What's Trending.

For a country whose economy is left "in tatters" and is supposed to be really backward because it doesn't recognize 30 genders, Russia, nowadays, is constantly in the news. Very strange for this backwater of a country with economy the size of Malta's and which produces nothing (wink, wink). As Politco discovered:

Germany is urging the European Commission to launch a joint purchase of Russia's Sputnik V vaccine for the EU, a German official said Wednesday. “We have asked the Commission” to launch a procurement procedure for Sputnik, the official told reporters at a briefing in Berlin, adding that “we are seeing now that the Commission is in the process of launching this procedure.” The official said the Commission must first test the waters among EU capitals to see which countries are interested in buying the Russian shot before launching contract negotiations over the number of doses. After that contract is settled, EU countries could potentially buy Sputnik doses via the EU contract, the German official said.

Not really a surprising turn of events to anyone who followed REAL news from Russia for decades and saw the actual developments of Russia's R&D in various fields ranging from bio-technologies to nuclear power, to space. Speak of the devil. Now Reuters:

MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russia is developing a reusable spaceplane, a subsidiary of the Kalashnikov conglomerate said on Wednesday, in Russia's first such project since the late Soviet Union's ill-fated Buran space shuttle. A full-size model of the plane was presented at a closed pavilion during a Russian military forum last year and the project is now under development, said the general director of the Molniya research-to-production facility. "The goal has now been set and the development of a multi-use civilian complex with an orbital plane is in full swing," Olga Sokolova was quoted as saying in comments posted on Molniya's website. The Molniya facility designed the long-mothballed Buran space shuttle in the 1980s in response the launch of the U.S. space shuttle programme during the Cold War era.

Ah, so they DO follow real news from Russia, not just from their "sources", which are primarily Russia's liberda of Navalny-type, or "lefties" who love to sell their bile to the West as a reality. As TASS reports (in Russian) NPO Molniya is in a hiring mode for specialists to develop this space-plane. As Pepe Escobar notes, this March is a very remarkable month for the world. Especially with de facto alliance between China and Russia having the cover being pulled from it in earnest after Lavrov's visit few days ago. 

And with that we have a Russia-China-Iran triple bitch slap on the Hegemon.

Basically, Russia has finished in general her reorientation towards Asia. To put some thing into perspective here: the population of EU is about 470 million people, population of Asia is around 4.7 billion. Make your bets, ladies and gentlemen, on where the pivot of global economy is moving to and where it will reside the next many years. In related news, Admiral Gorshkov went to Barentz Sea for combat drills program involving, and you may have guessed it already, strikes on land and surface targets by 3M22 Zircon (in Russian). The new configuration of the world which emerged this year (so far) is rather simple: 

1. The Big Three is now 2+1, in which 2 dwarfs 1 both economically and militarily;

2. Russia and China are now, obviously, in the "coercion to peace" mode relative to the United States, which is a euphemism for control of the implosion process of the United States and mitigation of all risks associated with that, unleashing a global war in desperation by the US being the most important one;

3. EU and Europe are irrelevant here. Enough to take a look at the "locomotive" of the EU, Germany, whose overall economy continues to shrink for more than two years in row now, and whose industrial production is in even worse shape. 

What is needed to be said is this: there will be no return to this pre-Covid "normal". As many warned, whatever one may think about Covid-19 pandemic, and it is impossible to ignore the fact of a gross overreaction to it in the West, the trends which started way before Covid-19 hit the newsreels were already in place and saw a systemic departure of the combined West from the position it enjoyed for so long. Its nominal leader, the United States, is in appalling shape with systemic dysfunctions manifesting themselves on a daily bases. American political process, always tawdry, has degenerated into a full blown freak show and the world took notice. So, what will be the arrangements or, should we say, conditions of the surrender? I don't know--there is nobody to discuss this with and that complicates matters greatly. In the same time, if, for some reason, the United States decides to cooperate, no doubt its claim to global greatness as an important state will be accommodated--as one of few, not as some self-proclaimed hegemon. For any attentive observer there is a definite sense of change in the air--almost imperceptible for laymen, but understood by many among those who tried to resist it. Something changed in the Matrix. 

Where do we go from here?           

When I Say Delusion--I Mean It.

The American geopolitical "expertdom" continues to demonstrate a complete detachment from the reality. The verbal shitstorm from the Ashford and Burrows' article is not even 10 days old, while Washington Post publishes yet another "opinion piece" calling for splitting Russian-Chinese de facto Alliance: 

This challenge is the most important Biden must face. He could choose to treat the malign axis as a fait accompli and seek to confront it with increased U.S. strength and a firm, global alliance structure that is also committed to this goal. He could seek to divide the axis by wooing Russia away from its tilt toward China, but that inevitably would require giving Russia things it values such as domination of Ukraine or perhaps even removal of NATO forces from our Baltic allies. Or he could choose to largely ignore the warning signs, papering over the seriousness of the challenge with words that aren’t backed up with increased U.S. capabilities.

The author of this drivel is Henry Olsen, whose bio reads like that of a classic office plankton and American white board exceptionalist who, after graduating the law school should have concentrated on a more useful and beneficial for the society career in tax law or maybe helping people to fight DUI charges in local courts. But no, he gets into what passes in the US for geopolitical "academe" and begins to offer his utterly ignorant opinion on the subject matter which, realistically, nobody in institution he worked for have any clue about. Namely, what Russia wants. So, I have to repeat, yet again, the point which I make now for few years: the United States has virtually nothing it could offer Russia, least of all Ukraine, because Russia IS NOT interested in Ukraine. 

Unless Olsen sincerely believes, which makes it even more damning for all kinds of American geopolitical "thinkers", that Russia "wants" Ukraine, the only way his silly "offer" could be perceived is as a feeble attempt to "influence" Russia's fifth column to push this agenda, because no normal and educated Russian will take this delirious "exchange" proposition seriously. Modern United States is Russia's mortal enemy hell-bent on harming Russia in any way possible and modern Ukraine which is West's anti-Russian project is absolutely worthless for Russia. In fact, West has created this shithole of a country in the midst of Europe, let the West pay for clean up, obviously under the single condition that if West decides to do a stupid thing like actually militarizing Ukraine, Russia will take what she needs without asking any permission from the West. 

It has to be clearly understood also, that Russia and China are the two pillars of a unification  of a colossus of Eurasia in a single, well defended, economic space whose size dwarfs anything the United States is capable to offer to Russia even if the United States suddenly finds itself friendly to Russia and willing to sincerely develop mutual relations. The time for this has passed long ago, and as they say--timing is everything. The US is, generally, economic non-entity for Russia when compared to China, and is of interest to Russia only as a global security risk, whose departure should be negotiated and arranged in a peaceful manner. Mr. Olsen may find Russian-Chinese growing space partnership troubling, but, hey, the United States has Elon Musk, let him provide for Lunar station. I heard he is really competent (cough, cough). 

And then there is this time thingy, both Russians and Chinese think in terms of long historic trends. They think with historic time scales, the United States lacks this perspective due to its elites being grossly uncultured and badly educated, plus, as I am on record for years, there is this issue with cause and effect, which increasingly manifests in the US scholarship and politics. That is why Russia has nobody to talk to in the modern US. This piece by Olsen demonstrates my point perfectly. They really do think that they are that important and attractive as to ignore reality on the ground. But it always bites. It is a bitter admission for me, because at some point of time I did see a window of opportunity for combined West, including Russia, to become something else--it never materialized and there is nothing to discuss any more in this respect, no matter what kind of ridiculous fantasies and delusions modern US elites try to present as a viable strategy.

Stephen Cohen Is Late. We Are Past The Turning Point.

I stumbled recently on Stephen Cohen's good and sensible interview to The Grayzone. It is an interview of a competent Russia scholar who does know subject but the core, the central point of this interview is not just about outright imbecility of American "elites", such as ignoramus Strobe Talbott (surprisingly a student of Isaiah Berlin who abhorred Talbott's policies towards Russia in 1990s), but the main point, correctly emphasized by Cohen, starts at a minute 18. 

If Russia is the West? Was Russia pushed away by the West to eventually form alliance with China? Here is the problem--the interview is dated by 24 September this year. If you may recall, a week after that Putin drops a bomb--Russia helps China to build her own Missile Attack Early warning System (SPRN). As I already stated then, this stunning and unprecedented fact throws all Western views, not that they ever were reality-based, on Russia-China arrangements in a total disarray not only by he fact of a demonstration of Russia's military-technological superiority once one considers what such a system actually is, but in terms of the mutual status of Russia and China in this duopoly. That blew, as I stated not for once, Western wet dreams of Russia being a "junior" partner in such a de facto alliance out of the water. 

But building China's SPRN is the most telling sign of Russia making her civilizational choice and moving away from the West. One does not build only the third system of this power and capability in the world without a full commitment to a full fledged alliance. This, plus, of course, Russia having a vested interest in China having such a system for the sake of averting a possible war between the United States and China with Russia not being able to sit this one out. In essence, Russia defends herself by defending China this way. That's alliance, my friends, in substance, if not form. It was, in the end, West's, not Russia's choice and it is true today--Russia is not West, not modern nominal West anyway, and she, it seems, is back on her very own and unique civilizational journey, the final frontier of which is probably not even on this planet.  We are past the turning point.