CAN YOU IMPOSE NEUTRALITY ON INDEPENDENT COUNTRIES?

23 April 2022

Why is Russia in perpetual insecurity?

Putin is treated to madman or throwback to Soviet or czarist (caesar) times, but careful examination of the geopolitical, demographic, economic and social constraints show how he perfectly rationally interprets a country's - his country's - primary need for security.

As the West seeks an adequate response to Russia’s annexation of Crimea and invasion of Ukraine, it is useful to understand what Vladimir Putin thinks he is doing, and why. Understanding Putin is not to apologize for him, but understanding is important in any negotiations.

Finland invaded. Sweden twice. France. Germany twice. The Turks through the Crimea.

Why Russia is so big?

It is because it is mainly flat open steppe and tundra, with no natural defences that would normally make for a border. It means one power - the Rus, the Mongols - can come to dominate this central asian plain and on to the central european plain. Russia is the heartland of Asia although its home territory, where 80% of its people live, is in Eastern Europe.

The world's weak spot is the east european border where the Russian land power meets the European (formerly British, now American) sea power. How can one power protect itself from the other?

From Russia's point of view, its natural defences - the Baltics, Suwalki Gap, Carpathian Mountains, Volgograd Gap - are also home to independent nations and so tantalisingly out of its reach, unless - for reasons of its own survival - it moves by force to take them over.

For example, taking Ukraine and the Transnistra (Moldova) would reduce the border it has, a great expense, to protect, from 2,000 km to 600.

Another example. Losing the Volgograd (Caucuses) would mean losing access to the Black Sea, Crimea and the Caspian.

Another example. When the Baltic trio got independence in 1999, Kaliningrad (Konigsberg) - a wedge-shaped piece of land along the Baltic Sea between Poland and Lithuania - was almost cut off, access is via Belarus and the Suwalki.

Do you think NATO parking its tanks on Russia's "front porch", its "near abroad", was a good idea if NATO's intentions were purely peaceful? What of promises to respect the neutrality of the 14 former Union republicks in 1991? What is your opinion?

Read More

THE STATE OF THE MARKETS THIS WEEK 17

23 April 2022

The market leader industries at the moment are food and farming, and the laggards biotech. From leaders to laggards, the whole market has been falling these last two days. It is very unusual for leading as well as lagging sectors to all fall at the same time.

This is bear territory, heading maybe for recession, who knows.....I don't! There are surely technical indicators, indicators that I don't understand and indicators that are anyway probably no longer valid because the economy is so weird.

Read More

LEAD UP TO THE WAR

23 April 2022 

https://youtu.be/zSZokTkBIfs

Baud points out in his new book "Putin, Master of the Game", that the Minsk accords were and then modified and re-signed, by Ukraine and the two self proclaimed republics, witnessed by Russia and by Fr and Germany, then registered and approved with the UN and its five permanent members.

So in 2015, there was a political solution. But instead we have war and his book explains how the West is responsible for the devt of this conflict. 

The Americans, he says, admit this and  Baud draws on mai ly American sources, none Russian, and he quotes from an interview in 2019 with Zelensky's advisor Olexei Restovitch who says that Ukraine would be admitted to NATO if Russia attacked. This was the deal. That interview is posted on Youtube.

Baud wrote the book because with his inside information, he could see that western observers had holes in their knowledge, were presenting the situation in black and white, and after the invasion simply did away with the Russian case altogether.

What happened?

Ukraine and the Ukranians are the victims. They are being sacrificed for objectives of a higher order. The EU did not do its job properly. Josef Borrell admits there isn't a military soln. And each point of disagreement should be the subject of political negotiation, not cause for military conflict.

Putin, claims Baud, only decided to invade in the preceeding weeks, from about late-Jan 2022. Zelensky's adviser in 2019 had also announced the conditions for resolution that would necessaily be ubacceptable to Russia and inevitably lead Putin to make war - it's also on Youtube. 

From mid-Feb, shelling from Kiev increased. 21 Feb, the separatist asked him for help defending themselves against Kiev, they and Putin then signed a Treaty of Support and Assistance, which the provinces used 22 Feb to seek military assistance from Russia, which then allowed Putin to invoke Art.51 of the UN Charter.

 Although, instead of providing arms, Russia decided to attack and entered Ukraine the 24 Feb, as we all know. Why no graduated response and straight for all-out war?

Putin explains that there came a moment when, faced with the aggression against the mainly Russian popn of the Donbas, to do nothing, or something, something big, or something small, would cost Russia the same price, same consequences for Russia, Russia would be lacerated with sanctions, regardless.

So he went in big. 

Putin knew that come what May, Russia would receive the heaviest sanctions. Baud argues that Russia was therefore left with no other choice.

In non-western circles, Putin passes for a dove. He has the backing of his people since his purpose is to protect the Russian diaspora in Ukraine.

Read More

THE SINKING OF THE MOSKVA

19 April 2022

is.gd/YHTz8v

                 From what I can gather there were 12 Russian navy ships in the Black Sea and now there are 10 and I would imagine that in the next couple of months there will be none.

It is hard to see how any of those 10 ships could leave the Black Sea and rejoin other Russian Navy fleets in the Baltic or Arctic ports, sailing past NAT lands; and similarly it is hard to see how those ships in other ports could come to support the 10 in the Black Sea or indeed to support the war.

Furthermore, once the Black Sea is emptied of Russian vessels, I'd imagine that NATO will sail up the Bosphorus which is Turkey and take over the Black Sea and presumably Sebastopol and Crimea.

But I also find it hard to imagine that happening without Russian resistance and this would surely be the situation for the use of tactical nuclear weapons.

Incidentally, today's tactical nuclear weapons carry a charge of two to three times those used in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, which were 10 kilotonnes. The West's reaction to the use of nuclear weapons is unknown - this is what is meant by dissuasion. And how would China react? or Ukraine? Or the Russian people? This sinking of the flagship is a new segment in the war, as is the attack by Ukraine on Russian villages over the border.

It is not that America's strategic military planners have not thought through all this: they have. It's just that there are so many scenarios to plan for and each scenario has an uncountable number of factors with incalculable weightings for each. The usual American trick is to throw all the cards up into the air see how they land and look at the opportunities that this presents. 

The Americans since the end of the Cold War can absolutely be relied upon to create the most monumental disasters the world has ever seen.             

Read More

POLITICAL DIRECTION OR CRISIS MANAGEMENT - WHAT FUTURE DEMOCRACY?

         17 April 2022

We are led by managers responding to crises with technical solutions that are costly and limit our freedom. Instead, what we need is what he had, politicians responding to the people with programs and policies.

For anyone following the French elections the campaigning and has been very very thorough and everyone all the candidates have had plenty of time to present their particular programs and the electorate has had a lot of time and still more to come to reach their conclusions and vote.

But it is interesting to note that the traditional moderate left and the right have faded out and all we have is extreme political views on the left and the right and then a crisis manager in the middle.

So the fundamental problem we have with democracy these days - and I mean since the the financial crisis let's say - is that the world has become a very complex place. This complexity has produced just a series of crisis and we roll from one criss to the next. If all you have is a series of crises, then all the electorate can do is pick rhe competent manager and then suffer his or her apolitical pragmatism.

The point is that democracy needs democrats, it needs potential leaders with a political philosophy and a vision of the good life, from which is derived their program and policies, and then competition at the hustings over different visions to actively create the future.

But all we have is reactive politics, crisis managers spending our money on short-term technical programs and we do not really have a choice about the quality of life and the culture that we want for us and our children. We have views about the ki d of world we want to live in, but only the elite, the oligarchs,are listened to; and the rest of humanity is flanneled and smothered in propaganda and given nonsense to believe such as The Woke or The Singularity.

Read More

THE HEARTLANDS (Sir Halford John Mackinder)

15 April 2022

John J Mearsheimer has been spot on for years.

https://youtu.be/XgiZXgYzI84

He has a theoretical framework understanding that he can lay over any IR security problem and explain it and offer solutions. But those that be (the people who1 govern us), they don't listen, not to him, and not to the people in this "democracy" of ours  We are there to vote them in and give our support to their madness and a sense of legitimacy.

You could argue they flannel us with distractions like covid or wokism. So there is geopolitics, propaganda, and democracy. Mearsheimer is right, but rejected by government and the people. We are dissenters, heretics, free-thinkers, driven by facts and reason, not short-term hubris.

There are many determinants of foreign policy. Geography is very deterministic.

The Rus were dealt a really poor hand. They are like The Hordes, a people of the plains, the Eurasian landmass is their land. The plain continues to the West onto the plain of central Europe, with - as I see it so maybe I've misunderstood - defensive natural barriers for Russia, but these are just beyond Russia's grasp.  Russia has 2,000 kilometers of long and vulnerable borderland that it must defend to stop any invasion from a well-funded and technologically sophisticated Western European sea-power - originally the British until Chrchill ceded to the American maritime power in 1945.

What are these natural defences? The Carpathian mountains - but alas, they're in Romania! Access to the Black Sea - it's in Ukraine! (or was). The Suwalki Gap which also gives access to the Baltic Sea - it's the other side of the Balkans (but Russia has Kaliningrad at the other end of the Gap - see a map)!

And so on - there are nine such gateways that enemies use to routinely invade Russia (identified in a Zeihan Youtube pres.), and Russia must have them all under lock and key, to feel secure. They've been invaded 50 times and more.

They'd need to plug the Transnistrie gap, a Russian separatist enclave in tiny Moldovia. Russia's also been invaded by the Swedes through the three Baltic countries so there are three NATO countries Putin would also need to invade (was he really planning this? Surely not.)  The French through Belarus. Twice by the Germans through the Polish gap. The Bessarabian gap in Romania favoured by the Turks. Azerbaijan, Armenia and Georgia complete the nontep.

Now, it has NATO at its door, bristling with weapons. The Soviet Union had all nine of these gaps in its land mass, but Russia today has only Crimea and Kaliningrad. It needs to move West and take the seven remaining, five in NATO lands.

So this is about geography, as it affects security, ie Geopolitics. It's about security and insecurity, existence and (ominously) whatever it takes to survive. And this is the starting point of Mearsheimer's position. He is an "offensive structural realist". (Russian demographics - second worse in the world after China - is another factor, for another time.)

Geography means Russia needs to expand westwards into central Europe and capture the nine gateways. So it's not about personal ambition or nationalism or imperialism or historic revenge, it is a purely rational strategy to ensure national survival, it is about Russia's understandable insecurity.

And how does America respond to this? America is insecure too, being at the top of the greasy pole - it wants to rub out any regional competitors ... but what to put in their place? America responds with a deaf ear and aggression, as usual. Surely America has learnt by now that confrontation is followed by failure. And as a consequence of confrontation, America is throwing Russia into the arms of China, the new rising world hegemon, or so they tell us. China, with maybe Pakistan and Iran and even Turkey too, why not in its axis. But America needs Russia, as does Europe, for different reasons.

Contrast Russia's geography and insecurity with America's. The Americans feel supremely secure and confident, with oceans West and East, and Canada and Mexico North and South, so they are unassailable. Russians, on the other hand, are tremendously insecure: their citadel has no walls and Ukraine - where NATO could site Weapons of Mass Destruction - is just 500 kms away ... a lobster without a shell, ready for the pot, an egg without a shell.

Surely, this is understood and something cleverer than war, a response based in cooperation, as prefered by France and Germany, can be the tool to peace? I feel like there should be a parable in the bible to help understanding of this, next to Noah's Ark...maybe that sounds daft, but this whole conflict does go all the way back to a story about The People of the Trees v. The People of the Seas  (though I can't find an internet reference).

In its orginal form, trees and seas, and the separating rimlands in between, is a neat geopolitical theory known as The Heartland Theory. One side or the other must take or defend the rimlands that separate them to win the heartland, giving that side victory and World Hegemon accolade. It is almost a board game. (Except the winner, America, is in the Americas, not the heartland of Asia, Africa, Eurasia.)

Sir Halford John Mackinder was a British geographer who wrote a paper in 1904 called "The Geographical Pivot of History." Who rules Eastern Europe commands the Heartland.

Many many strategists have been drawn to this theory:
a) it gets to the crux of the ambitions and weaknesses of world super-powers and explains the hatred for Russia
b) the Theory was passed onto George Kennan and thence Truman, and goes deep into the second world war, WW1 and WW2 ; and American understanding of how to deal with Germany, Russia and China (heartland powers) ; and Japan and UK (rimland)
c) Mackinder was a Scottish MP.

"Who rules East Europe commands the Heartland; who rules the Heartland commands the World-Island; who rules the World-Island commands the World."

Russia is the great Eurasian land-power. It is, by its geopolitical nature, eternally opposed to America, the liberal Atlantic sea-power. The worry is that Russia use its wealth of natural resources and manpower (intermi al decline now) to conquer the rimlands - which offer up 2,000 kilometers of central European near-abroad for Russia to plug and defend - to defeat the seapowers of Western Europe. America can only rest once Russia is contained and kept out of central Europe. Hence Truman's policy of containment.

By an identical logic, China - or the Eastern side of the heartland this time - is to be contained within its first island ring, of great strategic importance, consisting of Japan, S Korea, Taiwan and the Phillipines; and down as far as Indonesia, Singapore and Malaysia. So it is vitally important in the containment strategy for China to keep these countries "on program". And any American war alliance would extend to Australia, India, Russia (sic) and Turkey, not to mention Western Europe and UK.

Here is some reading on The Heartlands Theory.

https://www.newstatesman.com/culture/2019/01/halford-mackinder-father-geopolitics

https://youtu.be/MkrLUFAcjH0
(view from place 4'27")

The right-wing ideologue Aleksandr Dugin
https://youtu.be/TrafXfDL2CA

Peter Zeihan
https://youtu.be/rkuhWA9GdCo

Read More

A STUPID WAR

         1 min ago

This is just Stollenberg trying to plump up his remit, on the basis the Russians cannot be trusted.

The truth is that there is a fault line in Europe that runs from the Baltics to the Black Sea. This is the buffer zone that Russia needs having been invaded by the Swedes, the French and twice by the Germans.

Russia requested three things in its Note. It requested that NATO never admit Ukraine. It requested that Ukraine be neutral with no offensive weapons. And it requested that NATO withdraw from its near abroad: that buffer-zone from the Black Sea to the Baltics.

As far as I can see, this is a stupid war because NATO was never going to admit Ukraine in the first place and there are no weapons planted by America or NATO in Ukraine. As for the third demand, this was just a bargaining chip and Russia knows very well that NATO will never withdraw from all those countries shown on the Daily Telegraph map.

Russia has Belarus and a treaty should be agreed recognising the neutrality of at least Eastern Ukraine, which includes the Crimea, home to the Russian Navy at Sebastopol.

What has amazed everyone is how Germany has finally come off the fence. The great fear has always been that German capital and technology allied with Russian commodities and manpower would create a regional hegemon that America would have good reason to fear.

The worry is that under normal circumstances treaties are only signed after one side has won total victory over the other, but this would put Russia in a position where its very existence was threatened and that's where the nukes come out.

Read More

MASTERING THE ART OF MANIPULATION

8 April 2022

Robert Greene:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Greene_(American_author)

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Laws_of_Human_Nature

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mastery_(book)

Greene is a bit of a master manipulator machiavellian figure, except he tells all through a string of best sellers on POWER, SEDUCTION, WAR, STRATEGY, MASTERY and THE LAWS OF HUMAN NATURE.

His last book - the one on human nature - explains how we work, as a biological and human being. What drives us - me, you, others - and how to optimise our life and fight off bad people.

Worth adding that he is a Google brain and a best selling author. Many top people have turned to him to realise their ambitions.

How Greene can help

For example, perhaps you feel elites today are partly responsible for the serial  crises that afflict us, or at least, they take advantage of the opportunity to control, silence and railroad us.

They spend taxes receipts on their hobby horse subjects - QE, covid, woke, war.

They care for us in paternalistic ways that deny us agency in our lives, distract us from important questions of what direction we want to go in, with trivia and irrelevency.

We feel if not abandonned, then humoured, not consulted, powerless.

We are more and more impoverished, our assets slip through our fingers into their pockets.

What's helpful with Greene is that his $20 books let you get past the string of crisis that we are forced to submit to, see through the propaganda, the why of "why are they doing this to us?" and get a bit of perspective and tools to fight our corner.

Read More

EUROPEAN STRATEGIC COMPASS

8 April 2022

WIP Here is a negative review of a positive development

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/2022/04/06/ultra-remainers-mobilising-prepare-ground-rejoining-eu/?li_source=LI&li_medium=liftigniter-rhr

https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/european-union-unveils-new-strategy-become-global-power

"European Union Unveils New Strategy to Become a Global Power

by Soeren Kern • April 3, 2022 at 5:00 am

The goal is "strategic autonomy" — the ability for the EU to act independently of, and as a counterweight to, the United States and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization — in matters of defense and security.

The key component of the Strategic Compass is the development of a so-called EU Rapid Deployment Capacity (RDC), a military force able to intervene in "non-permissive environments" anywhere in the world.

The RDC is to become fully operational by 2025 and commanded by an institution called the "EU Military Planning and Conduct Capability." (The term "capability" is a politically correct substitute for "headquarters," as in "military headquarters.")

The push for Europe to achieve strategic autonomy from the United States is being spearheaded by Macron, who, as part of his reelection campaign, apparently hopes to replace former German Chancellor Angela Merkel as the de facto leader of Europe.

The danger is that many of the pie-in-the-sky policy proposals in the Strategic Compass will divert and drain resources and finances from where they are actually needed: NATO.

A logical course of action would be for EU member states to honor past pledges to increase defense spending as part of their contribution to the transatlantic alliance. That, however, would fly in the face of the folie de grandeur — the delusions of grandeur — of European federalists who dream of transforming the EU into a geopolitical "great power." "

Gate stone Institute April 3rd

Read More

ROTATOR CUFF AND CHARACTER

7 April 2022

Sunday, day 0

Tomorrow is Friday, day 5 after the operation on my shoulder, which was last Sunday. That op. put me into a light trauma, a kind of post traumatic shock syndrome someone said to me. 

Monday, day 1

So Monday I was quite disoriented. Some friends noticed this and rallied round, asking me questions about the experience and getting me to talk; for those here in CM, offering practical help as the shock of a six hour operation was one thing, but in practical terms, I've only got one arm! Just try to imagine that!!

Tuesday, day 2

But by Tuesday, when I left hospital, two days after the six hour op., my high spirits had returned. How a person deals with adversity tells you a lot about the strength of character of the person.

Wednesday, day 3

Yesterday Wednesday was OK too - I went out for a walk round the park. And again today.

I have a set of exercises to do four or five times a day at my room, to restore flexibility, but not overdoing it as the tendon has been freshly sewn back.

Thursday, day 4

And today Thursday is more normal still. The person who takes care of my room on a Wednesday morning, while I go for Thai massage two hours, has called daily with food and helped me wash and dress. Good practise for when I'm truly old and decrepid, you might think!!!

Friday, day 5

Then tomorrow, Friday, is the third day after I left hospital and the dressing that protects the wound must be changed every three days. So back to hospital - probably in the morning.

I write all this nonsense as a kind of therapy, away to stay attached to reality.

How to measure the strength of character of a person. Observe them:

-How do they deal with adversity? Do you analyse and draw lessons for yourself, or do you point the finger of blame?

-Faced with a headache of a problem, do you say "oh, I can't do it", or do you persevere till they find the solution?

-Do you stick stubbornly to your decisions, right or wrong, or do you review and are you able to learn from experience?

-Can you accept new thinking without becoming emotional or feeling challenged?

- Are you able to work with others and not feel "ruffled"?

Character is the most important quality a person possesses. It is more important than intelligence, reputation or beauty. What do you think about "character"?

I looked up the etymology of the word "character". It seems to come from the word for an engraving instrument, to carve...carve, carve and carve again. Interesting, eh?!

Read More

PUTIN'S PLANS

1 April 2022

As to Russia's goals. 

Looking at a map, the trouble for Russia geographically, is that its western border opens smoothly onto the plains of Eastern Europe and there are those gateways that give access to invaders.

So a Russian leader would like to plug the gaps with neutral buffer states, all the way from from Estonia to Bulgaria included.

That's the dream. Perhaps from the Baltics, or Finland even, down to Ukraine and Moldovia. 

The minimum a Russian leader would want is what Biden referred to, in the first of his many gaffes, when he said it'd be ok a little bit in, can take the Donbas, that'd be OK. And I think everyone is agreed there's no giving back Crimea, that's gone for good.

(Reminds me of the bar girls here - "I only let them go little bit in and I don't let them stay for long".)

As to the means. 

Whatever the press says to give us foolhardy confidence, Putin's army is massive and the opposition is Ukrainian. Aswhere, outside Ukraine, he'd be up against NATO, which is the Anglo-Saxons - that's clearly now an impossible dream. 

So if I've got it right, he can realistically have Crimea and Eastern Ukraine / Basarabia: I think the two gateways in Moldovia are called that after the name of a former ruling family.

As to a strategy for getting that little lot. 

He knows by now that America will concede nothing, never, while they have a breath left in them. All empires fight to the death (except UK). 

Why not hold peace talks for tactical reasons, but meanwhile continue the groznyization, as this will accelerate the exodus of the local people. The Ukrainians hate Putin by now,  ethnic Russians or not. Remember, just before invading he moved out half a million ex-pat Russians back to Russia.

So he could flatten the country and empty it of people. That would definitely stop the war as there'd be noone left to fight, nor object to his occupation, no population to subdue, no problem holding what he's taken.

 ("I no give change. You can pay my taxi?".)

Then he could shunt back enough Russians, and maybe from Belarus too, to rebuild and replant.

Like that, he would have rubbed out the border on the map and little Russia would have rejoined its big brother.

As to risks.

So the only flies in the ointment are that this relies on the Russian army being strong enough to scare the shit out of the people and kill those who won't run away. 

Also, looking at the demographic table, Russia doesnt really have the youth to work the Russian economy, let alone shift millions to Ukraine. Hence Belarus, but it's probably got the same problem.

...maybe from China? It's demographics are worse.

Read More