This conflict was never meant to be resolved by either side’s victory. The aim was to stop any further Eurasian economic integration. This has been achieved by an incredible cost to Europeans. The imperial manipulation has revealed the New Western Empire is nothing more than the continuation of the old British Empire. This is how British Empire meddled in Continental Europe. American Colonies fought the British Empire, and won their independence, but since the very beginning of the American Republic, British Empire waged a war against that independence, until they won and flipped the Colonies into the imperial fold. The imperial center moved to the US, but make no mistake about this - this Beast is a direct descendent from East Asia Company.
Empire rules directly through Deep State structures. It leaves nominal governmental structures as a facade to fool people into believing nothing changed. Governments of individual European countries have been neutered. How else do we explain their capitulations to supra national organizations in policy formation and governance? Even national economic issues of existential importance do not trigger resistance to suicidal imperial policies. Even when people kick out governments and elect a new government, nothing fundamentally changes. EU and NATO are imperial structures, not beholden to any European peoples. Add to this private organizations like WEF, and you begin to see the control lines and pulleys.
Countries are controlled through vassal economic elites who are keenly aware what happens to those who go against imperial directives. Contrary to what people believe, it isn't just stupidity at work. When viewed from people's perspective national governments look incompetent and foolish, but looked from the imperial perspective, they are doing what is asked of them, as predictably as a fine Swiss watch keeps time. Most people stop their analysis at "incompetent and foolish".
You are correct, I cannot prove anything. All I can do is to offer a possible explanation. You decide if it holds water or not, if it adequately explains both past events and current reality, and if it can successfully predict future events.
As I said, as a model of explanation of a possible cause, it's not bad.
But to convince people invested in the current system, or just comfortable with the state of affairs, we'd need some kind of comprehensive and tangible proof.
People in the West denied Lenin's and Stalin's purges and the Gulag-system up until the late 1950s,in the most extreme cases into the 1970s, simply because they had invested their very selves into the soviet/chinese communist systems working.
That's the level of dedication and faith we're up against no matter what model we try to discuss.
Please note I'm not saying you're wrong - it is absolutely a possiblity that the present day is a result of a century of dedicated work of many hands, no matter if we call it a grand slam conspiracy unified theory or simply rational actors all acting in their own self-interest.
I'm certainly aware of these ideas and some of the facts surrounding this: Matt Ehret and Cynthia Chung have been literally all over this.
While I think the argument holds considerable merits, I personally doubt our abilities to direct such things in private for a couple of hundred of years in spite of everything changing in-between.
I am basing my analysis mostly on the works of Carroll Quigley. I think we'd be surprised by what is possible through a network of influential organizations guided by a cohesive imperial ideology.
I've read his work, sure enough: as Rikard pointed out, it's certainly possible, in fact, I deem it quite plausible--if only human stupidity wouldn't exist. Quigley is, as far as I'm concerned, quite correct about his time; that said, I'd be a bit less sure about the present, though…
All structures Quigley describes are still in existence and functioning. If anything, at the time of his writing, there existed competing centers of power, which are now gone. Financial capitalism won over industrial capitalism, both in North America and Europe. Anglo-American imperial structures have only gained more power and made major inroads both in Europe and Japan. During this time national sovereignty has further moved toward supra-national centers, which are only accountable to economic power underpinning the Empire. Both EU and NATO are fundamentally imperial projects. Western Empire is an empire of Big Money, of financial capital.
At the core of Western Empire are still the English speaking countries. This has never been more self-evident than in Europe today. Continental Europe will suffer disproportionate damage by the imperial policies of severing economic integration with the Eurasian continent. Europe is now visibly Empire's periphery and is treated as such.
Nope. As long as you're very, very powerful, you can get away with being very, very stupid. However, by being very, very stupid, you end up becoming less powerful, at which point, being very, very stupid becomes deadly (to you, not just to someone else).
The finnish officer talking about reservists is referring to finnish reservists, not ukrainians - someone still in any active capacity cannot go to Ukraine as that would constitute active participation; a reservist can go as a private individual (even if it in reality would be with the full tacit backing of the state) and train ukrainian troops. Think US and french or russian and chinese "advisors" in Indochina and Aghanistan.
Gregg/Grägg can be spelled either way without it affecting pronouciation, so it's probably an artefact of a phone-interview and sloppy editing. In many swedish words and dialects, ä and e are interchangeable (though Stockholm stands out the way they make the e into a tonal nasal sound, almost honking in extreme cases). The spelling makes me think Kenneth is either a swede or a finn from the swedish-speaking part of the finnish population, though that is purely speculative.
Russia seems to be on its last legs or at least getting depserate, trying to grind Ukraine down before the promised materiel and training from NATO/EU-satellites start to make an effect. I base this on Russia now employing T-62 tanks and BTR-50s from out of reserve and training storage.
The T-62 is in essence a T-55 tank upgraded with ideas copied from the US M60 "gun-tank", so it's an early 1960s vehicle patched up with whatever modern equipment it can handle and can be made to fit.
The BTR-50 is an APC built between 1954-1970. Again, it's a solid piece of equipment and does it's job well enough given its age, but it's hopelessly outmoded considering it will be going up against modern equipment. Where the BTR-50 shines though is in the engine and drive designs: it works perfectly in -40C as well as in +40C. It could/can alsoserve as a tractor and transport for fiedl artillery which may be what it will be used for.
Scroll down the equipment list. ** There are 45 T-72B tanks getting sent. ** So some former Soviet stuff is getting sent, embedded amongst the US-built Patriots and really ancient HAWKs n' stuff.
I'd make more comments, but I think I've had my Orwellian dose of the day.
In other words, the US is replacing almost the entirety of the urkainian military's equipment; most of this seems to be materiel surplus to present engagements and needs for the US, plus some modern stuff like drones on top.
Not a bad deal either. It's not cheap, scrapping military vehicles and equipment and the raw materials are often united for resale anyway. Not to mention politicians being loathe to hand older stuff over to police and rescue services, or to sell disarmed and disarmoured vehicles to private companies.
Not an insignificant saving, clearing storage like this and come out of it smelling of roses. With the added benefit of tying the Ukraine firmly into dependency on US/NATO equipment, securing and locking in yet another captured market for the US arms companies.
I thought the paragraph about reservists was as you say, rather than the interpretation by Epimetheus. It’s good to see it confirmed by someone who can read the original. Thanks.
Swamplandia.....i like it. All these wars have gone just perfectly for them. They buy the war materiel with borrowed money, so the bankers are happy, and the weapons makers are happy, and the pols get their "cut".
I'm beginning to suspect the Russians are also paying Ukrainian leadership the goal is to wipe Ukrainians off the land - in keeping with the Bolshevik offensive and Holodomor.
It does not look like Russians have any "beef" with Ukrainians, though. They are actually surprised they are hated that much in Ukraine (result of relentless post-2014 rabid propaganda by neocons where Russians ("Muscovites") are presented as an evil subhuman tribe killing and raping everyone while kind "Banderovets" is saving innocent Ukrainians. It starts with children's books and on to never-ending flow of Youtube videos, TV, etc etc. Russia never engaged in that much anti-Ukrainian propaganda and mostly see Ukrainians as "brothers" in a cult.
It does look like the land is being cleared off its people though, both ethnic Russian and Ukrainian. Close to half the country have fled by now and everything seems to be done to maximize casualties, strangely more by the Ukrainian leadership. A while ago (long before this war) I saw a video about an Israeli businessman claiming East-South Ukraine would be a much better place to move Israel to. But other than that, never saw any definitive proof that is the ultimate goal. I guess we will see.
Thanks for the article..
Nuland says : We need to demilitarize Crimea
I say: We need to demilitarize Nuland.
You're welcome.
I'm 112% with you on the demilitarisation of Nuland and her ilk.
Heck, I'd also argue that we'd better put these lunatics on trial for high crimes and treason lest they ruin us all.
This conflict was never meant to be resolved by either side’s victory. The aim was to stop any further Eurasian economic integration. This has been achieved by an incredible cost to Europeans. The imperial manipulation has revealed the New Western Empire is nothing more than the continuation of the old British Empire. This is how British Empire meddled in Continental Europe. American Colonies fought the British Empire, and won their independence, but since the very beginning of the American Republic, British Empire waged a war against that independence, until they won and flipped the Colonies into the imperial fold. The imperial center moved to the US, but make no mistake about this - this Beast is a direct descendent from East Asia Company.
Not a bad model of explanation! Problem would lie in proving it beyond the "it is possible"-level, yes?
Empire rules directly through Deep State structures. It leaves nominal governmental structures as a facade to fool people into believing nothing changed. Governments of individual European countries have been neutered. How else do we explain their capitulations to supra national organizations in policy formation and governance? Even national economic issues of existential importance do not trigger resistance to suicidal imperial policies. Even when people kick out governments and elect a new government, nothing fundamentally changes. EU and NATO are imperial structures, not beholden to any European peoples. Add to this private organizations like WEF, and you begin to see the control lines and pulleys.
Countries are controlled through vassal economic elites who are keenly aware what happens to those who go against imperial directives. Contrary to what people believe, it isn't just stupidity at work. When viewed from people's perspective national governments look incompetent and foolish, but looked from the imperial perspective, they are doing what is asked of them, as predictably as a fine Swiss watch keeps time. Most people stop their analysis at "incompetent and foolish".
You are correct, I cannot prove anything. All I can do is to offer a possible explanation. You decide if it holds water or not, if it adequately explains both past events and current reality, and if it can successfully predict future events.
As I said, as a model of explanation of a possible cause, it's not bad.
But to convince people invested in the current system, or just comfortable with the state of affairs, we'd need some kind of comprehensive and tangible proof.
People in the West denied Lenin's and Stalin's purges and the Gulag-system up until the late 1950s,in the most extreme cases into the 1970s, simply because they had invested their very selves into the soviet/chinese communist systems working.
That's the level of dedication and faith we're up against no matter what model we try to discuss.
Please note I'm not saying you're wrong - it is absolutely a possiblity that the present day is a result of a century of dedicated work of many hands, no matter if we call it a grand slam conspiracy unified theory or simply rational actors all acting in their own self-interest.
I'm certainly aware of these ideas and some of the facts surrounding this: Matt Ehret and Cynthia Chung have been literally all over this.
While I think the argument holds considerable merits, I personally doubt our abilities to direct such things in private for a couple of hundred of years in spite of everything changing in-between.
I am basing my analysis mostly on the works of Carroll Quigley. I think we'd be surprised by what is possible through a network of influential organizations guided by a cohesive imperial ideology.
I've read his work, sure enough: as Rikard pointed out, it's certainly possible, in fact, I deem it quite plausible--if only human stupidity wouldn't exist. Quigley is, as far as I'm concerned, quite correct about his time; that said, I'd be a bit less sure about the present, though…
All structures Quigley describes are still in existence and functioning. If anything, at the time of his writing, there existed competing centers of power, which are now gone. Financial capitalism won over industrial capitalism, both in North America and Europe. Anglo-American imperial structures have only gained more power and made major inroads both in Europe and Japan. During this time national sovereignty has further moved toward supra-national centers, which are only accountable to economic power underpinning the Empire. Both EU and NATO are fundamentally imperial projects. Western Empire is an empire of Big Money, of financial capital.
At the core of Western Empire are still the English speaking countries. This has never been more self-evident than in Europe today. Continental Europe will suffer disproportionate damage by the imperial policies of severing economic integration with the Eurasian continent. Europe is now visibly Empire's periphery and is treated as such.
"Is there anything these guys can ‘get right’?"
Nope. As long as you're very, very powerful, you can get away with being very, very stupid. However, by being very, very stupid, you end up becoming less powerful, at which point, being very, very stupid becomes deadly (to you, not just to someone else).
A few minor additional points:
The finnish officer talking about reservists is referring to finnish reservists, not ukrainians - someone still in any active capacity cannot go to Ukraine as that would constitute active participation; a reservist can go as a private individual (even if it in reality would be with the full tacit backing of the state) and train ukrainian troops. Think US and french or russian and chinese "advisors" in Indochina and Aghanistan.
Gregg/Grägg can be spelled either way without it affecting pronouciation, so it's probably an artefact of a phone-interview and sloppy editing. In many swedish words and dialects, ä and e are interchangeable (though Stockholm stands out the way they make the e into a tonal nasal sound, almost honking in extreme cases). The spelling makes me think Kenneth is either a swede or a finn from the swedish-speaking part of the finnish population, though that is purely speculative.
Russia seems to be on its last legs or at least getting depserate, trying to grind Ukraine down before the promised materiel and training from NATO/EU-satellites start to make an effect. I base this on Russia now employing T-62 tanks and BTR-50s from out of reserve and training storage.
The T-62 is in essence a T-55 tank upgraded with ideas copied from the US M60 "gun-tank", so it's an early 1960s vehicle patched up with whatever modern equipment it can handle and can be made to fit.
The BTR-50 is an APC built between 1954-1970. Again, it's a solid piece of equipment and does it's job well enough given its age, but it's hopelessly outmoded considering it will be going up against modern equipment. Where the BTR-50 shines though is in the engine and drive designs: it works perfectly in -40C as well as in +40C. It could/can alsoserve as a tractor and transport for fiedl artillery which may be what it will be used for.
Someone who knows about tanks! You might be interested in this fact sheet released by the US state department: https://www.state.gov/u-s-security-cooperation-with-ukraine/
Scroll down the equipment list. ** There are 45 T-72B tanks getting sent. ** So some former Soviet stuff is getting sent, embedded amongst the US-built Patriots and really ancient HAWKs n' stuff.
I'd make more comments, but I think I've had my Orwellian dose of the day.
In other words, the US is replacing almost the entirety of the urkainian military's equipment; most of this seems to be materiel surplus to present engagements and needs for the US, plus some modern stuff like drones on top.
Not a bad deal either. It's not cheap, scrapping military vehicles and equipment and the raw materials are often united for resale anyway. Not to mention politicians being loathe to hand older stuff over to police and rescue services, or to sell disarmed and disarmoured vehicles to private companies.
Not an insignificant saving, clearing storage like this and come out of it smelling of roses. With the added benefit of tying the Ukraine firmly into dependency on US/NATO equipment, securing and locking in yet another captured market for the US arms companies.
Major General Smedley Butler had it right, yes?
I thought the paragraph about reservists was as you say, rather than the interpretation by Epimetheus. It’s good to see it confirmed by someone who can read the original. Thanks.
Oh, that's a valid point, and I shall correct it. Thanks for pointing this out.
As an aside, I'm learning (one sort of) Norwegian for 2.5 years, and while I'm quite o.k. speaking and reading it, Swedish is a bit different, though…
This was interesting. Thanks!
Thanks for reading, Robert, and: you're welcome!
Swamplandia.....i like it. All these wars have gone just perfectly for them. They buy the war materiel with borrowed money, so the bankers are happy, and the weapons makers are happy, and the pols get their "cut".
I'm beginning to suspect the Russians are also paying Ukrainian leadership the goal is to wipe Ukrainians off the land - in keeping with the Bolshevik offensive and Holodomor.
It does not look like Russians have any "beef" with Ukrainians, though. They are actually surprised they are hated that much in Ukraine (result of relentless post-2014 rabid propaganda by neocons where Russians ("Muscovites") are presented as an evil subhuman tribe killing and raping everyone while kind "Banderovets" is saving innocent Ukrainians. It starts with children's books and on to never-ending flow of Youtube videos, TV, etc etc. Russia never engaged in that much anti-Ukrainian propaganda and mostly see Ukrainians as "brothers" in a cult.
It does look like the land is being cleared off its people though, both ethnic Russian and Ukrainian. Close to half the country have fled by now and everything seems to be done to maximize casualties, strangely more by the Ukrainian leadership. A while ago (long before this war) I saw a video about an Israeli businessman claiming East-South Ukraine would be a much better place to move Israel to. But other than that, never saw any definitive proof that is the ultimate goal. I guess we will see.
I think you have put your finger on it. Greater Israel.