I have more of a problem with the West wants resources part of it lol. Maidan coup already saw to that. Conversely, the west taking out nordstream didnt see to it lol. If you dont see the DA you should really not talk geopolitics IMNSHO because the internal contradictions are more numerous than the consistencies. This observation we're talking about now is 2 for 2 on incoherence: Russian political theater chose war as the best option, so it wants war more than it wants to roll over. And it obviously doesn't want peace under the circumstances. And, Caleb, it's not looking to conquer europe so just relax and stop drinking the koolaid. Drink bone broth instead, every day.
"you should really not talk geopolitics IMNSHO" - yeah man I am no expert, but neither are you. They both want resources and neither seems to want peace. You can KMA for the kool aid comment btw.
The West already had Ukraine's colonial resources, so permitting the killing of 10,000 ethnic Russians in the East plus the NATO saber rattling, both of which precipitated the politically theatrical reason for the Russian invasion runs completely counter to the Western interests in Ukrainian resources; the West was sitting pretty in Ukraine.
And Russia has 20+pc *official* inflation because of the war while selling oil in large part at a $30/bbl discount plus heavily reduced flows to the EU, all of which (and it's *not* all of the losses incurred) far outweigh what net gains Russia could parlay from holding what it has taken from Ukraine.
Then there's the crazy dumb anti-West view that the West is actually gunning for Russian resources via regime change, yet Russia was assimilated into globalization 30 years ago and has been getting ass-raped into exporting all its resources as fast as possible by the Bank of Russia while its citizens continue to have less than half the standard of living of Westerners. This war is allowing Russia to reserve *more* of its own resources for itself not less, despite the aforementioned costs incurred. There is zero chance that the West could ever regime change Russia and even if it did it then all that the best case scenario would be is that Russia would go back to exporting at full tilt like it did before the war lol.
In your view, and B's, and 99pc of people with an opinion on the subject, both sides are basically shooting themselves in the foot because we're just dumb tribal animals foolishly fighting over resources. Even the great Nicole Foss forecasted that because of her anti-conspiracy leanings (publicly at least) but all ponzi schemes are, in nature, non-publicly conspiratorial at the top and civilization is not structurally exempt from that.
Conspiracies are more or less intelligent by definition. We can debate the more or less but this is 2024, folks, and if you're insistent on standing still then you're just falling ever further behind the cutting edge, just like those old Soviets after the fall of the USSR that just wandered the streets in a haze for about a decade until they keeled over.
For a dictator that supposedly wants peace this says the exact opposite: "Leaked US documents suggest that more Russian soldiers have been killed than previously estimated. In July (2024), The Economist reported that between 462,000 and 728,000 Russian soldiers had been killed, injured or captured by mid-June, citing documents by the US Department of Defense." There is nothing about Putin that is "peaceful" full stop. The exact number of people killed in this war is impossible to verify, but it is in the hundreds of thousands. And what in the fuck did these people die for? For Putin? Trump won't do anything to help the situation and will likely make it worse too.
Dude, you sit behind a computer and think you are tough as nails. You're an ignorant nincompoop. Go fight in Putin's war and tell me how that works out for you.
All these three country leaders (of Russia, China) are led (or will be very soon with the coming U.S. president) by ruthless fascist dictators for whom the only mantra is raw power. They will rather carve out the world with their own zone of influence and domination than opt for their mutual annihilation with war and a nuclear winter (though an accident may happen). This is not even an opinion or a prediction, it is their open stance for whoever can see it with a little bit of brain. And oh, it would be funny if it were not a sinister joke; Putin is all for peace!!!! ... oh! the West is all about money and power, not Putin and the Russian oligarchs. Some peole must believe we are complete idiots, if they think we can believe that.
Call it "security" then if "peace" is not good for you.
Russians don't want the regime change that would allow the West to take control of their ressources.
Beside, Putin is a war criminal because the West say so (as Bush is not for the very same reasons). So it's irrelevant unless the West win the war. And it's not going that way.
And anyway, there is nothing left in Europe worth conquering and Russia hasn't the manpower to do so (it's a demographic reality). There is no ressources anymore in Europe. Only problems with a culturally divided and aging population. Russian will bring back in all Russian-populated areas then build the buffer zone they need. The more aggressive Europe will want to look like, the bigger the buffer zone will be.
And too bad for Europe who lost both its supply of resources and its strategical depth in the process...
haha, what a bullshit, West doesn't need to control russian resources, they could have done it, after early creation of atomic bomb, but they didn't, putin just sold all the resources itself without any conqueror of russia.
yeah, putin is not a war criminal, just killed dozens of russian speaking people on the East of Ukraine, and killed civilis in Butcha, that i have seen with my own eyes, but we, Ukrainian militants killed all of 228 brigade that has done it
Excellent summary of likely outcomes. Best wishes for a successful year, at least personally, in 2025. For myself, I'm hoping that you can be convinced to give a public talk in Burlington VT.
Good analysis. I live in France and the economic growth for 2025 is predicted to be .9%. The French economy has been trending downwards for years. Yet the energy footprint per capita is about half of the US, Canada or Qatar. I see France as being able to manage contraction. The US will not be able to do this because the US is hypercomplex and France is only a complex society. If you live in the US, you should be adapting to the new reality at an exponential rate.
Hey Walter you made the same comment a few threads ago and i replied with a couple counterarguments to which you did not respond yet here you are again talking your book of self-soothing.
They predict growth just to be able to propose a politically acceptable budget before the next elections. Then, when growth is less than expected and deficit is balooning, they pretend they didn't see it coming.
And of course, the same people who've been in charge during decades will never accept to recognise it but just wait until the cultural and ethnic issues hit the fan when the money run out for good...
Thank you for all the thoughtful writing you have given us this year. I wish you and your family and friends a warm and new year celebration and all the best in the dangerous times ahead.
As the world measure wellbeing through GDP, you're right, the BRICS+ is no. 1, but what makes government powerful is it's tax base, not GDP. Profit of American companies are no. 1 and the U.S. is able to raise taxes that are actually relatively low compared to WW1 and WW2. This is a game changer and I won't bet U.S. isn't the dominant player in the world. This doesn't bode well for humanity, especially with the rise of authoritarian leadership in the U.S. They may not be the no. 1 fossil fuel producer, but I wouldn't count them agonizing while they still are the richest nation on earth and their patriotism is well recognized. That make them able to dominate the world military speaking and grab whatever is needed to continue to dominate untill the end of fossil fuel. U.S. is a DINO, Democracy In Name Only, it's rather an Oligarchy conducted by billionnaires and U.S. Corporations that are multi-nationals. They own everything, from money to medias, to House Representatives, to Senators and to their President that they can make or break. The Supreme Court let them buy politicians and therefore a government of the People, by the People, for the People, is no longer a reality. Whatever the enlightened billionnaires want to do to garantee their empire and their personnel gain, the U.S. government will rush to do it.
Your analysis of geopolitics is quitte on the spot, but I wouldn't count the U.S.A. for an early loser in the future. I think they will fight like hell before giving up.
US companies may be number one but in general that is not the result of the production of essentials. We are moving into a period of essential goods and services and away from discretionary spending.
Notwithstanding the above, the potential power that you posit from the further tapping of the US domestic tax base is not what makes the US structurally powerful. The petrodollar's dollar recycling into US bonds is its fundamental tax-based growth mechanism. That and Fed largesse. Old school tax and spend is a 20th-century thing.
I agree with you that B has an outdated belief in the existence of US democracy and, I'd add, an outdated belief in democracy itself. I also think that you might consider that the US oligarchy that you do recognize has existed for a long time now IS authoritarian in nature and, therefore, it's inconsistent of you to say that US leadership is only just now turning authoritarian. On the structural level, neoliberalism is the most authoritarian, fascist governance that has ever existed. The fact that everyone who holds down a job under neoliberal authoritarianism gets a four-wheeled magic carpet ride out of it and all the electricity that you want doesn't change that, it just makes us the owners of 150-person-equivalent energy slaves.
I see that you still follow very closely (the equivalent of, actually) the Russian propaganda machine. "And that includes mineral resources, labor and markets for the West, and security concerns for Russia. " Are you kidding me? Who is so naive? Oh, well, of course, The "West" is the invader and aggressor for its profit, and Russia is all for peace!!! (WHAT???).The difference is that you do it more and more, under the guise of someone dealing with the real issue of energy shortage.
But with the election of Trump in the U.S.A., Russia already won its major battle along with China, to destroy democracy in the world.
How I see the future is this: there will soon be four or five big powers in this world (if we include India), and very soon after the U.S. becomes a dictatorship, only one weak democratic one (the EU, partially and for how long?)
The positions of Russia and China are already very clear as fascist and nationalist dictatorships with regional ambitions. Your last post about Georgia and Moldova refects it, and is, again, the exact narrative of their giant neighbor, Russia. Sure enough, Russia will invade Ukraine (whole, in one or two steps), then Moldova, then Georgia, then the Baltic States, then... Putin makes no mystery of his goal to rebuild the USSR. Then he will lay his eyes on the rest of Europe (taking it directly or installing puppet governments).
The same goes with China with Taiwan, then Vietnam, South Korea, the Philippines, etc.
The new U.S.A. with Trump will quit NATO, give a free range to Putin in Europe, a free range to China at least in Taiwan and South Korea, and acquire its own territories. It is not a hoax when he speaks about "purchasing" Greenland, making Canada the 51st state, taking back the Panama Canal... The whole of the Americas will be more than ever the U.S. backyard or its direct possessions. Trump will keep and extend the U.S. power in ther Pacific, and, of course, will never abandon the Middle East.
The world will be carved out by these three nations. Maybe the other nuclear powers will be able to retain some independence (The UK, France, Israel, Pakistan and India). If Ukraine had kept and not relinquished its nuclear power (Ukraine had one third of the USSR nuclear capabilities) with the written assurance of Russia to not invade them and with the promise of the U.S. and the UK to protect them in the Budapest Memorandum of 1994 (you should know something about that, "B"), Russia would not have touched one inch of the Ukrainian territory, and not massacred tens of thousands of people there.
I said that there will be four or five big powers remaining. Until there will be only three, probably. The only chance for the European Union to subsist is with a lot more integration and shared military. But it is not likely to happen. Maybe France and the UK will keep their independence from Russia, and maybe with a few countries around France if they can merge together (the Benelux? Italy? Spain? Germany?). But the energy challenges will be enormous. Their impoverishment is certain, but they do have enough nuclear power to deter Russia.
India is a tropical country and will be hammered, then destroyed by global heating. So, India won't matter to anyone.
Energy is everything to maintain power. Russia has plenty of it and of the best (conventional oil). The U.S.A. is currently the first world producer, shale oil representing 70% of its oil. But this will soon come to an end (in the next ten years). Shale oil is going to peak soon and then plummet more rapidly than the other types of oil (also declining in the U.S.) But the U.S. will keep, and this will be an absolute priority, the Middle Eastern oil, which is a lot more durable. China also has oil, but not enough, and no big prospect of it abroad except for Africa (but also declining). Yet China controls most of the minerals's chain supply.
Looking further, global heating will not stop at the tropics and will eventually destroy all civilizations, including these three world powers. Then, it will be another world entirely.
A nuclear winter is still a possible scenario. If so, bye bye humanity.
Funny how your mind works. (And do you really need to insult people if you disagree with them?) Or maybe you didn't read my post to the end, or at all. I wrote: "Looking further, global heating will not stop at the tropics and will eventually destroy all civilizations, including these thee world powers. Then, it will be another world entirely." So, what is your problem?
they have an "АУЕ" culture, where men fucks other men in prison, and it's very popular
russia is indeed LGBT state, also growing Muslimisation of the country, Ramzan Kadyrov is the main leader, and russians fear him, make the "sorry videos" on a camera.
Also, the visiting church rate in Russia is much lower than in any EU country, not to mention USA.
lol, it's easy to even google, Russia government has banned "AУЕ", coz it was growing, they removed christian symbolic from rubles, coz they are muslim culture, as they said "multicultural", also google who is "Никита Журавель", and how he occured in Chechnya, ahaha
Ukraine can product cheap food. It already export lots of cereals and chicken at rock-bottom price, without any decent social and ecological regulations and with big corporations running the show.
As Europe was denied cheap Russian natgaz by the US, this is the consolation prize. Or at least it is supposed to be and, and with inflation looming, it's why European leaders are so afraid they will lose it too....
I read that the deal for Russia to provide Europe with gas through Ukraine is about to expire. I always thought it crazy that Ukraine and Russia could cooperate with regards to gas but be unable to agree not to kill each other. I wonder if this will make things worse for European households or if the impact of higher gas prices has already come about.
I find it strange how Europe is having remilitarization and de-industrialization at the same time. Reality is bound to catch up at some point.
Best case scenario as I see it. Trump ends the war in Ukraine by agreeing to all Putin's demands but heavily spinning it as a great deal. Perhaps gas will flow to those European countries with Putin friendly leaders. We get to keep the lights on at the expense of democracy. I think Putin wants to invade the Baltic countries but invading the whole of Europe seems a bit fanciful to me.
Regarding the peaking of US oil production, the best modeling I have been able to find shows rather conclusively that shale production has already peaked in all the major plays and now is on its downslope:
I expect you're right then. I'm just going off this post which says otherwise as i recall. At any rate, this is my last comment as B deleted all of my side of my conversation with Caleb today, as well as his side. I don't tolerate censorship. take care all.
Everyone wants peace, the problem is they want it on mutually antagonistic terms. And I don't think either side can be exclusively blamed for this. The problem lies with the system as a whole not any specific bad actor. Likewise for the internal politics of either camp. Trump and Kamala are just brand names for the four-year-plans of the American ruling class, something the "alt" youtube pundits of either woke or anti-woke persuasion consistently fail to understand because their influencer careers depend on it.
The invention of bad actors is basically a reluctance to acknowledge terminal systemic dysfunction. Fossil fuel companies are not exclusively (or even primarily) responsible for climate change, bankers are likewise not responsible for parasitic asset inflation, and NATO is not solely responsible for the conflagration of "limited" semi-conventional wars.
PS. re bad actors, I am not saying B is doing this, in fact he goes on to say the same thing. But a lot of people still want a side to cheer for on the flimsiest of pretexts and my discussion of bad actors was a prolepsis of that.
Book review that will be helpful for those unclear on causes of Russia -- Ukraine proxy war.
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*Provoked: How Washington Started the New Cold War with Russia and the Catastrophe in Ukraine*
by Scott Horton 2024
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"Horton is a fox, weaving an encyclopedic knowledge of various conflicts into an elaborate and convincing tapestry that indicts elites, intellectuals, the military-industrial complex, and—with characteristic vitriol—neoconservatives in pushing the US toward unnecessary wars.
Provoked: How Washington Started the New Cold War with Russia and the Catastrophe in Ukraine, fits this mold to a tee—not because Horton contorts facts to a preconceived narrative. Rather, because it is often the same people pushing conflict after conflict who, unsurprisingly, resort to the same, well-worn playbook. Horton’s tome is riveting, from beginning to end. Here, I will focus on the early post-Cold War years, since this part of the story is oft-neglected in contemporary debates about the origins of the Ukraine war.
With the closing of the Cold War, and the USSR dissolving, the US faced a crisis of success: what use is the NATO military alliance without the Soviet enemy to align against? More broadly, what grand strategy should the US adopt now that containing communism was obsolete? For neoconservatives, whose answer post-Cold War was benevolent global hegemony, the solution was to adapt NATO. NATO must gradually absorb more European nations, while leaving Russia out in the cold—contained and encircled, in an even worse position than during the Cold War. NATO must expand its mission to keep European peace and expand Western democracy, or wither on the vine.
From George H.W. Bush to today, the record meticulously compiled by Horton demonstrates that US and other Western leaders communicated to Russia leaders and officials that NATO would not expand east—and could even allow for Russian membership in NATO. Various efforts like the Partnership for Peace and the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe were promoted to foster this impression that Russia would be included in European affairs, alliances, and institutions, rather than these structures aligning against them. All the while, these same US and Western leaders took virtually the opposite positions internally, with the result that the US willfully misled the Russians. The exact internal and external postures waxed and waned over the years, but this ultimate pattern held firm. This was even though, all along, Russian officials warned about how they and the Russian people would react to NATO advancing east. What we see is, in terms with which Americans are well-familiar, “a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object.”
It began with George H.W. Bush, who promised Mikhail Gorbachev, after the fall of the Berlin Wall as the Soviet Union careened towards collapse, that the US would not take advantage of the situation. This was also reflected in a NATO resolution on June 7, 1991. Bush and his advisors promised that NATO would not expand if the Soviet Union would withdraw and allow German reunification. The 1990 settlement would only specify that the US would not put troops in East Germany, a nuance which Russia hawks have exploited to argue there was no promise not to expand NATO. But this does not fly. Horton asks the rhetorical question: what sense would it make for the Soviet Union to extract a promise not to put troops in East Germany, if the US had a free hand to bring the rest of Eastern Europe into a military alliance? This agreement only makes sense on a backdrop of agreeing not to expand NATO.
The sins of the Clinton years were legion. In the early 90s, the US sent economists from the Harvard Institute of International Development to Russia to enact what came to be called a “shock therapy” economic policy. It was so badly designed and had such poor outcomes that many Russian thought it must be deliberate. Unsurprisingly, this did not dispose ordinary Russians to view the West favorably. Throughout the decade, Clinton and his advisors duplicitously offered Russia promises that a “Partnership for Peace” process would be pursued rather than NATO expansion—and that NATO would lose its military character—all the while planning to expand NATO.
The Clinton administration was heavily involved in the Balkans wars of Bosnia and Kosovo, which present strong cases against “humanitarian” intervention. The result of Bosnia was that NATO proved itself capable of fulfilling a new mission, while the US solidified itself at the head of European affairs, each of which were necessary for subsequent NATO expansion. Kosovo further solidified NATO’s new role on the continent—even intervening in civil wars—while the bombing campaign against Serbia convinced Russians that the US was an aggressive, ruthless great power, who would violate international rules when it suited them. The US engaged in this aggressive war, in violation of the UN Charter, without approval of the UN Security Council (on which Russia sat). So much for the liberal rules-based international order. The US’s frequent remaking of the rules was a frequent complaint of Russia, including during the Iraq War.
Moreover, when Russia went to war with break-away Chechnya, Clinton’s CIA and US allies supported Chechen rebels and separatist mujahideen fighters fighting on Chechnya’s side against the Russians, with the goal to disrupt an existing Russian oil pipeline running through Chechnya. This, too, Putin cited when invading Ukraine. (If this were all not bad enough, Horton shows how the Clinton administration supported the bin Ladenite terrorists in the Balkans wars and in Chechnya. Indeed, more than half of the September 11 hijackers were involved in these wars in the Balkans and Chechnya—often both.)
Putin’s rise was itself a consequence of the Clintonian interventions in the 1990s: from the “shock therapy” economic policy, to helping Yeltsin get reelected in 1996, to Kosovo and Chechnya. As Horton points out, ironically, Putin invoked the Kosovo precedent of intervening in a civil war to “protect” an ethnic minority to justify invading Ukraine. In one stunning example from the Kosovo war, Horton recounted how the Clinton administration ordered the bombing of a Serbian TV station. These actions still influence Putin’s thoughts about the West today. Putin’s strike on a TV tower in Kiev in February 2022 likely called back to that conflict.
The NATO-Russia Founding Act of May 1997 was another milestone in US duplicity toward Russia. It assured that NATO would not deploy nuclear weapons or “substantial” troops to new NATO nations’ territories. Importantly, the Clinton administration misled Russia into thinking the Founding Act would give Russia a genuine role in NATO deliberations—although it would not have a say within the NATO alliance itself—when, in the words of Clinton advisor Strobe Talbott, the US’s view was that “all we’re really promising them is monthly meetings.”
Throughout Clinton’s term, the Clinton administration fed Russia the lie that claimed NATO’s mission was becoming political, rather than military, so agreeing not to expand NATO would be admitting that NATO’s mission was to contain Russia. He even said he would leave open the possibility of Russia entering NATO. But Horton shows they had no intention to do any of this. To make matters worse, in July 1997 NATO and Ukraine signed an agreement that would provide for training Ukraine’s military and improve their interoperability with NATO, and in August 1997 planned a military exercise involving several former Warsaw Pact states and Soviet republics to simulate US military intervention in an ethnic conflict in Crimea.
It might be that Trump has a plan : making peace in Ukraine more or less on Russian terms, disengaging from NATO and so from Europe. And concentrate on the US immediate vicinity as "greater America".
Of course, it's way to early to know if that could float. And, more to the point, it won't get us out of the global energy and climate predicament.
But it might well shape what 2025 will looks like...
I have more of a problem with the West wants resources part of it lol. Maidan coup already saw to that. Conversely, the west taking out nordstream didnt see to it lol. If you dont see the DA you should really not talk geopolitics IMNSHO because the internal contradictions are more numerous than the consistencies. This observation we're talking about now is 2 for 2 on incoherence: Russian political theater chose war as the best option, so it wants war more than it wants to roll over. And it obviously doesn't want peace under the circumstances. And, Caleb, it's not looking to conquer europe so just relax and stop drinking the koolaid. Drink bone broth instead, every day.
"you should really not talk geopolitics IMNSHO" - yeah man I am no expert, but neither are you. They both want resources and neither seems to want peace. You can KMA for the kool aid comment btw.
The West already had Ukraine's colonial resources, so permitting the killing of 10,000 ethnic Russians in the East plus the NATO saber rattling, both of which precipitated the politically theatrical reason for the Russian invasion runs completely counter to the Western interests in Ukrainian resources; the West was sitting pretty in Ukraine.
And Russia has 20+pc *official* inflation because of the war while selling oil in large part at a $30/bbl discount plus heavily reduced flows to the EU, all of which (and it's *not* all of the losses incurred) far outweigh what net gains Russia could parlay from holding what it has taken from Ukraine.
Then there's the crazy dumb anti-West view that the West is actually gunning for Russian resources via regime change, yet Russia was assimilated into globalization 30 years ago and has been getting ass-raped into exporting all its resources as fast as possible by the Bank of Russia while its citizens continue to have less than half the standard of living of Westerners. This war is allowing Russia to reserve *more* of its own resources for itself not less, despite the aforementioned costs incurred. There is zero chance that the West could ever regime change Russia and even if it did it then all that the best case scenario would be is that Russia would go back to exporting at full tilt like it did before the war lol.
In your view, and B's, and 99pc of people with an opinion on the subject, both sides are basically shooting themselves in the foot because we're just dumb tribal animals foolishly fighting over resources. Even the great Nicole Foss forecasted that because of her anti-conspiracy leanings (publicly at least) but all ponzi schemes are, in nature, non-publicly conspiratorial at the top and civilization is not structurally exempt from that.
Conspiracies are more or less intelligent by definition. We can debate the more or less but this is 2024, folks, and if you're insistent on standing still then you're just falling ever further behind the cutting edge, just like those old Soviets after the fall of the USSR that just wandered the streets in a haze for about a decade until they keeled over.
Putin killed more than 10000 russians on the East of Ukraine
For a dictator that supposedly wants peace this says the exact opposite: "Leaked US documents suggest that more Russian soldiers have been killed than previously estimated. In July (2024), The Economist reported that between 462,000 and 728,000 Russian soldiers had been killed, injured or captured by mid-June, citing documents by the US Department of Defense." There is nothing about Putin that is "peaceful" full stop. The exact number of people killed in this war is impossible to verify, but it is in the hundreds of thousands. And what in the fuck did these people die for? For Putin? Trump won't do anything to help the situation and will likely make it worse too.
Cry me a river.
Dude, you sit behind a computer and think you are tough as nails. You're an ignorant nincompoop. Go fight in Putin's war and tell me how that works out for you.
Spot on. Now go get the next covid booster. It's safe and effective and the season of influenza and covid variants is again upon us.
All these three country leaders (of Russia, China) are led (or will be very soon with the coming U.S. president) by ruthless fascist dictators for whom the only mantra is raw power. They will rather carve out the world with their own zone of influence and domination than opt for their mutual annihilation with war and a nuclear winter (though an accident may happen). This is not even an opinion or a prediction, it is their open stance for whoever can see it with a little bit of brain. And oh, it would be funny if it were not a sinister joke; Putin is all for peace!!!! ... oh! the West is all about money and power, not Putin and the Russian oligarchs. Some peole must believe we are complete idiots, if they think we can believe that.
You are a complete idiot if you believe that putin is not in the same boat with the western leaders. Also, if you took any of the injections.
Right on, WEF Puty would like everyone to take beautiful, beautiful jabby jabby, and preferably pay for it with Russian CBDC.
Injections?
Call it "security" then if "peace" is not good for you.
Russians don't want the regime change that would allow the West to take control of their ressources.
Beside, Putin is a war criminal because the West say so (as Bush is not for the very same reasons). So it's irrelevant unless the West win the war. And it's not going that way.
And anyway, there is nothing left in Europe worth conquering and Russia hasn't the manpower to do so (it's a demographic reality). There is no ressources anymore in Europe. Only problems with a culturally divided and aging population. Russian will bring back in all Russian-populated areas then build the buffer zone they need. The more aggressive Europe will want to look like, the bigger the buffer zone will be.
And too bad for Europe who lost both its supply of resources and its strategical depth in the process...
haha, what a bullshit, West doesn't need to control russian resources, they could have done it, after early creation of atomic bomb, but they didn't, putin just sold all the resources itself without any conqueror of russia.
yeah, putin is not a war criminal, just killed dozens of russian speaking people on the East of Ukraine, and killed civilis in Butcha, that i have seen with my own eyes, but we, Ukrainian militants killed all of 228 brigade that has done it
Excellent summary of likely outcomes. Best wishes for a successful year, at least personally, in 2025. For myself, I'm hoping that you can be convinced to give a public talk in Burlington VT.
Thank you B. Happy New Year !
Good analysis. I live in France and the economic growth for 2025 is predicted to be .9%. The French economy has been trending downwards for years. Yet the energy footprint per capita is about half of the US, Canada or Qatar. I see France as being able to manage contraction. The US will not be able to do this because the US is hypercomplex and France is only a complex society. If you live in the US, you should be adapting to the new reality at an exponential rate.
Hey Walter you made the same comment a few threads ago and i replied with a couple counterarguments to which you did not respond yet here you are again talking your book of self-soothing.
Predicted ?... It's a joke.
They predict growth just to be able to propose a politically acceptable budget before the next elections. Then, when growth is less than expected and deficit is balooning, they pretend they didn't see it coming.
And of course, the same people who've been in charge during decades will never accept to recognise it but just wait until the cultural and ethnic issues hit the fan when the money run out for good...
Thank you for all the thoughtful writing you have given us this year. I wish you and your family and friends a warm and new year celebration and all the best in the dangerous times ahead.
As the world measure wellbeing through GDP, you're right, the BRICS+ is no. 1, but what makes government powerful is it's tax base, not GDP. Profit of American companies are no. 1 and the U.S. is able to raise taxes that are actually relatively low compared to WW1 and WW2. This is a game changer and I won't bet U.S. isn't the dominant player in the world. This doesn't bode well for humanity, especially with the rise of authoritarian leadership in the U.S. They may not be the no. 1 fossil fuel producer, but I wouldn't count them agonizing while they still are the richest nation on earth and their patriotism is well recognized. That make them able to dominate the world military speaking and grab whatever is needed to continue to dominate untill the end of fossil fuel. U.S. is a DINO, Democracy In Name Only, it's rather an Oligarchy conducted by billionnaires and U.S. Corporations that are multi-nationals. They own everything, from money to medias, to House Representatives, to Senators and to their President that they can make or break. The Supreme Court let them buy politicians and therefore a government of the People, by the People, for the People, is no longer a reality. Whatever the enlightened billionnaires want to do to garantee their empire and their personnel gain, the U.S. government will rush to do it.
Your analysis of geopolitics is quitte on the spot, but I wouldn't count the U.S.A. for an early loser in the future. I think they will fight like hell before giving up.
US companies may be number one but in general that is not the result of the production of essentials. We are moving into a period of essential goods and services and away from discretionary spending.
Notwithstanding the above, the potential power that you posit from the further tapping of the US domestic tax base is not what makes the US structurally powerful. The petrodollar's dollar recycling into US bonds is its fundamental tax-based growth mechanism. That and Fed largesse. Old school tax and spend is a 20th-century thing.
I agree with you that B has an outdated belief in the existence of US democracy and, I'd add, an outdated belief in democracy itself. I also think that you might consider that the US oligarchy that you do recognize has existed for a long time now IS authoritarian in nature and, therefore, it's inconsistent of you to say that US leadership is only just now turning authoritarian. On the structural level, neoliberalism is the most authoritarian, fascist governance that has ever existed. The fact that everyone who holds down a job under neoliberal authoritarianism gets a four-wheeled magic carpet ride out of it and all the electricity that you want doesn't change that, it just makes us the owners of 150-person-equivalent energy slaves.
The US is the number 1 food exporter though
I see that you still follow very closely (the equivalent of, actually) the Russian propaganda machine. "And that includes mineral resources, labor and markets for the West, and security concerns for Russia. " Are you kidding me? Who is so naive? Oh, well, of course, The "West" is the invader and aggressor for its profit, and Russia is all for peace!!! (WHAT???).The difference is that you do it more and more, under the guise of someone dealing with the real issue of energy shortage.
But with the election of Trump in the U.S.A., Russia already won its major battle along with China, to destroy democracy in the world.
How I see the future is this: there will soon be four or five big powers in this world (if we include India), and very soon after the U.S. becomes a dictatorship, only one weak democratic one (the EU, partially and for how long?)
The positions of Russia and China are already very clear as fascist and nationalist dictatorships with regional ambitions. Your last post about Georgia and Moldova refects it, and is, again, the exact narrative of their giant neighbor, Russia. Sure enough, Russia will invade Ukraine (whole, in one or two steps), then Moldova, then Georgia, then the Baltic States, then... Putin makes no mystery of his goal to rebuild the USSR. Then he will lay his eyes on the rest of Europe (taking it directly or installing puppet governments).
The same goes with China with Taiwan, then Vietnam, South Korea, the Philippines, etc.
The new U.S.A. with Trump will quit NATO, give a free range to Putin in Europe, a free range to China at least in Taiwan and South Korea, and acquire its own territories. It is not a hoax when he speaks about "purchasing" Greenland, making Canada the 51st state, taking back the Panama Canal... The whole of the Americas will be more than ever the U.S. backyard or its direct possessions. Trump will keep and extend the U.S. power in ther Pacific, and, of course, will never abandon the Middle East.
The world will be carved out by these three nations. Maybe the other nuclear powers will be able to retain some independence (The UK, France, Israel, Pakistan and India). If Ukraine had kept and not relinquished its nuclear power (Ukraine had one third of the USSR nuclear capabilities) with the written assurance of Russia to not invade them and with the promise of the U.S. and the UK to protect them in the Budapest Memorandum of 1994 (you should know something about that, "B"), Russia would not have touched one inch of the Ukrainian territory, and not massacred tens of thousands of people there.
I said that there will be four or five big powers remaining. Until there will be only three, probably. The only chance for the European Union to subsist is with a lot more integration and shared military. But it is not likely to happen. Maybe France and the UK will keep their independence from Russia, and maybe with a few countries around France if they can merge together (the Benelux? Italy? Spain? Germany?). But the energy challenges will be enormous. Their impoverishment is certain, but they do have enough nuclear power to deter Russia.
India is a tropical country and will be hammered, then destroyed by global heating. So, India won't matter to anyone.
Energy is everything to maintain power. Russia has plenty of it and of the best (conventional oil). The U.S.A. is currently the first world producer, shale oil representing 70% of its oil. But this will soon come to an end (in the next ten years). Shale oil is going to peak soon and then plummet more rapidly than the other types of oil (also declining in the U.S.) But the U.S. will keep, and this will be an absolute priority, the Middle Eastern oil, which is a lot more durable. China also has oil, but not enough, and no big prospect of it abroad except for Africa (but also declining). Yet China controls most of the minerals's chain supply.
Looking further, global heating will not stop at the tropics and will eventually destroy all civilizations, including these three world powers. Then, it will be another world entirely.
A nuclear winter is still a possible scenario. If so, bye bye humanity.
You are a total idiot. Global warming will destroy all civilization...
Funny how your mind works. (And do you really need to insult people if you disagree with them?) Or maybe you didn't read my post to the end, or at all. I wrote: "Looking further, global heating will not stop at the tropics and will eventually destroy all civilizations, including these thee world powers. Then, it will be another world entirely." So, what is your problem?
Idiots like you. Now go and write more climate change propaganda bs and get another covid booster.
I live in Canada and the only resource we receive from Ukraine are Ukrainian citizens.
Is this a good use of your time Will? Is there anyone you could be building up?
Orthodox Russia is a great place to build up. Their tax rate is 14%. They support families and they do not support LGBT..
they have an "АУЕ" culture, where men fucks other men in prison, and it's very popular
russia is indeed LGBT state, also growing Muslimisation of the country, Ramzan Kadyrov is the main leader, and russians fear him, make the "sorry videos" on a camera.
Also, the visiting church rate in Russia is much lower than in any EU country, not to mention USA.
Every one of your posts is a lie.
lol, it's easy to even google, Russia government has banned "AУЕ", coz it was growing, they removed christian symbolic from rubles, coz they are muslim culture, as they said "multicultural", also google who is "Никита Журавель", and how he occured in Chechnya, ahaha
u are or an idiot, or a russian sucker
Ukraine can product cheap food. It already export lots of cereals and chicken at rock-bottom price, without any decent social and ecological regulations and with big corporations running the show.
As Europe was denied cheap Russian natgaz by the US, this is the consolation prize. Or at least it is supposed to be and, and with inflation looming, it's why European leaders are so afraid they will lose it too....
I read that the deal for Russia to provide Europe with gas through Ukraine is about to expire. I always thought it crazy that Ukraine and Russia could cooperate with regards to gas but be unable to agree not to kill each other. I wonder if this will make things worse for European households or if the impact of higher gas prices has already come about.
I find it strange how Europe is having remilitarization and de-industrialization at the same time. Reality is bound to catch up at some point.
Best case scenario as I see it. Trump ends the war in Ukraine by agreeing to all Putin's demands but heavily spinning it as a great deal. Perhaps gas will flow to those European countries with Putin friendly leaders. We get to keep the lights on at the expense of democracy. I think Putin wants to invade the Baltic countries but invading the whole of Europe seems a bit fanciful to me.
Um, the Baltic nations are NATO members and per Article 5 an attack on one is an attack on all; therefore invading the Baltic is also fanciful.
Also, Ukraine is still burning Russian diesel in its military hardware...Things that make you go hmmmmm...
Hopefully you're right about the Baltic countries and the media is just scaremongering.
Regarding the peaking of US oil production, the best modeling I have been able to find shows rather conclusively that shale production has already peaked in all the major plays and now is on its downslope:
https://blog.gorozen.com/blog/the-depletion-paradox
Yup, and B also apparently refuses to acknowledge 2018 peak total global liquids production.
Really? I swear I've seen him, or sources he linked to at least, mention the 2018 peak multiple times. Did I miss something?
I expect you're right then. I'm just going off this post which says otherwise as i recall. At any rate, this is my last comment as B deleted all of my side of my conversation with Caleb today, as well as his side. I don't tolerate censorship. take care all.
You are correct. B has stated that 2018 was the world peak in oil extraction. We don't produce oil we extract it.
Shale oil production in the major US plays has already peaked according to the best analysis I can find:
https://blog.gorozen.com/blog/the-depletion-paradox
Grim but true...
And still... there is not that much to do except hope it will hold one more (happy) year...
😕
Everyone wants peace, the problem is they want it on mutually antagonistic terms. And I don't think either side can be exclusively blamed for this. The problem lies with the system as a whole not any specific bad actor. Likewise for the internal politics of either camp. Trump and Kamala are just brand names for the four-year-plans of the American ruling class, something the "alt" youtube pundits of either woke or anti-woke persuasion consistently fail to understand because their influencer careers depend on it.
The invention of bad actors is basically a reluctance to acknowledge terminal systemic dysfunction. Fossil fuel companies are not exclusively (or even primarily) responsible for climate change, bankers are likewise not responsible for parasitic asset inflation, and NATO is not solely responsible for the conflagration of "limited" semi-conventional wars.
PS. re bad actors, I am not saying B is doing this, in fact he goes on to say the same thing. But a lot of people still want a side to cheer for on the flimsiest of pretexts and my discussion of bad actors was a prolepsis of that.
Book review that will be helpful for those unclear on causes of Russia -- Ukraine proxy war.
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*Provoked: How Washington Started the New Cold War with Russia and the Catastrophe in Ukraine*
by Scott Horton 2024
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"Horton is a fox, weaving an encyclopedic knowledge of various conflicts into an elaborate and convincing tapestry that indicts elites, intellectuals, the military-industrial complex, and—with characteristic vitriol—neoconservatives in pushing the US toward unnecessary wars.
Provoked: How Washington Started the New Cold War with Russia and the Catastrophe in Ukraine, fits this mold to a tee—not because Horton contorts facts to a preconceived narrative. Rather, because it is often the same people pushing conflict after conflict who, unsurprisingly, resort to the same, well-worn playbook. Horton’s tome is riveting, from beginning to end. Here, I will focus on the early post-Cold War years, since this part of the story is oft-neglected in contemporary debates about the origins of the Ukraine war.
With the closing of the Cold War, and the USSR dissolving, the US faced a crisis of success: what use is the NATO military alliance without the Soviet enemy to align against? More broadly, what grand strategy should the US adopt now that containing communism was obsolete? For neoconservatives, whose answer post-Cold War was benevolent global hegemony, the solution was to adapt NATO. NATO must gradually absorb more European nations, while leaving Russia out in the cold—contained and encircled, in an even worse position than during the Cold War. NATO must expand its mission to keep European peace and expand Western democracy, or wither on the vine.
From George H.W. Bush to today, the record meticulously compiled by Horton demonstrates that US and other Western leaders communicated to Russia leaders and officials that NATO would not expand east—and could even allow for Russian membership in NATO. Various efforts like the Partnership for Peace and the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe were promoted to foster this impression that Russia would be included in European affairs, alliances, and institutions, rather than these structures aligning against them. All the while, these same US and Western leaders took virtually the opposite positions internally, with the result that the US willfully misled the Russians. The exact internal and external postures waxed and waned over the years, but this ultimate pattern held firm. This was even though, all along, Russian officials warned about how they and the Russian people would react to NATO advancing east. What we see is, in terms with which Americans are well-familiar, “a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object.”
It began with George H.W. Bush, who promised Mikhail Gorbachev, after the fall of the Berlin Wall as the Soviet Union careened towards collapse, that the US would not take advantage of the situation. This was also reflected in a NATO resolution on June 7, 1991. Bush and his advisors promised that NATO would not expand if the Soviet Union would withdraw and allow German reunification. The 1990 settlement would only specify that the US would not put troops in East Germany, a nuance which Russia hawks have exploited to argue there was no promise not to expand NATO. But this does not fly. Horton asks the rhetorical question: what sense would it make for the Soviet Union to extract a promise not to put troops in East Germany, if the US had a free hand to bring the rest of Eastern Europe into a military alliance? This agreement only makes sense on a backdrop of agreeing not to expand NATO.
The sins of the Clinton years were legion. In the early 90s, the US sent economists from the Harvard Institute of International Development to Russia to enact what came to be called a “shock therapy” economic policy. It was so badly designed and had such poor outcomes that many Russian thought it must be deliberate. Unsurprisingly, this did not dispose ordinary Russians to view the West favorably. Throughout the decade, Clinton and his advisors duplicitously offered Russia promises that a “Partnership for Peace” process would be pursued rather than NATO expansion—and that NATO would lose its military character—all the while planning to expand NATO.
The Clinton administration was heavily involved in the Balkans wars of Bosnia and Kosovo, which present strong cases against “humanitarian” intervention. The result of Bosnia was that NATO proved itself capable of fulfilling a new mission, while the US solidified itself at the head of European affairs, each of which were necessary for subsequent NATO expansion. Kosovo further solidified NATO’s new role on the continent—even intervening in civil wars—while the bombing campaign against Serbia convinced Russians that the US was an aggressive, ruthless great power, who would violate international rules when it suited them. The US engaged in this aggressive war, in violation of the UN Charter, without approval of the UN Security Council (on which Russia sat). So much for the liberal rules-based international order. The US’s frequent remaking of the rules was a frequent complaint of Russia, including during the Iraq War.
Moreover, when Russia went to war with break-away Chechnya, Clinton’s CIA and US allies supported Chechen rebels and separatist mujahideen fighters fighting on Chechnya’s side against the Russians, with the goal to disrupt an existing Russian oil pipeline running through Chechnya. This, too, Putin cited when invading Ukraine. (If this were all not bad enough, Horton shows how the Clinton administration supported the bin Ladenite terrorists in the Balkans wars and in Chechnya. Indeed, more than half of the September 11 hijackers were involved in these wars in the Balkans and Chechnya—often both.)
Putin’s rise was itself a consequence of the Clintonian interventions in the 1990s: from the “shock therapy” economic policy, to helping Yeltsin get reelected in 1996, to Kosovo and Chechnya. As Horton points out, ironically, Putin invoked the Kosovo precedent of intervening in a civil war to “protect” an ethnic minority to justify invading Ukraine. In one stunning example from the Kosovo war, Horton recounted how the Clinton administration ordered the bombing of a Serbian TV station. These actions still influence Putin’s thoughts about the West today. Putin’s strike on a TV tower in Kiev in February 2022 likely called back to that conflict.
The NATO-Russia Founding Act of May 1997 was another milestone in US duplicity toward Russia. It assured that NATO would not deploy nuclear weapons or “substantial” troops to new NATO nations’ territories. Importantly, the Clinton administration misled Russia into thinking the Founding Act would give Russia a genuine role in NATO deliberations—although it would not have a say within the NATO alliance itself—when, in the words of Clinton advisor Strobe Talbott, the US’s view was that “all we’re really promising them is monthly meetings.”
Throughout Clinton’s term, the Clinton administration fed Russia the lie that claimed NATO’s mission was becoming political, rather than military, so agreeing not to expand NATO would be admitting that NATO’s mission was to contain Russia. He even said he would leave open the possibility of Russia entering NATO. But Horton shows they had no intention to do any of this. To make matters worse, in July 1997 NATO and Ukraine signed an agreement that would provide for training Ukraine’s military and improve their interoperability with NATO, and in August 1997 planned a military exercise involving several former Warsaw Pact states and Soviet republics to simulate US military intervention in an ethnic conflict in Crimea.
MORE
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https://mises.org/mises-wire/provoked-long-train-abuses-culminated-ukraine-war
When ONE thinks inside of the BOX, He may soon be put into one.....This goes to Caleb Frazier
It might be that Trump has a plan : making peace in Ukraine more or less on Russian terms, disengaging from NATO and so from Europe. And concentrate on the US immediate vicinity as "greater America".
Of course, it's way to early to know if that could float. And, more to the point, it won't get us out of the global energy and climate predicament.
But it might well shape what 2025 will looks like...
https://scottritter.substack.com/p/trump-versus-the-establishment