Even The Broken Clock... Or Fast Response To Simon.

One of our friends, Simon, decided to criticize me for putting the doubt over John Mearsheimer's both academic adequacy and intentions, which I described in my post yesterday. Here is what Simon wrote. 

What are you talking about? As I heard him, Mearsheimer is clearly criticising the USAmerican habit of hiding its aggressions behind the fig leaf of "democracy". Respectfully, maybe you need to just stop, count to ten, take a deep breath and go back and listen to what he actually said.

I do not deny the fact that I also hear Mearsheimer expressing common sense thoughts in the last several years. And the fact that he and late Stephen Cohen made a stand against hysteria of Russiagate can only be applauded and admired. But I never stated that Mearsheimer is a coward, far from it--his common sense position is an indicator of a significant human courage and that too should be admired. But the problem is that Mearsheimer also speaks as a classic American imperialist and one can easily find his verbal threats issued to Australia (the video of that was posted on our discussion boards), not to mention the fact that he has a very peculiar view on the history of the 20th Century. Here it is:

This is his recent, 2018, work of political "science" and it is disastrous in fundamentals. For starters, any "academic" who quotes Fukuyama in his work should immediately be viewed with suspicion in regards to its historical knowledge. But while Mearsheimer tries to figure out "liberalism's" place in the new world, he still thinks that it was Liberalism which defeated Nazism. Well, here is the issue, such view of the history is in foundation of both neocon "tradition" and American exceptionalism. Mearsheimer should accept a simple truth and a fact that it was Western liberalism which gave the rise to both Fascism and German National-Socialism and that "liberalism" exists today still, granted it poisons air with it's putrid gases of decomposition, ONLY because 27 million Soviet citizens died in WW II and in doing so gave a chance to the US to recover from debilitating Depression and saved Western civilization--the crucible of "liberalism"--from itself. It was Russia's contribution which gave "liberalism" another 70 years. But Mearshmeir doesn't bother himself with serious study of warfare.

It was Marshal Zhukov on record who noted in 1945: "We liberated them, and they will hate us for that forever." He was prophetic, while the whole Mearsheimer's historic view, it seems, is built around Anglo-Saxon world saving "liberalism". The fact of him, like those proverbial broken clock, being right (showing the correct time) twice a day is a matter of purely human common sense and the ability to calculate some consequences of escalation, not of his "academic" convictions which are those of a devout American imperialist and exceptionalist--both stances defeated by reality already. In the end, one can even find a rational seed in even the most outlandish manifestos, but American "realist" school is nothing more than a feeble attempt to recognize reality strictly on the American conditions, in America-centric world. Here is a classic US "realist". A card carrying one. And he is very representative one of such school of thought, same as Mearsheimer, who continues to push fully bankrupt ideas of American "realism".

Why Russia Is A Clear And Present Danger to The US-II

One of the most original contemporary Russian thinkers, Sergei Mikheev on Liberalism and its severe crisis (English subs): 

He speaks about exaltation of "liberals", of their fanatical belief in the sanctity of what they do when destroying a foundation on which human civilization is based. A liberal, a euphemism for totalitarian, delusion which must be resisted. There is also some talk about fusion, both social and economic. The main issue is where is this golden middle which balances personal and communal, self-interest and obligations to society? Clearly not a path of modern day financial capitalism which destroys societies both from within and outward--enough to take a look at what this "liberalism" did to the United States and many destroyed by her nations in the last 30 years. A catastrophe. But I also repeat myself, my latest book dedicates its large parts to describing this situation. 

Can the United States find a cure? I don't think so, but it seems that Russia is trying to do this. Enough to take a look at staples of Western liberalism such as fanatical radical feminism (third-fourth wave), sexual perversion, even attempts to legalize pedophilia, "reverse" racism--all these phenomena are marginalized or, down right criminalized, in Russia and are espoused by a very narrow strata of the so called Russian "liberda" also known as Creakls (from the word Creative). In today's excellent piece for RIA, Victor Marahovsky, discussing Hong-Kong mutiny defines its "democracy" movement as:  

Говоря проще, власть, формальную и неформальную, в деловитом китайском мегаполисе перехватывают граждане, чьи специальности и профессиональные скиллзы сводятся к "менеджменту эмоций". Творческая интеллигенция и "активисты" — то есть узкоспециализированные гуманитарии, мастера создания лозунгов и логотипов, цепляния тревожных сердец, написания мобилизационных песен и зажигающих речей.

Translation: speaking simply, the power, formal and informal, in the business-oriented Chinese megalopolis is being usurped by citizens whose specialties and professional skills are reducible to "emotion management". Creative intelligentsia and "activists"--that is narrowly specialized humanities-educated masters of slogan-mongering, logotypes, of pinning worrying hearts pins, writing of the mobilization songs and inspirational flaming speeches. 

As you may expect, these people have zero capability to run a public restroom, let alone such metropolis as HK. But what does it remind you of? Same here, in the United States which is run by people most of who have zero abilities and skills to run anything and almost all, seem to originate in the law and political pseudo-science field. It always ends in a disaster. Such as Russia of 1990s. You take a look at the modern crop of the American politicians, especially Democrats, this is, frankly, scary. The only thing these people are good at is to how reelect themselves and serve interests of their political donors. Liberalism simply stops producing statesmen. Corruption and mediocrity it produces aplenty, together with snow-flakes and so called "Social Justice Warriors", but statesmen, people who put interests of the country above personal one? No. It also stops producing thinkers of scale. Enough to take a look at Western geopolitical and economic thought in the last 30 years--a collection of, at best, mediocrity, at worst--of pseudo-academic delusion, which tries to avoid a crucial question of the economic and cultural devastation globalism brought upon its main protagonist, the United States. Current, televised live self-destruction of the United States is an irrefutable empirical evidence of a profound, systemic crisis whose roots are in the utter corruption of the American government, which long ago is not by the people and for the people...

To Be Continued...  

Realism?

I finished latest book, The Great Delusion, by John Mearsheimer recently. I will review it later, it is not that important to do it now, I have to say, that while being sympathetic to the so called Realism in general, and some points Mearsheimer makes in this his treatise, it seems that he himself still resides in a delusion. Mearsheimer repeats, with conviction, some beaten to death cliches of American exceptionalism, such as the myth of "liberalism defeating Fascism",

Liberalism "defeating" Fascism

or stressing Soviet Union's "humiliating defeat in Afghanistan". Unlike Mearsheimer, who has very little knowledge of Russia, Colonel Lester Grau long ago addressed this issue. Unlike Merasheimer, who, despite his USMA West Point background, is a political "scientist", Grau is an authority on Soviet Invasion of Afghanistan. I will repeat his conclusions yet again: 

"There is a literature and a common perception that the Soviets were defeated and driven from Afghanistan. This is not true. When the Soviets left Afghanistan in 1989, they did so in a coordinated, deliberate, professional manner, leaving behind a functioning government, an improved military and an advisory and economic effort insuring the continued viability of the government. The withdrawal was based on a coordinated diplomatic, economic and military plan permitting Soviet forces to withdraw in good order and the Afghan government to survive. The Democratic Republic of Afghanistan (DRA)managed to hold on despite the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991. Only then, with the loss of Soviet support and the increased efforts by the Mujahideen (holy warriors) and Pakistan, did the DRA slide toward defeat in April 1992. The Soviet effort to withdraw in good order was well executed and can serve as a model for other disengagements from similar nations."

In what can only be described as an empirical middle finger to Mearsheimer's assertion about "humiliating defeat" (and I get it where he comes from in his assertion, but about this later), we get today these news. You don't need to read Russian, just go directly to CNN video embedded in article (which is a transcript of the video) and listen. 

Defeated, especially "humiliatingly", nations do not host in their capitals meetings of parties involved in the war in which the host supposedly was defeated. Obviously, even after this "humiliating defeat", Russia continued to exert an immense influence on Afghanistan both indirectly and directly, including, of course, arming Northern Alliance. "Humiliatingly defeated" nations do not behave like that. I will omit here the whole issue of Taliban being officially declared (in 2003) in Russia a terrorist organization, but times and things change. As in Syria, where Russia was forced to clean a mess created by NATO (US), Russia will have to make arrangements in Afghanistan. After all, we know by now how ISIS was defeated in Syria. 

The United States has been in Afghanistan for 17 years--with zero results to show for it while redefining military common sense (and science) in terms of victory being "just staying there", and, of course, having a good PR machine, which can spin a defeat into victory. This is not how Russia works and that is what parties in Afghanistan know. The prime task is to prevent ISIS from reconstituting itself as a major player in Afghanistan. If it takes Taliban to help deal with this scourge--so be it, let's talk. In the end, the fate of a huge region is at stake, including Russia's "soft underbelly". And here we come to this "realism" thing; while I still would recommend a book by Mearsheimer to be read, it is really about time that many (not all) American "realists" followed Mearsheimer's advise and stopped living in delusion, no, not the liberal one, a "realist" one, and finally face geopolitical reality of a tectonic shift in power balance in the world in which real realism, capable to operate with tangibles, not simulacra, triumphed. In the end, one has to operate with reliable data, not propaganda cliches. Victory in war is defined by attaining war's political objectives. We know how that goes for the US lately.