The statements from Lavrov, the Russian foreign minister yesterday are very concerning indeed. he has gone the full Comical Ali. The West is at fault, Ukraine are holding hostage their own people, using human shields, preparing chemical and nuclear attacks. All whilst Russia now vows to turn East and never deal with the West again.
This is very dangerous territory indeed. There is no bakcing down from Russia and no sign that Ukraine is going to capitulate anytime soon either. the nastier the war gets, the more the pressure from the population of Western Europe and America to step in will grow. The polish planes will be given, the free brigades will start getting armed in Romania and Poland, much like the Taliban were re-supplied in pakistan (by opposite sides over time too!).
Russia will then have a big decision to make, settle for the Eastern gains and have a Korea style ceasefire or go all out to crush Kyiv and the whole of Ukraine. Certainly the latter they are still aiming for today it seems.
For the West, what to do, a madman at the help of one of the largest Nuclear armed countries has bascially been our worst fear since the manhattan project. Lots of wars and efforts to try and stop this ever happening.
All the while, the economic damage will be great, whilst China and the East will benefit once more. In the grand strategy terms, this was is a total disaster for the US and Europe. For now we think it unites us, but there is no easy end and every day of fighting it strengthens an economically stronger competitor in China.
24 comments:
Can China really prosper in a world that turns frosty against it? Nobody needs their plastic garden chairs.
Clickbait
China are playing a 10/20/50 year game, the west works around 4/5 year election cycles. It's like the difference in strategy required for playing tic-tac-toe compared to chess.
Whilst in the short term we may not be able to afford China's badly made crap, what China can do is start buying our key industries / infrastructure on the cheap with the money we've already given them.
Port volumes down due a recession and struggling to make a profit - a great time for China to buy the port on the cheap.
To be the the biggest, dominant world power you need control and influence, which is what China has been quietly doing for the last twenty years.
For example China owns Smithfields foods, which has approximately 26% share of the U.S. pork processing market
An example of how short sighted our politicians are, from 2015:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/uk-34621254
George Osborne on UK's 'golden era' as China's 'best partner in the West'
The UK is China's best partner in the West, George Osborne has said after a week of deals worth more than £30bn and a state visit by Chinese President Xi Jinping.
The chancellor defended the UK's government's approach, saying it was important keep a dialogue going and have a strong economic plan.
As if all that money coming from China (that we gave them in the first place) doesn't come at a cost that's not beneficial to China and their long term ambitions
All easily avoided.
Tell Ukraine they can't join Nato or the EU. In qid pro quo Putin withdraws and leaves it neutral.
Perhaps being a bit naive here but if push comes to shove, the government(s) could always assert control back over key physical infrastructure.
If China started switching other infrastructure away then the market would quickly drop that supplier and another one would come in to fill the void?
E-K I thought Zelensky told us all (yesterday?) that he had no interest in joining NATO as they can't be trusted? Not many reporting it and everyone running around trying to find his handlers so they can get him back on the right page.....
EK.
It is not about the EU.
Nor Ukraine joining NATO.
It’s about Russia wanting Ukraine.
If it was about tanks on the border, why invade Ukraine and Guarantee that tanks AND NATO will be on the border.
Be it Ukraine or Poland.
Nobody forced Putin to put 200,000 troops on the border. He chose to do it.
Just as he chose to attack the country with them.
Why?
Because he thought he could get away with it.
Post Covid.
Biden/Boris in serious political trouble.
Merkel gone.
Italy and Germany entirely dependent on Russia.
The Afghan surrender debacle.
Lack of resolve in the USA.
A very, very publicly, politically , ultra partisan, divided USA.
Weak NATO. Spending at historic lows.
China focused America. Wanting to boost the navy, not the Europe army.
Brexit damaged EU split from UK forces.
China happily nodding along in support of Russia. Chequebook ready.
India backing up Russia.
The Arab nations as unfriendly as possible to the West.
Canada in crisis.
French elections imminent.
Sweden out of favour with the Covid countries.
Latin America desperate for any Russian recovery trade if the USA gets a bit arsey.
Woke, ultra liberal weakness everywhere.
Historic highs for Russian energy and metals fuels and food prices.
Refugees already a massive problem for the democracies.
UN 2 vs 3 is enough.
Any sanctions by the west would put their own fragile democracies into deep recession.
No appetite for yet another forever war in the west
With luck, will all be over within 48 hours. Sit back and negotiate a hugely beneficial peace treaty from a position of strength to a terrified west.
Putin making his yes/no - should I/ shouldn’t l ? Pro/con list must have looked at this and thought, “ there is no downside. Why, I’d be a madman NOT to do it!”
Here 'we' have created a classic dog training problem - see UK TV show Dogs Behaving (Very) Badly. Collectively we have two dogs and two (at least) owners. Those owners have been allowing their dogs to growl and scrap for years, this suited some of the owners very nicely. Now we have a full on mess in the kitchen, furniture broken etc, we need a Graeme Hall to calm them down and throw a doggie treat when they are good and take away toys when not.
As always with badly behaved dogs the real problem is the owners. Those dog owners let this problem build up - bad multinational psychology - left too much to the pseudo experts. Even now some of those owners are enjoying the dog fight and planning big budgets on the strength. Let us hope we don't get into marksman or vet territory because even there as in the more domestic scenario it is the owners who should be getting the needle. And so we go on.
With my hawkish hat on, a small nuke on Westminster not be a great loss, especially if it were a Wednesday and would also save us the burden of renovating that faux gothic pile.
"For the West, what to do, a madman at the help of one of the largest Nuclear armed countries has bascially been our worst fear since the manhattan project. Lots of wars and efforts to try and stop this ever happening. "
Its almost as if all of the nuclear countries have a duty to see things from the others perspective, and not back one party into a corner, just because they can.
All this has arisen because the US won the Cold War and subsequently decided it was entitled to act like a Global Empire that no-one can ever gainsay. No need to acknowledge anyone else's geo-political issues, its Pax Americana or else we'll unleash the carrier taskforces on you from 30,000 feet, send Cruise missiles down your Main Street, and extract your people to a concentration camp. America has acted like a global bully for 30 years now, without anyone to be able to front up to them. Except now someone (indeed 2 someones) can, and one is. Its the beginning of the end for the US Empire. A shame because it had great potential, but like all empires it let power go to its head.
Ukraine is a means to Putin's objective. Which is Russian domination of the Black Sea. For that he needs all the Ukraine's coast. With domination of the Black Sea, he can start work on destabilising/recapturing Romania and Bulgaria.
BQ - I disagree. This is one of the reasons - improved US targeting is paradoxically making the world less safe. He wants missiles as far as possible from his borders and I don't blame him.
https://thebulletin.org/2017/03/how-us-nuclear-force-modernization-is-undermining-strategic-stability-the-burst-height-compensating-super-fuze/
This, from the same source, is also good
https://thebulletin.org/2022/03/russian-military-doctrine-calls-a-limited-nuclear-strike-de-escalation-heres-why/
Plus this, which makes the same point we made here *ahem*, ten days ago about how deeply unimpressed Xi must be
https://thebulletin.org/2022/03/even-if-putin-prevails-in-ukraine-hes-already-lost-the-world/
Nafatali and Erdogan (with help from France and Germany) having some success putting together tentative peace agreement, Both putin and Zelensky have moderated their positions somewhat but things still in early stages, step away from some of the more shrill media and another picture emerges. I still sadly have Russia down for a win (much bloodier than they thought) with Ukraine barely holding on to a shrunken national independence but with Putin and the Russian army both damaged perhaps beyond repair. On the topic of Russian army has anybody noticed the shocking condition of their equipment including their newer kit? thats before they get hit, very shoddy, perhaps better qualified here can comment, it goes beyond operative wear and tear.
"Tell Ukraine they can't join Nato or the EU. In quid pro quo Putin withdraws and leaves it neutral."
Would he ? I'm pretty sure he needs total control, preferably over every country that Stalin controlled in 1950.
People like him cannot bear to have anyone acting independently.
Don
Another article by General Fry.
https://www.thearticle.com/war-in-ukraine-a-preliminary-audit
The sin of supplying data to North Korea, if true, is certainly not justification for the actions of Russians
@ In quid pro quo Putin withdraws and leaves it neutral
... and gutted, disarmed, helpless against future events
The Finns were really cross when idiot-boy Biden used the word "Finnlandisation" but that's how Russia wants its neighbours, if not actually occupied
Thank you BQ
We definitely DO know who wants Ukraine and that's Nato and the EU.
They have definitely provided military hardware, Nick tells us the very best of Nato intelligence and I suspect - by the look of their raiding tactics - our very own UK Commando training too.
This, I have to remind myself, in a country with which we have no pact and which is not in any of our organisations.
The very supply of hardware and training almost seems designed to push Putin to the extremes which violate international law. Not that they matter anymore.
This is cruel of the West. To make Ukrainians think that 5 million displaced, levelled cities, tens of thousands dead and a never ending guerilla campaign was the best option. We liberated the hell out of that place !
They would have been better off not resisting and I'll explain why later.
I hope the EU was worth it. We didn't think so and Ukraine looked pretty good to me - they even had punk rockers and arena events with super groups playing at them. The BBC interviewed a Ukrainian woman who said she wanted the life she loved back. A life outside the EU btw.
We can only *assume* that Putin wants Ukraine for keepsies but I aver that he doesn't *want* Ukraine but (like the psycho ex boyfriend I used as a vulgar analogy in a previous post) doesn't want anyone else to have her either... to the point that he'd scorch her from existence.
He wants a buffer.
He is not imagining EU/NATO interference and ambition and the proof is in what we've said, what we've done and what we've supplied and the unbelievable Ukrainian resistance repelling Russian forces. It is as though they have been well prepared for conflict with Russia. This is no surprise to them.
Prepared by whom - us ?
What the hell did it have to do with those doing it (us) ?
Was a Nazi battalion shelling Russo-Ukrainian positions in the Dombass deliberately overlooked by the BBC and MSM - yup.
Were NATO/EU intentions showing before Salisbury/Trump/Brexit - yup. High levels of interference against Russia preceded all those things but have been ignored by the BBC.
Did Biden and Son piss Putin off in 2014 ? You bet ! There's another motivation for Putin doing it during this presidency - but I'd shorten BQ's list to one word ... "Covid" or better, a single sentence "Our panic in the face of Covid".
So.
Who wants WW3 on behalf of Ukraine ?
Who honestly believes that Putin wants to rampage through the EU afterwards ?
Well, why not wait until he's massing against the border of a NATO country (none of which should be there btw) before agitating for an early nuclear war as the BBC seems to be. Even peace loving Jeremy Vine saying that anyone wearing Putin's uniform deserves to die - showing his ignorance of what conscription is and what it means to defy Putin's orders in Russia and a terrifying degree of war fever. The BBC News sound track is now a drumbeat for war and it, the MSM and the Twittersphere are backing our leaders into a corner as much as sanctions are Putin.
This is war fever redolent of the beginning of WW1. To object to it is to be insulted as has happened on this site.
This is NOT the Cuban missile crisis, which had to rational men who did not want war.
You do NOT put a mad man in a position where he has nothing to lose especially when he points a gun to your chest. You do NOT do a Gunnery Sergeant Hartman in a barrack latrine.
MAD does not work with a mad man. Especially a properly hard, mad man. A man with a hard heart and a hard head and possibly only a year to live, with a finger on the button and with ring upon ring of steel built around him.
In a nuclear exchange with Russia Britain gets wiped out totally. Those who don't die of the blast die of radiation sickness - one of the worst ways you can possibly go. Most of Europe goes the same way, a good part of the US and Russia too - nuclear winter... a ruined planet.
Cont.
Cont.
It beggars belief that those who told us to mask up, lock down KEEP SAFE for a 99.99% survivable disease are now agitating for a war with a 99.99% death rate.
This is not in our interests and it certainly isn't in Ukraine's either.
Are you all absolutely sure you want you and yours to die for Ukraine ? Because that's what it looks like is going to happen.
"If we don't stop him now he'll go on and on 'til he gets us as well. LET'S ALL DIE NOW INSTEAD !"
I say we need to do a deal which is face saving for both NATO and Putin and I'm afraid Ukraine is going to have to be disappointedly neutral but alive. See what Putin does then.
Alas that drumbeat. Louder and louder and louder.
(Thud - get building that shelter. My approach is to behave normally as I always do in a crisis and walk towards the epicentre.)
Nobody has yet explained to me:
(i) Why Putin invaded in February instead of waiting for favourable conditions in May, and
(ii) What the devil the USA has been playing at with biolabs in Ukraine.
Aha! I have now found an explanation for the US biolabs in Ukraine. But if the journalist is right why did the US deny their existence until a few days ago? All very odd.
https://alexberenson.substack.com/p/dont-be-a-useful-idiot?s=r
EK, still working on my pizza place, more useful.
dearieme said...
Nobody has yet explained to me:
(ii) What the devil the USA has been playing at with biolabs in Ukraine.
10:31 pm
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Same goes for China.
Reckless doesn't even begin to describe this.
Meanwhile, where the blue blazes has Fauci disappeared to? Not seen in over 2 weeks I gather... Maybe the Pfizer clinical trial death toll (Minimum of 3% of those in the test died. Ergo, "completely safe" to quote our own in-house cretin, Johnson.)
Have a read and weep.
https://phmpt.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/5.3.6-postmarketing-experience.pdf
No wonder they wanted to hides this all away for 75 years.
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