Strategic
Culture - January 7, 2023
[Una versión es
castellano en AQUÍ]
2023 starts with
collective NATO in Absolutely Freak Out Mode as Russian Defense
Minister Shoigu announces that Russian Navy frigate Admiral Gorshkov
is now on tour – complete with a set of Mr. Zircon’s hypersonic
business cards.
The business tour will
encompass the Atlantic and the Indian Ocean, and of course include
the Mediterranean, the Roman Empire’s former Mare Nostrum. Mr.
Zircon on the prowl has absolutely nothing to do with the war in
Ukraine: it’s a sign of what happens next when it comes to frying
much bigger fishes than a bunch of Kiev psychos.
The end of 2022 did seal
the frying of the Big Ukraine Negotiation Fish. It has now been
served on a hot plate – and fully digested. Moscow has made it
painfully clear there’s no reason whatsoever to trust the
“non-agreement capable” declining superpower.
So even taxi drivers in
Dacca are now betting on when the much- vaunted “winter offensive”
starts, and how far will it go. General Armageddon’s path ahead is
clear: all-out demilitarization and de-electrification on steroids,
complete with grinding up masses of Ukrainians at the lowest possible
cost to the Russian Armed Forces in Donbass until Kiev psychos beg
for mercy. Or not.
Another big fried fish on
a hot plate at the end of 2022 was the 2014 Minsk Agreement. The cook
was no other than former chancellor Merkel (“an attempt to buy time
for Ukraine”). Implied is the not exactly smokin’ gun: the
strategy of the Straussian/neo-con and neoliberal-con combo in charge
of U.S. foreign policy, from the beginning, was to unleash a Forever
War, by proxy, against Russia.
Merkel may have been up
to something telling the Russians, in their face, that she lied like
crypto-Soprano Mike Pompeo, then she lied again and again, for years.
That’s not embarrassing for Moscow, but for Berlin: yet another
graphic demonstration of total vassalage to the Empire.
The response by the
contemporary embodiment of Mercury, Russian Foreign Ministry’s
Maria Zakharova, was equally intriguing: Merkel’s confession could
be used as a specific reason – and evidence – for a tribunal
judging Western politicians responsible for provoking the
Russia-Ukraine proxy war.
No one will obviously
confirm it on the record. But all this could be part of an evolving,
secret Russia-Germany deal in the making, leading to Germany
restoring at least some of its sovereignty.
Time to fry NATO fish
Meanwhile, deputy
chairman of the Russian Security Council Dmitry Medvedev, visibly
relishing his totally unplugged incarnation, expanded on the Fried
Negotiation Fish saga. “Last warning to all nations”, as he
framed it: “there can be no business with the Anglo-Saxon world
[because] it is a thief, a swindler, a card-sharp that could do
anything… From now on we will do without them until a new
generation of sensible politicians comes to power… There is nobody
in the West we could deal with about anything for any reason.”
Medvedev, significantly,
recited more or less the same script, in person, to Xi Jinping in
Beijing, days before the zoom to end all zooms – between Xi and
Putin – that worked as a sort of informal closure of 2022, with the
Russia-China strategic partnership perfectly in synch.
On the war front, General
Armageddon’s new – offensive – groove is bound to lead in the
next few months to an undisputable fact on the ground: a partition
between a dysfunctional black hole or rump Ukraine on the west, and
Novorossiya in the east.
Even the IMF is now
reluctant to throw extra funds into the black hole. Kiev’s 2023
budget has an – unrealistic – $36 billion deficit. Half of the
budget is military-related. The real deficit in 2022 was running at
about $5 billion a month – and will inevitably balloon.
Tymofiy Mylovanov, a
professor at the Kiev School of Economics, came up with a howler: the
IMF is worried about Ukraine’s “debt sustainability”. He added,
“if even the IMF is worried, imagine what private investors are
thinking”. There will be no “investment” in rump Ukraine.
Multinational vultures will grab land for nothing and whatever puny
productive assets may remain.
Arguably the biggest fish
to be fried in 2023 is the myth of NATO. Every serious military
analyst, few Americans included, knows that the Russian Army and
military industrial complex represents a superior system than what
existed at the end of the U.S.SR, and far superior to that of the
U.S. and the rest of NATO today.
The Mackinder-style final
blow to a possible alliance between Germany (EU), Russia and China –
which is what is really behind the U.S. proxy war in Ukraine – is
not proceeding according to the Straussian wet dream.
Saddam Hussein, former
imperial vassal, was regime-changed because he wanted to bypass the
petrodollar. Now we have the inevitable rise of the petroyuan – “in
three to five years”, as Xi Jinping announced in Riyadh: you just
can’t prevent it with Shock’n Awe on Beijing.
In 2008, Russia embarked
on a massive rebuilding of missile forces and a 14-year plan to
modernize land-based armed forces. Mr. Zircon presenting his
hypersonic business card across the Mare Nostrum is just a small part
of the Big Picture.
The myth of U.S. power
The CIA abandoned
Afghanistan in a humiliating retreat – even ditching the heroin
ratline – just to relocate to Ukraine and continue playing the same
old broken records. The CIA is behind the ongoing sabotage of Russian
infrastructure – in tandem with MI6 and others. Sooner or later
there will be blowback.
Few people – including
CIA operatives – may know that New York City, for instance, may be
destroyed with a single move: blowing up the George Washington
bridge. The city can’t be supplied with food and most of its
requirements without the bridge. The New York City electrical grid
can be destroyed by knocking out the central controls; putting it
back together could take a year.
Even trespassed by
infinite layers of fog of war, the current situation in Ukraine is
still a skirmish. The real war has not even started yet. It might –
soon.
Apart from Ukraine and
Poland there is no NATO force worth mentioning. Germany has a risible
two-day supply of ammunition. Turkey will not send a single soldier
to fight Russians in Ukraine.
Out of 80,000 U.S. troops
stationed in Europe, only 10% are weaponized. Recently 20,000 were
added, not a big deal. If the Americans activated their troops in
Europe – something rather ridiculous in itself – they would not
have any place to land supplies or reinforcements. All airports and
seaports would be destroyed by Russian hypersonic missiles in a
matter of minutes – in continental Europe as well as the UK.
In addition, all fuel
centers such as Rotterdam for oil and natural gas would be destroyed,
as well as all military installations, including top American bases
in Europe: Grafenwoehr, Hohenfels, Ramstein, Baumholder, Vilseck,
Spangdahlem, and Wiesbaden in Germany (for the Army and Air Force);
Aviano Air Base in Italy; Lajes Air Base in Portugal’s Azores
islands; Naval Station Rota in Spain; Incirlik Air Base in Turkey;
and Royal Air Force stations Lakenheath and Mildenhall in the UK.
All fighter jets and
bombers would be destroyed – after they land or while landed: there
would be no place to land except on the autobahn, where they would be
sitting ducks.
Patriot missiles are
worthless – as the whole Global South saw in Saudi Arabia when they
tried to knock out Houthi missiles coming from Yemen. Israel’s Iron
Dome can’t even knock out all primitive missiles coming from Gaza.
U.S. military power is
the supreme myth of the fish to be fried variety. Essentially, they
hide behind proxies – as the Ukraine Armed Forces. U.S. forces are
worthless except in turkey shoots as in Iraq in 1991 and 2003,
against a disabled opponent in the middle of the desert with no air
cover. And never forget how NATO was completely humiliated by the
Taliban.
The final breaking
point
2022 ended an era: the
final breaking point of the “rules-based international order”
established after the fall of the U.S.S.R.
The Empire entered
Desperation Row, throwing everything and the kitchen sink – proxy
war on Ukraine, AUKUS, Taiwan hysteria – to dismantle the set-up
they created way back in 1991.
Globalization’s
rollback is being implemented by the Empire itself. That ranges from
stealing the EU energy market from Russia so the hapless vassals buy
ultra-expensive U.S. energy to smashing the entire semiconductor
supply chain, forcibly rebuilding it around itself to “isolate”
China.
The NATO vs. Russia war
in Ukraine is just a cog in the wheel of the New Great Game. For the
Global South, what really matters is how Eurasia – and beyond –
are coordinating their integration process, from BRI to the BRICS+
expansion, from the SCO to the INSTC, from Opec+ to the Greater
Eurasia Partnership.
We’re back to what the
world looked like in 1914, or before 1939, only in a limited sense.
There’s a plethora of nations struggling to expand their influence,
but all of them are betting on multipolarity, or “peaceful
modernization”, as Xi Jinping coined it, and not Forever Wars:
China, Russia, India, Iran, Indonesia and others.
So bye bye 1991-2022. The
hard work starts now. Welcome to the New Great Game on crack.
★
