WHEN TWO WORLDS CLASH - THE WORLD OF PAPER ASSETS V. THE REAL

19 August 2023

https://www.wallstreetprep.com/knowledge/real-assets/

We live in a world of paper assets v. hard assets. These worlds are more and more at war and many International Relations experts see a non-peaceful resolution of the conflict later this decade, with a New, or Reformed, World Order to be built in the mid-30s, doubtless by Gen X - who get things done - when they take over from the Boomers who were not very good at maintaining institutions.

The paper is the US dollar and all the financial assets like derivatives and so on and banks that hang off this. It is the world of the Western powers, the G7, former colonial masters, the institutions created by America after the last war with the rules for global trade and safeguarding the sea-lanes. It is the world of the US dollar reserve currency and the US debt pile.

The hard assets is a slowly emerging BRICS common currency anchored in the price of gold by weight (by weight - price can vary) and all the commodity and other hard assets, organised through several banks competing with the IMF and World Bank. It is the world of the BRICS, the G20, the Global South. The institutions being created eg at the next BRICS Conf 22-24 August, after the (failure of) war, the (failure of) sanctions, with the rules for global dominance written but revised by Washington (there's Intl Law, then there's "Our" law - the US is not signatory to many rules it imposes on others...). It is the world of a possibly emerging reserve currency, based on trade and diplomacy rather than dollar-dominance and war.

For readers thinking it is a good idea to stay top-dog or allied to top-dog, keep a couple or three things in mind:

We are evolving into a multipolar world which means that it is no longer exclusively the West or America that makes the rules therefore certain respect and power sharing and notion of equity is needed.

When other regimes appear to be in competition with the US or outright hostilities, it is best not to resolve Conflict by military means since the chances of decisive victory is near zero these days, negotiations are to be favored as they lead to win-win situations where both sides are more likely to reach a sustainable agreement.

If you have widely supported institutions making agreed upon rules and if you resolve conflicts by peaceful rather than military or by economic sanctions, then you are likely to keep up the trade flows which is after all what funds the dollar and American debt.

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WESTERN WISHFUL THINKING AND ITS DANGERS

17 August 2023

Article from the FT 16 August 2023.

There are a couple of things that provoke thought by the thoughtful reader. One is that this article and other articles use the West's broad stream media as a place to share - from sharing ideas right through to sharing catchy or elegant turns of phrase. The result is an impressive unanimity of understanding, but of course that is also its weakness.

Because the other "thought for the day" is how life tends to surprise. Just when the majority share an idea and the confidence that goes with that position, life has a tendency to pull the rug and we fall on our ...

So I guess the message is: share ideas by all means, but first of all share the facts, share the truth; and this will enable us to avoid irr mitigate many unforseen "blacks swan" events.

There are seven "untruths" in this article - the future belongs to those who can spot them.

8. "A negotiated outcome, therefore, remains elusive. "

This is the last para in the article and also the first true statement. For consider:

1. "The next big step would be a summit of world leaders to endorse Kyiv’s resolution formula and increase pressure on Moscow to end the war".

As at the Jeddah summit, and the sanctions, there is no support for the Ukraine outside the West. None. And the BRICS conf 22-24 August will confirm this.

2. "The restoration of Ukraine’s full territorial integrity and the protection of its people"

Kiev started the action by shelling its people in the Donbas from 2014.

3. "what began as a war of choice, under the pretext that Ukraine belonged to the “Russian world”, has now become an existential fight not only for Putin but also for Russia itself."

It began in 2008 as an existential threat to Russia when Nato said Ukraine would join - the war followed the threat from Nato, not the other way round.

4. "there were no concrete plans to grant Ukraine Nato membership; this has backfired"

The invitation in 2008 has backfired on America.

5. "Moscow no longer describes Ukrainian territories controlled since 2022 as belonging to the “Russian world”"

Where did Moscow stop claiming that Ukraine is part of the Russian world? Russia is interested in Ukraine up to the Dnieper as it is part of the Russian world.

6. "The Kremlin is increasingly coming to terms with the fact that Ukraine will neither be “de-Nazified” (there will be no pro-Russian “puppet” government in Kyiv) nor “demilitarised”, nor will it remain neutral."

This is totally made-up by the author - the author is unable to provide one shred of evidence for this wishful thinking.

7. "It is now clear to Moscow that Ukraine will probably become part of the EU and anchored to Euro-Atlantic security structures."

As per above, wishful thinking.

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NATO'S PEACE PLAN

16 August 2023

As to this plan from NATO that Ukraine cede territory in exchange for membership.

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What the West doesn't consider is the Russian point of view and position of strength. Russia is not looking for empire or land in this war, it is looking to its security and protection of ethnic Russians in Donbas region. In other words, even though this was NATO's next step, the point of Russia's entry into an overt military operstion is to ensure that Ukraine cannot join NATO.

The proof of this is that Putin has said he has no objection to Ukraine joining the EU, if it so wishes, and indeed he will help it, but what Russia will not accept is a Nasty regime, a NATO occupation or nuclear weapons on his doorstep 250 kms from Moscow.

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THE FURIOUS EXTREMES

14 August 2023

We all recognise that civil society is being hollowed out and that there are increasingly furious extremes but isn't the same thing the case in international relations?

Thought for today: the hollowing out of the center, where the moderates are forced out or to take an extreme position, we are all familiar with this argument and we see it happening. There is serious civil unrest, two sides opposing each other, neither will submit, each would prefer to see the whole system collapse rather than lose the argument.

We recognise this is what is happening to our civil society with all kinds of moral questions put up to destroy us.

Well, that's for civil society ... but isn't it the same for geopolitics? Look at the neocons in this proxy war in Ukraine.

Once, nuclear weapons were there to preserve the peace, the objective was preservation of the peace, this was the Pax Americana. But for the last 30 years we've had Russia refusing to accept it lost the cold war and what winds up the neocons even more is to see Russia strengthening as it has been doing since Putin began the task of restoring order to Russian Society.

The Neocons, in power in America and Europe, with Victory and Global Supremacy as their objective in International Relations, see the West's grip on global affairs being diluted . The neocons are quite ready to go to war in its most extreme forms, rather than "lose", as they see it, rather than see America lose its global hegemony, rather than concede what everyone else sees: that more and more we live in a multi-polar world.

The BRICS Summit coming up in a week will be attended by representatives from 50 countries though there are only currently five members It is evidently setting itself up to challenge the West the G7.

Not for the neocons, there is no room for negotiation or compromise, or what many would call an acceptance of the emerging new reality - such talk is labelled "appeasement" and the war, hopeless though it is, must continue, the killing and mutililations must continue, until defeat or collapse.

Seems to me now that neutrality is all but inevitable for Ukraine, alongside the loss of substantial parts of its former territory. We have the neocons to thank for this. We have a mediocre leadership in Europe in disarray and fawning behind these neocons in Washington and we have a bubbling and weeping cesspool in Europe's east west crease, where the whole purpose of the NATO alliance was the promise of Pax Americana, a permanent peace.

And next? ...

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AN OPEN CESSPOOL IN THE E W CREASE

12 August 2023

The US pushed Russia into its invasion of Ukraine and has pushed Ukraine into this counter offensive, with the lure of Nato membership if it prevailed over Russia.

Nato knew all along that the chance of military success was very small - the Wall Street Journal has made that clear in a widely-quoted article. The West seemed to have relied on sanctions although any study of the efficacy of sanctions shows that they are a non-starter. 

In full cynicism, Nato proceeded to wage this war by proxy and the US and EU to arm and train Ukrainians.

The Vilnius summit then said that Ukraine would not join NATO and Stoltenberg the Sec General confirmed this. How could Ukraine ever hope to join NATO, with the possibility of conflict always ready to reignite and under article 5 the risk of bringing NATO's boots ie America's into Ukraine on the ground and in conflict direct with Russia, a direct and hot conflict between two nuclear-armed superpowers.

The offensive is checkmated and losing ground. What is the future? 

The future for Ukraine is either defeat by Russia, opening the possibility of a negotiated settlement if Ukraine and the US recognise that Ukraine has been defeated and agrees to diplomacy, unlikely because Biden will not want defeat clouding his election campaign; or collapse of its army and society and the disappearance of the country and its government in the present form. 

The country will be neutral at any event, so the whole point of the war to bring Ukraine into NATO has been a failure.

Furthermore, Ukraine's infrastructure and its economy are completely wrecked; it has lost half a million of its brightest hopes for the future, tens of thousands are mutilated and many milliobs displaced; territorially it will be undoubtedly shrunken to about 3/4 at best of what it was pre-2014, including loss of access to the Black Sea, and possibly Poland will take over responsibility for some area in the west up to Lviv.

As to governance, the government will be replaced by one that is neutral as regards the West and Russia; and security arrangements will be made that satisfy all stakeholders, which obviously has always included the Russian Federation, limiting the number of troops, the arms, military exercises, and obviously forbidding the stationing of nuclear weapons.

Finally, the reputational damage to the US cannot be overestimated, with consequences for Nato, for the dollar and interest rates, American hegemony and China, the outcome of the presidential elections next year, relations with the EU and European governments, the rise of the global South and of a multitude of competing though equal powers in tge bew multipolar world.

This disaster, the worst in American history outside the Civil War and possibly its last, was completely foreseeable from way back in 2008 when Bush brushed aside European objections to offering NATO membership to Ukraine, if not before, and was accurately predicted by the authors of this website.

What needs to be done is for the leading newspapers publications to start accurate journalism and reporting for the sake of freedom and a free press, without which we are no better than The Rest; and for the neo conservatives in Washington, the EU and UK, to be chased out of office, possibly sent to The Hague; and replaced by rational people with rational thought-processes and thought-through goals and strategies and at least one Plan B, who want to make a success of Europe in a multi-polar world.

Lastly and most importantly, sensible arrangements need to be made for security and trade in Europe and some equivalent to the Versailles conference organised.

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EUROPE SHOULD PLAN FOR ITS INDEPENDENCE

9 August 2023

It has to be said that it was probably a mistake, or at least premature, to admit East European countries into the EU without considered trade and security policies worked out with Russia.

In fact if you look at Europe's place in the world it would have been very wise to include Russia in future plans for membership of the EU - Russia has a lot more in common with Europe than it has with Asia, and Europe would have had the chance to replace America in some Fourth Turning settlement.

Still, never say never ... it is the tired old regimes of the western powers that need updating or replacing and Europe really needs to work towards its independence, though this is a 20-year plan for Gen-Z to implement.

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Is it true that "Asians are less human" because "Russians are Asians"? Ukraine's Nasty security chief thinks so.

Once again, Ukraine today is Germany's past. And we want Ukraine and the Nasties in the EU ... really?

https://www.bignewsnetwork.com/news/273921982/asians-are-less-humane-ukrainian-security-chief

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IS THE TYPICAL MODERN FAMILY REALLY MIXED RACE?

6 August 2023

These are photos of typical family units in America today, we are told. Is this true and if not what is going on here?

Maybe the Melting Pot worked well for America at the very beginning, but despite the 1960s Civil Rights Movement "awakening", multi ethnicity and mass immigration hasn't really worked out for ordinary people, it's led to a lot of conflict and as can be seen in the grievances of the Woke seemingly to a march towards civil war.

It would be interesting to know how significant are cultural differences, what is driving the current social conflict and why government and advertising keep bombarding us with these photos of multiethnic families.

ECONOMY AND CULTURE

People at work and in their finances all obey basic economic and business rules. When they leave work and return home however, culture is what decides behaviour. Culture is what makes social groups different - differences are not usually found in economic activity, though they do exist for example usury or ESG...

ETHNICITY AND RACE

Ethnicity is not so much about what you do, economically and culturally, but where you come from: geographically, genetically and historically. Some people call this "race".

FAMILY PROFILES

It's very obvious from this table of figures that whatever you call it - ethnicity, culture, race - it is very significant as, if I've understood that US census data correctly - it is saying that 98% of Americans live in ethnically homogeneous households.

BIOLOGY BRINGS US TOGETHER, CULTURE DRAWS US APART

This is an old wise Chinese saying. Why do peoples choose to live together within their groupings, but apart at least according to the census data? What are the characteristics that screen and separate?

CHARACTERISTICS

Some differences you can more easily see and use to define and screen a group: skin colour, language, family life styles, health parameters, diet, preferred leisure activities, dress styles.

Some are more subjective: belief systems and values incl religious; wellness practises (like ayuverdic and yoga in Hindu Bali, Shamans in S Africa, voodoo in Haiti...); art and expression; the history of a people as it is recorded.

ATTRACTION - REPULSION

According to the rules of natural selection, there's strength in diversity, we are programmed to mate with people who are different from us, but there's a point where these differences can change from being attractive to becoming quite scary as we get nearer a neighbouring species, by the often slight differences in genetic material. 

It's the objective signs that alert us and may attract us at first, to more frightening subjective cultural differences that reveal themselves later and may become controversial. We might get on fine with people from our own group, we might get on fine at work, but might not get on together with members from a different cultural group on a day-to-day basis - such as socially or in a family. 

And at the group level, ethnic or especially cultural groups themselves might have difficulty interacting with each other. This is how some people would explain race riots for example or supremacist attitudes.

So to turn to the question: why are they spinning us these photos of happy mixed-race families  when the census data paints an opposite picture? 

You could argue that despite trivial external signs like skin colour, these people in the photos are all from the same culture, they were born and grew up in the same culture, they went through the same socialising education system, they lived through the same major formative events of their youth  together like war, beatlemania or depression.

NATION STATE

If you believe in the nation state as the unit of counting, then you will see that when America was being formed, having wiped out the very different indigenous population, the founding fathers had to write a constitution and form a society from nothing and the Melting Pot worked well on such a green field site. 

But subsequently multi-ethnicity through immigration has turned out to be a growing source of conflict, with blacks who did not originally choose to emigrate watching recent immigrants overtake them. Conflict is heightened as hope is destroyed at a time of declining GDP growth, equality, real wages and opportunities. The civil rights movement of the 1960s was the awakening to these problems and the failure to address them resulted in the grievances of the Woke.

GLOBAL ELITE

If you are a member of the global elite, then you will see the world in class terms, in other words that economics and ownership of the means of production is the basic organising unit - a democratic market economy v. an autocratic state-run economy. You will want the same harmony and order found in the workplace to also reign in civic society. You will want order in place of chaos and anarchy. 

HOLLOWING OUT

As moderates leave what you might call the conflict zone, what is left is extremist groups battling each other for supremacy and caring little for the stability of the system.

If this is true, then in America, "leader of the free world", it is coming down to a straight fight between extremists on both sides: a global elite led by international Liberals and neo-conservatives, supported by the mainstream media and workplace HR departments: and a nationalist, populist, anti-establishment movement which some claim is supported at home by those who lost out in globalisation and abroad by foreign powers and enemies of America such as Russia's (now disproven) support for Trump. 

THE FOURTH TURNING

Seeing grievances and conflict mount, as a member of the elite top one percent, you'll use your leadership, your communication and marketing propaganda, to set a good example. You'll try to blend together all these cultures and ethnicities, to iron out the differences, resolve conflict and avoid your people resorting to street violence.

You'll welcome boat people or Mexicans because this will solve workplace economic and demographic problems and you'll be very confident that you can blend all these disparate peoples into one multi-ethnic culture at home as at work; just like you are very confident that you can win the war in Ukraine and maintain America's global hegemony! 

So the photos are more visionary than actual.

THE FUTURE

What is driving the current social conflict? Will things work out for this globalist elite and the American Order, or will events turn towards darkness, war and overthrow, and the emergence of a reformed or replaced Order?

We can watch history unfold before our eyes and can expect and plan for definitive outcomes by the early 2030s.

 

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THE JEDDAH SUMMIT

6 July 2023

1. Ukraine mustered 12 divisions which it organised into two core: the 9th and the 10th. The 9th was supposed to break through Russian defenses and the 10th follow through to the Sea of Azof. What happened was that the 9th failed so the 10th was moved in to do its work and it too has failed.

2. The Vilnius Summit had been organised to confirm "mission accomplished" ie announce Ukraine's success and welcome it to Nato (the purpose of the war), but as we know because the offensive had failed there was no place for Ukraine in NATO and it will never join.

3. The purpose of the Jeddah Summit was to confirm arrangements for Russia's surrender.

The whole Enterprise went laughably wrong for simple reasons:

a) no one had read a history book which would have demonstrated Russia's capabilities and determination

b) no one had investigated Russia's current preparations for a war that it began to anticipate when it became clear that Minsk was a delaying tactic

c) America (Jake Sullivan) had only a strategy (of escalation), no plan A (the West ran out of arms) and no plan B (the offensive failed)

d) America did not have what it takes, and is moving the focus to a Trump-free election

e) The conference - including China - was clear that Ukraine's goals of emptying Ukraine of Russia troops back to pre-2014 lines was not realistic and his govt should head for negotiations to achieve a "just and fair"settlement (China's word).

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FRESH HOPE FOR EAST WEST DIALOGUE

5 July 2024

“It is deeply in the US national interest to intensify communication with China on critical issues where war and peace are at stake,” said Scott Kennedy, a China expert at the CSIS think-tank.

America's goal

America's goal is to remain in charge, the global hegemon, for ever. America built its global institutions after the last world war, which express its rules for free and fair trade, and it enforces them globally, using mostly the powers of its reserve currency and its  military alliances, for example Nato. An alliance is built on the basis that there is a common enemy and this would tend foreign policy to war rather than peace.

Problems for America

Small problem at the moment: its currency and military are under threat and there are also serious problems at home from inequality to the Culture Wars. Its current idea is to parley with China, the time to rebuild its economy and military and hold back the Rise of China until China is defeated by its own demographics.

The American plan

This blog has been complaining for a long time about the quality of the West's leaders and the focus on hegemony and military rather than peace and diplomacy. Take the example of Jake Sullivan, NSA, the Ukrainian offensive and the Jeddah peace conference. Or the case of Tony Blinken, US secretary of state, who visited China in June and is now creating two working groups to focus on Asia-Pacific regional issues and maritime issues, and a possible third group to focus on broader areas.

Sullivan, United States national security advisor, is in reality Biden's campaign manager, not a diplomat, not a military man either. He is looking at November 24 and sees this war as a major obstacle to a Democrat victory - as understanding of this war grows the American taxpaying public will turn increasingly against and in any case the truth that America is losing this war is emerging.

Sullivan is a campaign manager, not a diplomat. Diplomacy is about negotiation, not conquest per se. Diplomacy is listening, understanding, reaching agreements where each side can satisfy itself by conceding on points less important to itself than the other side. The object is peace. 

Contrast this with the present American leadership whose object is to preserve American primacy through victory. These people's formative years were the 70s and they are determined to reverse the defeat of Vietnam. To a neocon, seeking peace through negotiation is appeasement. 

Whereas to an older generation, with scary memories of the last war, the objective is peace. Peace requires neutrality of individual countries, rather than military alliances. Austria was one example, Ukraine is another, Stalin himself arranged a disarmed and neutral W Germany, with peace in mind.

(Organisation note

Jake Sullivan, National Security Advisor, heads the National Security Council (NSC) and usually chairs meetings, when it isn't Biden himself, US President, of the Principals Committee of the NSC with Blinken, who is the Secretary of State, and Lloyd Austin, the US Secretary of Defense.)

Here is where our leadership falls down and comes across as mediocre. This blog has already pointed out the futility of Copenhagen, where Sullivan was supposed to persuade the global south to come off the fence, join the sanctions, pressure Russia to withdraw. Now Sullivan has organised this Jeddah "peace" conference to follow through on this aim. And we have Blinken now opening these new lines of communication with China to tackle contentious issues.

Focus on Jeddah

As a peace conference can never work since one of the protagonists, Russia, has not been invited, so it cannot in all seriousness be about peace.

The invitees 

China has already declined and had declined Copenhagen before. Mexico has declined because Russia is not present. Brazil and India look unlikely to send top diplomats, if they attend at all. So failure in terms of peace, or persuading the global South to join the sanctions regime, is pretty much baked in by the absence of key participants.

The most absurd part is that the conference is supposed to sell the Ukrainian position, which is that Russia must withdraw completely from all "its" territories including Crimea before it will negotiate, ie it will only negotiate with Russia once Russia has surrendered.

And the saddest part is the Ukrainian offensive. This strategy is Sullivan's, it is Sullivan's strategy. The Ukrainian 9th Corps was supposed to punch through the Russian defence lines and the 10th was supposed to follow through to this sea of Asov. 

That plan is a failure with 30,000 Ukrainian losses since 4th June and the 10th sent in to supplement, with the Ukrainians still stuck in the gray zone without having even got as far as the first line of Russian defenses.

Reminder: the Stakes are high

The stakes could not be higher - war and peace, rhe survival of The Russian Federation or The American Order, ultimately of the human race through the avoidance of  nuclear war. 

Just to set the context once again. Remember that this demonstration of American might as well as the strength of its reserve currency is being closely watched by China. Remember too that Russia has complained for decades about NATO expansion and Ukraine is the brightest of red lines which it sees as threatening to its very survival. Could the stakes be any higher? 

Well yes they could, instead of conflict and war, we should be looking at a new architecture for security in Europe if not globally, we should be working together to preserve the planet, with the goal of peaceful coexistence between nation states and the wellbeing and prosperity of peoples everywhere.

Thinking by everyone, for everyone

This is how reality is perceived by those with whom we should be negotiating. Our goal should be to agree solutions to bigger problems, from Security in Europe to Climate Change across the planet. Do you think our current leadership is up to this? What if it isn't?

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GIVE PEOPLE THE VOTE

3 August 2023

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/08/02/britain-now-elite-dictatorship-majority-opinions-crushed/

"Britain is now an elite dictatorship where majority opinions are crushed

Start listening to the voters on cars, crime and wokery, or there’ll be an uprising even bigger than Brexit"

What Allister Heath seems to be saying is that Society is run by technocrats working on behalf of an elite, and politicians are just their mouthpieces or spokespersons. In other words, there is only one single governing Elite and our Representatives - never mind which party they say they belong to - all belong to the same Elite.

The upshot is that people have no real choice and there's no real change, no radical new ideas to meet increasingly severe challenges to our world, conformity rules, everything is inside the box.

Is this true? Most people only want things for themselves and for their immediate future. In a diverse Society like ours, this brings everyone into conflict with everyone else or  you get what he notes would be a tyranny of the majority eg on immigration.

Is it true that society is split in two - an elite and the people? Surely there's some social mobility, membership of the elite is actually more like a game of musical chairs... it's true that most of the chairs stay occupied while the music plays; but when the Music Stops there's always some chairs free and many aspirants competing for them; and there are still other people who want to turn the whole effing lot over and sometimes they can trump the wannabees.

This process of change can be accelerated by the elites, excesses like Ulez or the war in Ukraine or the debanking scandal, that open breaches in the elites defenses.

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THE POLICY OF CONTAINMENT IS A FAILURE

1 August 2023

Here is a thoughtful article on George Kennan. Kennan, going back to Mackinder, is credited with the American policy of containment. True but also rather ironical. George Kennan did advise that NATO trying to take Ukraine would be the brightest of red lines for Russia.

Instead of containing Russia militarily, which has the American thread of wanting to divide potential rivals, we in Europe should be including Russia - politically and militarily Russia could have joined Nato as Putin had hoped; economically as supplier of cheap energy and raw materials; and culturally remembering that Russia is more European than it is Asian.

https://www.globaltimes.cn/page/202203/1257094.shtml

All these opportunities lost. America must have its enemy to kick against and understand its young self. Supremacy, exceptionalism, number one - these are all problems of the developing ego.

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As this column has said from the very start, this foreign policy adventure will end in failure and likely the greatest of all American foreign policy disasters, possibly the end of the American Order. This would be something that we in the West wish to avoid - we wish to be allies of America but free to not be invariably aligned to America because our interests are often different.

The Ukrainian offensive began on 4 June and in two months has made absolutely no progress other than capturing a few hamlets. It has not touched the Russian front line and the muddy season is almost upon us. This will put an end to the offensive and the prospects of renewing it in the winter ice or the spring are zero.

So to what will happen next, especially with an election year 2024? It seems to me that the neocon and other nasty elements of the foreign policy elite will be driven out of town and more reasonable minds, more mature egos, interested in combining assets rather than divide and rule, will take over and enter a negotiated settlement.

What will such a negotiated settlement look like? Probably it will meet the initial aims laid out in December 2021 for a neutral Ukraine and a changed regime in Kiev with a government more understanding of Russian security needs and how these might be compatible with its own.

Russia is interested in taking territory that will push back its front line with Nato, and that it can hold with support from the local popn. Russia would not want to return land to find the shelling restarts, or it's reoccupied by the nasties, by Nato even.

In the case where Russia needs land as a buffer but the local people are not sympathetic, there it would need to change the government I'd have thought, meaning the kievian regime. But even a new and Moscow-leaning gov in U would need solid security arrangement that benefits both sides....govts come and might go.

Surely it is not just Ukraine: the whole of that line from the Baltics down to Romania and Bulgaria needs fixing and not an arms race, not just balance of power, but an agreement to limit troops and weapons the length of the E-W divide. How to disarm and to verify? Strikes me that Russia would have to join Nato for security arrangements to be made permanent.

Russia with the upper hand and backed by BRICS+, we'd be looking minimum at a Ukraine about 55 to 60% of pre-2014 (4 oblasts, plus another 4, Odessa), no access to the Sea, a sympathetic govt watchful of the interests of Poland to its West and Belarus to its North. And long term acting as one part of an East - West  buffer.

Sad to say but is this a new Iron Curtain? And how ever can anything be built between two parties who thoroughly mistrust each other?

All so lamentable and regrettable. When I think about how things could have been so very different with Russia included in NATO, with Russia included in European culture to which it is much closer than Asian culture, with a Russia included economically as a supplier of cheap energy and raw materials, a Russia included socially technologically and educationally.

When I think of a Europe more independent of America, which could be a global leader, for example in matters of the environment or security, and instead is relegated to a third class after thought in world affairs.

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