Yeah, Sure...

A classic exceptionalist BS by people who only sense, but are not able to grasp intellectually, what is unfolding. Wet dreamers. 

Ukraine and its Western backers have precious little common ground with Russia. Yet all the key players seem to agree on one critical issue: the war in Ukraine will end in negotiations. As Russian President Vladimir Putin told the conservative broadcaster Tucker Carlson in a recent interview: “We are willing to negotiate.” A spokesman for the U.S. National Security Council, while casting doubt on Putin’s sincerity, retorted in a statement that “both we and President Zelensky have said numerous times that we believe this war will end through negotiations.” The absence of decisive battlefield outcomes over the past two years has made the alternative to a negotiated end (one side’s absolute victory) seem like a fantasy.

The war is already ending and it will end in Russia dictating surrender conditions on the West, not on 404 which does not exist anymore as a viable state. I will remind those ignoramuses from CFR that Putin was explicit in his interview with Tucker that the US has very little time left to exit this with some dignity left. I think this time is over, but I could be mistaken. As always, CFR nincompoops failed to understand the context. Vicki Nuland did, albeit too late. 

Even if a deal is currently out of the question, all parties should take steps now to bring about the possibility of talks in the future. In the middle of a war, it is hard to know whether an adversary is genuinely ready to end the fighting or cynically talks of peace only to further the aims of war. The challenge of discerning an adversary’s intentions is nearly impossible in the absence of dialogue. Therefore, it is necessary to open channels of communication so as to be in a position to take advantage of the opportunity to pursue peace when that opportunity comes.

LOL, the US lost the war, fvcking idiots, and it is the battlefield not some diplomatic maneuvering, which is important but derivative, which defines the outcome. The US sits on sky high piles of bodies in 404--the result of military and political incompetence and dialogue is becoming a monologue, the only outcome which was ever possible. Now, they better learn what Russia's readiness to talk is based upon. I'll give a hint, and I quote--a recognition of realities on the ground. Meanwhile, 404 evacuates a truck load of towns in Kharkov (Kupyansk) direction. Just because they want to, right?

I Wanted To Be A Superman...

You know like a real deal, with all those super-powers--you can fly both in the air and space, you can lift some things like railroad engines or Boeing-747 with no effort, you can see girls' boobs through clothes and other wonderful things you could do with your super-powers. But, by the tender age of 40 I finally figured out that Superman movies were actually all a Hollywood fantasy and I got depressed. It came about the same time I recognized that Santa Claus doesn't exist. My dreams of super-powers, together with dreams of Jeannie, when Barbara Eden was still drop-dead gorgeous  (my wife still doesn't know about that), were dealt a crushing blow and I had to reconcile myself to a reality, where I reside, with a different level of success, even today. 

But my dreams of super-powers, especially mental ones, couldn't have come more useful than today, when navigating an opaque Mississippi of pseudo-academic BS filling this mighty river through numerous tributaries streaming from the American political "science" universe and publications which sell this mental ejaculation as a valid scholarship. But, as I stated above, I long ago reconciled myself with the fact that I will never gain even a minute percentage of Superman's powers, which, as it turned out, is not the case with US geopolitical "thinkers" who are still active in casting their spells, which are as effective as those cast by infantile participants at numerous Comic Con conventions, where they go to exorcise any symptoms of unfolding maturity in order to remain children before going on the social security. Enter a couple of esteemed political "scientists" who, in no less than Council of Foreign Relations very own rag, Foreign Affairs, arrived to this conclusion:

Multiple signs point to a crisis in global order. The uncoordinated international response to the COVID-19 pandemic, the resulting economic downturns, the resurgence of nationalist politics, and the hardening of state borders all seem to herald the emergence of a less cooperative and more fragile international system. According to many observers, these developments underscore the dangers of U.S. President Donald Trump’s “America first” policies and his retreat from global leadership. 

My immediate quarrel with these two is not even this passage, however detached from reality it is (I will elaborate), but with the title of their piece itself: How Hegemony Ends. The Unraveling of American Power. My quarrel with it is the tense in which the title written because American "hegemony", much of it self-proclaimed, ended quite some time ago. So? the proper title should be How Hegemony Ended. It is difficult to precisely pin-point this moment but, and I wrote extensively on that, the first real manifestation was a double whammy first in Crimea and second--Syria. Signs of America's power unraveling were registered even earlier. Now back to quotation. I don't know what "global order" those scientists are talking about but the truth of the matter is extremely simple: the United States could have been in the position of some sort of a global game warden--I omit, for now, the issue of the United States not having resources for that from the inception--if it knew its limitations, and even Russia and China would probably be OK, more or less, if the US would have recognized that. But no. Instead of an order, the United States, due to lack of resources and largely faked own 20th century military history, created one hell of a mess. 

Moreover, it is one thing when when it is a mess outside, but the US cannot govern itself properly. The terms democracy and human rights when used by US side at any international platform create ironic smiles at best, a Homeric laughter--at worst. There is nothing more pathetic than Barbara Jean Trenton trying to relive her 16-mm large screen glory in the times of fast internet and CGI. The US is Barbara Jean Trenton, unsuccessfully, trying to attract young lovers with her wrinkled face and disfigured by arthritis fingers, even with some rings with large diamonds on them. But then again, where are those certificates of authenticity for those stones? Did they ever exist? Not everything that shines is gold or a diamond. To the credit of the authors, they find this proposition erroneous: 

Some analysts believe that the United States can still turn this around, by restoring the strategies by which it, from the end of World War II to the aftermath of the Cold War, built and sustained a successful international order. If a post-Trump United States could reclaim the responsibilities of global power, then this era—including the pandemic that will define it—could stand as a temporary aberration rather than a step on the way to permanent disarray. 

Good for them, but even in debunking these ridiculous a-historic parallels, they arrive to a rather timid retort:

Today, those same dynamics have turned against the United States: a vicious cycle that erodes U.S. power has replaced the virtuous cycles that once reinforced it. With the rise of great powers such as China and Russia, autocratic and illiberal projects rival the U.S.-led liberal international system. Developing countries—and even many developed ones—can seek alternative patrons rather than remain dependent on Western largess and support. And illiberal, often right-wing transnational networks are pressing against the norms and pieties of the liberal international order that once seemed so implacable. In short, U.S. global leadership is not simply in retreat; it is unraveling. And the decline is not cyclical but permanent.   

They, same as John Mearsheimer (my first chapter in the last book addresses his last treatise) do not understand not only a fundamental crisis of "liberalism", a euphemism for financial capitalism, and that "seeking of alternative patrons" came about precisely that instead of order and stability the United States provided for warfare, atrocities, violence, destruction and all that is endemic in the system which now begins to eat itself from the inside. I leave a "largess"  argument for others to ponder--we didn't even start to count how many trillions of dollars this "largess" cost to such countries as Iraq, Serbia, Ukraine, Syria, Libya or Afghanistan, to name a few, in lost lives, destroyed infrastructure, stolen national treasure to name a few effects of this "liberal" order. What they don't understand is that if not for the Soviet Union saving what commonly is addressed as West by defeating European Nazism and Fascism, no serious talk about "liberal order" would have been possible. That is why Russia holds every year Victory Day Parade--not only to honor her fallen, but to remind this very West who and how defeated its very own demons. That is why Putin, in an interview to...ahem...The National Interest stresses this. 

However, the League of Nations dominated by the victorious powers of France and the United Kingdom proved ineffective and just got swamped by pointless discussions. The League of Nations and the European continent in general turned a deaf ear to the repeated calls of the Soviet Union to establish an equitable collective security system, and sign an Eastern European pact and a Pacific pact to prevent aggression. These proposals were disregarded.

It was Russia who bore the brunt and that is why Russia builds state-of-the-art weapons and armed forces. Today, any talk about "democracy", "liberalism", and global "order", unless it is done by a completely brainwashed people--not an uncommon feature among Western "scholars"--cannot and will not hide anymore attempts by Western financial oligarchy, led by US "elites", who think themselves as heirs to Superman's powers, to put a whole world under their control. Including by means of rewriting a history or, on many occasions, just making it up.

Thus, claims as such:

China and Russia are not the only states seeking to make world politics more favorable to nondemocratic regimes and less amenable to U.S. hegemony. As early as 2007, lending by “rogue donors” such as then oil-rich Venezuela raised the possibility that such no-strings-attached assistance might undermine Western aid initiatives designed to encourage governments to embrace liberal reforms.

Are made by people who are either lying through their teeth or, which is equally probable, dumb as stumps. "Liberal reforms" is a euphemism for total deregulation and privatization of national treasures by Western oligarchy. Ukraine is having a blast with those "reforms". While authors continue to bloviate throughout a meandering piece about how US "patronage" collapsed and how international "networks" are being reconfigured, I will repeat myself. They could have spared the space in the magazine and the time for reading by simply stating two basic facts:

1. US lost, with a humiliating score, economic race to China;

2. US lost, with a humiliating score, arms race to Russia.  

These two facts alone explain why the US never was a "superman" and why most of its "superpowers" turned out, such as magic wands of Harry Potter cosplayers at Comic Con conventions, to be as effective as a treatment of the fourth stage cancer with a hydrocortisone topical cream. And here is what I wanted to repeat, considering an infinitesimally small probability that these two "professors" will ever read this: throw your degrees in political pseudo-science into trash bin and start learning real economy and real military balance. Only that may help to regain some connection to the reality and maybe dispose off delusions about super-powers, which were never there, other than of a big screen in movie theater or on TV, especially in the country which cannot defend its sacred symbols, such as monuments, and history against the crowds of radical thugs and their enablers at the very political top. But yes, I dreamed once of being a Superman...and about Barbara Eden when she was Jeannie.  

Inception.

In Christopher Nolan's outstanding 2010 flick Inception, main protagonist, Dom Cobb, played ably by undeniably talented Leo DiCaprio, was using the so called totem, to have an idea if he was dreaming or was inside reality. If the totem toppled--Cobb wasn't dreaming. 

Totem was this Ariadne's thread allowing not to lose connection to the reality even in the dream. You may ask why I am waxing here Siskel-Ebertish in mostly geopolitical and military blog? The answer is simple: I allow myself once in a while go to Foreign Affairs publication by the Council on Foreign Relations site to get a gander on the state of America's allegedly most super-pooper, most sophisticated and most powerful minds behind what passes in the US as a foreign policy. Needless to say, that in the last few years those visits are increasingly rare, not least because I cannot tolerate American political "scientists" pseudo-intellectual newspeak--same phenomenon as economic lingo which is a newspeak covering the nature of the institutionalized robbery which passes in US as "economy" (see Michael Hudson's writing on this issue), plus, as I already stated not for once (hey, forget about me, many people stated this, such as Daniel Larison yesterday) I am not interested in wasting my time explaining a systemic delusion which is being presented as a viable "science". But today I ran into Richard Haas' (CFR's biggest honcho) piece about.... blah-blah-blah, yada-yada-yada accelerating something something history, something something to look intellectual and profound  etc. It is not profound, because Haas obviously doesn't know the real history of the 20th century and he is both energy, military and economy blind, using Arthur Berman's definition, but then something caught my eye and I took a screen shot:

Forget Haas' bloviation about WWII or WWI--drawing (pseudo)historic parallels is a fool's errand, not to speak of the fact that actual history of interwar period, not to speak of the realities of WWII is generally beyond the grasp (or is not allowed to be properly exercised in analysis) of US foreign policy "elite", most of which knows "strategy" and warfare from a white board abstracts in their Ph.D theses written away from warfare realities, any warfare. But it was so symbolic to see to the right of the Haas' "text" an image of what in Inception was Cobb's only connection to the reality--a rotating totem. Even in the closing moment of Nolan's masterpiece we are not given direct answer to the state Cobb and his reunification with his children are--is it still a dream or is he finally able to hug his children in a real world? 

I am on the record that far from experiencing any real respect to US foreign affairs establishment, I seriously think that these people live in a dream, in which the modern United States still can be compared to an industrial colossus, unscathed by horrors of 20th Century wars, which is capable (or at least it thinks so) to guide the world to a better future, dispatching its "finest fighting force in history" to remote shores and that it is just the matter of "selling" (that means outright lying) US foreign policy to Americans. Obviously Haas, being preoccupied with geopolitical and pseudo historic "profundities" doesn't use a single number to grasp a reality that the United States in China and Russia alone look at combined GDP and military capability which dwarfs that of the United States (Europe is not even an asset in all that) and is completely capable to deny the US access to Eurasia other than the US being incorporated as one among big equals into the new world order. But for Haas and CFR to really grasp the reality, albeit even he admits that the business is usual is pretty much over, he must wind the totem at the image to the right of his article and wait until it ether topples over, thus indicating the state of residing in reality, or will continue to rotate, indicating the most likely outcome of still dreaming, or residing in the dream in which cause and effect are not connected. But then again, ignoring causality is what makes the present state of the United States and her "elites", who should know better, but don't, so precarious. But I am sure we all know what it is to know about "exceptionalism" and how it destroys the nation which refuses to take a look at the rotating totem.          

Geopolitcal Dreams.

I am in the open for years with my position on the American geopolitical "school of thought" as being extremely weak, if not outright delusional in the last 20 years or so. It is not surprising, once one considers what kind of "scholars" from Kissinger to Fukuyama, to late Brzezinski shaped it in the last decades. US geopolitical "scholars" suffer from serious ailment which remains treatment-resistant since Vietnam and has two major traits:

1. A severe lack of awareness of own country, United States that is, its dynamics, real state of its power and its economy;

2. Chronic inability to account for military power element in shaping geopolitical reality;

Now, Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) issued, yet another, grand strategy vision on how the United States needs to deal with China and, in this document, provides 22 "prescriptions" of sorts on how to handle China's rise. Ironically (I deliberately start with Conclusion) in document's Conclusion author(s) of this vision admit(s):

Some of these suggested policy proposals are familiar and have been debated in recent public discourse. Thus, prescriptive familiarity is increasingly not the problem with respect to U.S. policies toward China and Asia writ large. Rather, it is that most such efforts have seen too little connection to U.S. grand strategy, too little conceptual integration, too little policy intensity, and too little policy follow-through. As Leonardo da Vinci supposedly stressed, “I have been impressed with the urgency of doing. Knowing is not enough; we must apply. Being willing is not enough; we must do.”

Hey, how about putting this not into the Conclusion but in the Preface section. This immediately brought back Admiral Sergei Gorshkov's sardonic quote:"The main problem with Americans is that they do not follow their own doctrines." It applies fully here. Before any usage of terms such as "diplomacy", "agreements" or "policy" among many others it has to be admitted that US has no competent diplomacy as such, any agreement with United States is not worth the paper it is printed on and policy, as in sane and implementable, is not something current US "elites" are capable of developing, no matter number of allegedly serious "academic" papers on any of these issues. But since CFR IS a part of the so called "Deep State" and passes in the US as a main brain behind US so called foreign policy, it is worth the effort of looking into the "prescriptions" CFR offers to place in the foundation of the US "grand strategy" towards China. 

I neither have time nor, frankly, desire to go over all 22 of those prescriptions, so I choose only ones which are notable. Before I start, however, I need to congratulate the US "grand strategy" of 1970s through 2010s which succeeded in the largest technology and industry transfer from one country (USA) to another (PRC) in history. So, the United States has only itself to blame for building China's industrial might, while destroying own one, and turning China into global manufacturing superpower. Now, let's go. 

1. The United States should mobilize all instruments of its national power to skillfully manage its economy; modernize its basic infra-structure; reform its immigration system; reduce its entitlement spending; rehabilitate the structure and quality of its education system; and address the serious political, economic, and societal divisions within the country. The U.S. contest with China over Implementing Grand Strategy Toward China international power and influence is likely to be decades long; a prosperous and well-functioning United States is the first requirement to ensure that Washington is well positioned not to lose that competition. Nevertheless, there is no need for strategic defeatism. The United States certainly has the resources to seriously deal with its domestic weaknesses, if it has the political and societal will.

My Comment. First, I do not only not believe, I know for a fact that US public education, especially on a public school level, is done. It cannot be "reformed" because it is primarily an indoctrination tool for increasingly dysfunctional American culture with STEM education being in a state of a permanent disaster. These are not just my ideas, no. This is clearly stated here:

Some of the most challenging aspects in the manufacturing sector are recruitment and retention. In a recent manufacturing skills gap study conducted by the Manufacturing Institute and Deloitte, only one third of respondents indicated they would encourage their children to pursue a career in manufacturing.Gen Y (ages 19-33 years) respondents ranked manufacturing as their least preferred career destination. Yet once a candidate is hired, the struggle continues. 79% of executives surveyed stated it is moderate to extremely challenging to find candidates to pass screening and/or the probationary period, leaving them with employees unable to perform the work for which they were hired.While the total number of bachelor’s degrees in the U.S. has increased steadily in the last two decades, the number of STEM degrees conferred in the U.S. still pales compared to China.123In addition, the U.S. has seen an increase in students on temporary visas, many of whom would be unable to gain the security clearances needed to work in the defense ecosystem. Growth in advanced science and engineering degrees shows the U.S. graduating the largest number of doctorate recipients of any individual country, but 37% were earned by temporary visa holders125with as many 25% of STEM graduates in the U.S. being Chinese nationals      

We discussed this before. STEM is hard, drama, poetry and hi-school football are fun and easy. As I repeat ad nauseam, it is not just some basic PISA rankings which matter (US is last there among most developed nations), it is a volume and complexity of knowledge in school which student receives, which matters. And here is what Forbes writes:

How bad is the shortage of American students? According to the non-partisan National Foundation for American Policy, in 2017 foreign nationals accounted for 81% of electrical engineering majors and grad students in this country. Foreign students make up three quarters of the majors and grad students in industrial engineering; 62% in mechanical engineering; 55%, or more than half, of those studying materials and metallurgic engineering. As for computer science, the vital crucible for America’s future in areas such as cyber and AI, American students make up barely 21% of the student body.

The United States either fixes its schools, which by now is almost impossible without tearing the whole system down, or, well--no amount of money can save a system which is wound up to produce politically correct mediocrities who will find jobs only in non-productive sectors, unless they go into some trade or do try (fewer and fewer of them) to get themselves into STEM programs in the colleges and universities. I simply cannot see this happening, especially in the nation increasingly legalizing pot. Education catastrophe alone, even without considering a catastrophic de-industrialization of the United States, is serious enough argument for doubting such a wishful thinking having any base in the reality. Once REAL economies of the United States and China are compared, one gets a good feel of the abyss which separates two nations, with China's real economy dwarfing that of the United States. 

2. The United States should protect the integrity of its democratic institutions, both for the good of the nation and to offer a powerful alternative model to China’s authoritarian archetype.

My Comment. This one is easy to comment on and it shows CFR's people complete lack of contact with the reality, a global one. Should they have been decent analysts who study the world, they would have noticed by now, that using term "democratic institutions" and the United States in the same sentence is akin to using "moral" while describing a pedophile or a serial murderer. Funny, but I can see many in China still exercising some illusions on the issue of "democratic institutions", but in very many other nations of the world the United States is viewed mostly as a rogue nation and a corrupt oligarchy in the process of tearing itself apart in public. US political elites are corrupted to the core and the world at large can see proofs of that everyday in the news. I am sorry to break the news, but the United States cannot provide any "alternative model" at all. I guess if "impeachment spectacle" and elites which produce specimens such as Adam Schiff or Mike Pompeo are capable of offering "alternative models", these are not the models which will sell. 

3. The United States, in coordination with allies, should attempt to initiate an extended conversation with Vladimir Putin and the Russian government on world order and the security of Europe and Asia. Zbigniew Brzezinski, in analyzing threats to the United States, warned that “the most dangerous scenario [would be] a grand coalition of China and Russia . . . united not by ideology but by complementary grievances.” In particular, Russia would surely consider moving further into Ukraine in the event of a full-blown U.S.-China confrontation over Taiwan.

My Comment. LOL! No, really, LOL. They do not even understand that their problem IS Brzezinski and his ideas, but let's be specific here. The United States has NO geopolitical currency or resources for "extended conversation" with Vladimir Putin because Russians have an extraordinarily good idea about US actual, very limited, real power and resources, and militarily Russia is not really in the mood to discuss anything unless the United States is ready to give back what Russia wants. The US is not ready and, in fact, it is non-agreement capable. Moreover, if people from CFR didn't notice yet, Russia not only doesn't need Ukraine, Russia doesn't want it--who needs millions of freeloaders may of who, in addition, hate you? Ukraine was EU-US "operation", so let them deal and pay for this bloody mess. I know, all those US "plans" to get Russia involved directly and make Russia spend valuable strategic resources on a shithole of a country, such as Ukraine, I can only imagine when the reality started to dawn on the students of Brzezinski that all those plans were, as always, wishful thinking detached from the reality. Ukraine is a toxic asset and Russia is not going to pay for it. Plus, Russians have a good memory and Gorbachev who sought, by means of betraying historic Russia national interests, integration into West is universally hated and despised person in Russia. As they say: take a hint. Donbas, that is a separate matter.

The rest of the document is same ol', same ol' wishful thinking par excellence but also a good indicator of a profound crisis of ideas and knowledge US foreign "policy" elite finds itself in, because of arrogance, ignorance and inability to learn. In this respect, though, the fact that they try to formulate something not overtly militarily aggressive is already some progress. But, in the end, all this "grand strategy" is a classic example of too little, too late for the world in which the United States is not anymore an unquestionable (self-proclaimed) hegemon but just another great power (for now) which will have to find its peaceful place in the new world order or face further decline and fading into irrelevance. For finding itself in this position, the United States has only itself and its geopolitical dreams to blame.