in World War 2 at full mobilization.
The far greater issue is that the US would need to go on a full war footing in order to do this - which would require active American population support and curtailment of standards of living. 9/11 was not a full mobilization - it was a bump up of budgets but with little accountability. The same can be said for the ongoing "arming" of Ukraine: the literal emptying of US and European warehouses of multi-decade old weapons sprinkled with a dusting of more modern systems, for which both the old and the new(er) are sadly undersupplied with ammunition.
Just to give you a basic idea, how tank production used to work.
1963 - Collaboration with FRG, on MBT-70 started.
1969 - MBT-70 is shaping up to be impressively capable, gets canceled. By the time production price was calculated, it was 5(five) times the original estimated cost.
XM1 program starts, attempts to save parts of MBT-70 work.
1976 - First prototypes by Chrysler and GM delivered for testing. Chrysler Defense won.
1979 - M1 Abrams Low Rate Initial Production spooling up
1980 - M1 enters Army service.
1982 - 1000+ M1 tanks delivered. General Dynamics Land Systems buys out Chrysler Defense, takes over the contract.
1985 - 3,273 M1 Abrams
Switched to M1A1 and produced many more (Got tired of writing this out).
Present day APC production:
https://rusi.org/explore-our-research/publications/emerging-insights/lessons-ajax-programme
Good luck to people expecting quick results.
I fully agree with you re: "quick results".
The US didn't start producing thousands of thanks per month in WW2 immediately. It took 2+ years to hit that point under full mobilization, and that was with basically the full cooperation of the US population.
I'd also note that the timeline you put above regarding the M1 and variants was also not under a full mobilization scenario.
Certainly there would be enormous challenges due to basic materials production: steel to start with as well as basic chemicals, energy, metals and commodities and more. And equally certainly, US industry (or European) no longer dominates in terms of raw industrial output.
But could the US produce 1000-M1 tanks if the US economy and population were fully mobilized? i.e. willing to sacrifice standard of living and sacred cows in order to meet a core survival requirement?
I think it would be very naive to think it is impossible. It might take 2 or 3 years or longer but the absolute level of inputs required is simply not that high in full US economy terms.
Did you have a chance to check out the article? It's about "Ajax" program, the new UK AFV, sorta like the US M2/M3 Bradley.
(BTW, watch "Pentagon Wars" to understand what a shitshow that development program was. Despite of it being a comedy, they did not have to invent additional silly plot points, mostly.)
So the "Ajax" is a Spanish design from the 90s. The company was bought out, and an updated version got the contract from UK MOD in the 2010. None have passed trials, or have been accepted into service, as far as I understand. The year is 2023. 90s design, already previously mass manufactured for Spain and Australia. The list of issues still present is extensive.
This is the same company, "General Dynamics," that bought out the Chrysler's defense branch and was in charge of manufacturing the Abrams tanks. I wrote about these 2 examples together for a reason.
If you need more examples, Littoral combat ships:
https://www.politico.com/news/2022/07/15/20-years-later-the-navy-says-its-littoral-combat-ships-kind-of-work-00046137
I mean, look at any new defense program, what came on time, within budget, and fully delivered as advertised? It's the same in civilian market, remember the randomly nose-diving new Boeing jumbo jet, that had to be grounded? All the buried by hype issues with new Teslas?
America lost much of it's professional manufacturing labor force. Many, seemingly basic, practices have to be re-discovered and re-implemented. When you offshore your real industry, and become a service/marketing/finance based economy for decades, shutting down most factories—you can't just as easily move it all back later.
Everyone was laughing at Russian military industry, that kept designing and producing tiny batches of new equipment because the funding was so minimal. Like the few dozen nearly hand-made Armata tanks. I think that "budget optimization crowd" is currently discovering, how astronomical the price is, for resurrecting dead sectors of manufacturing.
I don't need any convincing that the Western military platform procurement strategy is 99% about profit generation or that Western military industrial policy is bad.
But yet again, this is under peacetime conditions.
My view is that peacetime military procurement is like peacetime military officer advancement. In peacetime, the beancounter, suckup, political types flourish in the military officer corps just as the profiteers and junk salesmen profit in the military industrial suppliers.
The problem is that all the money thrown away by the West, so far, is not the last of the money the West possesses. The West can continue to throw away hundreds of billions for at least a few more years - until de-dollarization hits it apex. Even then, the US is the 3rd largest country by population, 2nd largest by area, and 2nd wealthiest in absolute terms with the EU being not far behind - meaning the economic and manpower potential is still there.
The exposure of the US and EU militaries' lack of artillery supplies, for example, has to have been noticed. Ditto the performance of pretty much every Western system deployed in Ukraine thus far - certainly net quality and quantity impact has clearly been underwhelming.
My point is still the same: it is a mistake to think that the US/EU could not field a competitive military force if either/both of those societies chose to mobilize.
Russia is doing well at least partly because it has always maintained higher levels of both military industrial mobilization and field force mobilization relative to its population and size of economy, but don't mistake that for outright dominance under any and all scenarios or for more than the most short term of periods.
A great assessment of the current situation. However, perhaps saying:
"Western aircraft could successfully gain and hold air superiority against, say Russia or China, provided the enemy agreed to limit the engagements strictly to air-to-air combat out of the range of anti-aircraft missiles."
Even without the presence of ground-to-air missiles, all US aircraft are now inferior to similar Russian and Chinese planes. in most ways The only advantage the US has over Russia is in numbers (- if they could get them to Europe in a war situation), and as for China, not even that. EU forces are hardly worth mentioning, they are even more disadvantaged in all ways.
US armaments are produced to make profits - Russian and Chinese for effective defence. There is a long and ever growing list of failures in US armaments. A sample would include:
F-35 - vastly inferior in speed, range, manoeuvrability etc. to any enemy it is likely to meet, and still not fully certified for combat, ongoing and increasing list of faults and problems, difficult to maintain,
F-22 - production cancelled early because of cost, low availability because of very high maintenance, unable to be easily upgraded, (B-1 bomber - similar)
'Littoral Combat' ships - unable to do the job intended, inadequate armament, 'literally' falling to pieces as they sail,
New super-carriers - lifts don't work, launch system doesn't work, etc.
Abrams tank - proved vulnerable to IED's in Iraq, turbine power uses much more fuel than diesel
etc. etc.
And see: https://orientalreview.org/2022/12/30/why-russia-which-spends-one-twentieth-what-america-does-on-military-is-militarily-more-successful-than-america/
Good analysis.. some comments
"air superiority" is passé...
"the industrial capability to produce weapons in volume no longer exists; it’s also impossible to recreate it without divine intervention" touché... I very much doubt He will intervene
I know it may be a flawed comparison, but the wests military capabilities seem to match Japan c.1940. Some outstanding individual weapons and units (especially in the Navy), but without the industrial capacity to back them up. In launching their Pacific War, Japan were entirely dependent on their small collection destroyers, carriers, super battleships and Zeroes to smash the western powers in a series of rapid blows. But once it turned into a war of attrition they had no chance whatever.
The Japanese were at least aware of this and has a sort-of strategy to avoid it (although obviously that strategy depended on Washington being weak, impulsive and stupid, which is entirely reasonable, but not an assumption you should base your countries future upon). I do wonder how much policy makers in the West are aware that other powers have strategies too, and are perfectly aware of the strengths and weaknesses of the US military (as Europes military hardly counts much these days).
Of course, it may be that the Chinese (for example) might be stupid enough to try to trade blows on equal terms with the USAF and USN, but I very much doubt it.
Just wanted to say how lucky I feel to stumble upon this blog. Your measured thought-provoking intellectual style is in stark contrast to the majority of information and analytics sources these days. Sometimes I find myself wanting to read you more frequently, but then I feel that if you were writing more frequently then it would not give me enough time to digest previous articles. Thanks a lot, good sir!
That's very kind, thank you. In the end, I decided I'm not very good at polemic, so I'd stick to what I thought I could do. There's too much noise around anyway, and not enough signal.
In addition to the factors mentioned, Europe also no longer has the industrial capacity to rearm; while Russian energy may once again be flowing westward, albeit via Turkey or other middlemen, it is unlikely to be in sufficient quantities to enable Europe to reindustrialize to the point where it once again could pose a military threat to Russia. All blessings in disguise, yet more protection against any inclination to military adventurism, we may hope.
Thanks again for an excellent piece.
While the external dynamics of Europe to come are intriguing, to me they dissappear into the background of the internal power dynamics you describe, where essentially rival paramilitary groups divided along neo-ethnic lines are the future. Highly technical security forces in the capital cores, Moslem gangs running the suburbs of most major cities and autochtone groups operating in the countryside. Most of the groups being to some extent financed externally and used to direct the politics of the failed states.
Ie, western Europe being transformed into Lebanon, with eastern Europe acting as the centre of power.
I do wonder if you yourself see this as the most likely scenario or if you have something to add as to the future internal power dynamics?
The US has neglected investing in the traditional "hardware" of warfare and instead focused its efforts on cyber warfare and genotype-targeted biological warfare. The COVID-19 plandemic and democide by "vaccine" was just a test run. Stay tuned, there are more, deadlier ones to be unleashed.
https://www.unz.com/wwebb/bats-gene-editing-and-bioweapons-recent-darpa-experiments-raise-concerns-amid-coronavirus-outbreak/
The New Constitution - Living War Crimes: US Military Coup in Action
https://bailiwicknews.substack.com/p/the-new-constitution-living-war-crimes