Tag: war

By Any Means

China has been watching NATO encroach on Russia’s borders over the last two years and it is clearly not inclined to permit a similar process take place in or anywhere near its own territory:

Beijing will use “any means” to prevent the secession of Taiwan, Chinese President Xi Jinping said on Tuesday, adding that the island’s reunification with the mainland is inevitable. Xi’s comments were part of a speech to the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China, at a symposium marking the 130th birthday of Mao Zedong, according to Xinhua news agency.

“We will resolutely prevent anyone from making Taiwan secede from China by any means,” Xi was quoted as saying.

Xi also described the “complete reunification” of China as “an inevitable trend”; both in the national interest and the desire of the people. He called for efforts to “promote the peaceful development” of relations with the island and further integrated development “in all fields.”

Xi sends warning over Taiwan, RUSSIA TODAY, 27 December 2023

China’s state media and diplomats have also made it clear that they are paying close attention to Japan’s historical decision to further abandon its post-WWII pacifism under pressure from the USA:

Global Times: It is reported that the Japanese government adopted the updated Three Principles on Transfer of Defense Equipment and Technology and its implementation guidelines (herein referred to as “Three Principles”) on December 22 with a decision to provide its home-made Patriot air defence missiles to the United States. It is the first time that Japan has allowed the export of destruction weapons since its Cabinet’s adoption of the Three Principles in 2014. On the same day, the Cabinet approved the budget for Fiscal Year 2024 with a record defense budget of around JPY 7.9 trillion, up by 16.6 percent year on year. What is your comment?

Mao Ning: Given Japan’s recent history of militarist aggression, Japan’s military and security moves are closely watched by its Asian neighbors and the international community. In recent years, Japan has been drastically readjusting its security policy, increasing defense spending year after year, easing the restrictions on arms export and seeking military breakthroughs. We urge Japan to earnestly respect the security concerns of neighboring countries, reflect on its history of aggression, commit itself to the path of peaceful development and earn the trust of its Asian neighbors and the wider international community through concrete actions.

There is no amount of deception and narrative massage that is going to fool the Chinese government. Whereas Russia was foolish enough to buy into the global economy narrative and accept the idea that the USA and its European satrapies could be partners, it’s very clear that the Chinese have learned from the Russian example and have no intention of being similarly bamboozled.

If the USA attempts to reconstruct SEATO, it is certain that China will take steps to prevent it, and it will do so much more quickly and aggressively than Russia did with NATO.

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China Connects the Dots

It’s fascinating to see the Chinese media is now openly discussing the sort of connections that tend to get one rapidly cancelled as a “conspiracy theorist” and even an “antisemite” in the West:

“A just cause enjoys abundant support, while an unjust cause finds little support.” No one feels this snippet of wisdom more deeply than the US now. A spokesman for Spain’s defense ministry told AFP on Sunday that the country will not participate in the so-called Operation Prosperity Guardian, a US-led maritime task force in the Red Sea that aims to protect the passage of Israeli-owned and Israel-bound merchant vessels.

Obviously, the US’ European allies are no longer willing to foot the bill of the US’ selfishness. Operation Prosperity Guardian organized by the US has a strong political overtone, that is, safeguarding Israel’s national interests. Israel’s actions in Gaza have aroused the anger of the international community. More than 20,000 Palestinians have reportedly been killed, more than 50,000 injured, and much of Gaza has been destroyed. Some European countries have begun to diverge from the US on the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. The objective of the US creating the Red Sea alliance, on the one hand, is testing whether its allies share the same beliefs with it on this issue. On the other hand, Washington is levering multilateral diplomatic actions to cover up its unilateral support of Israel.

US allies always support the US and share its stance, but that does not mean they will unlimitedly support the frenzied positions taken by the US on all issues, especially when the US position is contrary to their own interests…

Song Zhongping, a Chinese military expert, believes that no matter it is the Iraq war, the Afghan war, or the current Russia-Ukraine or Palestinian-Israeli conflict, the US’ performance has made it lose its credibility and leadership. US allies see clearly that the US only causes trouble, but it is not willing to bear the consequences. Instead, it lets its allies clean up the mess. The appeal of the US has declined, as the US that is used to being echoed is now being rejected. This is a true manifestation of “A just cause enjoys abundant support, while an unjust cause finds little support.”

Cracks in Red Sea alliance underline US-Europe division, GLOBAL TIMES, 25 December 2023

The fact that China is openly connecting the dots for the benefit of the global public is highlighted by the way Clown World’s media is actively attempting to hide the nature of the Yemeni-Israeli conflict and the fact that the Yemenis are only attacking Israeli-owned ships attempting to transit the Red Sea.

This operation is now coming apart in recriminations because commercial vessel owners in France, Spain, and Italy have accepted that if they negotiate Israel-boycott deals directly with the Houthis, they can continue to operate through the Red Sea. They resent the commercial competition from Russia and China which are operating oil tankers and dry-cargo carriers without hindrance or threat.

The obviousness of the targeting by the Houthis, and of Houthi deal-making by the Russians and Chinese, are being concealed, however, in the US and UK maritime industry media and the mainstream press.

In the most recent strike, the Israeli oil tanker Chem Pluto was hit on Saturday, December 23, by a drone about 1,600 kilometres east of the Yemen coast; about 200 kilometres west of the Indian coast. Initial media reporting claimed the vessel was “affiliated” to Israel but emphasized that it was owned by a Japanese entity and managed by a Dutch one… The allies knew at once that the Chem Pluto had been targeted because it was Israeli-owned. However, the Pentagon, the Voice of America, and UK propaganda continue to pretend that the Houthi targeting is not tied to the Israel Defence Forces’ operations in Gaza, and carefully restricted to Israeli and allied targets.

As with the current economic and military situations, the Western media’s attempts to construct and maintain false narratives, and to limit the influence of alternative medias that do not respect the narrative, is being systematically undermined by Clown World’s inability to influence the Chinese and Russian medias.

It’s very interesting to see how long it will take US politicians, narrative police, and corporate interests to come to term with the fact that the USA is no longer a monopolar power and that the markets of the West are no longer the most sizable, most advanced, or the most profitable.

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The Collapse of the Coalition

Even Clown World’s European satrapies are beginning to refuse to go along with the USA’s desperate attempts to shore up the edges of empire:

Australia is the latest country to reject a request from the United States to send warships to the Red Sea under the command of the Pentagon’s Operation Prosperity Guardian to protect commercial vessels along the critical maritime trade route from Iran-backed Houthi.

Defense Minister Richard Marles told Sky News that Australia’s military would not send a “ship or a plane” to the Red Sea but would triple the number of troops for the US-led maritime force. “We need to be really clear around our strategic focus and our strategic focus is our region,” Marles said.

The Pentagon’s formation of Operation Prosperity Guardian, a new task force to protect shipping from Houthi drone and missile attacks in the Bab Al-Mandeb Strait and the Red Sea, requires increased warship patrols by the US and allies. This will create a security umbrella over commercial vessels to defend from attacks.

Reuters said about twenty countries have signed up for the Pentagon’s new operation. However, several countries, including Australia, Spain, Italy, and France, have rejected the Pentagon’s request to participate in the operation.

These coalitions usually aren’t more than diplomatic cover for US troops, but in this case, the involvement of the lesser navies is actually necessary in the hopes of preventing the Houthis from sinking a US warship and thereby revealing the naked state of the US military. These hopes were always futile, however, since it’s pretty obvious that while Hezbollah, Iran, Russia, and China are all being cautious about directly attacking US military assets without the benefit of US camouflage – such as the Rangers and Patriot missile teams in Ukraine, for example – the Houthis appear to be very nearly ready to take on all comers as the Taliban.

None of this is happening by accident. The unrestricted and asymmetrical nature of the conflicts popping up one by one around the world, combined with China’s apparent quiescence, is very much in keeping with the geopolitical strategy laid out 24 years ago by the Chinese military. The fact that the neoclown strategists are keeping at least one very wary eye on China, despite its seeming lack of involvement in any of these conflicts and close calls from Gaza to Georgia, tends to suggest that the imperial advisers are well aware of this.

It may be another decade of this death-by-one-thousand-cuts warfare before China bestirs itself to openly challenge the Empire. Or it may only be a few more months before one or another of the various fronts that have been opened collapses. But regardless, it is eminently clear that we are witnessing the fall of an empire that has been in decline since 1973.

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Did Russia Demand Surrender?

It’s pretty clear that Russia is geared up for a major offensive, which could be launched at any time. The Ukrainian military has been significantly degraded, and its morale is shot. Whenever the Russian offensive is launched, it will be successful. Which is why it makes sense that Russia is giving NATO an opportunity to surrender Ukraine before launching the offensive that would render any such surrender unnecessary.

However, the source is unreliable, so this should be regarded as possible news yet to be verified rather than actual events that have definitely taken place. And even if it is real, that doesn’t mean the neocons have enough sense to accept either the terms or the fact of their defeat in their proxy war.

Russian officials arrived in Washington, DC Thursday morning to discuss the terms of Ukraine’s SURRENDER. The “Special Flight Squadron moves Kremlin officials traveling on important matters.

TERMS: The terms given to Washington, DC for Ukraine are:

  • Complete Ukraine surrender.
  • Complete surrender of all military equipment.
  • Russian territory will range from Karkhov to Odessa, and gives Russia complete control of Black Sea coast.
  • Western Ukraine cannot join NATO, or have any military aid.
  • Russia does not care who controls western Ukraine, and have openly offered it to Poland.

Put bluntly, the Ukraine war is over and Ukraine lost. Completely.

They can no longer defend themselves in any meaningful way. If hostilities are not halted, Ukraine will simply be slaughtered and, believe it or not, Russia does NOT want to do that.

Notice this information isn’t anywhere on the mass-media news?

Notice the Washington Post STOPPED PRINTING it’s “Ukraine War Update Section?”

No reporting that Ukraine has lost – – – and not a word about Russia’s victory.

The only reason I’m a bit dubious about this is that it makes no reference to the USA ending Russian sanctions, and permitting its European and Asian satrapies to also end the sanctions. Especially in light of the recent statement by the Russian ambassador to the USA:

US attempts to hamper the development of the Russian economy through sanctions are increasingly damaging bilateral relations and making respectful dialogue between Washington and Moscow virtually impossible, Russian Ambassador Anatoly Antonov has said. His remarks followed Washington’s announcement on Friday that it is considering further sanctions on Russia over the Ukraine conflict.

Translation: the neocons won’t be able to give up Ukrainian territory without also giving up their sanctions regime. I find it very difficult to imagine that Russia would accept a Ukrainian surrender that did not involve an end to the Western sanctions. But it should be kept in mind that the fact that Hal Turner’s report did not mention sanctions does not mean that the Russian delegation is not demanding them of the US negotiators.

Which also points to the reason to take the report seriously: if it was fake, it would probably refer to the Kiev regime as the party with whom Russia is negotiating. But this has been a war between Russia and the USA from the start.

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They Know They Lost, Right?

It’s no wonder that NATO has been demolished in Ukraine with military leadership of this intellectual calibre and historical knowledge:

The Ukrainian government needs to look at what Germany did in WWII to stand a chance against Russia, according to Ben Hodges, former commander of US Army forces stationed in Europe. Hodges, who retired as a lieutenant-general in 2017, has long been an outspoken supporter of Ukraine. In an interview with the Australian YouTuber Perun, published over the weekend, he repeatedly cited examples from the Second World War to argue that Kiev can defeat Moscow on the battlefield. “They are gonna have to increase production of ammunition and weapons in Ukraine,” Hodges said. “Some of these things are already happening, but it is possible when you are at war to increase production, even with Russian missiles raining down on your cities.” “I mean, think about what Germany did in 1944. Aircraft production for the Luftwaffe peaked in 1944. That’s after more than two years of steady bombing by the Royal Air Force and the US Army Air Corps bombing the hell out of German cities. But yet German aircraft production increased. So I think Ukraine can do that with some improving efficiency. Some Western companies are already there helping,” he concluded.

On the one hand, he’s right. Germany did increase its aircraft production in 1944. And so did Japan, which not only increased its shipping tonnage produced in 1944, but even managed to build more aircraft in 1945 than it did in 1942.

  • 1942: 8,900
  • 1943: 16,700
  • 1944: 28,200
  • 1945: 11,100

On the other hand—–and I would argue this is the more salient point—–both Germany and Japan were not only defeated militarily, but were defeated so comprehensively that they were forced to surrender unconditionally and are still under military occupation nearly 80 years after their respective surrenders.

Forget the Kiev regime. Forget Ukraine. And forget NATO. Anyone who knows anything about military history recognizes that both of them are already finished, they simply haven’t stopped quivering yet. The USA is now facing global military defeat on every single front, even as it is prostrate before the biggest invasion in all of human history.

At this point there appears to be nothing that can stop the All Nations Alliance from defeating Clown World. And for those who would cite the US and Israeli nuclear arsenals as a possible emergency measure, I repeat: there is nothing. I didn’t understand it when I first read the book as a child, but in retrospect, Jeff Sutton was telling us what the programming was back in 1968.

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Neoclown Admits the Defeat of “the West”

Oleksii Mykolaiovych Arestovych is a blogger, actor, political and military columnist. He was a speaker of the Trilateral Contact Group on Ukraine. He worked as a Strategic Communications Adviser of the Office of the President of Ukraine from December 2020 to January 2023.

Translation: He’s one of the Ukraine-based clowns who was responsible for the communications between Clown World Central and the Kiev regime.

And now he’s following the late Henry Kissinger’s lead in publicly acknowledging that Kiev bet on the weak horse and is now facing the consequences. Simplicius provides the translation:

The entire West is losing, both globalists and isolationists – and we, who bet on it, due to our stupidity.

The isolationists won against the Republicans; the globalist Democrats are unable to solve the problems that they themselves created on a global scale.

Isolationists believe in the United States as a city on a hill and want to throw concerns about Europe into the hands of right-wingers like Orban.

And for starters, together throw off Ukraine, which is considered a construct of globalists.

The problem is not that they can’t give us money.

The problem is that they can’t give us shells.

Forty billion was thrown into a widely publicized microchip plant in Phoenix (Arizona), like a transfer from Taiwan.

The plant is standing still, there are no workers.

They tried to recruit Taiwanese, but it didn’t work either.

The Americans cannot launch the military-industrial complex, under the existing system, neither with Moroccans, nor with Mexicans, nor with dances, nor with tambourines.

The fundamental motivation of the market is financial speculation.

Arms companies show growth in capitalization, but never show growth in production (because there is practically none).

If production grows, it does so extremely slowly, so as not to break capitalization schemes.

Their task is to increase the value of shares, and not to create new equipment.

Tens of billions are being invested, but there is no growth in production.

And it won’t, for this it is necessary to change the entire paradigm, all the schemes that ensure his well-being.

I looked at the annual and quarterly reports of Ratheon, Lockheed, Boeing – the same thing everywhere.

Only decisions and actions in an emergency way out of a catastrophe can have an effect both here and in the West.

But there is another problem – there is no entity in the US/EU who could give such a command.

The West was really caught with its pants down.

Now they have to choose between three conflicts – Ukraine, Taiwan, Israel.

Dragging 70,000 shells from Israel to Ukraine and back is the culmination of the failure to fight the war that was forced on them.

At this rate, they will have a fourth and fifth conflict, I suspect, although in order to somehow cope with one (!) they need to stop helping in the other two.

For us this means disaster.

Of course, it’s not the genuine West that has been defeated, as the real West was infiltrated, suborned, and conquered decades ago. This is the defeat of the skinsuit “West”. Nor is the victory of the Sino-Russian alliance a problem for, much less a defeat of, American isolationists, whose position is finally being proven correct after more than a century. What Clown World is learning is a variant on Queen Cersei’s Lesson, which is that power is ultimately more important than either influence or money. Subversion, persuasion, and corruption only takes you so far.

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The Geostrategic Initiative is Gone

The unholy alliance of the Biden administration with the Republican neocons is in a sudden state of alarm and is inexplicably attempting to stir up the US citizenry for war with Russia.

You’ll recall in the last report I emphasized how the tone was now shifting to: “Russia will invade Europe next!” But even I didn’t expect them to run with that new narrative in such a provocative and alarmist way.

Now a new raft of reports and statements from the usual suspects gives us insight into how desperate the establishment warhawks representing MIC interests have really become.

First, these two videos. Biden openly says that American troops will have to fight Russian troops if Ukraine is not shored up immediately.

Kirby and Blinken stepped up the fearmongering as well, evoking spilled “American blood”:

They’re dialing up the fearporn to a hysteric level like never before:

Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin warned Congress on Tuesday during a private briefing that if they do not pass more aid to Ukraine, it would “very likely” lead to U.S. troops fighting a war in Europe.

“If [Vladimir] Putin takes over Ukraine, he’ll get Moldova, Georgia, then maybe the Baltics,” House Foreign Affairs Chairman Michael McCaul (R-TX) told The Messenger, after Austin and other senior Biden administration officials briefed House lawmakers on their request for more aid for Ukraine.

“And then the idea that we’ll have to put troops on the ground in Secretary Austin’s word was very likely,” McCaul added. “That’s what we’re trying to avoid.”

Recall in the last report I cited Moldova as precisely the next vector, given the sensitivity of the PMR pressure point for Russia. Most notable is his express use of the qualifier “very likely” to describe U.S. troops fighting on the ground. In fact, the U.S. has been preparing for this grand European war for a while now.

Establishment Alarmism in Overdrive, 8 December 2023

The political situation of the Kiev regime must be crumbling rapidly in Ukraine, and the hysteric tone of the rhetoric suggests that Russia has rebuffed the various settlement overtures that have been made to it. Recall that it wasn’t long ago that Kagan and the other leading neocons were calling for an end to hostilities on the Russian front in order to make a turn to the Chinese front possible. Then, Hamas and Israel opened up the Middle Eastern front.

So, how is it possible that fighting a three-front war is suddenly deemed better than fighting one on two fronts?

The logical answer is that the US no longer has the luxury of deciding upon how many fronts it is going to fight. It has entirely lost the geostrategic initiative due to the failure of its proxy in Ukraine, the weakness of its Greatest Ally in the Middle East, and the observable reluctance of its satrapies in Europe and Asia. On every front, it is the nationalist rebels against Clown World’s global empire who now are in control of what happens next.

And that is not a state to which the self-styled masters of the world have been accustomed for a very long time.

UPDATE: It should not be surprising that the strategists and politicians of Clown World do not recognize the limitations of the US military, given that the US military itself does not yet recognize them.

“You look at what is required to support Ukraine, look at what might be required to support our partner in Israel, and then, of course, you put Taiwan on top of that—we have the construct that we do with combatant commanders and the rest that should allow us to command and control those three things all at one time.”
—Admiral Christopher Grady, Vice Chairman, the Joint Chiefs of Staff

However, notice that the admiral used the term “command and control”. That means they do not have the men, the ships, the planes, or the missiles. They think they’re going to be able to fight two more proxy wars of the kind they have already lost in Ukraine.

I also think it’s a mistake to assume that the Sino-Russian alliance is incapable of opening more than the three obvious fronts. See: Niger, Venezuela.

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Taleb Admits the Obvious

One of the things I admire about NN Taleb is his ability, unlike most intellectuals, to openly and unashamedly admit that he was wrong about something. That’s one of the reasons I take him seriously even on those rare occasions when I think he has gotten it wrong.

I concede that @DavidSacks is correct about the relative strength of the parties in the Ukraine war, and I was WRONG. Russia is not as weak as it seemed; it has staying power. This means a settlement is the likely outcome.

And by “likely outcome” he means “the rational outcome”. But since NATO is, by most perspectives, an intrinsically irrational party, I wouldn’t place too much confidence in that. After all, what is the point in Russia signing a third Minsk agreement with parties who have repeatedly proven to be agreement-incapable?

Still, it’s good to see the more intelligent elements of the mainstream perspective beginning to understand that Russia was always going to win its war against NATO in Ukraine.

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The USN is Now Obsolete

Vladimir Putin makes it very clear that China, and most likely Iran as well, will be getting hypersonic missile technology.

Russia’s current relationship with China allows for full-spectrum cooperation in the tech sector, including with regards to its military applications, President Vladimir Putin told a Chinese entrepreneur on Thursday during a panel discussion at VTB Bank’s ‘Russia Calling!’ forum.

The remark was part of Putin’s answer to a question about US sanctions policy, which includes a ban on export of certain technologies to some nations, which, the Chinese businessman suggested, was forcing them to “reinvent the bicycle”. The Russian leader said such restrictions were not viable in the long run even before the world became profoundly interconnected…

Washington’s current policies are meant to preserve its dominant status, the Russian president claimed, but “if we act across the board, supporting and helping each other, no restrictions by whoever tries to keep its advantage can stop us.”

As for China specifically, Russia is ready to cooperate in every area, Putin assured.

“We have no limits. This includes the military sphere,” he said. “When it comes to security, we are moving away from the traditional ‘buy-sell’ kind of relationship. We think about the future, about technologies.”

Translation: Because, unlike the US and British empires, the Russian people are not seeking to unilaterally dominate the world, there is no reason not to share its advanced weapons technology with other powers that share the Russian objective to free itself from Clown World’s economic and military dominance.

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Finland Doubles Down on Failure

Once it becomes clear you made a bad bet, the smart thing to do is cash out and file away any lessons learned for next time. Faced with the increasingly obvious defeat of the Kiev regime, the Finnish government hasn’t taken the smart step of breaking away from NATO, but instead decided to double down on a prospective rematch with the Russian military:

Finland is going to produce artillery shells for Ukraine because arming Kiev for its conflict with Russia is a “vital issue” for Helsinki, Finnish Defense Minister Antti Hakkanen has said.

He told Iltalehti newspaper on Tuesday that the details of how artillery shells would be produced for Ukraine had been finalized, and a decision on the matter would be made “very soon.” According to Hakkanen, the government will finalize all of its plans before Christmas, which Finland celebrates on December 25.

The country became a NATO member state last year and is looking to “significantly increase munitions production” to be able “to support Ukraine even more strongly than it does now,” Hakkanen said.

This is why it is not only wise, but absolutely vital, to disbelieve every single narrative being promulgated by the mainstream media. If you listen to Clown World, sooner or later you will find yourself beclowned.

Or worse.

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