Big Prize, To Keep Your Eyes On.

Yep, it is happening. 

Китай начал закупать уголь и нефть у России за юани

Translation: China begins buying coal and oil from Russia for Yuans. 

That is why they are so desperate in the West, especially in the US. I will omit for now the list of "sanctioned" products the United States "reversed" (meaning made an exception), for export to Russia, as well as import of Russian... ahem...crude, but it is down right funny. Very many people in the US (nobody asks Europe) are having excruciatingly bad month when they understood that Russia makes a financial killing selling her both resources and goods around the world. Worst yet? West de facto finances Russian operations against itself. But in the end, Russia is strangling US Dollar, especially its petroleum part.  That's the biggest prize of them all.

About US Dollar and Sanctions, Yet Again.

The Cold War (2.0, 3.5, whatever) is heating up and a new salvo of "sanctions from hell" (Bob Menendez and Lindsey Graham--both hellish creatures should know best) against Russia will most likely pass.  

The bill introduced by Senators Lindsey Graham and Bob Menendez is the second attempt to push through the sanctions they favor after the previous version was defeated last year. The measures they suggest vary from declaring the country a state-sponsor of terrorism to torpedoing Russia-involved energy projects (which incidentally compete with American ones) to punishing whoever dares to invest in Russian sovereign debt.

At this stage there should be no surprise with American legislators being completely situationally unaware, but as the saying goes--if they want to shoot themselves (and their, allegedly, own country) in the foot, let them. It is clear that once dominance of the US Dollar and the system which sustains it is removed, consequences for the United States could be catastrophic. The question is NOT about IF US Dollar will survive as world's reserve currency--this is not even up for a debate--it is WHEN and HOW the departure will happen. 

The United States certainly will try to, yet again, leave Russian economy "in tatters", but, something tells me that the result will be the same as it was the last time. Yet again we all will have to endure economic "analysis" from Wall Street "economists" and Russia's political fringes on how Russia will, yet again (I lost count already) be on the brink of collapse, any minute now, in their desperate attempts to obfuscate a simple strategic reality--Russia is a completely economically self-sustainable entity. If one discounts those morons from "economic block" in Russian government (euphemism for useless people), one can sense nowadays some really big shifts happening in Russia's power Olympus. Mikhail Hazin altogether declared that Putin is getting ready for war. I don't know, I though Putin was getting ready for way since, well, let's say 2007 Munich Speech. Of course Russia is getting ready for war, including economic one. 

Recent (two days ago) excellent piece by Vladislav Surkov on the fate of Russia and his superb hyperbole about "deep people" of Russia and of Putin's "long state", and especially enjoyable squealing from butt-hurt of all kinds of Russia's liberal and (so called) "nationalist" nobodies as a reaction to this piece, gives a good insight into Kremlin's mode of thinking. Especially when it comes from Kremlin's very notable insider who, actually, does speak for this very "deep" people. So, in the end, one has to ask a question what these deep people of Russia really want and how this new "sanctions from hell" will affect country. I have an answer, I wrote about this answer long time ago. Remember, War and Peace? 

"But all the general and soldiers of [Napoleon’s] army…experienced a similar feeling of terror before an enemy who, after losing half his men, stood as threateningly at the end as at the beginning of the battle. The moral force of the attacking French army was exhausted. Not that sort of victory which is defined by the capture of pieces of material fastened to sticks, called standards, and of the ground on which the troops had stood and were standing, but a moral victory that convinces the enemy of the moral superiority of his opponent and of his own impotence was gained by the Russians at Borodino…The direct consequence of the battle of Borodino was Napoleon’s senseless flight from Moscow… and the downfall of Napoleonic France, on which at Borodino for the first time the hand of an opponent of stronger spirit had been laid"(c)

A geopolitical Borodino, which was sometimes also compared to the Great Patriotic War's most important battles, from  the Battle of Moscow to Stalingrad and Kursk battles, escaped the attention of US "elites" who will now enter the final stages of desperation trying to save the only thing they know--US Dollar financial system--by means of greatly accelerated destruction of it. Once that is gone or greatly degraded (in progress, as I type this)--an inevitable consequence of the US fighting Russia's sovereign debt or, as was expected, switching Russia off from SWIFT--watch out, the main driving force of real economy and military might will reveal itself fully. As well as a true state of American economy which is not capable anymore, bar some few exceptions such as microchip and commercial aerospace (bells are ringing) industries, to produce anything competitive, will be revealed. Energy? Well, even here everything is not what it looks like, hence Germans suddenly exhibiting some signs of rudimentary spine. As per US military, well, I will abstain for now. So, let the party begin...         

Some Fast Geopolitcal Thoughts On The Run.

I seldom mention The National Interest as an expert publication--it is not--but when Colonel Daniel Davies or Douglas Macgregor publish their thoughts there I read them. So, Douglas Macgregor is Breaking The Phalanx yet again when states in his TNI's piece that:

Trump knows that the American Empire is crumbling. What is he going to do about it?

He then elaborates: 

Last week, President Donald Trump directed his cabinet secretaries to cut 5 percent from their budgets for the next fiscal year, signaling a potential a 2.2 percent cut in defense spending. Trump specifically mentioned the defense budget saying, “I made deals with the devil in order to get that done because we had to improve our military. Our military was depleted. It was in bad shape.”

Translation: Get ready. “America first” in foreign and defense policy is about to begin. Defense cuts are on the way. The cuts aren’t coming as the result of a dispassionate Eisenhower-style strategic defense review or because current defense funds are being squandered on equipment and forces we don’t need. They are coming because the international system has changed and the U.S. government is sliding deeper into debt .

And finishes with a doom-spelling scenario for Pentagon bureaucrats who already arranged their retirement on executive boards and "consultant" sinecures of Military Industrial Complex big corporate movers and shakers:

Whether the generals and admirals like it or not, the U.S. Armed Forces will be compelled to reorganize and “right-size” for the United States’ real security needs without the inefficiencies and massive overhead in the current force structure

Let's be very honest--much of the American military in the second half of the 20th and especially 21st century was built around US Dollar as a main global reserve currency. In fact, the world largely financed US economy and, with it, its military through what (strangely how coincidental with Macgregor's today's piece) Ivan Danilov in Ria calls America's Absolute Weapon--a US Dollar Vacuum Cleaner (in Russian). This weapon is broken, it was for some time, just not everybody wanted to hear (or read) about it. The chickens, however, are coming home to roost. I've been preaching this gospel openly since 2014, including the fact that real American economy, while still large, is much smaller than it is officially presented.

So, the main issue thus is what is the "right size" of the US military? It is an extremely difficult question to answer since, before this question could be answered, a much larger one must be asked--what REAL national interests of the United States of America are. Good luck answering this one against the background of a complete mental breakdown of a nation--courtesy of its so called "elites". But this question MUST be answered. I know only part of this answer. And that brings us to another point--I am finishing John Mearsheimer's latest The Great Delusion, and while I am sympathetic to Measheimer's brand of Realism, I still have some huge issues with the way some of his argument is presented. How about him repeating Fukuyama's ignorant statement that Liberalism as system defeated Fascism. Really? Then there are other things related to the issues of power, but I will make a very brief review of the book later. 

It is clear in the nearest future that America will become poorer, in fact the progress towards a much more frugal and less "wealthy" existence is tangible. The signs of it are everywhere and material expression of an American Dream is long dead. What's left is a fight for what remains of an American soul, there is still a lot of good what remains but it is different America, not of the large urban centers. We all here either avoid Balkanization with as little blood as possible or the country will break up and then we will have a gigantic issue of some, far from benevolent, newcomers fighting for control of the American vast nuclear arsenal. It is a nightmarish scenario globally. I am about to go out on a limb and propose--get Trump this last chance, let him (well, GOP) retain majority after mid-terms, then, after that, we will pass a final judgement. It is obvious that Democrats are going to plunge country into the civil unrest and, possibly, civil war if they bring their suicidal plans to fruition. In that case the issue of cuts will be the least of the problems for all of us.