I Spent My Hard-Earned $12.99 (Plus Tax)...

On January/February 2021 issue on Foreign Affairs when on Friday visited Barnes & Noble. The only reason I spent this substantial sum of money (this is a price of a half-bottle of Jack Daniels--much more sensible investment) was, knowing that this is a Council on Foreign Relations publication, to preview what victorious Democrats are preparing for America in the nearest future. Boy, I was not disappointed. This volume #100, Number 1 is everything one needs to know about America's decline and mechanisms which drive this decline, if not collapse altogether. The "opening salvo" is Samantha Power's middle school level essay titled The Can-Do Power. America's Advantage and Biden's Case. This is a superb piece in so far as the exhibiting of delusion and lack of any professional adequacy of upcoming America's "foreign policy" establishment goes. Make no mistake, the United States didn't produce competent foreign policy in decades. There are simply no people of knowledge and statue in modern US "foreign policy" establishment capable of sober and professional assessment of both outside world and the internal US political trends to put US "diplomacy" to serve US national interests since nobody can formulate them, least of all American diplomats. 

Re: Samantha Power, who is slated to become a big honcho in USAID in Biden's Admin, is known to a be a sanctimonious uncultured lawyer turned "diplomat" as US Ambassador to UN, who was periodically humiliated as a petulant teenager by then alive and well Vitaly Churkin. 

Power, being uncultured and badly educated product of Anglo humanities sphere, substitutes knowledge, solid assessments and professionalism with hysterical moralizing and crusading spirit based on delusions and outright falsifications. She can check all boxes in the career path of US systemic foreign policy incompetence starting from Ivy League law background, to Pulitzer for falsification of the Balkan Wars and inability to apply personal experiences prudently. This is precisely the set of qualities required for modern American "diplomats" and Power is perfect for the job. 

She opens her piece with a reference to... Madeleine Albright with her "indispensable nation" declaration, granted that even Power admits in her piece that this statement is being "vigorously debated" and goes for the jugular accusing, correctly, Trump Administration in being "incompetent". She thinks that Trump's response to world problems was very bad, which implies that Obama's response to them was very good. Remarkably, Samantha Power, who defended Syria's terrorists at the UNSC and was a part of Obama Admin, on whose watch Libya was attacked, not to mention a bloody coup and civil war in Ukraine have been unleashed by the United States, cannot be taken seriously as a geopolitical analyst--she simply has no background for that. She certainly has a reputation for being unhinged and that's the problem. The case she makes in her piece is an exhibit A of a delusion exercised by US "diplomacy" (quotation marks are deliberate). Power states: 

"For all the criticism directed at US foreign policy is eras past, foreign leaders and public largely retained respect for the United States' willingness to undertake challenging endeavors and its ability to accomplish difficult tasks--a significant but underappreciated cornerstone of American power". 

I agree, in the "eras past", especially on Power's watch as a bullhorn of Obama's radically interventionist and aggressive "foreign policy", the United States achieved absolutely stunning things, which otherwise no country could have ever achieved:

1. The United States through criminal policies in Libya, Syria and Ukraine made sure that overwhelming majority of Russians, while having no quarrel with American people, abhor the United States and viewed it as number one threat to Russia and the world already in 2015. Russians also made sure that they have enough power to annihilate the United States under any circumstances and made sure that "values" which Samantha Power and Democratic Party, she belongs to, profess are prevented from entering Russia by means of new Russian Constitution. 

2. The United States, obviously, performed also an incredible diplomatic feat by making sure that already on Obama's watch Russia and China de facto concluded their political alliance, which, inevitably started to evolve towards a military one. All that while Power was still in UN. 

3. US Middle East policies are altogether is an AIPAC-induced mess, which Power has zero power to change and will do as she told by her Israeli-first masters. 

So, yes, the United States is a "can-do power" because to fuck it up on this truly historic scale one does need "diplomats" of Samantha Power scale of ignorance and zeal. Of course she is not alone, but there is very little difference, primarily without distinction, between Power and, say, Pompeo. 

But Power doesn't stop her attempts to let people forget those bygone "eras" and proposes same ol' routine on repudiation of Trump's "policies" and following what is perceived to be Biden's policies. Again, a difference without distinction. Power states that the United States is a home to 40% of Nobel prize winners and based on that she concludes that the US should show people a way into economic recovery and technical progress. Sure. The problem with this argument is the fact that Power, having American "humanities" degrees, doesn't understand that Nobel Prizes in literature and, especially, economics are a complete BS since are primarily ideologically driven and are in the fields which have relatively minor to outright baneful, such as "economics", effect on human lives. What she doesn't know, of course, is that in the fields which truly matter for serious economic and technological developments, the United States long ago is not a leader, not even close, and in produces as many STEM graduates as Russia, whose population is more than two times smaller. This was in 2016. 

By now Russia accelerates her STEM enrollments while in the United States most STEM graduates are... foreign. If Power thinks, and she does, that one can revive the country through granting non-STEM degrees, such as hers, I have a bridge to sell.  But that is what Power proposes in essence--let's allow foreign students back in the US, since it reflects well on US reputation and is somehow supposed to be related to US... competence, lack of which Power admits while proposing utterly incompetent measures, which allowed China, indeed, to capitalize on by preparing a substantial portion of her STEM graduates in the US especially throughout 2000s-mid-2010s. What Power offers in effect is to prepare highly valuable scientific and engineering cadres for someone else, while continuing to destroy real education in the United States. I am sure the United States is in dire need for Ph.Ds in Diversity, Gender Studies and Political "Science". Can one be more oblivious to the very real issue for the United States than Power? 

Remarkably, Power doesn't forget to attack China--I am not going to judge the merits of such attacks--but if Power thinks that already lost Covid-19 Vaccine race may somehow restore US "competence", she obviously wasted her time "teaching" in Harvard Law School, reproducing the now traditional American incompetence in the international relations field, instead of paying attention to actual trends both internationally and domestically. Remarkably, it was CFR's big honcho Richard Haas who in his twitter on January 6th, 2021, traditionally, over-reacted: 

We are seeing images that I never imagined we would see in this country-in some other capital yes, but not here. No one in the world is likely to see, respect, fear, or depend on us in the same way again. If the post-American era has a start date, it is almost certainly today

Which only strengthens my argument of the last almost a decade. The United States lost its mojo through a series of events, which I describe on this blog for the last 7 years. Also in my books. America is being destroyed and is being driven into the Orwellian world as a result of a systemic crisis which cannot be resolved within current economic, military and cultural paradigm. But that is what piece by Power, and as a whole issue of Foreign Affairs--can you believe this, they gave Francis Fukuyama podium again, Jesus--are a testament to. You cannot fix the American autoimmune disease, including through her increasingly incompetent and malevolent "elites", whose "intellectual" level and self-awareness are those of high school students. In other words, I spent my hard-earned $12.99 for pretty much what I knew already, I just needed the proof. I got it--there is no hope. 

In related news. In a face of political (and criminal) repressions in the US, Maria Zakharova admitted today (in Russian) that there are inquires and requests, primarily from Trump's supporters, about Russian citizenship. As I stated not for once, Russia is more than just superpower, it is also an arc. I predicted long ago that the stream of Western, primarily white, Christian folk to Russia will eventually grow to a river. Current American elites have three properties, they either are insane, or cowardly, or both. These are the people who do conceive of totalitarian society and many crave it, especially on the Democratic side. They do so because they are an urban office plankton, who care only about themselves and are subjected to all kinds of social and psychological pathologies. Such a society has no future and the America of the past is no more. Thus, the threat of violence, civil war, persecution and even mass repressions will drive increasing number of Americans to consider moving to Russia and this is totally understandable.  BTW, for those people who asked, Griezbach family IS in Russia and they are now permanent legal residents and are on their way to citizenship. All kids are with them and are doing great. I could never imagine in my wildest dreams 25 years ago that I will say that: you want real democracy, free thinking, free inquiry and social normality? Russia. That is why it is so hated.

Dialogue Is Fine!

Mr. Ambassador Huntsman. The problem is who to conduct this dialogue WITH. 

MOSCOW (Reuters) - Days after ending his term in Moscow, former United States ambassador to Russia Jon Huntsman has urged Washington to review its sanctions-dominated approach to Russia, questioning its efficiency and calling for dialogue. The U.S. has placed multiple layers of sanctions on Russia, its senior officials and largest companies, as well as businessmen it views as connected to the Kremlin, the bulk of them linked to Moscow's role in the Ukrainian crisis which began in 2014 and has yet to be resolved. In a column https://www.wsj.com/articles/america-needs-dialogue-with-moscow-11570488054 for the Wall Street Journal published on Monday, Huntsman argued that "sanctions have become our go-to foreign policy tool to admonish misbehavior" but not all of them are having the desired effect.

First, Huntsman has to specify this "desired effect" of sanction for who? Sanctions worked, actually, a miracle for Russia who, while having increasingly fewer meaningful economic ties to the United States grows her real economy sector quite well. Secondly, does Mr. Ambassador understand that the United States is an ungovernable entity in the state of slow collapse of its governing institutions due to an insidious coup of the Democratic Party and so called (lack of) Intelligence Community against legitimately elected POTUS (no matter how bad or good he is). Does Mr. Ambassador know who this lovely woman is?

Inga Yumasheva is a Member of Parliament (Duma) of Russia from Republic of Bashkortostan and just few days ago she was, well read yourself:

Yumasheva, who traveled to the United States to participate in the annual Fort Ross Dialogue forum, was taken to a separate room upon landing and interrogated by an FBI agent, who asked “obscure and unacceptable questions,” according to Russian ambassador to the United States, Anatoly Antonov.

As Inga herself stated today (in Russian) it was a very unpleasant situation. Yes, especially if one considers the fact that after an hour of interrogation she was offered by FBI agent an informal meeting in some cafe. Yes, she is damn attractive woman, very feminine.  She, however, added today, that we need to separate American people and US government. Or, I may add, rather lack there of, since, evidently FBI runs its own constitution, CIA does something else, House Democrats continue to lead a coup against legitimate President, while State Department lives in its own world with its own rules and acts as it thinks fit, POTUS and White House be damned:

Russia lost a 2016 election to the United Nations Human Rights Council because President Barack Obama’s U.N. Ambassador Samantha Power defied his order to support Moscow’s bid, her new memoir reveals.  

So, can Mr. Huntsman, please, point out some people in Washington D.C. who are actually competent enough and have enough clout to hold their end of the bargain in case any dialogue between Russia and the US proceeds? Talking just for the sake of talking and maintaining contacts, of course, is fine but, as has been stated not for once--the United States is not an agreement-capable side, anymore, and that is a defining fact behind the mess which US foreign and domestic policies are. In the end, who knows, US Department of Agriculture may decide to arrest Sergei Lavrov next time he visits the United States, and why not?   

Meanwhile, Russia and Turkey signed the agreement to use national currencies in mutual trade (in Russian). I wonder what pitch level will Russophobia hit in D.C. and its lap dog media. 

UPDATE: here is Inga in her own words (do not forget to turn on CC).

Samantha Power Really Needs A Vacation Or (Better Yet) Permanent Retirement.

When one will write the real history of  the 20th and early 21st century, as long as this person would maintain even rudimentary scholarship and objectivity, one will have to stress one of the major history's truisms--scale and proportions matter a great deal. In fact, they define how history unfolds. In this respect, US Ambassador  to UN Samantha Power is a great demonstrator of a major reason (one of several) for why the United States found herself in the position it is today. This is not a good position, to put it mildly. In her last (yesterday) press-conference in UN Security Council, during her incoherent babbling about Russia, Power repeated the old and fundamental myth of American politics of the last 70 years. 

 

THE COMMON THREAD CAN BE FOUND ONLY IN WHAT RUSSIA IS AGAINST, NOT IN THE RULES IT FOLLOWS. BUT THE RULES IT BREAKS. RUSSIA'S ACTIONS ARE NOT STANDING UP A NEW WORLD ORDER. THEY ARE TEARING WORLD -- THAT THEY ARE TEARING DOWN THE ONE THAT EXISTS. THIS IS WHAT WE ARE FIGHTING AGAINST. HAVING DEFEATED THE FORCES OF FASCISM AND COMMUNISM, WE NOW CONFRONT THE FORCES OF AUTHORITARIANISM AND NIHILISM. 

And here is the issue: each time I hear, from many corners, that United States "defeated" "communism" (remember this? "You lost, we won") or, let alone, that US defeated Nazism (Fascism, etc.), I am forced to ask a question. The question is: have anyone in US political class ever tried to claim credit for Sunrises (and Sunsets) or for change in the seasons, you know--to issue a medal "For Changing Summer Into Autumn"? Each time when I hear that somebody "defeated Soviet Union", I try to recall desperately when was the parade of "victors" held on the Red Square? The degree of idiocy of the US elites' post-Cold War triumphalism is astonishing. It is especially noticeable against the background of contemporary Russia trying to stem the flow of all those "liberated" nations into Russia, and here we are talking about millions upon millions people. So much for the "liberty". What is also strange about those claims is that the ability of Russian Federation to annihilate most of the world on the eve of dissolution of USSR didn't change after its dissolution. Obviously, the fact that multicultural empires do not live long, and that is how (primarily) Soviet Union collapsed, is beyond the grasp of people like Power and US political and "intellectual" strata she is the product of. Yes, US did "help" somewhat but metaphysical and material rot of the so called "communism" had very little to do with the United States, whose, accidental material wealth of the second half of 20th Century was based primarily on the outcome of WW II in which the Soviet/Russian contribution to victory in it against Nazism, Fascism, what have you, is overwhelming, both in blood and treasure. 

Yes, Power gets to it too in her press-conference and does this, now traditional, lip service to Russian sacrifice, but denying Russian people any agency is a traditional pseudo-intellectual shtick of US "elites" who are desperate for any kind of meaningful "victory". Well, here is the opinion of the man who was and is close to Russia's political top and he, actually, knows Russia inside-out.

     

The statement of Cold War "victory" flies out of the window once one gets closer to real Soviet History of 1970s and 1980s and understanding of what country that was--the insights neither CIA (yeah, right) nor Soviet "dissidents" (most of them discredited) could and can provide. Russians didn't "surrender" in Cold War, they, as it turned out today, naively thought that the better way was possible and extended "hand of friendship to US. This hand has been slapped away".  Or, putting it in layman's lingo, Russians got screwed over and those who BSed naive Russians proclaimed themselves "victors". Now, former influential Congressman Curt Weldon exclaims in desperation: how did we get here, meaning disastrous relations with Russia. Obviously Weldon conveniently "forgets" how NATO moved to Russia's borders (because US was a Cold War "victor") and how American advisers and firms did their utmost to place an alcoholic and West's door mat Yeltsin into Kremlin (all on Weldon's Congressional "watch"). 
      

US "hacking" Russia's elections in 1996. 

Yeah, Russians, certainly, must exhibit a very warm feelings towards US "diplomacy" whose only task was and is to lecture Russians on how to do things right, that is how the US defined "right". That is what Power and US "elites" (most of them) represent. It doesn't matter that their triumphalism and false sense of entitlement have no foundation in real life, and those few years in 1990s of controlling Russia's "elites", who would sell their own mother for the grant from US NGOs and would follow just about any insane policy "advice" from their American curators were the acts of high treason towards Russian people. As long as United States was able to re-write the history, it was all good. 

American post-Cold War triumphalism is a love child of American exceptionalism which is one of the pillars of American founding. This exceptionalism is not unique, Russians themselves had this "exceptional" thing going for them for a century or three, so had British with their empire "on which the Sun never sets". So were Germans, we all know where this led to. All great nations, and American are a great nation, have this exceptional streak. But American messianic exceptionalism really overdid it, big time. It was a very specific way it overdid it. As Alexis De Tocqueville wrote in his masterpiece "Democracy In America" (Chapter 16): All free nations are vainglorious, but national pride is not displayed by all in the same manner. The Americans in their intercourse with strangers appear impatient of the smallest censure and insatiable of praise. The most slender eulogium is acceptable to them; the most exalted seldom contents them; they unceasingly harass you to extort praise, and if you resist their entreaties they fall to praising themselves. It would seem as if, doubting their own merit, they wished to have it constantly exhibited before their eyes. Their vanity is not only greedy, but restless and jealous; it will grant nothing, whilst it demands everything, but is ready to beg and to quarrel at the same time. If I say to an American that the country he lives in is a fine one, “Ay,” he replies, “there is not its fellow in the world.” If I applaud the freedom which its inhabitants enjoy, he answers, “Freedom is a fine thing, but few nations are worthy to enjoy it.” If I remark the purity of morals which distinguishes the United States, “I can imagine,” says he, “that a stranger, who has been struck by the corruption of all other nations, is astonished at the difference.” At length I leave him to the contemplation of himself; but he returns to the charge, and does not desist till he has got me to repeat all I had just been saying. It is impossible to conceive a more troublesome or more garrulous patriotism; it wearies even those who are disposed to respect it (c). 

Most of American "elites" live by this rule, it is the thing which makes them tick, it is their clockwork, and with the events of the 20th Century the vanity of American exceptionalism reached a feverish pitch. So much so, that American "elite" started to directly steal and deform history. One of manifestations of such a global brainwashing is the fact that most West Europeans today believe that it was the United States which won WW II. The results of such a mythology are an unmitigated disaster, whose embodiment Samantha Power is--arrogant, badly educated, boastful and completely detached from the reality. She is also a fanatic Russophobe. I specifically emphasize here American "elites", those hordes of humanities "educated" offsprings of American coastal well-off class and of Ivy League degree mills. I know American people, met thousands of them and have a deep love and respect to those folks but very many (not all) representatives of the American "intellectual" class is another matter altogether. But it is this "intellectual" and moneyed class who writes the history books and owns media. And the march of American exceptionalism and triumphalism seemed unstoppable by late 1990s. That is for those who didn't know the history. Things changed dramatically in the last 3-4 years and those, yet again, who knew the history and had background could see this change coming afar, I anticipated this, hence this blog. That is those who were not American "intellectual" class--a distinction which needs to be worn with pride today. A Departure of Samantha Power, who is an embarrassment to the highly regarded  profession of a diplomat coincided with the wholesale epiphanies by this very American "intellectual" class, that one can lie only for so long, eventually the truth will emerge through empirical evidence. 

I wrote about Harlan Ullman's partial sobering--it is partial since he continues to repeat the idiocy about Russia "invading" Ukraine, as an example. Good luck building your conclusions and argumentation on the sand, yet again. Then Professor of Strategy from  Naval War College Nicholas Gvozdev got the ball rolling and yesterday he continued with his, finally dawning realization that this very "intellectual" elite pretty much knows nothing about Russia. He offers to rethink American "assumptions" on Russia. No, Mr. Gvozdev "rethinking" assumptions which were a result of a failed American "scholarship", shoddy, if not mostly fraudulent, Russia's "academe" and, in the end, falling into the trap of own, extremely false and arrogant narrative, is not possible at this time. Gvozdev, after making a hodgepodge and very weak argument, calls for: at the end of the day, however, whatever position on Russia wins out should be rooted in analytically rigorous and dispassionate analysis (c). 

I have some news for Nicholas Gvozdev: a "dispassionate" analysis is impossible at this time in the United States because very many of those "analysts" either comprehend or feel that once the "dispassionate" analysis starts, one has to completely throw American exceptionalist and triumphalist mythology out of the window. It kills American messianic narrative and brings to the fore the issue of scales and proportions--the factor which American Samantha "Powers" want desperately to ignore for a simple reason, they know, even if by gut feeling only, they will come out losers.  Hence Russophobia. The United States needs a complete overhaul of its corrupt "academe" and revival of a real Russian Studies field, which would be led not by some insane neocon (Pipes) or irrational Russophobe such as Brzezinski, let alone clownish hack such as Macfaul--the damage they did to Russian-American relations and scholaship is vast--but with people who actually bothered to study and understand the subject of their interest. In the end, as even yesterday's piece by Gvozdev shows, without understanding Russian culture, which is immense, and Russian warfare, both of which are two sides of the same coin, any attempt to "study" Russia in the way she was "studied" for the last 70+ years will end up precisely where they ended up today for the United States--on the brink of war with the nation which will not "stand for the cost" when it fights on its own land. Mr. Gvozdev better start his "cost" analysis with studying a real history of WW II. This is a good primer.
              

As Father Robert Tobias wrote in his remarkable "Heaven On Earth, A Lutheran-Orthodox Odyssey": When of late in this (American) culture we turned our eyes to divine epiphanies, we perceived only two-dimensionality, not great depth. Perhaps that was provisionally inevitable in a culture dominated by two-dimensional television, movies, billboards, cameras and sports events. (c)  I have a suggestion for those who really want to perceive a real depth--start with dispassionate study of the Soviet WW II and after history, and not just of GULAG. But most importantly--in this century of global communications and travel, go to Russia, and not Moscow or St.Petersburg only, go talk to Russian people, especially those who are in their 40s and 50s (they run the country) and see for yourself why Russia seeks peace, not war and why, after 1000+ years of her history, she will never again fight on her own land. Have a epiphany.       

 

Anybody Needs Any Evidence Anymore Who Supports Who? No Comments. The Curtain.