27 Comments

This article is Russian propaganda.

It mischaracterizes the 2014 events in Ukraine as a "coup d'état" orchestrated by the West, which is a common Russian propaganda narrative. In reality, it was a popular uprising against a corrupt pro-Russian government.

It falsely claims that the post-2014 Ukrainian government restricted minority rights and allowed atrocities against ethnic Russians. There is no credible evidence of this.

It justifies Russia's actions as defensive, ignoring Russia's long history of aggression and interference in Ukraine.

It presents a highly distorted view of NATO's role and intentions, portraying NATO as the aggressor rather than a defensive alliance.

It greatly exaggerates Russian military capabilities while downplaying Western capabilities.

It promotes conspiracy theories about Western intentions and actions, such as claims about deliberately provoking Russia or sabotaging pipelines.

It presents a biased and inaccurate portrayal of the global economic and political situation, overstating the decline of Western influence.

Expand full comment

I think you somehow found yourself in the wrong place. Please go back to your mainstream media channels if you prefer to live in the delusional world. Some of us prefer reality, for tougher it may be.

Expand full comment

This reads like the output of ChatGPT if I'd prompted it with, "Refute the original article with NY Times talking points." Honestly, everything you state as though it were a fact is essentially the opposite of reality. How could you imagine this would be at all persuasive here?

Expand full comment

Over the past 3-4 years, with plandemic, I learned how the world really works, not what we hear and see on TV. The atrocities carried out on those Russian speaking areas, since 2014, is well documented by western journalists like Eva Bartlett and Patrick Lancaster, plus some German ones too. Time to wake up to reality and realise the twin towers and building 7 was a false flag to get the public on side for the invasion, to capture resources. US is literally stealing oil from Siria and uses mercenaries they train themselves, who call themselves ISIS, Al Quida, etc. There are many more examples, most are to put fear into people, or drum up hatred against a ruler, to have people on side before they attack. The west are pirates who wear suits these days.

Expand full comment

"notatroll"

You are either badly misinformed about the spending of $US 8 billion under Victoria Nuland ("F*ck the EU"; "Yats is our guy") or you are a "troll".

;-)

Expand full comment

Don't feed the troll

Expand full comment

Much of what the article and your response propose is speculative. It’s not as simple as either suggest. The antagonists are likely equally to blame. As a result, any way out is very difficult.

Since you bring up sabotaging pipelines, it is still not clear who did it, but the most blatant BS conspiracy theory was the one initially promoted by some western mainstream media outlets - that Russia did it. You had (or still have) to be an ignoramus to believe that. Russia could simply have closed a valve if it didn’t want the natural gas to get to Europe. Once again - both sides are to blame for conspiracy theories. Simplistic binary thinking isn’t helpful.

Unfortunately, it also is unlikely that the problem will be solved if prognosticators grow up and think about it in adult terms.

Expand full comment

Who 'wants peace'?

“2019 RAND Paper . . .

As far back as 2019, US Army-commissioned studies examined different means to provoke and antagonize Russia who they acknowledged sought to avoid conflict. “

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uqVPM0KSUpo&t=5s

https://www.rand.org/pubs/research_reports/RR3063.html

Expand full comment

NATOtroll!

You're welcome.

Expand full comment

Beautiful times. Braindead trolls title themself "notatroll" and post solid crap. Simply sublime.

Expand full comment

Thank you B. It has been my opinion for some time that the Ukraine conflict is simply part of a global chess game for resource control.

Expand full comment

Things are going to get very interesting in Europe in the foreseeable future—if that’s even the right word for it. Decline is becoming more noticeable in everyday life. As you mentioned, prosperity is waning as access to cheap resources and affordable energy becomes more difficult. The average person will need to spend a bit more each year on essentials like housing, food, and transportation, and the number of people running out of money is also rising. The result is growing discontent, expressed increasingly through elections. Political parties at the fringes of the spectrum are gaining traction, while the elites fight more fiercely to contain them. New alliances are being forged to keep these upstarts at bay. This strategy will likely succeed in many countries through the end of the 2020s, but by the early 2030s, the situation in many places may change drastically. I can easily imagine that the very existence of the EU in its current form might then be at risk. In too many countries, political forces with anti-EU stances may simply become too strong.

Expand full comment

The notion that that china/Iran/Russia have militarily surpassed the USA and their allies is absurd. Russia is running a high intensity wartime production regieme while canabalizing the legacy of the soviets. No one in the USA aligned faction other than Ukraine itself is running at anything like that level of commitment. The war is existential for Russia. For american arms production it's a grift.

The reality of the situation is the USA has been hoping for an internal Russian collapse of will, not a crushing military defeat of Russia. If the USA planed to wipe out the Russian army they wouldn't randomly stop aid and deny basic military capacities to Ukraine.

The war has revealed SERIOUS flaws in western military power. In no way has it revealed the china and Russia militarily can defeat the USA. Yes, the USA would be crushed in a war like Ukraine. The USA would never fight a war like Ukraine. They have f-22 and b-2 that would make the Russian FAB runs look like a petty fireworks display.

Talk like this are dangerous as the surest way to spark a way is to insist that one side is incapable of fighting it. Its also just bad analysis. The USA can't match Russian artillery production. So what? The USA focuses on flying artillery. Ukraine is going to be militarily defeated. Of course... As if anyone with an IQ above room temp thought otherwise. Russia has taken heavy casualties, burned through a massive amount of the Soviet legacy and much of their naval and air forces have been heavily attrited. Do you seriously think when Ukraine eventually surrenders no one will remember that the Russian black sea fleet is gone? The media is going to have a VERY easy time convincing people that the military aid did it's job. Because it did.

That said I agree with a good deal of the article. European rearmament is a joke given the economic realities.

Expand full comment

You're rationalising your own geopolitical fantasies under the cover of criticizing someone else's. The war has revealed that China, Russia and Iran combined can in fact defeat the USA in a defensive war against it. An offensive war against the USA is a different matter altogether. Russia's wartime production evidently has not impacted its society radically, at least so far.

And the idea that a war over arguably the most minerally and agriculturally important region of Europe is merely a "grift" for the US and its allies is asinine. It's impact on the EU alone refutes the argument that they're not committed to it.

>>>If the USA planed to wipe out the Russian army they wouldn't randomly stop aid and deny basic military capacities to Ukraine.

This is a bizarre statement. Because the US "randomly" stopped giving aid to Ukraine, it means they never really planned to defeat the Russian army? Have you considered the possibility that they planned to do so and failed, or that they stopped the military aid because they don't have any more to give? This is like the fox who called the grapes sour - I failed to do it because I never wanted to anyway.

The USA's flying artillery is inordinately expensive and will prove ineffective against an industrial power capable of producing both anti-air equipment and far cheaper and more effective flying artillery (missiles and, where applicable, drones) of its own.

A good criticism of this post would have been that the "multipolarity" it hails as the new global order is really the old global order with Russia and China (and to a lesser extent India) attempting (largely successfully, so far) to function within it on a more equal footing to NATO/OECD. It's still a globalised economic system, and cannot function as anything but, yet its contradictions are leading to limited warfare between its constituents even while they depend on each other. The Ukraine war is not "existential" for Russia or the USA, or even the Ukraine, as individual countries, because these are formations of capital whose interests are intertwined. It is however existential for the globalised capital system itself because they are signs of its impending collapse (with no "local" alternative/s that can replace it).

To be fair Mr B does touch on this point right at the end of his article, but doesn't really elaborate further. Hopefully he'll keep thinking and writing along those lines.

Expand full comment

The usa airforce is the one aspect of American military power that is irrefutably superior to its adversaries. I don't think the air war will be as easy as it was with Iraq, america would take serious losses, but not even americas opponents contest that american and NATO have superior aircraft. Suggesting otherwise is asinine. Criticize the airforce all you want (I certainly do), but it's not going to be "ineffective" against Russian fighters. That's absolutely absurd.

And yes, in a truly existential war, you don't act like america and Europe have been doing. The USA didn't give lend lease to the Brits and say "just don't hurt Germany pls we don't want any tension." Russia is a nuclear power. Russia very obviously considers Crimea not only formally Russian territory, but integregal to the security of the Russian state. If Ukraine routed the Russians there would be a serious possibly of nukes. Escalation is not just in Ukraine. Russia also has options with north Korea, china, the middle east, economic policy etc. The USA wanted to defeat Russia economically, not via conventional means because militarily defeating nuclear powers is not a good idea.

The moment Russia invaded none of the resources in eastern Ukraine had a possibility of being under NATO control. The objective was to inflict serious damage to the Russian military (successful) and if possible degrade those resources (successful). Eastern Ukraine is flattened, infrastructure destroyed, the ground is littered with ordinance and mines, plus a lot of Russian infrastructure is on fire. It'd be like saying how could the Georgian war not be existential for NATO given the resources in the caucuses. Those resources were never accessable to NATO in the first place. They were never in the cards.

I think the war has been a worse strategic play by the USA than even the invasion of Iraq. What I take issue with is the bad analysis that because Russia hasn't capitulated or collapsed they can go toe to toe with NATO. They obviously cannot.

Lastly, the war is absolutely a grift. The majority of USA "aid" to Ukraine never leaves the USA. The money goes to American contractors to do stuff like build new facilities or modernize equipment. The USA military is a grift machine. Everything needs a hefty profit margin for a company to take the contract. Plus a lot of the money conviently ended up in democrat super pacs...

Use common sense. If the war was truly existential would we see no noticable increase in military budgets across NATO? Would we see no activation of national defense laws that let government command industry? Would we see no change in recruitment targets of personnel and readiness rates of NATO militaries? Would NATO aid come with serious restrictions that hamper the ability of Ukraine to fight Russia? Would NATO deny most Ukrainian requests for aid or requests for systems that NATO is already decommissioning? Would NATO make no preparations for an escalation in the conflict (stockpiling critical resources, hardening infrastructure, organizing the population, testing military readiness, etc)?

Pay attention to what NATO powers are DOING not what they say. The USA had no difficulty whatsoever sending vast amounts of munitions, air defense, and spare parts the moment Israel asked. The USA decided they want to build computer chips, and got THE most challenging industrial production facility running in a few years. Nobody disputes that NATO has serious problems and the Ukraine war has highlighted many serious vulnerabilities. But analysis needs to be grounded in reality.

Expand full comment

>>>I don't think the air war will be as easy as it was with Iraq, america would take serious losses, but not even americas opponents contest that american and NATO have superior aircraft.

That's not really the point I was making. The "superiority" of aircraft will not confer any decisive advantage to NATO in an offensive war against Russia/China/Iran for the reasons I mentioned.

>>>And yes, in a truly existential war, you don't act like america and Europe have been doing. The USA didn't give lend lease to the Brits and say "just don't hurt Germany pls we don't want any tension."

There is no playbook for how any given country acts in a "truly" existential war, or what such a war looks like. The causes of war never change, but its circumstances and characteristics do. This is not the 1940s... but assuming for a moment it is - the USA did not enter WW2 before being attacked by Japan and did not declare war on Germany even then, yet that war was existential for it the moment it started for several reasons.

>>>The moment Russia invaded none of the resources in eastern Ukraine had a possibility of being under NATO control. The objective was to inflict serious damage to the Russian military (successful) and if possible degrade those resources (successful).

That's how things stand today, but not in 2022! Where is your evidence that NATO decisions at the time were informed by accurate predictions of the near future? Furthermore how can NATO seriously damage the Russian military without also militarily defeating Russia? Your entire argument is just different versions of the sour grapes fallacy strung together with "pragmatic" sounding rhetoric.

As for NATO's objectives: the first objective is evidently unsuccessful, and the second one unclear. Destroyed towns and villages do not necessarily affect agriculture and mining in the medium term. It can even be an advantage à la "disruption".

>>>What I take issue with is the bad analysis that because Russia hasn't capitulated or collapsed they can go toe to toe with NATO. They obviously cannot.

They obviously can but they are not going to and neither is NATO. Because what neither Russia/China nor NATO can do is actually fight a total war. It's impossible in the global social/economic system we all inhabit. Proxy wars, civil wars and saber rattling is how it will gradually, then suddenly lose all capacity for self-regulation, without thereby "going back" to a 20th century national monopoly-capitalist past which was possible due to circumstances which no longer exist.

>>>Use common sense. If the war was truly existential would we see no noticable increase in military budgets across NATO? Would we see no activation of national defense laws that let government command industry?

Common sense is very uncommon because everyone has a unique definition of it. My common sense tells me that the governments of all the big countries exercise substantial control over their defense industries regardless of who owns them on paper. Also, that it makes no sense to dichotomise "greedy" US defense companies versus dutiful Russian ones fulfilling their God-ordained role under "efficient" authoritarianism as opposed to the genuinely democratic west which could be much more powerful but refuses to be because it is far too virtuous for its own good.

Expand full comment

Financial Economy is a parallel and managerial model of Real Economy, so the masters of Finance can model themselves as "Masters of the Universe" until the model breaks again...

Then What?

That is the very hard POLITICAL question now being quietly examined and not-agreed-upon.

;-/

Expand full comment

Washington severed Europe from its main energy supplier at very little cost to American lives. Although American business interests would like to get their hands on its mineral wealth, Ukraine is a sacrificial pawn. It is of no strategic interest to the US. In the meantime, Slavs are being used as cannon fodder.

These are wins for Washington. Europe is the biggest loser in this affair. I remind Europeans every chance I get that the US is not your friend. You are a colony and are treated as such. Your political elite are subservient to Washington.

Russia was never going to be a major energy supplier beyond its immediate neighbours. Geography matters - even in today's fossil fueled global transport system.

I believe our energy/resource future will be determined by population density. Asia being the most densely populated continent has the fewest resources to support itself - assuming they're able to raise the standard of living of billions. That is the intention of BRICS.

The end of the Age of Oil heralds the demise of globalism and empire politics. Good riddance.

Expand full comment

Excellent post B. Well written and well argued. You have a clue that your posts are on target when you begin receiving mad post by people living in their parents basements. E.g nuttytroll sorry notatroll

Expand full comment

It's a globalized world... if there is not enough cheap energy to support it ... it collapses - in its entirety.

Russia will not survive just because it has oil. That oil will remain in the ground for lack of spare parts for the pump mechanisms... pipelines and refineries because Germany Japan and the US have imploded

Expand full comment

F.E . believes that Laser reflectors magically appeared on the moon!

Time, date and mission number!

Otherwise B/S!

Expand full comment

“ . . . we got rid of a class of nuclear weapons that were threatening the world with

27:55

global annihilation in the 1980s a lot of people today don't realize this

28:02

especially the younger generation we were pumping these weapons in uh to europe the soviet union deployed a

28:09 category of weapon called the ss-20 it had three nuclear weapons they had hundreds of them every european city was

28:14

targeted the united states responded with the pershing missile which could reach moscow in less than 12 minutes

28:22

and by by threatening moscow less than 12 minutes you take away the decision-making cycle which means that

28:27

if there's ever a false radar hit or whatever the russian leadership doesn't have the luxury of 45 minutes to sit there and

28:34

determine whether to fake that you get with the launch of strategic weapons you got basically five minutes to make a

28:39

decision life-or-death decision and they're going to make a mistake eventually so sanity prevailed and the

28:46

united states and soviet union said we're getting rid of these weapons and they did and europe could sleep easy at night

28:52

well memories are short apparently because europe supported donald trump's unilateral withdrawal from the inf

28:58

treaty in august of i think 2019. the treaty's gone what did the first

29:04

thing the americans did after they went through they tested an inf treaty system so that means they were planning this

29:09

the whole time which the russians were saying now we're going to deploy the system to europe

29:15

which means the russians are going to respond with their own system and we return to the nightmare period

29:20

um an exercise people should understand it's able archer 83 there's a nato exercise

29:26

it almost brought about the end of the world because nato was was testing their nuclear command and control

29:34

and the russians looked at that and said we don't think this is a test we think this is the real thing

29:39

and so as the as nato started issuing launch codes for training purposes the russians went

29:46

full alert and all it would have taken was a bird to hiccup and the missiles would have flown and

29:52

the world would have ended and abel archer when ronald reagan found out about abel archer 83 he went pale

29:59

ronald reagan mr evil empire went pale and that's when he said we have to change this calculus

30:06

so do we really want to recreate a situation so that an american president goes pale to before we disarm or should

30:13

we have already invented that wheel and just say we don't need these weapons . . .”?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IexFtDCJNsM&rco=1

Expand full comment

Bird's eye view is like this.

The objective of the US, perhaps in collusion with the UK, was to prevent an EU-Russia (plus China) partnership, a deadly combination of Western expertise and Russian resources (and expertise too). Ukraine was used as a battering ram, totally expendable.

In the best case scenario, if Russia collapsed, they would have Ukraine and its resources plus Russia and its resources. They would have pillaged all of it. If that didn't happen, and it was a long shot anyway, given that the Russkies have nukes, Europe would be fucked, no longer a competitor, indebted, vassalized to the max. Russia would be weakened and possibly attackable in the future. No matter what, the US would still be profiting.

The way it looks, however, is that Russia has outsmarted the US, teamed up with China, the BRICS, and the rest of the world. After trying for years to fit in with the West, Russia has basically said, fuck it, it ain't gonna work, and turned east- and southward. Since pretty much the whole world has had enough of the US-led hegemony, their efforts are falling on receptive ears. So, we have a sort of eschatological war of the worlds brewing up.

Now, who's better positioned to prevail? The pissed off southeast that wants freedom and has relatively willing manpower and is backed by resource-rich, educated Russia and technologically advanced industrially developed China or the laze northwest that hubristically thinks itself superior but has degenerated into a bunch of transmotherfucker faggots and has no resources (Europe) and limited industrial base (US/Canada - where some resources are available)?

I sure as hell wouldn't bet on the former.

Expand full comment

Contrary to what is claimed in the West, Russia and Putin have always remained aloof in the Ukrainian civil war in the years between 2014 and 2022. Even the Ukrainian secret service counted no more than 65 volunteers from Russia involved in this internal war. Russia has sought a diplomatic solution. Think of Minsk 1 and 2

Source Jacques Baud Operation Z

Expand full comment

So true...

Expand full comment