28 February 2022"Ukraine had a comedian who turns out to be a leader. The UK has a leader who turned out to be a comedian."That's very funny and well put.Zelensky is a quite remarkable and unusual person, from what I can make out.His mother tongue is Russian. He is a Russian Jew from East Ukraine. He wanted to study in Israel, but his father forbade him this.He stands fast in his capital city Kiev. When offered a lift out by the Americans, he replied, "I want bullets, not a taxi."Few of us can completely escape the influence of our background and...
Monday, 28 February 2022
Sunday, 27 February 2022
THE ORIGINS OF RUSSO PHOBIA
27 February 2022 A great presentation and question and answer session with Tom and John Measheimer. https://youtu.be/Nbj1AR_aAcEOne. On the origins of Russo-phobia. This argument from John is quite American centric. If you live in Europe, you might have a different perspective. But I would say from the American perspective that the dislike of Russia goes back past the Monroe doctrine to Woodrow Wilson's talk in 1916. And from the European point of view, you have to go all the way back past the centuries and see that the...
Saturday, 26 February 2022
FIVE WAVES TO RUSSIA'S INVASION OF UKRAINE
26 February 2022Well for those, like me, who thought the Americans were being alarmist and crying wolf, no, Putin invaded on 24 Feb at 03h35 UK time.It is a war with tanks, missiles, aeriel bombardments and presumably we may soon witness house-to-house and hand-to-hand fighting in the major cities of Ukraine.This is pre-planned as Putin invaded on Thursday but his announcement had been recorded on Monday 21st and he did write a White Paper in 2008 stating that a security zone is needed between Russia and another "strategic platform".So Russia entered...
THIS WAR COULD MAKE REFUGEES OF ALL EUROPEANS
26 February 2022NATO advanced in five waves up to Russia's front doorstep, disregarded its 1992 assurances of neutrality, Ukraine found itself with a pro-Western govt, has never implemented its 2015 agreement to respect its 20% Russian population, was promised consideration of NATO membership in 2009.Russia in a 2008 White Paper warned it needed a buffer zone, it took over Crimea and Donbas in 2014, presented settlement terms earlier this year, it recognised Donestk and Luhansk in 2022, it invaded Ukraine in 2022.Russia sees its survival at...
Thursday, 24 February 2022
WHY FOLLOW THE STATES INTO YET ANOTHER WAR?
China and Russia are perhaps short-lived threats, as you've mentioned. Peter Zeihan does a demographics on each and it's not promising for them.Plus, what is Johnson doing following Biden into war? There are two points here: America's interest (keep world free of peer competitors) is not the same as the UK's (which I make up here - security, new FTAs outside the EU, low-cost high value-added with BoP surplus, the fight against terrorism & immigration, science and technology intl co-operation incl with Russia).And any idea on chances...
Monday, 21 February 2022
THE AMERICAN PLAN TO AVOID NUCLEAR WAR
21 February 2022 The business about this being 1938 all over again. It's completely false. Versailles imposed repayments on Germany that it couldn't meet. It had no colonies and a whipping balance of payments deficit. The UK recognised this and from 1922 tried to loosen the deal Germany had been forced to sign. (Russia wasn't even present, though it lost Polant etc).The non repayments were in part responsible for the Wall St crash. And the rise of Hitler, from 1938.Chamberlain should not have thought that giving Germany Czechoslovakia would...
Sunday, 20 February 2022
RUSSIA IS ABOUT TO INVADE UKRAINE
20 February 2022Russia is about to invade Or, the West
could engage in diplomacy.
These days the idea is to "switch off" the target country using cyber
and special op.s. - switch of comm.s, electricity, transport, poison
Kiev and displace the govt and popn to Lviv.
The West can wait passively, do nothing, while Russia
wrecks Ukraine. Or, the West could engage in diplomatic process, except
there isn't one. There's some meeting on the 24th Feb, we'll see what that brings. Basically, it is America pursuing its policy from Wilson...
Saturday, 19 February 2022
STRATEGY FOR UKRAINE
19 February 2022Russian goals areSurvival and a say, a veto, in European security matters (NATO and US)This means renegotiating the cold war settlement that it was forced to sign and have the States respect its word to GorbachevRussia's demands areUkraine and Georgia must not join NATONo ballistic or offensive weapons on its doorstepNATO pull back to pre-1997 bordersRussia's strategyForce America to the negotiating table by massing for an invasion and continually upping the antiModern war is not about boots on the ground, it is cyber and covert...
NUCLEAR DETERENCE MAY NO LONGER DETER
You think Russia - not Putin, Russia - as a nation can survive this? It is a form of premature suicide (Russia is already condemned by its demographics), so ask why. And you think Putin could survive a defeat? So why would he risk a wat? Seems obvious that over the coming weeks and months, Russia will wreck Ukraine. Russia is condemned to die whatever happens, and in the near-term, as demographics bite and they run out of women of child-bearing age. The West will not relent. So trashing Ukraine, which is of immense importance to Russia, is...
Friday, 18 February 2022
THE WEST HAS TWO ENEMIES, NOT THREE
18 February 2022The potential loss of Ukraine is an existential threat to Russia. Existential. About its very existence. It would use nuclear weapons. Nuclear deterrence doesn't work in this situation.Gorbachev Baker vpromised Gorbach y promistsin that NATO would not annexe former russian satellites on 22 Feb 1990 - the West neither confirms nor denies.Ukraine cannot join NATO since it has been a country at war since 2014.This is another of those deeply stupid situations created by the intl liberal elite (some say "impetialists"). The blob...
Thursday, 17 February 2022
RUSSIA WILL BE GONE IN A DECADE
Russia will be gone within a decade according to Peter Zeihan. Stephen Kotkin explains from a historical perspective. Links below.It runs out of young people to man an army and economy. If true, what will happen then?
What's interesting is, if this happens, into what parts will it break? Who'll take them? Will China move West?There's the Artic passage to consider: mineral wealth, belt and road.Maybe the West is planning to march on to...
Sunday, 6 February 2022
A RETURN TO CONSERVATIVE VALUES
6 February 2022
Yes, that wasn't very well expressed, was it. Better to say "turn to", than "return to". It's about organising and directing Boris's undoubted talents, filling in the weaknesses.Boris' pragmatism, shall we call it, has been very useful, and not just to him. What is needed now for the country to progress - and a possible second term for Boris as a matured leader - is steady, unfailing, value-based policy making. It's about...
Friday, 4 February 2022
MALI PUTIN UKRAINE
4 February 2022I'd like to see Boris involved with Putin. Not in the Ukraine, but in Mali.
Putin has sent his mercenaries - the Wagner group
they're called - into Mali. First, in go the geologists. They suss out
the lie of the land. In Mali, its Lithium they are after.
The Mali govt - completely illegitimate band of
gangsters after a putsch in April last year - are paying Wagner
9,000,000 Euros a month for protection from the jihadists and other
mercenary groups, while they plunder...
Thursday, 3 February 2022
SISYPHEAN SNIFFING MISSIONS
2 February 2022 Look at the behaviour of France, Denmark, the Czeck Republic and Estonia.
Look at Russia's Wagner Group in Mali, Burkina Faso, Chad and maybe Niger.
What is France doing there?
What about the collapse of Libya and freely available arms.
Why has Europe, led by France, withdrawn from central
West Africa, letting Russia (led by its geologists) in and...
