The music was not over but I had to pause it to write this comment.
The problems that the "loss of Ukraine" cause for Western PMC are not evenly distributed. Europeans live in communities with structures that have stood for a millennia and a recorded history even longer than that. To me, this means the casting aside of the PMC of Western Europe will be easier to achieve. The Europeans have a cultural history to buttress their recovery from the mismanagement of their elites.
In my neck of the woods, the United States of America, there is no deep reservoir of history apart from a highly glamorized two century one of exceptionalism. The setbacks we have faced have been swept under the carpet and dwelling upon them is deemed counterproductive and don't you know that we are the essential entity on the planet?
Right at this moment we in the U.S. are not imbued with realists that can talk us down from the shrill cries of doom and disaster that will accompany the failure to encircle Moscow. The right wing of our country might well attribute Russia's success to not having kowtowed to a woke agenda, then turn on a dime to start the march on Beijing.
We lack universal social welfare structures and do not prioritize the health of our citizens here in the U.S. There will be no campaigns built upon righting this oversight, no ground swell for investing in our common welfare. Enemies will be denounced daily, beatings will continue, people will suffer because our finest have been shown to be not so fine.
The U.S. is going to be on a rough ride. May we bear it solely without inflicting the rest of the planet with our convulsions.
Since the USA military will not be able to enforce our rulers will onto the outside world, I expect that their "doubling down" will be aimed INWARD. And all the wonderful new mechanisms for social control will be turned up to 11, along with deploying the time tested ones such as re education camps- "Drying up the sea the guerillas swim in" via rural depopulation/relocation to "secure hamlets" or other euphemistically named large open air prisons. Recent political statements beginning the dehumanization of rural & conservative white people as "hateful", "racist" and "anti semitic" are telegraphing who the next enemy is likely to be.
And after Dept. of Homeland Security carries out a new world rerun of the British/Scotts "enclosures", Cargill, Black Rock, Goldman-Sachs et alia will have a consolation prize of all the farm lands taken from USA small holders to make up for all that land in a Ukraine they paid for but now will never earn a dime from...
I can guess how those descendants of previously displaced borderers, Scotts-Irish & etc. will react.
If there IS really a method to the latest PMC madness, the breakup & balkanization of the USA must be a primary aim?
No need for reeducation camps or anything so heavy-handed. All that need be done is freeze dissenters' bank accounts, cancel their driver licenses, insurance, etc..
Regardless what you may think of the Canadian Trucker Protests, such tactics worked like a charm. The protests folded almost immediately. Legal? No, but laws are only as good as the willingness to enforce them.
By contrast, the average frustrated Talib had no bank account, driver license, credit card, etc. and consequently, such methods don't work on him.
The way of suppression everything that bears the slightest sign of being pro-russian is quite shocking and if someone had predicted that a few years ago I wouldn't have believed it (allthough the crusade against Putin is much older).
But putting question marks behind my sentences is not meant purely rhetorical.
This turn inward will happen/happens not only in The US. Here in Germany the Ministry of Defence and aligned personnel/thinktanks are preparing the civilian population in the context (or pretext?) of a confrontation with Russia in the next 4-8 years to become more "resilient", to combine itself more closely to military structures and duties (a one year duty for everyone between 18-65 is thought of). Together with ongoing efforts to control and erase "disinformations" in social media and the capabilities of surveillance this may lead to some kind of dystopian Surveillance state.
May be this is more a sign of helplessness and ad hoc responses to the impending defeat in UA. But will an ongoing "decoupling" from China (and Russia of course) in combination with the already observable economic decline not lead to a decline in living standards to which e.g. the german population is not accustomed and it will react predictable as Aurelien describes it ore even more radical?
And isn't the political will already visible to "contain" every move that leads outside the official narrative? The PMC (or whatever) has every reason to prepare for its delegitimation and I am not sure if this happens really in the from Aurelien foreseen way.
jurgen - you can see how this is moving forward in germany with the polls showing the rise in the afd and alternative political choices being made.. the wheels are coming off the german bus and idiots like baerbock are screaming to attack russia.. the level of insanity on display is really quite shocking!
Once a group takes power, they VERY seldom voluntarily relinquish it. Aside from apartheid era South Africa and last stage USSR, I am not remembering any recent examples.
I wonder if, after being denied the cheap Russian gaz first prize, at least part of the German leadership is now after the consolation prize. That is cheap Ukrainian food products they know they might need to counter inflation.
That would explain the internal debate about supporting Ukraine and send Taurus missiles or not (and maybe even why part of it was leaked to the Russians). And why borders remain wide open to Ukrainian products despite the vigorous protest of farmers through out Europe.
Yes, it could be. So this kind of politician just have to convince people they might get cold but will not starve that much as long as the war goes on...
1. A lot will depend on the state governors & state national guards.
Texas showed that they could nullify Biden's order to take down the the razor wire on the border.
The federal border union said that the "rank & file" members wouldn't do anything other than to work with the local guard as always. No wire was taken down, the local guard continues to erect it & the whole thing disappeared from the news.
2. A fragile power grid & fragile internet will prevent the kind of surveillance they are planning. One good ice storm & much the northeast goes quiet.
Maybe American Whites and Christians will learn to stop trusting the jew, until that's dealt with they will continue to suffer, especially the cowardace to call them out, only caring about how people see them, afraid of shame more than their children inheriting hell.
I have thought long and hard about which exit scenario would be most advantageous for NATO. Simply prolonging the war a little with more arms deliveries and then moving on to negotiations is the worst option for the West because, for obvious reasons, it will look like the loser, which is associated with a loss of prestige. Not only would everyone blame each other - the most extreme in Ukraine would want to take revenge on the guilty parties with terrorist attacks. Moreover, any incumbent government would have a big problem at the next elections if it were defeated.
So how can you still emerge victorious from a defeat?
The answer is: "Cuba reloaded"
The conflict must escalate to the point where the threat of nuclear war is imminent. The Cuban missile crisis lasted 13 days. That would give the fear enough time to eradicate the desire for a Russian defeat in people's minds. And fortunately, with prudence and a few concessions to the Russians, the great NATO will just about manage to avert a nuclear war. And so we are all glad to have escaped the apocalypse and emerged from the conflict as moral winners.
Interesting idea! Everyone will be happy to stay alive and is more likely to accept a somewhat "uncomfortable" world with lower living standards and openly authoritarian governments - in the West! And the world is once more divided in a (smaller) western and ... well, another bloc.
I suspect the West is caught in the same type of ideological straitjacket that prevented the Soviet Union from making the required changes necessary for long term survival. So while strict communist ideology undermined the Soviet Union, for the US strict neo-liberal and neo-con ideology is undermining our long term survival.
So why is it that the US had to engage in the Ukraine proxy war with Russia to begin with? The Soviet Union was gone. The Warsaw Pact was gone. Communism had been abandoned. Yet thanks to the neo-con Wolfowitz doctrine and the need for neo-liberal militarized Keynesianism the US now requires constant warfare. The trouble is the US is not very good at it as the last fifty years of US military engagements have demonstrated. In addition, our Military-Industrial-Complex is built for profit, not built for purpose, so the US needs to spend ten times what Russia spends to stay even competitive with Russia, or China for that matter. Thanks to dollar hegemony the US has been able to finance the gross overfunding of the military for decades but now with a $34 trillion national debt, an annual $1 trillion dollar military budget, rising interests payments on that debt are now exceeding the military budget. Due to the financial overhead in the US economy it now takes $2.50 in debt to create $1 in economic growth. This is unsustainable.
So as the US prepares to walk away from its disaster in Ukraine in order to gear up for a proxy war with China over Taiwan we are caught in the same ideological straitjacket as those aging Soviet bureaucrats. Fortunately, the Soviet people were much better conditioned for hardship, so they could weather the storm without the violent upheaval that would affect most societies undergoing such stress. The US will not be so lucky.
WONDERFULLY PUT. Thank you! This is really what we have now….”Nothing is left except a society of interchangeable consumers, and you can’t require a society of consumers to die to defend the principle of free and fair competition. […] By systematically emptying Europe of its history, culture and society, and destroying the link between the resident and the citizen, the ideology of Maastricht has produced a population with nothing in common, with no collective interests, and with nothing to defend. I’m not sure things are any better in the US.”
If Macron or NATO puts boots on the ground in Ukraine for deterrence of Russia they will be attacked.
That is a guarantee.
First, even if Russia does not intend to move on these territories, one of the main objectives of the SMO is to prevent NATO troops from being stationed in Ukraine. Therefore, they will be attacked.
Second, the problem with what your expectation of how Russia will react by ignoring them while not guaranteeing their safety is it is ambiguous enough to encourage NATO to put even more troops. That would be a strategic mistake on the part of Russia.
As you said, Russia has been trying to avoid a direct fight with NATO but is prepared to fight it. In fact, they have been preparing for this possibility since June 2022 when it became clear that NATO will not stop. NATO putting boots on the ground in Ukraine is exactly such a reason to risk and fight that war.
Unfortunately, caught up in this spiral, I suppose there could be a scenario in which NATO and/or French troops are sent to Ukraine. But not to the front line.
For a start, Western countries could imagine a thin layer of troops being deployed along the Belarusian border. Assuming that Belarus will never dare to commit them, this would allow a few Ukrainian brigades to go and fight further east. Then the same thing could be done west of Kherson in the name of "protecting" Odessa and Moldavia.
European governments could pretend to their public opinion this is not fighting the Russians but to spin it as a much needed peace-keeping operation in the name of higher moral values and whatever...
But of course, the question is what will happen a few month later when these few brigades are destroyed by the Russians. Will Western countries shamefully agree to withdraw their troops ? Or will they feel obliged to go one step further?...
This game of chicken is so called red line territory in which the West has been the most aggressive since the start of the SMO. The Brits are unquestionably the worst the most arrogant and the most thoughtless who prior to the Macron tantrums were pertaining to establishing an expeditionary NATO force to project into Ukraine or Rapid Reaction counter to Russian advances I assume in their overheated imaginations. Needless to say Sunak was berated for his audacity but the Brits will continue to feel confident in pursuing WW3 against Russia in their role as attack dog for the US until the Russians call their bluff and hit back decapitating MI6 would be a starter.
Very well written! My one *potential* disagreement would be with this: "real profits come from series production, the supply of spares and regular updates, not from long and expensive development programmes, and cost overruns, leading to reductions in orders. There’s no reason to suppose that western companies actively want to produce poorly functioning equipment delivered late, and it’s not in their interests to do so"
Structural corruption has, over time, led to a situation where US taxpayers bear the brunt, if not the entirety, of the cost overruns in defense contracts. This issue is exemplified by programs such as the F-35, which, despite its initial promise, has seen its costs balloon, largely due to various complexities and inefficiencies, yet the taxpayer seems to have, often through the backdoor, ate these overruns, not the producer. And companies involved in such contracts frequently derive greater profits from maintenance, replacement parts, and technical services than from the serial production of the equipment itself. These profit areas are often greatly boosted by the very complexities that contribute to the initial cost overruns, creating a cycle that further burdens the taxpayer while benefiting the producers involved.
"...And companies involved in such contracts frequently derive greater profits from maintenance, replacement parts, and technical services than from the serial production of the equipment itself."
I would go further, that these companies derive greater profits from the IP and civilian spinoffs of these long-timeline R&D programs. Much of the civilian high tech that venture capital invests in started in DARPA and other MIC precincts. The MIC is basically the way the U.S. does Industrial Policy. The risky R&D side is borne by the taxpayer, and venture capital privatizes the IP for great profit on civilian applications. Eventually the IP becomes public domain. Eventually even China and Russia catch up. You can see that in Russia's S-400 and China's Mars landers (and similar systems). So, we (USA) have to spend even more R&D to stay "ahead." Meanwhile, the accelerating technological complexity of public life accelerates. Are we better off?
"Eventually even China and Russia catch up. You can see that in Russia's S-400 and China's Mars landers (and similar systems)."
Curious - which system do you think the S-400 is "catching up" to? I'm not aware of a western analogue. Patriot is more in line with the S-300 capabilities, at least according to published statistics.
If it was in Syria it would be S-300/400 combined, the 500 isn't outside Russia itself yet. Wouldn't surprise me, the stealth coatings on F-35s are very effective against the radar that NATO uses, not necessarily the bands all radar are capable of using. And cross-section matters, so approach vector vs radar location etc. Israel acting with impunity might happily fly their planes in non-optimal fashion. That story could also just be sales pitch from Russia, same as F-35 invisibility is a sales pitch from USA.
Are the "tea leaves" starting to become decipherable?
Is this one possible sign: Victoria Nuland "retired" a few days ago. She was passed over for the permanent #2 spot at DOS (she had been "acting"). Biden picked the NSC specialist on Asia to fill that spot. The NY Times speculated that this meant the U.S. was going to concentrate more on Asia in the future.
She was the biggest force behind "tightening the noose around Putin" (as she was recently quoted as saying). Has the music stopped for her fellow neocons, and will they follow her out the door?
Is this a sign that the U.S. will opt to slink away from Ukraine (rather than continue escalating? Is this a sign that magical thinking is dissipating in the Biden Administration? Fear for one's political survival does tend to concentrate the mind....
I think you are generally right about where things are going, but I think the Russians generally take things like Macrons statements, the taurus threat, and the launching of drones the last days from either Finland or estonia on saint petersburg a bit more seriously than you do.
And I think that they have responded, in a very measured but serious manner. The destruction of a cia-bunker was one such answer, the global “failure” of social media yesterday an other, and Lavrovs official display of a possible future rumpUkraine a third.
Will the leaders of the colonial countries get the message? In the end yes, because as you say they don’t have much of an option, but it may take time and the possibility of a catastrophic mistake along the way is clearly still open.
I was kind of surprised. Next to the loss in ability to make things, the NATOstans and USA are even losing the ability to replace skilled operators. If one wants to defang NATO, then let them come and kill off the skilled where it's much more convenient to do so. Killing them on German, French, or American soil would be so much more problematic.
Double down with what and how? The German fiasco was in essence "Guys, think! What could we usefully do against Russia if we forgot about our current political tethers?" Answer: "Maybe, given a month or more planning, we could send a big enough salvo of missiles to damage Kerch." "What would that change?" "It would annoy the Russians and look good for a few days in Western media." Assuming it's not going to be an exchange of nukes, what is the doubling down you expect?
In case you haven't heard, France, along with other US puppets, it talking of sending ground troops into Ukraine. Along with more aircraft, missiles, etc..
If that's not an escalation, than what is? Keep in mind that Macron is enough of a politician to know that you don't make calls for action in public if the matter hasn't already already decided.
Lashing out in provocative and terrorist acts isn't a militarily doubling down. What the West is talking about now (long range missiles, F16s, and Nato staff to get shot at and provide causus beli) is potentially dangerous but it's not a military doubling down. (As I see it now after reading this article.) The mobilization, rearmament and Nato participation in the 2023 spring counteroffensive was militarily doubling down. That was really huge. But those resources are gone now and I accept how Aurelien presented it above: Nato and the West cannot double down in their war with Russia.
It's not going to happen Feral. The people are not going to tolerate this time. Been following this war and the various commentaries daily for 2 years now. I can see the change all around. The media is now struggling to maintain any form of control and the truth about the war and its origins and likely outcomes. The Russians have performed masterfully in the last year, the Ukrainians and their backers floundering about from one disaster to another. I predict the EU is going to fall apart over this war as a result of the infighting already underway....and soon to intensify. The UK may be the first country to actually reap the rewards of its strategic stupidity over the past few years.
is there ANY scenario where China isn't behind Russia in such a case? Ok, unless they give up any ideas about hegemony(really...). It's like the "blank check" of Germany in '14. It wasn't kindness, it wasn't "a mistake"; it was necessity.
"the west" managed to produce the mongolian empire #2 + some weird persian empire attached to it. It won't be even close.
I mean, sure, they'll get back feuding each other the very next second after they're done. Key word being "after".
p.s. - it's France and Macron. They'll send... what? 20k if they scrap all the barrel? To achieve what? Make the russian population, who seems pretty ambivalent towards the war, fully rally behind Putin?
I enjoy your writing, but think this one is a classic. So a rambling response from me.
Whereas it is easy to see western leaders as bereft of strategic insight - and it is not readily discernable to me - I think it possibly a mistake to discount the probability that there is method behind the madness. Personally I put this down to a failure to understand realities. That is, I think that many people look at the situation and the same facts and draw an entirely different picture and set of conclusions. This tends to get reinforced by careerist types who filter information. How many people got promoted because they contradicted the boss? [Actually one of Fredrick the Great's generals is supposed to have said during some battle or other that "His majesty may take my head after the battle, but in the meantime would he please allow me to use it...".
Scott Adams was famously right about Trump in 2016 and has been wrong about most things since. However his two screens image works here. We look at the same thing and the same facts and see different things.
What people who take a different view of the Ukraine War to the MSM/Western narrative see is so fundamentally at odds as to invite censorship. Now in my view, as someone who has been proud to live in the West, and has admired its liberalism (small l), I am dismayed by the mistakes being made wrt Russia and this war, but more so to ourselves. The narrative needs to be controlled apparently, in case "wrongthink" enters into the conversation.
Well my view strongly aligns with that expressed in this piece. Russia will largely decide the terms of the peace, unless WW3 is unleashed. And I suspect peace may come earlier than many imagine.
Looking at the West, the November US election won't be accepted by whichever side that loses, and the tension will ramp up. This has the feeling of 1860 about it, but I might be really off beam here. However if RUSSIA [big bad boogyman] did not previously interfere with elections, now is the perfect moment. And the EU is involved in suicidal navel gazing at present, and NATO divided and weak, and its MIC unfit for purpose. It cannot recruit enough soldiers and has run out of money, and shipped its factories to China. The "west's" global standing has never been lower since WW2 ended.
The author covers what he terms the PMC an awful lot. Well as a paid up member I understand his frustrations. There will not be a reckoning. The real world will move on, and the PMC will convince themselves that they really did come out on top. Cognitive dissonence is a wonderful thing.
I've been listening to Iain McGilchrist and his one-off lectures at Cambridge and Oxford recently and he really describes the left brain dominance. It' s really frightening. A denial of reality and living in a delusional world. I think his voice is so important in these times. And, Aurelien understands it very well too. Eric Weinstein calls it a 'managed reality'. The PMC is lying to us about everything - Covid, Ukraine etc.
Afghanistan becomes a liberal democratic market economy.",
in the face of such cartoonish incompetence, it is hard not to presume that there is in fact another agenda in play, where the supposedly desired end result is not actually of any real significance, and is merely a rhetorical bone tossed to infantile ideologues to pacify them.
I think that's just a manifestation of wanting to believe the world makes sense. Allowing that our leaders and their plans are just stupid is depressing. Thinking that there was a Secret Plan For Evil that has worked is less depressing because at least someone is smart.
That is, in fact, my default conclusion. However, the degree of message coordination is peculiar. It seems unlikely to me that mere incompetence should have such discipline. But you are probably right.
Previous essays here have talked about the effects of multiple leaders and their cohorts of advisors acting on self interest, which tends to create what appears to be coordinated responses.
A bunch of assholes all doing whatever seems like a good idea at the time tends to create a flocking effect that is indistinguishable from coordination at a distance.
I put the balance of probability 90% assholes and idiots, 10% master plan. Not impossible, but stupid is more likely for humans.
Since the USA military will not be able to enforce our rulers will onto the outside world, I expect that their "doubling down" will be aimed INWARD. And all the wonderful new mechanisms for social control will be turned up to 11, along with deploying the time tested ones such as re education camps- "Drying up the sea the guerillas swim in" via rural depopulation/relocation to "secure hamlets" or other euphemistically named large open air prisons. Recent political statements beginning the dehumanization of rural & conservative white people as "hateful", "racist" and "anti semitic" are telegraphing who the next enemy is likely to be.
And after Dept. of Homeland Security carries out a new world rerun of the British/Scotts "enclosures", Cargill, Black Rock, Goldman-Sachs et alia will have a consolation prize of all the farm lands taken from USA small holders to make up for all that land in a Ukraine they paid for but now will never earn a dime from...
I can guess how those descendants of previously displaced borderers, Scotts-Irish & etc. will react.
If there IS really a method to the latest PMC madness, the breakup & balkanization of the USA must be a primary aim?
Satisfying as far as it goes but wish you'd address differences between the US and Europe. While Nuland etc have failed to achieve maximal objectives from making Russia an enemy, they can at least claim to have separated it from Europe, fulfilling a Mackinderite agenda and tying Europe more to the US. Europeans have no such consolation. They can even imagine themselves to have been manipulated by Washington.
You wrote: “Even today, a number of countries, including Kosovo, El Salvador, the United States and Tonga have not established diplomatic relations with Iran, and in effect deny the results of the 1979 revolution. “
Kosovo is not a country nor will ever be.
Kosovo is a living reminder of how “Rules Based Order” works.
Everything that the West accuses Russia for, NATO did in 1999 against Yugoslavia.
Nice to see the West defined more clearly. As the Western State of Mind distinct from its populace who are undefinable truly.
To say WE when mentioning the West discredits the courageous voices speaking out in opposition to an elites
agenda.
The operational aspect as you describe is what is fascinating as it also includes aspects without military weapons such as sanctions. Sabotage EU’s energy supply with its destruction of its industrious culture.
Without the weaponary this wouldn’t happen as it forced into this violent confrontation.
Thanks for structuring our insights into understanding what the hell is happening.
The music was not over but I had to pause it to write this comment.
The problems that the "loss of Ukraine" cause for Western PMC are not evenly distributed. Europeans live in communities with structures that have stood for a millennia and a recorded history even longer than that. To me, this means the casting aside of the PMC of Western Europe will be easier to achieve. The Europeans have a cultural history to buttress their recovery from the mismanagement of their elites.
In my neck of the woods, the United States of America, there is no deep reservoir of history apart from a highly glamorized two century one of exceptionalism. The setbacks we have faced have been swept under the carpet and dwelling upon them is deemed counterproductive and don't you know that we are the essential entity on the planet?
Right at this moment we in the U.S. are not imbued with realists that can talk us down from the shrill cries of doom and disaster that will accompany the failure to encircle Moscow. The right wing of our country might well attribute Russia's success to not having kowtowed to a woke agenda, then turn on a dime to start the march on Beijing.
We lack universal social welfare structures and do not prioritize the health of our citizens here in the U.S. There will be no campaigns built upon righting this oversight, no ground swell for investing in our common welfare. Enemies will be denounced daily, beatings will continue, people will suffer because our finest have been shown to be not so fine.
The U.S. is going to be on a rough ride. May we bear it solely without inflicting the rest of the planet with our convulsions.
Since the USA military will not be able to enforce our rulers will onto the outside world, I expect that their "doubling down" will be aimed INWARD. And all the wonderful new mechanisms for social control will be turned up to 11, along with deploying the time tested ones such as re education camps- "Drying up the sea the guerillas swim in" via rural depopulation/relocation to "secure hamlets" or other euphemistically named large open air prisons. Recent political statements beginning the dehumanization of rural & conservative white people as "hateful", "racist" and "anti semitic" are telegraphing who the next enemy is likely to be.
And after Dept. of Homeland Security carries out a new world rerun of the British/Scotts "enclosures", Cargill, Black Rock, Goldman-Sachs et alia will have a consolation prize of all the farm lands taken from USA small holders to make up for all that land in a Ukraine they paid for but now will never earn a dime from...
I can guess how those descendants of previously displaced borderers, Scotts-Irish & etc. will react.
If there IS really a method to the latest PMC madness, the breakup & balkanization of the USA must be a primary aim?
No need for reeducation camps or anything so heavy-handed. All that need be done is freeze dissenters' bank accounts, cancel their driver licenses, insurance, etc..
Regardless what you may think of the Canadian Trucker Protests, such tactics worked like a charm. The protests folded almost immediately. Legal? No, but laws are only as good as the willingness to enforce them.
By contrast, the average frustrated Talib had no bank account, driver license, credit card, etc. and consequently, such methods don't work on him.
The way of suppression everything that bears the slightest sign of being pro-russian is quite shocking and if someone had predicted that a few years ago I wouldn't have believed it (allthough the crusade against Putin is much older).
But putting question marks behind my sentences is not meant purely rhetorical.
This turn inward will happen/happens not only in The US. Here in Germany the Ministry of Defence and aligned personnel/thinktanks are preparing the civilian population in the context (or pretext?) of a confrontation with Russia in the next 4-8 years to become more "resilient", to combine itself more closely to military structures and duties (a one year duty for everyone between 18-65 is thought of). Together with ongoing efforts to control and erase "disinformations" in social media and the capabilities of surveillance this may lead to some kind of dystopian Surveillance state.
May be this is more a sign of helplessness and ad hoc responses to the impending defeat in UA. But will an ongoing "decoupling" from China (and Russia of course) in combination with the already observable economic decline not lead to a decline in living standards to which e.g. the german population is not accustomed and it will react predictable as Aurelien describes it ore even more radical?
And isn't the political will already visible to "contain" every move that leads outside the official narrative? The PMC (or whatever) has every reason to prepare for its delegitimation and I am not sure if this happens really in the from Aurelien foreseen way.
jurgen - you can see how this is moving forward in germany with the polls showing the rise in the afd and alternative political choices being made.. the wheels are coming off the german bus and idiots like baerbock are screaming to attack russia.. the level of insanity on display is really quite shocking!
Once a group takes power, they VERY seldom voluntarily relinquish it. Aside from apartheid era South Africa and last stage USSR, I am not remembering any recent examples.
Hum... Speaking about Germany...
I wonder if, after being denied the cheap Russian gaz first prize, at least part of the German leadership is now after the consolation prize. That is cheap Ukrainian food products they know they might need to counter inflation.
That would explain the internal debate about supporting Ukraine and send Taurus missiles or not (and maybe even why part of it was leaked to the Russians). And why borders remain wide open to Ukrainian products despite the vigorous protest of farmers through out Europe.
The german ;leadership have openly and flatly said that they do not care whether germans freeze or starve, their priority is the War On Russia.
When a politician bluntly tells the voters that he doesn't care about them or their interests, I suggest you take him at his word.
Almost any politician or political organization that says that does lose its power, if not its existence, soon after.
Yes, it could be. So this kind of politician just have to convince people they might get cold but will not starve that much as long as the war goes on...
1. A lot will depend on the state governors & state national guards.
Texas showed that they could nullify Biden's order to take down the the razor wire on the border.
The federal border union said that the "rank & file" members wouldn't do anything other than to work with the local guard as always. No wire was taken down, the local guard continues to erect it & the whole thing disappeared from the news.
2. A fragile power grid & fragile internet will prevent the kind of surveillance they are planning. One good ice storm & much the northeast goes quiet.
Maybe American Whites and Christians will learn to stop trusting the jew, until that's dealt with they will continue to suffer, especially the cowardace to call them out, only caring about how people see them, afraid of shame more than their children inheriting hell.
How will it end?
I have thought long and hard about which exit scenario would be most advantageous for NATO. Simply prolonging the war a little with more arms deliveries and then moving on to negotiations is the worst option for the West because, for obvious reasons, it will look like the loser, which is associated with a loss of prestige. Not only would everyone blame each other - the most extreme in Ukraine would want to take revenge on the guilty parties with terrorist attacks. Moreover, any incumbent government would have a big problem at the next elections if it were defeated.
So how can you still emerge victorious from a defeat?
The answer is: "Cuba reloaded"
The conflict must escalate to the point where the threat of nuclear war is imminent. The Cuban missile crisis lasted 13 days. That would give the fear enough time to eradicate the desire for a Russian defeat in people's minds. And fortunately, with prudence and a few concessions to the Russians, the great NATO will just about manage to avert a nuclear war. And so we are all glad to have escaped the apocalypse and emerged from the conflict as moral winners.
A very dangerous game....
Interesting idea! Everyone will be happy to stay alive and is more likely to accept a somewhat "uncomfortable" world with lower living standards and openly authoritarian governments - in the West! And the world is once more divided in a (smaller) western and ... well, another bloc.
I suspect the West is caught in the same type of ideological straitjacket that prevented the Soviet Union from making the required changes necessary for long term survival. So while strict communist ideology undermined the Soviet Union, for the US strict neo-liberal and neo-con ideology is undermining our long term survival.
So why is it that the US had to engage in the Ukraine proxy war with Russia to begin with? The Soviet Union was gone. The Warsaw Pact was gone. Communism had been abandoned. Yet thanks to the neo-con Wolfowitz doctrine and the need for neo-liberal militarized Keynesianism the US now requires constant warfare. The trouble is the US is not very good at it as the last fifty years of US military engagements have demonstrated. In addition, our Military-Industrial-Complex is built for profit, not built for purpose, so the US needs to spend ten times what Russia spends to stay even competitive with Russia, or China for that matter. Thanks to dollar hegemony the US has been able to finance the gross overfunding of the military for decades but now with a $34 trillion national debt, an annual $1 trillion dollar military budget, rising interests payments on that debt are now exceeding the military budget. Due to the financial overhead in the US economy it now takes $2.50 in debt to create $1 in economic growth. This is unsustainable.
So as the US prepares to walk away from its disaster in Ukraine in order to gear up for a proxy war with China over Taiwan we are caught in the same ideological straitjacket as those aging Soviet bureaucrats. Fortunately, the Soviet people were much better conditioned for hardship, so they could weather the storm without the violent upheaval that would affect most societies undergoing such stress. The US will not be so lucky.
WONDERFULLY PUT. Thank you! This is really what we have now….”Nothing is left except a society of interchangeable consumers, and you can’t require a society of consumers to die to defend the principle of free and fair competition. […] By systematically emptying Europe of its history, culture and society, and destroying the link between the resident and the citizen, the ideology of Maastricht has produced a population with nothing in common, with no collective interests, and with nothing to defend. I’m not sure things are any better in the US.”
If Macron or NATO puts boots on the ground in Ukraine for deterrence of Russia they will be attacked.
That is a guarantee.
First, even if Russia does not intend to move on these territories, one of the main objectives of the SMO is to prevent NATO troops from being stationed in Ukraine. Therefore, they will be attacked.
Second, the problem with what your expectation of how Russia will react by ignoring them while not guaranteeing their safety is it is ambiguous enough to encourage NATO to put even more troops. That would be a strategic mistake on the part of Russia.
As you said, Russia has been trying to avoid a direct fight with NATO but is prepared to fight it. In fact, they have been preparing for this possibility since June 2022 when it became clear that NATO will not stop. NATO putting boots on the ground in Ukraine is exactly such a reason to risk and fight that war.
Unfortunately, caught up in this spiral, I suppose there could be a scenario in which NATO and/or French troops are sent to Ukraine. But not to the front line.
For a start, Western countries could imagine a thin layer of troops being deployed along the Belarusian border. Assuming that Belarus will never dare to commit them, this would allow a few Ukrainian brigades to go and fight further east. Then the same thing could be done west of Kherson in the name of "protecting" Odessa and Moldavia.
European governments could pretend to their public opinion this is not fighting the Russians but to spin it as a much needed peace-keeping operation in the name of higher moral values and whatever...
But of course, the question is what will happen a few month later when these few brigades are destroyed by the Russians. Will Western countries shamefully agree to withdraw their troops ? Or will they feel obliged to go one step further?...
This game of chicken is so called red line territory in which the West has been the most aggressive since the start of the SMO. The Brits are unquestionably the worst the most arrogant and the most thoughtless who prior to the Macron tantrums were pertaining to establishing an expeditionary NATO force to project into Ukraine or Rapid Reaction counter to Russian advances I assume in their overheated imaginations. Needless to say Sunak was berated for his audacity but the Brits will continue to feel confident in pursuing WW3 against Russia in their role as attack dog for the US until the Russians call their bluff and hit back decapitating MI6 would be a starter.
Very well written! My one *potential* disagreement would be with this: "real profits come from series production, the supply of spares and regular updates, not from long and expensive development programmes, and cost overruns, leading to reductions in orders. There’s no reason to suppose that western companies actively want to produce poorly functioning equipment delivered late, and it’s not in their interests to do so"
Structural corruption has, over time, led to a situation where US taxpayers bear the brunt, if not the entirety, of the cost overruns in defense contracts. This issue is exemplified by programs such as the F-35, which, despite its initial promise, has seen its costs balloon, largely due to various complexities and inefficiencies, yet the taxpayer seems to have, often through the backdoor, ate these overruns, not the producer. And companies involved in such contracts frequently derive greater profits from maintenance, replacement parts, and technical services than from the serial production of the equipment itself. These profit areas are often greatly boosted by the very complexities that contribute to the initial cost overruns, creating a cycle that further burdens the taxpayer while benefiting the producers involved.
"...And companies involved in such contracts frequently derive greater profits from maintenance, replacement parts, and technical services than from the serial production of the equipment itself."
I would go further, that these companies derive greater profits from the IP and civilian spinoffs of these long-timeline R&D programs. Much of the civilian high tech that venture capital invests in started in DARPA and other MIC precincts. The MIC is basically the way the U.S. does Industrial Policy. The risky R&D side is borne by the taxpayer, and venture capital privatizes the IP for great profit on civilian applications. Eventually the IP becomes public domain. Eventually even China and Russia catch up. You can see that in Russia's S-400 and China's Mars landers (and similar systems). So, we (USA) have to spend even more R&D to stay "ahead." Meanwhile, the accelerating technological complexity of public life accelerates. Are we better off?
"Eventually even China and Russia catch up. You can see that in Russia's S-400 and China's Mars landers (and similar systems)."
Curious - which system do you think the S-400 is "catching up" to? I'm not aware of a western analogue. Patriot is more in line with the S-300 capabilities, at least according to published statistics.
I'm assuming even superior systems like the S-400 uses Western/US components or reverse engineers them when that's cheaper.
Reasonable assumption, although I'm not sure that implies that the Russians are "behind" the USA. The same scenario would put China ahead of the USA in strike missiles and carriers, for example - https://www.forbes.com/sites/erictegler/2024/01/09/americas-carriers-rely-on-chinese-chips-our-depleted-munitions-too - and given the nature of todays manufacturing world, pretty much put China ahead of everyone.
Didn’t a combined S-400/500 system in Syria lock onto a F-35….
Then there’s the Satan 2 Samat ICBM.
Meanwhile our (UK) Trident system works well…..
If it was in Syria it would be S-300/400 combined, the 500 isn't outside Russia itself yet. Wouldn't surprise me, the stealth coatings on F-35s are very effective against the radar that NATO uses, not necessarily the bands all radar are capable of using. And cross-section matters, so approach vector vs radar location etc. Israel acting with impunity might happily fly their planes in non-optimal fashion. That story could also just be sales pitch from Russia, same as F-35 invisibility is a sales pitch from USA.
Are the "tea leaves" starting to become decipherable?
Is this one possible sign: Victoria Nuland "retired" a few days ago. She was passed over for the permanent #2 spot at DOS (she had been "acting"). Biden picked the NSC specialist on Asia to fill that spot. The NY Times speculated that this meant the U.S. was going to concentrate more on Asia in the future.
She was the biggest force behind "tightening the noose around Putin" (as she was recently quoted as saying). Has the music stopped for her fellow neocons, and will they follow her out the door?
Is this a sign that the U.S. will opt to slink away from Ukraine (rather than continue escalating? Is this a sign that magical thinking is dissipating in the Biden Administration? Fear for one's political survival does tend to concentrate the mind....
* Invade Afghanistan# and upgrade the Taliban##.
* Laundry loads of money and do some drug business
* Afghanistan becomes a drain on all the surrounding* economies, making them further enslaved to IMF (edit: or Brown Brothers Harriman, etc.).
#subsitute Vietnam, Korea, Haiti, and their relevant ##. This is century plus old technique.
I think you are generally right about where things are going, but I think the Russians generally take things like Macrons statements, the taurus threat, and the launching of drones the last days from either Finland or estonia on saint petersburg a bit more seriously than you do.
And I think that they have responded, in a very measured but serious manner. The destruction of a cia-bunker was one such answer, the global “failure” of social media yesterday an other, and Lavrovs official display of a possible future rumpUkraine a third.
Will the leaders of the colonial countries get the message? In the end yes, because as you say they don’t have much of an option, but it may take time and the possibility of a catastrophic mistake along the way is clearly still open.
I was kind of surprised. Next to the loss in ability to make things, the NATOstans and USA are even losing the ability to replace skilled operators. If one wants to defang NATO, then let them come and kill off the skilled where it's much more convenient to do so. Killing them on German, French, or American soil would be so much more problematic.
I'd love to believe that, but it is ever always only the West that continues to double down.
Double down with what and how? The German fiasco was in essence "Guys, think! What could we usefully do against Russia if we forgot about our current political tethers?" Answer: "Maybe, given a month or more planning, we could send a big enough salvo of missiles to damage Kerch." "What would that change?" "It would annoy the Russians and look good for a few days in Western media." Assuming it's not going to be an exchange of nukes, what is the doubling down you expect?
In case you haven't heard, France, along with other US puppets, it talking of sending ground troops into Ukraine. Along with more aircraft, missiles, etc..
If that's not an escalation, than what is? Keep in mind that Macron is enough of a politician to know that you don't make calls for action in public if the matter hasn't already already decided.
Yes, I'm aware and it was discussed in this article.
So, there's one answer to "what escalation".
Lashing out in provocative and terrorist acts isn't a militarily doubling down. What the West is talking about now (long range missiles, F16s, and Nato staff to get shot at and provide causus beli) is potentially dangerous but it's not a military doubling down. (As I see it now after reading this article.) The mobilization, rearmament and Nato participation in the 2023 spring counteroffensive was militarily doubling down. That was really huge. But those resources are gone now and I accept how Aurelien presented it above: Nato and the West cannot double down in their war with Russia.
It's not going to happen Feral. The people are not going to tolerate this time. Been following this war and the various commentaries daily for 2 years now. I can see the change all around. The media is now struggling to maintain any form of control and the truth about the war and its origins and likely outcomes. The Russians have performed masterfully in the last year, the Ukrainians and their backers floundering about from one disaster to another. I predict the EU is going to fall apart over this war as a result of the infighting already underway....and soon to intensify. The UK may be the first country to actually reap the rewards of its strategic stupidity over the past few years.
I hope you are right, but what on earth makes you think that politicians care about public opinion?
is there ANY scenario where China isn't behind Russia in such a case? Ok, unless they give up any ideas about hegemony(really...). It's like the "blank check" of Germany in '14. It wasn't kindness, it wasn't "a mistake"; it was necessity.
"the west" managed to produce the mongolian empire #2 + some weird persian empire attached to it. It won't be even close.
I mean, sure, they'll get back feuding each other the very next second after they're done. Key word being "after".
p.s. - it's France and Macron. They'll send... what? 20k if they scrap all the barrel? To achieve what? Make the russian population, who seems pretty ambivalent towards the war, fully rally behind Putin?
I enjoy your writing, but think this one is a classic. So a rambling response from me.
Whereas it is easy to see western leaders as bereft of strategic insight - and it is not readily discernable to me - I think it possibly a mistake to discount the probability that there is method behind the madness. Personally I put this down to a failure to understand realities. That is, I think that many people look at the situation and the same facts and draw an entirely different picture and set of conclusions. This tends to get reinforced by careerist types who filter information. How many people got promoted because they contradicted the boss? [Actually one of Fredrick the Great's generals is supposed to have said during some battle or other that "His majesty may take my head after the battle, but in the meantime would he please allow me to use it...".
Scott Adams was famously right about Trump in 2016 and has been wrong about most things since. However his two screens image works here. We look at the same thing and the same facts and see different things.
What people who take a different view of the Ukraine War to the MSM/Western narrative see is so fundamentally at odds as to invite censorship. Now in my view, as someone who has been proud to live in the West, and has admired its liberalism (small l), I am dismayed by the mistakes being made wrt Russia and this war, but more so to ourselves. The narrative needs to be controlled apparently, in case "wrongthink" enters into the conversation.
Well my view strongly aligns with that expressed in this piece. Russia will largely decide the terms of the peace, unless WW3 is unleashed. And I suspect peace may come earlier than many imagine.
Looking at the West, the November US election won't be accepted by whichever side that loses, and the tension will ramp up. This has the feeling of 1860 about it, but I might be really off beam here. However if RUSSIA [big bad boogyman] did not previously interfere with elections, now is the perfect moment. And the EU is involved in suicidal navel gazing at present, and NATO divided and weak, and its MIC unfit for purpose. It cannot recruit enough soldiers and has run out of money, and shipped its factories to China. The "west's" global standing has never been lower since WW2 ended.
The author covers what he terms the PMC an awful lot. Well as a paid up member I understand his frustrations. There will not be a reckoning. The real world will move on, and the PMC will convince themselves that they really did come out on top. Cognitive dissonence is a wonderful thing.
"However if RUSSIA [big bad boogyman] did not previously interfere with elections, now is the perfect moment."
This assumes that Russia has any material ability to do so.
Or that they are any more impressed with the choices than the rest of us in the west. I suspect they will must let us flounder.
*just
I've been listening to Iain McGilchrist and his one-off lectures at Cambridge and Oxford recently and he really describes the left brain dominance. It' s really frightening. A denial of reality and living in a delusional world. I think his voice is so important in these times. And, Aurelien understands it very well too. Eric Weinstein calls it a 'managed reality'. The PMC is lying to us about everything - Covid, Ukraine etc.
As usual, pure gold!
Regarding the following statement:
"Invade Afghanistan and defeat the Taliban.
Stuff happens.
Afghanistan becomes a liberal democratic market economy.",
in the face of such cartoonish incompetence, it is hard not to presume that there is in fact another agenda in play, where the supposedly desired end result is not actually of any real significance, and is merely a rhetorical bone tossed to infantile ideologues to pacify them.
I think that's just a manifestation of wanting to believe the world makes sense. Allowing that our leaders and their plans are just stupid is depressing. Thinking that there was a Secret Plan For Evil that has worked is less depressing because at least someone is smart.
That is, in fact, my default conclusion. However, the degree of message coordination is peculiar. It seems unlikely to me that mere incompetence should have such discipline. But you are probably right.
Previous essays here have talked about the effects of multiple leaders and their cohorts of advisors acting on self interest, which tends to create what appears to be coordinated responses.
A bunch of assholes all doing whatever seems like a good idea at the time tends to create a flocking effect that is indistinguishable from coordination at a distance.
I put the balance of probability 90% assholes and idiots, 10% master plan. Not impossible, but stupid is more likely for humans.
I agree.
Since the USA military will not be able to enforce our rulers will onto the outside world, I expect that their "doubling down" will be aimed INWARD. And all the wonderful new mechanisms for social control will be turned up to 11, along with deploying the time tested ones such as re education camps- "Drying up the sea the guerillas swim in" via rural depopulation/relocation to "secure hamlets" or other euphemistically named large open air prisons. Recent political statements beginning the dehumanization of rural & conservative white people as "hateful", "racist" and "anti semitic" are telegraphing who the next enemy is likely to be.
And after Dept. of Homeland Security carries out a new world rerun of the British/Scotts "enclosures", Cargill, Black Rock, Goldman-Sachs et alia will have a consolation prize of all the farm lands taken from USA small holders to make up for all that land in a Ukraine they paid for but now will never earn a dime from...
I can guess how those descendants of previously displaced borderers, Scotts-Irish & etc. will react.
If there IS really a method to the latest PMC madness, the breakup & balkanization of the USA must be a primary aim?
Satisfying as far as it goes but wish you'd address differences between the US and Europe. While Nuland etc have failed to achieve maximal objectives from making Russia an enemy, they can at least claim to have separated it from Europe, fulfilling a Mackinderite agenda and tying Europe more to the US. Europeans have no such consolation. They can even imagine themselves to have been manipulated by Washington.
You wrote: “Even today, a number of countries, including Kosovo, El Salvador, the United States and Tonga have not established diplomatic relations with Iran, and in effect deny the results of the 1979 revolution. “
Kosovo is not a country nor will ever be.
Kosovo is a living reminder of how “Rules Based Order” works.
Everything that the West accuses Russia for, NATO did in 1999 against Yugoslavia.
Nice to see the West defined more clearly. As the Western State of Mind distinct from its populace who are undefinable truly.
To say WE when mentioning the West discredits the courageous voices speaking out in opposition to an elites
agenda.
The operational aspect as you describe is what is fascinating as it also includes aspects without military weapons such as sanctions. Sabotage EU’s energy supply with its destruction of its industrious culture.
Without the weaponary this wouldn’t happen as it forced into this violent confrontation.
Thanks for structuring our insights into understanding what the hell is happening.
Thank you Aurelien🙏