Tag: decline and fall

A Kremlin Perspective

An interview with Sergey Karaganov, a former advisor to Vladimir Putin, on a variety of important geopolitical subjects.

BM You talked about demilitarisation of Ukraine, but it seems that such a goal would not be achieved if the West continues to provide Ukraine with weapons. Do you think Russia will be tempted to stop that flow of arms, and does this risk a direct clash between Nato and Russia?

SK Absolutely! There is a growing probability of a direct clash. And we don’t know what the outcome of this would be. Maybe the Poles would fight; they are always willing. I know as a historian that Article 5 of the Nato treaty is worthless. Under Article 5 – which allows a state to call for support from other members of the alliance – nobody is obliged to actually fight on behalf of others, but nobody can be absolutely sure that there would be no such escalation. I also know from the history of American nuclear strategy that the US is unlikely to defend Europe with nuclear weapons. But there is still a chance of escalation here, so it is an abysmal scenario and I hope that some kind of a peace agreement between us and the US, and between us and Ukraine, can be reached before we go further into this unbelievably dangerous world.

He’s correct. Britain and France both guaranteed Polish security prior to WWII, and both refused to defend Poland against Germany or to declare war against the Soviet Union when it invaded Poland. Article 5 of the NATO treaty doesn’t oblige any nation to do anything, although since the neocons who run US foreign policy want a war with Russia, it is likely that most nations would submit to US pressure to declare war on Russia in the event of an escalation of the Ukrainian conflict.

BM One argument is that Russia will fall under Chinese control, and this war does not help – because by isolating Russia from the West, it turns Russia into easy prey for Chinese economic influence. Are you worried that this could be the beginning of a “Chinese century” for Russia?

SK There are two answers to your question. One is that China’s economic influence in Russia and over Russia will grow. China has most of the technologies we need, and it has a lot of capital, so there is no question about that. Whether Russia would become a kind of a satellite country, according to the Chinese tradition of their Middle Kingdom, I doubt it.

If you asked me how I would describe Russia in one word, it is “sovereignty”. We defeated those who sought to rule us, starting with the Mongols, and then Carl [Charles XII] of Sweden, then Napoleon and Hitler. Also, recently, we had years of Western domination here. It was almost overwhelming. And nevertheless, you see what has happened: Russia revolted against all that. So I am not afraid of Russia becoming a part of a great China. The other reason I’m not afraid is because Chinese civilisation is very different. We have our Asian traits in our genes, and we are in part an Asian country because of this. And Siberia is at the core of the Russian empire: without Siberia, Russia wouldn’t have become a great country. And the Tatar and Mongol yoke left many traits in our society. But culturally, we are different, so I don’t think it is possible that we will become a subsidiary country.

But I am very concerned about the overwhelming economic predominance of China over the next decade. People like me have been saying precisely [that] we have to solve the Ukraine problem, we have to solve the Nato problem, so that we can be in a strong position vis-à-vis China. Now it will be much more difficult for Russia to resist Chinese power.

Better China than the global satanists. China is an ancient and stable civilization. Global satanry has repeatedly proven that it is even capable of sustaining a functional society for three generations. And while Chinese civilization is not Western civilization, it definitely works for most of its inhabitants in a way that the insane wickedness of globohomo never can.

SK We all feel like we are part of a huge event in history, and it’s not just about war in Ukraine; it’s about the final crash of the international system that was created after the Second World War and then, in a different way, was recreated after the collapse of the Soviet Union. So, we are witnessing the collapse of an economic system – of the world economic system – globalisation in this form is finished. Whatever we have had in the past is gone. And out of this we have a build-up of many crises that, because of Covid-19, we pretended did not exist. For two years, the pandemic replaced decision-making. Covid was bad enough, but now everybody has forgotten about Covid and we can see that everything is collapsing. Personally, I’m tremendously saddened. I worked for the creation of a viable and fair system. But I am part of Russia, so I only wish that we win, whatever that means.

BM Do you sometimes fear this could be the rebirth of Western power and American power; that the Ukraine war could be a moment of renewal for the American empire?

SK I don’t think so. The problem is that during the last 500 years the foundation of Western power was the military preponderance of Europeans. This foundation started eroding from the 1950s and 1960s. Then the collapse of the Soviet Union made it seem for a while that Western predominance was back, but now it is done away with, because Russia will continue to be a major military power and China is becoming a first-class military power.

So the West will never recuperate, but it doesn’t matter if it dies: Western civilisation has brought all of us great benefits, but now people like myself and others are questioning the moral foundation of Western civilisation. I think geopolitically the West will experience ups and downs. Maybe the shocks we are experiencing could bring back the better qualities of Western civilisation, and we will again see people like Roosevelt, Churchill, Adenauer, de Gaulle and Brandt back in office. But continuous shocks will of course also mean that democracy in its present form in most European countries will not survive, because under circumstances of great tension, democracies always wither away or become autocratic. These changes are inevitable.

No national empire ever recovers its former greatness. America has been invaded, overthrown, and occupied. It is a nation ruled by foreigners, women, and devil-worshippers. It will survive, but Americans will never again tower over the world the way they did after WWII.

To the extent that “the West” now means “the Enlightenment”, one must question the moral foundation of Western civilization. The focus must be on return to Christendom and the nations, not on what has proven to be an insidious anti-Christian philosophy of materialism.

UPDATE: And the next phase begins.

Russian gas giant Gazprom has officially halted all deliveries to Europe via the Yamal-Europe pipeline, a critical artery for European energy supplies.

DISCUSS ON SG

Lessons for the Next War

Karl Denninger observes that while the Purebloods survived, they lost the war:

Purebloods learned a lot about human nature. The more cynical among us decided people are selfish enough to sell out the most vulnerable for the illusion of safety. We learned who had balls and who our real friends were. Sometimes we surprised ourselves with what we were willing to do. Or accept to get along. Sometimes enlightenment is empowering, and sometimes it’s humbling.

We learned people were either convinced by logical arguments or they weren’t. No amount of logic penetrated a feelings shield, yet many of us wasted breath trying to reach our loved ones. There was no perfect argument that made them understand.

We learned some people love clown world. They forget contradictory statements made a month apart. Maybe a goldfish memory allows them to function, but others cannot stand living in a land of liars and gas lighters.

The only successful peaceful protests involve withdrawing consent. Truckers blocking Ottawa received international attention, but only resulted in tiny changes. The People’s Convoy in America had absolutely no effect, but I heard it was a pretty good parade.

Vacationing in place either deliberately or due to fatigue is a more effective tactic because it costs the company money. I can’t wait to see the second quarter Productivity and Costs report from the Bureau of Lies and Scams. If your company bent you over take advantage of the lube shortage when returning the favor.

We are on our own. No one is coming to save us. As of yet, no widespread lawsuits have been filed against vaccine mandating companies. The whole “keep on waiting for it” really sounds familiar doesn’t it? We’ve all heard this one before: Just wait, two weeks to flatten the curve. Just wait, in two weeks there will be an explosion in coof cases. Just wait, in two weeks some lawyer will file a lawsuit. Maybe one will, maybe one won’t. Put not your hopes in men.

Don’t count on political leadership either. Remember what a huge disappointment Trump turned out to be? Years of Qanon bull**** and all we got was terrorism charges for the January 6th protesters. DeSantis is a scummy politician whose every statement is calculated towards his victory condition: President of the United States. The OSHA and CMS mandate hearings came too late for some. Even though the OSHA ruling was struck down, companies kept their vaccine mandates. So far this insult has not been redressed by the courts.

Where does this leave us for the next war? We don’t know how, we don’t know when, but life is a series of battles. Each of us fights our own.

Something I say time and time again is plan how you will react before you face a situation. First, you must identify the conflict and your line in the sand. How will you react when it is crossed? Will you bargain? Will you punch the problem in the face? Will you run? Each fight is different, making a decision now is less stressful than in the moment.

In order to win the next war, it is important to acknowledge why we lost this one.

The purebloods lost because we compromised with evil. As soon we did (and continued to do so), our defeat was certain. It simply took a while to arrive.

Many of us did not recognize our actions as compromises initially. That will not be an excuse the next time somebody pulls this bull****. It started early in the war. Closing businesses and schools were the first ones. Most of us believed that it would only last for two weeks before life returned to normal.

One lesson is if there is widespread compromise in the next skirmish and there is no leader, your job as a soldier is to inflict maximum damage on the way to defeat. With this mindset you are accepting that you have lost, so your goal is to run up the scoreboard. There are numerous nonviolent ways to achieve a high score. Make a list of tactics now so when the time comes you shall act on them.

The most important lesson is to recognize evil and refuse to compromise with it.

Those who refuse to recognize evil, or who cannot do so, will be defeated by it, no matter how smart or how Christian or how good they happen to be. As Sun Tzu observes, the way to ensure defeat is to neither know yourself nor your enemy.

And as we have all observed, much to our disappointment and discomfiture, the number of people who are willing and able to recognize evil and refuse to compromise with it are vanishingly small.

DISCUSS ON SG

The Vaxx Kills More than Covid

A US military flight surgeon testifies that the Covid vaccines have killed more US soldiers than Covid did:

Dr. Theresa Long, a flight surgeon who holds a master’s degree in Public Health and is specially trained in the DMED, gave emotional testimony on March 10. She and two other flight surgeons reviewed DMED last year and made some stunning discoveries about the high incidence of apparent vaccine injuries among members of the military.

According to the whistleblowers, certain disorders spiked after the vaccine mandate went into effect, including miscarriages and cancers, and neurological problems which increased by 1000 percent.

Dr. Long testified that she was contacted by high level officer the night before the hearing, and told not to discuss her findings regarding the explosive military medical data in court. The whistleblower reportedly said she felt threatened after she tried to get her superiors to address the findings, “fearing for her life and for the safety of her children.”

Since the whistleblowers came forward with the DMED data, the DoD has thrown cold water on their conclusions, saying the increase in vaccine injuries was caused by a “glitch in the database.”

Politifact contacted Peter Graves, spokesperson for the Defense Health Agency’s Armed Forces Surveillance Division, who said the data for 2021 is correct, but for some reason, the data for the five years prior was inaccurate. Graves told PolitiFact by email that the division reviewed data in the DMED “and found that the data was incorrect for the years 2016-2020.”

In other words, for five straight years, the data was seriously corrupted and none of the DoD’s data analysts figured this out, and then it fixed itself on its own in 2021. The DoD has since put out new numbers showing more illnesses among the troops for the years prior to 2021….

Dr. Long also testified that the data shows that deaths of military members from the vaccines exceed deaths from COVID itself.

No government statistics can be believed anymore, because all of the statistical offices have been converged. That being said, it is sound logic to assume that the errors are biased in support of the Narrative; the “glitch in the database” defense is even more a priori absurd than the idea that it is safer for an otherwise-healthy individual to be repeatedly injected with spike proteins and other untested substances than endure a few days of fatigue from Covid.

DISCUSS ON SG

The Canadian Tea Party

The Canadian Truckers’ Convoy ended up pretty much as I anticipated, effecting zero change despite the media theater as it was easily dismantled by the authorities. So much for the Internet’s armchair logistics experts:

Some mistakes were merely operational. There was no vetting. I gave one person my pseudonym and an invented autobiography, and within hours I was in a boardroom with all the organizers, going through maps, talking about internal weak points, looking at charts, and inputting every important phone number into my contact list. The lack of operational security was astounding.

The grass-roots organizations also meant that no one—yet everyone—was in charge. It was a classic case of “too many chiefs, not enough Indians,” but worse, as if the chiefs had all been drinking mouthwash. So much time was wasted between defective people competing for status and control, including podcasters and lawyers who thought of themselves as serious leaders, that it felt like the Special Olympics of political resistance. Resultantly, there was no distinction between strategy and tactics. Some organizers became so committed to certain small tasks, they could not understand that a bigger picture existed, while at the same time, it was rare for anyone to discuss what success would look like.

Another problem was the lack of quality men: we had some who were brave and others who were sharp, but few who were both. Most damaging of all was that nearly every organizer saw the occupation and their battle with the regime through the lens of a feminine morality, with undue concern about how we would be perceived. There was no understanding of conflict. The organizers couldn’t even fathom the regime extending its power through the judiciary or the financial system, and every time the government used the tools within their control, the organizers would become histrionic, and take comfort in videos of commentary and ranting by political celebrities who supported the convoy.

Somehow, most organizers and demonstrators held two incompatible premises at the same time. They took for granted that the Canadian government had been acting illegally over the past two years, even harming its citizenry for their own gain; and also believed guilelessly that the government would not lie, seize donations, freeze personal finances, use brutal force, or commit any other illegal action regarding the convoy. Every time the government demonstrated its willingness not to “play fair,” there was widespread emotional breakdown among the organizers. Some left fearful for their lives, while others became meritoriously cavalier and tried to get themselves arrested, even if their skillset was irreplaceable. There was an indulgent narcissism in the desire to be arrested for “counselling to commit mischief” and other misdemeanors. Since most organizers were released without charge, there was a sense that you could achieve martyrdom without real sacrifice.

So, as usual, it accomplished nothing except to wake up more regular citizens to the fact that they are not going to be able to vote, protest, posture, or threaten their way out of the neo-liberal world order’s chains. Which is why nothing is likely to change before its eventual, and inevitable, collapse under the weight of its own inversions and internal contradictions.

As a general rule, very few people are moved to act unless they are made sufficiently uncomfortable first. And the societies of the WereWest are literally too fat, well-fed, overstimulated, and drug-addled to be even remotely uncomfortable. But they are fragile and increasingly unstable societies, and their collapse is clearly coming.

DISCUSS ON SG

The One They Serve

The Prometheans are literally rubbing their devotion to their evil god in everyone’s face, right out in public, and yet surprisingly few are able to see it.

A guardian for international peace and security sits on the Visitor’s Plaza outside #UN Headquarters. The guardian is a fusion of jaguar and eagle and donated by the Government of Oaxaca, Mexico. It is created by artists Jacobo and Maria Angeles.

It’s just a guardian of international peace. It’s totally not at all the image of the beast described in Revelation 13:2.

And the beast which I saw was like unto a leopard, and his feet were as the feet of a bear, and his mouth as the mouth of a lion: and the dragon gave him his power, and his seat, and great authority.

That doesn’t leave a whole lot of room for doubt about the identity of Babylon the Great and the eventual fate of the USA any longer, does it.

DISCUSS ON SG

How To Build a Town

This is something that one suspects will be of increasing interest to more and more people in the coming days.

To create a human scaled town we first establish what is a good size, and this is simply one third of a square kilometer, or 82 acres, or 0.13 square miles. 80 acres was the upper limit for a good family farm in medieval England, and it is still the size at which the most flexible and efficient farms run, both modern and more old fashioned Amish family farms. It allows a town where no point can’t be reached on foot in 15 minutes, and it allows comfortable living for a population of 3000, which was considered the ideal size in medieval Europe: the upper limit of efficiency and comfort, productivity and harmony: more and you get crowded, less and you risk being without some important trades and activities. Even though the premise talks about a town of 600, we plan three centuries ahead for a maximum population of ca. 3000.

A good town (the urban) is clearly defined and set apart from the countryside (the rural). The suburban has no place here. Hence the town needs to be as clearly marked out and defined as the individual family lots will be: to here, but no further. For this purpose we will mark out land to be used as a wall, raised embankment, hedge, fence, moat, canal, etc. Some sort of edge which is not routinely nor distractedly crossed.

As for shape, I recommend a somewhat irregularly oval shape, near round in one extreme, or rice grain shaped in the other extreme, for the simple reason that the best towns and cities seems to be oval to some degree5. As far as possible the existing topography should be kept or even enhanced. Perfectly flat land is only popular with boring developers. So: no bulldozing allowed. Existing trees should be left and existing paths should be left in place (even when slightly inconvenient). New paths and streets should follow the contours of the land. Anything historic (an old campsite, an ancient grave or remains of an old farmstead) should be kept and protected and venerated. History is in short supply in new developments, and interesting stories can be woven around something as mundane as an abandoned old cart or well.

Might need to expand that Beartaria project, gang.

DISCUSS ON SG

I Really Don’t Miss It

Occasionally I’m asked if I miss Minnesota. My answer is always: “not even a little bit”. And I’m not referring to the cold weather or the mosquito season.

Shocking footage uploaded to social media Sunday night appears to show about a dozen youths forcing their way into an apartment to attack a woman and her mother.

Unconfirmed reports circulated on social media suggest that the young woman who was the target of this invasion and attack earned the ire of the mob by accusing a man who is friends with the mob of sexually assaulting her. It appears that the woman who was attacked leveled this accusation on TikTok, where both her and the man she named have a notable presence in the Minneapolis area.

The main video of the incident opens in an elevator as a group of Somali youths, some wearing face masks apparently to conceal their identity, approach their target. After a minor confrontation with a man walking in the apartment building’s hallway, the majority of the group stands back as two individuals knock on the targeted individual’s door.

Minnesota was always doomed to descend into ethnic strife because the native population was the most clueless, intellectually-defenseless, and ideologically-retarded population in the entire USA at the end of the previous century. See the 1984 and 1988 presidential elections if you don’t know what I’m talking about. The cult of nice combined with the left-wing politics, the total unfamiliarity with non-European cultures, and the Scandinavian heritage that prioritizes communal approval uber alles laid the foundation for the perfect storm of vibrancy that has been unfolding in Minneapolis and spreading out as far as Rochester for the last two decades.

The level of denial in which most Minnesotans now engage on a daily basis has to be experienced to be believed. There can be literal riots, complete with burning police stations, looting, and dozens of shots being fired, and the normal Minnesota response is: “Well, that’s all happening over there. It can’t happen here!” And they will cling to this notion even when “over there” means “one city block away”.

It’s probably not a coincidence that the phrase “it can’t happen here” was popularized by a man born in Sauk Centre.

DISCUSS ON SG

An Empire in Decline

It might seem a little strange that the Chinese media is still discussing the English empire in terms of decline, given that everyone recognizes the empire “on which the sun never sets” is no more. Except it is apparent that in doing so, they are actually referring to the declining imperial USA, as the Russian media clearly understands.

The United States must come to terms with the reality that it no longer enjoys “military primacy” in the Western Pacific, and confront the “ugly” reality that it may lose a military conflict with China over Taiwan, Graham Allison, professor of government at the Harvard Kennedy School, has warned.

In a piece for The National Interest, Allison pointed to recent analyses on the possibility of war over Taiwan by a number of senior current and former officials, including ex-Vice Joint Chiefs Chairman James Winnefeld and former-CIA Director Michael Morell, who recently concluded that the Chinese military could deliver a fait accompli on Taiwan before Washington even mustered its forces.

Col. Bob Work, former deputy secretary of defence under Barack Obama and Joe Biden, has expressed even greater pessimism, stating publicly (Allison’s paraphrasing) that “in the most realistic war games the Pentagon has been able to design simulating war over Taiwan, the score is eighteen to zero. And the eighteen is not Team USA.”

The reasons for this are twofold, according to Allison. The first, as former Secretary of Defence Jim Mattis said in his 2018 National Defence Strategy, is that the US no longer enjoys its post-Cold War “dominant superiority in every operating domain,” including the ability to “generally deploy our forces when we wanted, assemble them where we wanted, and operate how we wanted. Today, every domain is contested – air, land, sea, space and cyberspace.”

The second, Allison notes, relates to China’s radical advances in its anti-access/area-denial (A2/AD) capabilities – consisting of everything from anti-ship and anti-air missile systems to long range ballistic and cruise missiles, electronic warfare and interceptor aircraft.

This loss of global imperial hegemony is actually good for Americans, as the rise of the nationalist regional powers increases the chances that Americans will finally begin to recognize that their democracy is a fraud, they no longer rule themselves, and they have not done so for some time now.

One need not be a particular fan of China, Russia, or Iran to observe that their rise is detrimental to America’s enemies.

DISCUSS ON SG

This is Not Your Grandfather’s Military

The USA is no longer the United States of America, it is the United States of Diversity. And diversity is not exactly a strength when it comes to IQ or military capabilities:

The loss of a US Navy ship to a massive blaze was “a completely avoidable catastrophe,” but management lapses on multiple levels, including the failure to activate a firefighting system, made the task impossible, a report claims.
Some three dozen officers aboard the USS ‘Bonhomme Richard’ were named as responsible for the loss of the ship, which caught fire near a San Diego naval base in July 2020, according to a 400-page investigation report obtained by the Associated Press on Tuesday. While one particular sailor, Seaman Apprentice Ryan Mays, was charged earlier this year for initially starting the conflagration, the report alleges that the vessel could still have been salvaged if not for the commanders and the crew’s lack of basic training and skills.

“Although the fire was started by an act of arson, the ship was lost due to an inability to extinguish the fire,” the report said, as quoted by the AP. It concluded that “repeated failures” by an “inadequately prepared crew” led to an “ineffective fire response.”

The report, prepared by Vice Admiral Scott Conn, outlined major lapses in training and preparedness, poor communication and coordination between personnel, bad equipment maintenance and broader breakdowns in the overall command-and-control structure on the vessel.

For instance, the investigators found that while the ship was fitted with a firefighting foam system that could have slowed the spread of the fire, no one on board was aware of how to put the system into operation, that is to push a certain button.

“No member of the crew interviewed considered this action or had specific knowledge as to the location of the button or its function,” the report said. Even if the sailors had prior knowledge of the intricate mechanism, it’s not clear if they succeeded in stopping the flames. The report claims that about 87% of all fire stations on board were plagued by equipment issues or had not been inspected at all.

This is why Ukraine will not be joining NATO and why Taiwan will be reunifying with the mainland. The US military is no longer a global superpower, it is now merely the largest, if not necessarily the most formidable, of the regional powers. While it still has the ability to intervene outside of its zone of control, it no longer has the ability to do so with any real degree of confidence in doing so successfully.

If Great Britain is any guide, it will take at least 10 years, and probably at least one more major military failure, before Americans and other US citizens begin to accept this decline in relative military power and adjust US foreign policy accordingly.

DISCUSS ON SG