Excellent Blitz-Inteview

By professor Michael Brenner posted by Strategic Culture Foundation.  The summary reads likes this: 

In a stark assessment of U.S. international policy and that of its allies, Professor Michael Brenner says there is an abject failure of political leadership and strategic thinking. This is clearly seen with regard to Washington’s persistent antagonism of China and its inability to conduct meaningful dialogue and diplomacy with Beijing for resolving major issues. That is also the case with regard to Europe’s frigid attitude towards Moscow. Such crass conduct of international relations is not only self-defeating for the United States and its Western allies, it is creating the dangerous conditions for fatal miscalculation leading to war. Brenner contends that the world might have to face the brink of destruction before some level of sanity prevails in Washington and other Western capitals. It is lamentable that the lack of strategic thinking and political leadership in the United States is driving the rest of the world to the abyss.

This Brenner's assessment is also very close to the main thrust of my writing for the last decade, especially highlighted in yellow, which is why deconstruction of a completely delusional American military exceptionalism is important, because America's political class' ideas about war are from the entertainment.  This is not to speak about the fact that the US is ungovernable at the present moment. As Brenner contends: 

Any ascription of a coherent strategic design to the Biden administration is misplaced. There clearly isn’t any. Second key point: Biden’s control over his national security team is tenuous.

Well, while we either suspected or do know this for a fact, this is hardly an uplifting contention. But there is one point over which I may have a slight disagreement with Brenner: Russia possesses both nuclear and, most importantly, conventional domination in her sphere of interests over the United States. April this year Russian military exercises in response to Ukraine's provocations are in the foundation of a new dynamics regarding, however mauled, Russian-American relations. Not all American generals and admirals are stupid, some do recognize what "miscalculation" may bring. Thankfully, military people of high public profile, be that Douglas Macgregor or Larry Wilkerson among many others, do speak not just in generalities but with actual numbers of casualties the United States will sustain in case of a war with Russia in the opening phase. They are catastrophic. 

The policy of provocations will continue however and it does present a degree of danger of an escalation, but then again, even Brenner admits it--most of it is just a hot air and rather feeble attempts at bullying. 

America’s military attache has been summoned to the Russian Defense Ministry to explain an “unprofessional” incident in which a US destroyer reportedly attempted to violate the country’s territorial waters, Moscow said on Friday.“The representative of the US Armed Forces was informed of the position of the Russian military in connection with an attempt by the US Navy destroyer Chafee to violate the state border of the Russian Federation in the Peter the Great Bay area on October 15,” the Defense Ministry said in a statement on Friday. The Arleigh Burke-class guided missile destroyer belonging to the US Pacific Fleet attempted to cross into the Russian waters around 5pm local time on Friday, before it was forced off-course by the Russian Navy’s anti-submarine vessel Admiral Tributs.“After receiving the warning, the destroyer Chafee, instead of changing course to leave the closed area, raised its colored flags to indicate preparation for a helicopter to take off from the deck, which means it is impossible to change course and speed, and took action to violate the state border of the Russian Federation in the Peter the Great Bay,” the Russian Defense Ministry said earlier, describing the incident.The “unprofessional” actions of American sailors grossly violated the rules for preventing collisions at sea and the provisions of the Russian-American agreement on the prevention of incidents on the high seas and in the air, the US attache was informed. 

Same ol', same ol'. Let them play games. 

Been there, done that. The more things change, the more they stay the same. Russia merely doesn't interfere while the enemy commits suicide. In the end, nobody wants the whole thing to end with a bang, whimper will do just fine.