I Spent My Hard-Earned $12.99 (Plus Tax)...

On January/February 2021 issue on Foreign Affairs when on Friday visited Barnes & Noble. The only reason I spent this substantial sum of money (this is a price of a half-bottle of Jack Daniels--much more sensible investment) was, knowing that this is a Council on Foreign Relations publication, to preview what victorious Democrats are preparing for America in the nearest future. Boy, I was not disappointed. This volume #100, Number 1 is everything one needs to know about America's decline and mechanisms which drive this decline, if not collapse altogether. The "opening salvo" is Samantha Power's middle school level essay titled The Can-Do Power. America's Advantage and Biden's Case. This is a superb piece in so far as the exhibiting of delusion and lack of any professional adequacy of upcoming America's "foreign policy" establishment goes. Make no mistake, the United States didn't produce competent foreign policy in decades. There are simply no people of knowledge and statue in modern US "foreign policy" establishment capable of sober and professional assessment of both outside world and the internal US political trends to put US "diplomacy" to serve US national interests since nobody can formulate them, least of all American diplomats. 

Re: Samantha Power, who is slated to become a big honcho in USAID in Biden's Admin, is known to a be a sanctimonious uncultured lawyer turned "diplomat" as US Ambassador to UN, who was periodically humiliated as a petulant teenager by then alive and well Vitaly Churkin. 

Power, being uncultured and badly educated product of Anglo humanities sphere, substitutes knowledge, solid assessments and professionalism with hysterical moralizing and crusading spirit based on delusions and outright falsifications. She can check all boxes in the career path of US systemic foreign policy incompetence starting from Ivy League law background, to Pulitzer for falsification of the Balkan Wars and inability to apply personal experiences prudently. This is precisely the set of qualities required for modern American "diplomats" and Power is perfect for the job. 

She opens her piece with a reference to... Madeleine Albright with her "indispensable nation" declaration, granted that even Power admits in her piece that this statement is being "vigorously debated" and goes for the jugular accusing, correctly, Trump Administration in being "incompetent". She thinks that Trump's response to world problems was very bad, which implies that Obama's response to them was very good. Remarkably, Samantha Power, who defended Syria's terrorists at the UNSC and was a part of Obama Admin, on whose watch Libya was attacked, not to mention a bloody coup and civil war in Ukraine have been unleashed by the United States, cannot be taken seriously as a geopolitical analyst--she simply has no background for that. She certainly has a reputation for being unhinged and that's the problem. The case she makes in her piece is an exhibit A of a delusion exercised by US "diplomacy" (quotation marks are deliberate). Power states: 

"For all the criticism directed at US foreign policy is eras past, foreign leaders and public largely retained respect for the United States' willingness to undertake challenging endeavors and its ability to accomplish difficult tasks--a significant but underappreciated cornerstone of American power". 

I agree, in the "eras past", especially on Power's watch as a bullhorn of Obama's radically interventionist and aggressive "foreign policy", the United States achieved absolutely stunning things, which otherwise no country could have ever achieved:

1. The United States through criminal policies in Libya, Syria and Ukraine made sure that overwhelming majority of Russians, while having no quarrel with American people, abhor the United States and viewed it as number one threat to Russia and the world already in 2015. Russians also made sure that they have enough power to annihilate the United States under any circumstances and made sure that "values" which Samantha Power and Democratic Party, she belongs to, profess are prevented from entering Russia by means of new Russian Constitution. 

2. The United States, obviously, performed also an incredible diplomatic feat by making sure that already on Obama's watch Russia and China de facto concluded their political alliance, which, inevitably started to evolve towards a military one. All that while Power was still in UN. 

3. US Middle East policies are altogether is an AIPAC-induced mess, which Power has zero power to change and will do as she told by her Israeli-first masters. 

So, yes, the United States is a "can-do power" because to fuck it up on this truly historic scale one does need "diplomats" of Samantha Power scale of ignorance and zeal. Of course she is not alone, but there is very little difference, primarily without distinction, between Power and, say, Pompeo. 

But Power doesn't stop her attempts to let people forget those bygone "eras" and proposes same ol' routine on repudiation of Trump's "policies" and following what is perceived to be Biden's policies. Again, a difference without distinction. Power states that the United States is a home to 40% of Nobel prize winners and based on that she concludes that the US should show people a way into economic recovery and technical progress. Sure. The problem with this argument is the fact that Power, having American "humanities" degrees, doesn't understand that Nobel Prizes in literature and, especially, economics are a complete BS since are primarily ideologically driven and are in the fields which have relatively minor to outright baneful, such as "economics", effect on human lives. What she doesn't know, of course, is that in the fields which truly matter for serious economic and technological developments, the United States long ago is not a leader, not even close, and in produces as many STEM graduates as Russia, whose population is more than two times smaller. This was in 2016. 

By now Russia accelerates her STEM enrollments while in the United States most STEM graduates are... foreign. If Power thinks, and she does, that one can revive the country through granting non-STEM degrees, such as hers, I have a bridge to sell.  But that is what Power proposes in essence--let's allow foreign students back in the US, since it reflects well on US reputation and is somehow supposed to be related to US... competence, lack of which Power admits while proposing utterly incompetent measures, which allowed China, indeed, to capitalize on by preparing a substantial portion of her STEM graduates in the US especially throughout 2000s-mid-2010s. What Power offers in effect is to prepare highly valuable scientific and engineering cadres for someone else, while continuing to destroy real education in the United States. I am sure the United States is in dire need for Ph.Ds in Diversity, Gender Studies and Political "Science". Can one be more oblivious to the very real issue for the United States than Power? 

Remarkably, Power doesn't forget to attack China--I am not going to judge the merits of such attacks--but if Power thinks that already lost Covid-19 Vaccine race may somehow restore US "competence", she obviously wasted her time "teaching" in Harvard Law School, reproducing the now traditional American incompetence in the international relations field, instead of paying attention to actual trends both internationally and domestically. Remarkably, it was CFR's big honcho Richard Haas who in his twitter on January 6th, 2021, traditionally, over-reacted: 

We are seeing images that I never imagined we would see in this country-in some other capital yes, but not here. No one in the world is likely to see, respect, fear, or depend on us in the same way again. If the post-American era has a start date, it is almost certainly today

Which only strengthens my argument of the last almost a decade. The United States lost its mojo through a series of events, which I describe on this blog for the last 7 years. Also in my books. America is being destroyed and is being driven into the Orwellian world as a result of a systemic crisis which cannot be resolved within current economic, military and cultural paradigm. But that is what piece by Power, and as a whole issue of Foreign Affairs--can you believe this, they gave Francis Fukuyama podium again, Jesus--are a testament to. You cannot fix the American autoimmune disease, including through her increasingly incompetent and malevolent "elites", whose "intellectual" level and self-awareness are those of high school students. In other words, I spent my hard-earned $12.99 for pretty much what I knew already, I just needed the proof. I got it--there is no hope. 

In related news. In a face of political (and criminal) repressions in the US, Maria Zakharova admitted today (in Russian) that there are inquires and requests, primarily from Trump's supporters, about Russian citizenship. As I stated not for once, Russia is more than just superpower, it is also an arc. I predicted long ago that the stream of Western, primarily white, Christian folk to Russia will eventually grow to a river. Current American elites have three properties, they either are insane, or cowardly, or both. These are the people who do conceive of totalitarian society and many crave it, especially on the Democratic side. They do so because they are an urban office plankton, who care only about themselves and are subjected to all kinds of social and psychological pathologies. Such a society has no future and the America of the past is no more. Thus, the threat of violence, civil war, persecution and even mass repressions will drive increasing number of Americans to consider moving to Russia and this is totally understandable.  BTW, for those people who asked, Griezbach family IS in Russia and they are now permanent legal residents and are on their way to citizenship. All kids are with them and are doing great. I could never imagine in my wildest dreams 25 years ago that I will say that: you want real democracy, free thinking, free inquiry and social normality? Russia. That is why it is so hated.

They Are At It, Again.

Politico few days ago published a piece on Russia. This piece, written by a host of US foreign policy "luminaries" who pass in the US for Russia "experts", because they once visited Moscow and ate pelmeni in the neighborhood Russian restaurant, just think that they have a capacity to offer anything on the subject of destroyed Russian-American relations. They start with classic US globalist tropes:

U.S.-Russia relations are at a dangerous dead end that threatens the U.S. national interest. The risk of a military confrontation that could go nuclear is again real. We are drifting toward a fraught nuclear arms race, with our foreign-policy arsenal reduced mainly to reactions, sanctions, public shaming and congressional resolutions. The global Covid-19 pandemic and the resulting serious worldwide economic decline, rather than fostering cooperation, have only reinforced the current downward trajectory. Meanwhile, the great challenges to peace and our well-being that demand U.S.-Russia cooperation, including the existential threats of nuclear war and climate change, go unattended. Because the stakes are so high, both in the dangers they entail and the costs they contain, we believe that a careful, dispassionate analysis and change of our current course are imperative.

The first question which arises here is what do authors of this piece mean when they propose "cooperation" on such issues as "climate change" and Covid-19? I can understand the "nuclear arms race" item which worries authors, but by now everyone knows how the US approaches any negotiations on this matter with Russia, who somehow is supposed to give up her advanced military arsenal which the US would never do, should the United States had the same advantage Russia currently has over the US in terms of new generation warfare. START, anyone? But climate change? How does this group of authors imagine this "cooperation"? How can it possibly look like? I can tell you how--by throwing a noose around Russia's industrial neck. I am sure these Russia "experts" know that the only reason Russia takes part in the international voodoo dances around the grossly overstated anthropogenic (read attentively again--anthropogenic, that is caused by human) climate change is because for now, at least, EU is Russia's major market. EU is run by ignorant imbeciles who are impressed with Greta Thunberg credentials and follow all kinds of suicidal environmental fundamentalist cults. That is why Russia signs all kinds of "agreements" with them and continues to do her own thing. Putin is on record that climate change is not man-made. 

The only valuable thought in this paragraph is surprisingly correct assessment of the US "foreign policy arsenal" and, what is not mentioned here, people who use it--most of them, as I am on record for years about that, in normal country would have difficulties applying for a job as pizza delivery drivers. In fact, the proof is in the pudding, after all, as authors themselves admit, somebody developed and continues to use this so called "arsenal". It is an arsenal of losers with a hugely inflated and sensitive ego and with rather mediocre talents and capabilities and authors openly admit that. Russians are not impressed, neither is the most of the rest of the world. But authors wouldn't be American foreign policy "establishment" authors if they wouldn't have relapsed into good ol' behavioral pattern of self-righteousness:

We go into this open-eyed. Russia complicates, even thwarts, our actions, especially along its extended periphery in Europe and Asia. It has seized territory in Ukraine and Georgia. It challenges our role as a global leader and the world order we helped build. It interferes in our domestic politics to exacerbate divisions and tarnish our democratic reputation. At best, our relations will remain a mix of competition and cooperation. The policy challenge will be to strike the most beneficial and safest balance between the two. To this end, we offer six broad prescriptions for U.S. policy.

Authors, obviously, do not understand that the world order they "helped build" is rather a shitty one with non-ending wars, sanctions, support of terrorism and other benefits of what became known as Pax Americana, which is in the state of implosion as I write this. Yes, Russia helped to dismantle this "world order", she will do even more towards this end, but the authors of this piece better take a look at themselves in the mirror to see people who are solely responsible for a reaction to this "world order", which for some reason evolved, and rather quickly at that, into global chaos. As they said, you had your chance, you blew it. The faster you understand this, the better it will be for the rest of the world. And, of course, the United States cannot do the "policy change" because it doesn't know how. The next paragraph immediately exposes why US cannot do "policy change" and why Russia doesn't want to deal with obviously delusional people:

We must first find a way to deal effectively with Russian interference in U.S. elections and, most important, block any effort to corrupt the voting process. Hardening our electoral infrastructure, sanctioning Russians who weaponize stolen information and countering Russia’s capacity to hack our systems are all necessary measures. So is exposing Russian disinformation. We must, however, also engage Russia through negotiations out of the public glare, focused on each side’s capabilities to do great damage to the other side’s critical infrastructure.

Ahem, this paragraph alone speak volumes about Russia's, correct I may say, posture towards the United States and this posture was succinctly expressed by Putin himself who not for once stated to the effect that Russia is ready to deal with the United States when the United States is ready. Current US elites, including the authors of this "opinion" piece are not ready and they will never be, because they exhibit all traits of the American foreign policy class, which is overwhelmingly ignorant, incompetent and badly educated. Russia has NOBODY to talk to in the US, plus, and that is a well-known, in Russia, fact--any "agreement" with the US is not worth the paper it is written on. US is not a credible and agreement-capable state. 

After that, the authors go into all kinds of generalities about how wonderful it would have been to have some sort of predictable relations with Russia, such a in the good ol' Cold War 1.0 times. Bloviation on other issues, such as Ukraine, follow and they are really tiresome, same ol, same ol', well, read yourself:

On salient issues where U.S. and Russian interests are in genuine conflict, such as Ukraine and Syria, the U.S. should remain firm on principles shared with our allies and critical to a fair outcome.

US "principles" in Syria are support for Jihadists, including Al Qaeda elements against Syria's legitimate government and Russia. US is on record on that!

James Jeffrey, the US special envoy for Syria and defeating the Islamic State, has made quite a frank confession of how he sees his job and that of US troops there: to create a new Vietnam or Afghanistan for Moscow. "Our military presence, while small, is important for overall calculations. So we urge the Congress, the American people, the president to keep these forces on, but again this isn’t Afghanistan, this isn’t Vietnam, this isn’t a quagmire," Jeffrey said on Tuesday, during a video event hosted by the Hudson Institute.

Unless the authors of this "piece" spent last twenty years or so under some stone in the middle of nowhere, they should have enough awareness for grasping a simple fact that Russians know all that and they do not really negotiate with people like that. As per Ukraine, I and others wrote so much on this issue that, I think, there is very little to add here at this time. US (and EU's) bloody coup in Ukraine is a major reason for the United States finding itself in the position and state it is in. 

While laboring through this exhibit A of the American delusional strategic thinking, or rather lack thereof, and incompetent arrogance, we finally arrive to a key point in this piece:

The success of U.S.-China policy will in no small measure depend on whether the state of U.S.-Russia relations permits three-way cooperation on critical issues. Our current policies reinforce Russia’s readiness to align with the least constructive aspects of China’s U.S. policy. Moving the needle in the opposite direction will not be easy, but should be our objective.

Ah, that is warmer. I have some news for these "giants" of American foreign policy and "academe". Let me explain:

1. The United States has already lost economic "war" to China. Even considering the fraud which US economic numbers are, China's economy dwarfs that of the US, not least because of the fact that the actual size of US economy is much much smaller than the US likes to pretend. 

2. Russia has zero reasons to view the United States as a viable negotiating partner. US share in Russia's trade is minuscule and Russia shed most of her US Treasuries. In other words, the US has very little or no value economically for Russia. The only way the United States is making herself noticeable for Russia is through bullying and blackmailing nations which have serious economic relations with Russia.  

3. China is a huge market for Russia's hydrocarbons, high value added petrochemical products, weapons, food, and potentially huge aerospace market. Russia is keenly interested in having a stable, prosperous and friendly China next to her. This contradicts dramatically with the US objectives and that explains a natural, organic emerging alliance between Russia and China. Plus, for the authors of the piece, it is 2020, boys and girls, not 1970s. 

 

4. US has nothing to offer Russia. Zilch, nada, zero. As I write for years, the US doesn't have enough geopolitical currency "to buy" Russia. Russia could have been a friend and ally for the United States and vice-versa, but as Pat Buchanan noted more than 4 years ago:

The Russian people, having extended a hand in friendship and seen it slapped away, cheered the ouster of the accommodating Boris Yeltsin and the arrival of an autocratic strong man who would make Russia respected again. We ourselves prepared the path for Vladimir Putin.

Reading this piece in Politco one can totally see why Russia has no desire to deal with the United States and its delusional elites who don't grasp their own predicament and exercise in geopolitical Oblomovschina and day-dreaming. They are not ready to deal with reality and Russia knows it. That is why she aids China in building Chinese version of Missile Attack Early Warning System and provides domestic versions of her advanced weapons, among many other things. As O.Henry's immortal piece The Roads We Take ends with:

The expression on Dodson's face changed in an instant to one of cold ferocity mingled with inexorable cupidity. The soul of the man showed itself for a moment like an evil face in the window of a reputable house."He will settle at one eighty-five," said Dodson. "Bolivar cannot carry double."

There is a reason this phrase became a proverb in USSR and Russia. Nothing personal ladies and gentlemen who wrote this Politco piece, just business. Bolivar cannot carry double because there are consequences for the actions and somebody kept the ledger.          

And Why I Am Not Surprised?

No really, comes as no surprise to me at all, in fact I am almost nonchalant about it, I almost surprise myself.  

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo regularly held taxpayer-funded, 500-guest formal dinners — and President Trump reportedly knew nothing about them. Until the COVID-19 pandemic hit, Pompeo often invited hundreds of guests to the U.S. State Department for his "Madison Dinners," referring to how former President James Madison often met with foreign diplomats over a meal. But unlike Madison, Pompeo invited more than just diplomats to his dinners, and sent the bill for food, entertainment, and goody bags to the U.S. government, NBC News reports. Pompeo held about two dozen Madison dinners since he took office in 2018, and they were scheduled through October until the coronavirus hit, NBC News reports via dinner guest lists and State Department calendars. About 30 percent of invitees worked in politics, another 29 percent came from corporate backgrounds, a quarter were in media and entertainment, and just 14 percent were actually involved in foreign policy. Some of those less diplomatic invitees included Reba McEntire, Dale Earnhardt Jr., and Fox News host Brian Kilmeade, and they all enjoyed harp music and embossed Madison Dinner pens and journals to take home.

You gotta love this. Reba, for all my love for her art (I consider Fancy to be one of the greatest songs ever written, in any genre), I am not sure what she, or, for that matter, Dale can really contribute to a discussion of the US foreign policy, especially in a Madisonian sense of a discussion. Not that the United States States needs a recognition as an independent nation, right? James Madison, while writing (under Publius moniker) Federalist #10 and being fourth POTUS, exhibited a political and intellectual finesse of a highest order. But then again, I have to agree with Senator Kennedy that: US was founded by geniuses and is being run now by a bunch of idiots. Here is Kennedy verbatim:

So, putting names of James Madison and Mike Pompeo in the same sentence, is an affront to America's founding, same as it would be bringing a beautiful thoroughbred to the stable for jackasses. You see, the lipstick on the pig trope did not appear out of nowhere, same as expression that you can take a girl out of the village, but you cannot take village out of the girl. Pompeo, of course, may try, for the next Madison Dinner to add, to harp, a harpsichord with French horn, to increase the sense of enlightenment of his guests, or even ask them to dress in 18th Century clothes for further refinement of the occasion. The only thing what I would have done, in the goody bags distributed to those guests I would put US Constitution, Declaration of Independence and Federalist Papers, for attendees to refer to after enjoying a fancy meal. Otherwise this:

State Department spokeswoman Morgan Ortagus called the dinners "a world-class opportunity to discuss the mission of the State Department and the complex foreign policy matters facing our exceptional nation," saying each guest "has a stake in America and its leadership in the world."

May come across as an exhibit A of a kitsch, lowbrow, tasteless attempt to substitute real intellect and ethics in foreign policy with shiny objects and dim people like Pompeo. But then again, what do I understand about "a world-class". In a world where country-music star, race driver and Mike Pompeo discuss "complex foreign policy matters facing an exceptional nation", one has to conclude, that, apart from stinking ethically to heaven, those Pompeo Dinners exhibit an exceptional idiocy and lack of class persisting among America's "elites" who still think that they are running Rome at the height of her might, not noticing that their imagined Rome is turning, fast at that, into Carthage at the end of the Third Punic War. I will abstain from commenting here on "leadership", because that requires a whole PhD. thesis to describe a level of delusion.

Daniel Larison Coins New (For Me) Term.

Daniel Larison, in his "discussion" at the pages of TAC with Brookings Institute own Thomas Wright uses the term "supremacists". Wright, as you can see,  has a lot of "degrees" in all kinds of pseudo-scientific fields, but, as is the case with many people from the American (cess)pool of "strategists", and geopolitical "thinkers", which Larison describes as supremacists, has very little clue about the subject he "tries to make case" on. It is expected from people associated with such pseudo-"scholars" as Robert Kagan or Strobe Talbott--the "stellar" record of "supremacists" (aka exceptionalists, aka neocons etc.) failing to forecast own bowel movements, let alone complex trends in geopolitics is well known. Those guys are not in the business of actual studies, they are in the business of juxtapositioning selected (by far not all) historic, economic and military facts in such a way as to increase the probability of holding on to their "think-tankdom" sinecures. 

Being "supremacist" in D.C. is a cool job, if you can get one, because you get paid handsomely for propagating the most contrived BS which then is fed into the "influence fuel" pipeline of diverse financial, ethnic, religious and political mafias running US so called "foreign policy". Larison thinks that this Wright's assertion requires a serious answer: 

Global retrenchment is fast emerging as the most coherent and ready-made alternative to the United States’ postwar strategy. Yet pursuing it would be a grave mistake. By dissolving U.S. alliances and ending the forward presence of U.S. forces, this strategy would destabilize the regional security orders in Europe and Asia. It would also increase the risk of nuclear proliferation, empower right-wing nationalists in Europe, and aggravate the threat of major-power conflict.This is not to say that U.S. strategy should never change. The United States has regularly increased and decreased its presence around the world as threats have risen and ebbed. 

Larison responds by trying to make a logical case:

Wright’s case deserves a serious answer. He acknowledges that U.S. strategy can change as circumstances allow, and he is willing to entertain some reductions in U.S. involvement in some areas while arguing for more in others. Advocates for restraint believe that more reductions are called for and there is much less need for forward-deployed U.S. forces than Wright takes for granted, but there is some overlap between the two positions. Where we differ is that Wright sees restraint as “the indiscriminate abandonment of a strategy that has served [the U.S.] well for decades” while we would say that it is a carefully considered rejection of a strategy that has outlived its usefulness. Wright agrees with some of the prescriptions that advocates of restraint make. Like us, he believes that the war in Afghanistan should be brought to an end. He says that “the United States should also impose new limits and conditions on its alliances with many authoritarian states.” Among other things, that means reassessing the relationship with the Saudis and cutting off support for the war on Yemen. But in the end, he concludes that significantly reducing U.S. involvement and commitments across the board is misguided. 

I mentioned logical, that doesn't mean that it is knowledgeable. I, certainly, can make explanation of my weird night dreams as "logical", such as why I fly in the air and why I do not kill myself when falling from the skyscraper--there is a logic in that, it is just that it is not of this, real, world, but of dreams. The phrase highlighted in yellow is what is the most peculiar about this response. Immediate question is: what circumstances and how they allow. This is not being petty and neat-picking, it is about understanding of the emergence of modern American exceptionalism in the immediate aftermath of the WW II. Wrong lessons were learned about circumstances and the essence of the American "supremacy". I like Atkinson's characterization of Patton (a rather run-of-the mill WW II general, who was extolled in US as a "genius" who he never was):

The creeping arrogance, the hubris, which would cost the American Army so dearly in Vietnam. Summing up the achievements of his troops in crushing the German counterattack of December 1944, Patton with pardonable pride claims to have “moved farther and faster and engaged more divisions in less time than any other army in the history of the United States—possibly in the history of the world... No country can stand against such an Army.” These memoirs are valuable not least in showing, however unwittingly, that a disastrous presumption of invincibility took root in the ranks of officers who led the American military after World War II. 

Should Atkinson book have been written today, Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, among many others, would have been added to the list of the American geopolitical disasters, which all, without exception, starting from inability to win in Korea are marked by the common feature of sheer ignorance, arrogance and, in fact, total inability to give any sensible account of existing circumstances. The only circumstances which ever led to a "change" in those ever illusive coherent American strategies after WW II were circumstances of sustaining an outright military defeat or inability to competently prosecute and win any war, period. Here is the story of the United States "strategies" and of "change":

It is a story of "foreign policy" based on inability to process even basic facts about the outside world which DO constitute those very "circumstances" to which the United States can only REACT and has no record whatsoever of having ANY coherent realistic foreign policy because none can exist in the echo-chamber of mostly wacky, wishful thinking "concepts" of the surrounding world. Moreover, it cannot exist within environment--be that US think-tankdom or any other official institutions--where there is absolutely no understanding of the nature and application of the power, especially military one. General Latiff of RAND states plainly that this cannot exist among people who draw those ideas from entertainment.         

Make no mistake: the willful ignorance of the American public and its leaders will have dangerous consequences. Most Americans, including many of our political leaders, pay scant attention to military issues until a situation arises concerning our armed forces. Then they act based on emotion and political expedience rather than on facts, and that rarely ends well. 

Let's put it even more bluntly: the idea that some US bureaucrat with mostly humanities education can produce something of intellectual value when discussing power component of geopolitics is down right preposterous--overwhelming empirical evidence of the US foreign policy establishment's utter ignorance on this issue is available to anyone who wants to see. In fact, not only it is the evidence of ignorance, it is a testimony to a complete irrationality and rejection of these very same "circumstances" which, finally, turned the United States into what essentially amounts to a bankrupt rogue state with nuclear weapons. Slight deviations from suicidal fanatical exceptionalist world-view in the US, once one begins to view history from the point of life-span of nation-states, are in no way indicative of ANY change, even among many "realists" and "restrainsionists" who differ with their neocon white-board pseudo-academic brethren only on a tactical level without changing their outlook on the United States as a real democracy and God's gift to the world. 

Yes, Larison tries to be logical when speaking of Russia and China and tries to be factual when states:

The U.S. has enjoyed almost unchecked primacy for at least the last 30 years, and in that time the U.S. has caused or contributed to the destabilization of at least half a dozen countries and fueled conflicts that have killed hundreds of thousands and displaced millions. During that same period, the U.S. has wasted trillions of dollars and lost thousands of lives in pointless wars that haven’t made the U.S. more secure. If this is a strategy that has served us well, I would like to know what a failed strategy looks like.  

But as was established: Washington establishment doesn't change, because it doesn't learn--it is not capable to do so, because the foundation, of knowledge and causality, to sound strategies and policies has been removed completely from US "international studies" programs. And while Larison makes a valid tactical point, does he understand that it is not the issue of "strategy" or circumstances--it is the issue of the nature of modern post-WW II United States with its folie de grandeur taken to the psychiatric extreme which are in the foundation of the American decline. The unfolding recognition that there is something rotten in the self-proclaimed shining city on the hill, is too little too late, even when is declared by the people who are largely responsible for that. And even admissions by inventor of a hollow pseudo-scholastic meme of Thucydides Gap, Graham Allison change absolutely nothing: 

The New Spheres of Influence. Sharing the Globe With Other Great Powers

They change absolutely nothing because these are precisely representatives of this US "foreign policy" establishment who not only have no clue about the world outside, as bad as it is, they lack even a basic concept of the actual strength of their own country, the United States that is, because none of them is taught how to correctly assess it, least of all in military sphere. Yes, I may agree with Larison that:

Wright accepts the need for a “selective retrenchment.” Advocates of restraint are convinced that the U.S. can and should reduce our military involvement overseas even more, because we see the current level of U.S. involvement as both unnecessary and undesirable. Wright is correct to say that the U.S. “should be more selective as it safeguards its interests,” but he does not go far enough. Our European and Asian allies are the ones that are best prepared and capable to provide for their own security, and the U.S. has discouraged them from doing this to preserve an illusion of our own “indispensability.” It is long past time that we encouraged them to take up their responsibilities for regional security after having carried that burden for more than seventy years.  

I do, however, have couple reservations on that. Retrenchment is defined as the act of retrenching; a cutting down or off, as by the reduction of expenses. It is not going to help, even if to assume that Trump Administration succeeds in part in doing this. It is too late for that, because the problem is deeper and systemic on a historic scale. It is the car engine which is broken, not the driver who's got sick, and that is what neither "supremacists" nor "realists" can understand. The question is not about "retrenchment", especially when one understands that the United States has neither resources nor viable doctrine to fight conventionally even near-peer and win, not to speak of great powers such as China or Russia, no--the issue today is will the United States preserve itself as a viable state without imploding into the ethnic violence and economic collapse which even Wall Street-trained shysters from economy cannot hide anymore. The statistics is out there:

And it is not encouraging, to put it mildly. 

Retrenching will not change America's fates much, addressing catastrophic structural deformities brought on by suicidal domestic and foreign policies, may. In this sense, the United States may be an exceptional nation, exceptional in a sense of blowing two historic opportunities handed to it by providence, once after the WW II, and then, with the collapse of the Soviet Union, in a manner and with degree of hubris in a historically short time, instance, really, seldom recorded in human history. I don't think the United States wants this kind of exceptional distinction. For me, however, it is a painful personal journey, seeing the country me and my family love as our home, disintegrating in a front of our eyes into chaos and insolvency precisely because those who run it (into the ground) have no understanding of circumstances and cannot react, forget being proactive, to them by taking necessary steps to arrest this dangerous collapse. Are they even capable of that? I don't think so, no matter the scale of tactical differences between "supremacists" and "realists". As I predicted more than 5 years ago, yes, I am doing it again:

Explaining to American "elite" the fact that US didn't "win" the WW II, that "winning" the Cold War came about because Soviet people simply decided to end it, that Wall Street "economy" has no relation to real economy and that real wars produce misery and destruction on a scale which is incomprehensible for the "populace" of the Washington D.C. "strategists", it is not just difficult--it is next to impossible. So, the events must run the course. But it is already clear that by failing to achieve any sensible political objectives in Ukraine and in Russia, and, by this, starting a massive global re-alignment, the United States sustained a defeat. What will be the consequences of this defeat? I hate to speculate, I just know that they are already big and that the moment of facing the reality is coming. My suggestion to those who are still making decisions--open and start reading  War And Peace by Leo Tolstoy. I don't hold my breath, though. The moment US handlers of their Kiev puppets conceived that Ukrainian Army can "win" in Donbass, the stopwatch started.   

Tik tok, tik tok, tik tok...the reality is finally here. 

What I Really Wanted To Talk About Today...

Until I understood that I have to provide my blurb on this whole Drone shooting affair, even though I am in the same position as most of readers of this blog--I read news. I also prefer the situation to play out because I am not in the business of predictions of events, I forecast frameworks. That is different than trying to score some points while getting lucky in predicting next market crush or nominations for Oscars. Speaking of which, a notable piece from prominent Indian diplomat M.K. Bhadrakumar, whose thoughts are always interesting and incisive and not on India's affairs only. In his one of the latest he writes about US-India discord and notes:

Major historical shifts are taking place in the global power balance and the Western domination of the international system is drawing to a close. Countries such as China and India are steadily reviving, shaking off the stagnation of the colonial era. This is prompting an overall rethink in the US’ attitudes. What is unfolding has parallels in modern history. (See the essay titled A Manufacturing War Between the UK and Germany in the 19th Century Set the Stage For Today’s Trade Crisis.) Thus, in the case of China, more hardline approaches are already quite visible. We should note carefully the controversial remark made recently by Kiron Skinner, the director of policy planning at the US State Department (and a Harvard-educated foreign affairs specialist), that Pompeo’s team is developing a strategy for China based on the idea of “a fight with a really different civilisation” for the first time in American history. “This is a fight with a really different civilisation and a different ideology and the United States hasn’t had that before. The Soviet Union and that competition, in a way it was a fight within the Western family,” Skinner said, noting Karl Marx’s indebtedness to Western political ideas. “It’s the first time that we will have a great power competitor that is not Caucasian,” he said.

I wrote on this not for once. There is an anecdotal evidence of at least part of American elite  exercising views such as highlighted in yellow during Cold War 1.0. At one of the diplomatic receptions during Detente of 1970s one of the American generals, after having few bourbons with cigar was overheard stating that Russians, of course, are sons of bitches, but they are our sons bitches--like us, they like good suits and good whiskey. Chinese, in general's opinion, were different--that is "not our" SOBs. I am in no position to vow for the veracity of this event BUT such point of view definitely existed in the West. In the end, late Oriana Fallaci, in the wake of 9/11 wrote about both WWI and WWII being European Civil Wars. She had a point. But today things are different. 

There is no ambivalence or ambiguity when I state (as did, btw, Edik Limonov) that Russia is a Western country, despite being a Eurasian Empire, Russia IS, it is the combined West which stopped being West. Russia today, despite all her by far not simple problems, as was culturally evident in Soviet times, has more classic Western traits from rationality of thought, to, education, to pardon me, class, than most allegedly Western countries, especially in Western Europe have today. So, in this sense Russia is a Western culture, with a twist, of course. Well, in the end, Russian achievements from science, art, culture to industry are always counted for Western Civilization. But what's left of that Western Civilization today? But even larger question arises: if Mr. Skinner of State Department thinks that US State Department got the Soviet Union right in the first run--I don't think he and his policy "planning" will do much better in case with China. Considering WHO and WHAT was used as the foundation of the anti-Soviet policies on US side during Cold War 1.0 one has to be really clear that what killed the USSR had very little to do with US "policies" but primarily with internal dynamics of the Russia/Soviet Empire whose development and national policies bore the seeds of its own destruction. After all, Esteemed Ambassador Jack Matlock, late George F Kennan and even David Glantz and Jonathan House would agree with me. Especially, as Glantz and House correctly stated that USSR "became the hostage of its own success" after WW II. 

US got lucky first time around and that luck, as I also write in my book, was largely rooted in Soviets own misconceptions about the United States and its intentions. In general, declaring the "victory" in the Cold War was akin to attributing the death of the opponent to getting him a cold while he was dying from the self-inflicted wound of the stomach from a 12-gauge Mossberg. Now, we all know today all those "sources" and tools used by the West during the Cold War--from dissidents such as Solzhenitsyn who, literally, solzhenitsified Russia's history to a class of Soviet Zapadniki who developed a naive and cooperative idea about the West. In other words, even in highly restricted for information exchange days of the Soviet Union, the West had a rather caricature impression about USSR--a fact perfectly illustrated with West's inability to see things right when Russia today has more freedoms than most of the nations in Western Europe and political discussion in Russia makes Western "democracies" look like an Orwell's vision come alive. Now, one wants to convince me that US State Department which became a euphemism for incompetence is capable to develop anything sensible about such massive, ancient and complex culture as China? Really? Do they even have cadres for that? 

No doubt, there are many Chinese who are as pro-Western as are marginal narrow strata of Russia's so called liberal fanatics, but the problem today for the United States is in the fact that it can not sustain anymore the image of shining first world democratic paradise--US is long ago not that, thus it lost greatly in attractiveness. Good ol' material symbols of the West--skyscrapers, highways, shopping malls and fast food, among few others, are widely available in China, and in Russia. Moscow with her skyline can give a run for their money to any American, let alone European city, while having cultural treasures no US city simply has. Same goes for Shanghai which looks 22nd Century. China's economy is simply larger (most likely much larger) than American one. So, will US promote "democracy" among Chinese? Good luck doing that, plus, Russians will share their knowledge of Western-style "democracy" whose modern values today are revolving primarily around sexual perversion, political correctness and economic model which is unsustainable. Oh boy, so much to strive for those Chinese. But let's put it in a plain simple language--it is much harder to BS today than it was in the times of Cold War 1.0.  Behold, both Chinese and Russians today have the ability to see in person or on Youtube what Skid Row is, or what a joy it is to live in the hood while attending Pride Parades. I am sure policies based on that (and that is what, in the end, it all comes down to) will win the day. I kid, I kid. Considering last 25+ years of catastrophic triumphs of American geopolitical thought and diplomatic activity around the globe, I would say that Chinese should concentrate on what they do, while observing how, yet another, shallow and useless "policy" will come out of the deep recesses of the American doctrine and policy-mongering machine. Russians can tell a lot about effectiveness of those.   

What Can Come Out Of It?

The talk of Putin-Trump summit this year, likely in the White House, is being heard both in Russia and the US. I have a dual feeling about that. On one hand, it is really necessary, even if for PR purposes, to show that both presidents get along fine and, maybe, just maybe, reduce some tensions. On the other hand, the question is inevitable--how really free Donald Trump is in his foreign policy pursuits when what he has as a national security team, for the lack of better word, can only be described as unmitigated disaster? What he has in Congress in terms of foreign policy is altogether a collection of mostly ignorant war-mongers and Russophobes.

Donald Trump very well may have genuine human intents "to get along" with Russia (after kicking scores of Russian diplomats out of the US) but what are the real political mechanisms for that? I don't see any, except, as strange as it sounds--lines of communications between Russian and American militaries. Russian-American relations in most other, state-run, aspects are completely destroyed by the American side. Obviously, hysterical anti-Russian campaign by US media and Democratic Party establishment in collusion with RINOs and neocons did impede Trumps maneuvers but, it is now 15 months as he is POTUS and US foreign policy went from completely insane to being on a straight course to unleashing a war with Iran, with good chances of eventually Russian and US clashing. What that means, I do not even want to contemplate. 

In the end, Trump is surrounded by people who are not only utterly unqualified for any serious statesman position, nor are they capable of formulating working policies, but, by the looks of it they might be mentally unstable--looking at John Bolton or at Nikki Hailey one gets exactly this impression. US Russophobia reached such a fever pitch, such a crescendo now that the Congress of Russian Americans was forced to send an open letter to POTUS about discrimination and absolutely toxic atmosphere in the US in relation to Russia and Russians. While US media and their pundits bear a lion share of  responsibility for demonizing Russia and Russians, including those who are loyal US citizens (in the end Mr. Clapper gave his vision of Russians' faulty genetics), they also bear a lion share of responsibility for moving the world closer to a terminal confrontation. These are the media which give the stage to people who openly call for killing Russians. This is also the type of people who populate Trump's Administration today and that brings inevitable question to the fore--does Trump even have powers to formulate, set and guide US foreign policy? 

It was understandable that he was greatly limited in his maneuver during huge prominence of Russiagate, but now? Summit for what? Photo-Op? I don't think that Putin is interested in that. Russia (as represented by Vladimir Putin) is interested at this stage with only one thing--a smooth and as less confrontational as possible transition of the world to a new global order which is already here, it now must be formalized politically, economically, culturally. Russia is absolutely NOT interested in US declining to the point of complete irrelevance, in fact, Russia plays Count Gorchakov's long game:

"You know the sentiments of Russia. We desire above all things the maintenance of the American Union as one indivisible nation. We cannot take any part, more than we have done. We have no hostility to the Southern people. Russia has declared her position and will maintain it. There will be proposals of intervention [by Britain]. We believe that intervention could do no good at present. Proposals will be made to Russia to join some plan of interference. She will refuse any intervention of the kind. Russia will occupy the same ground as at the beginning of the struggle. You may rely upon it, she will not change. But we entreat you to settle the difficulty. I cannot express to you how profound an anxiety we feel--how serious are our fears (emphasis in original)."   

Although those times are gone, and there is no trust left in Russia to current US (and West in general), Russia and Russians know what war is and Russia, through Putin, will do everything to avert a disaster. But it will work better if there is at least some help from Trump. Can he deliver? The new global arrangement must be negotiated, in fact, Trump ran and won elections on this program--America desperately needs rethinking of herself in most aspects of activity of the American State and this needs to be done urgently to avert a disaster which American collapse may bring both to the world at large and to Americans themselves. Nobody wants American collapse. Arms Race? Russia is not going to attack the US unless is attacked first, sure, why not talk about arms race. But is Trump a player with some aces up his sleeve or is he now nothing more than a puppet at the disposal of the American exceptionalist cabal and financial fraudsters who support it? The record is not impressive so far, to put it mildly but hope springs eternal but we may as of yet start relying on who Colonel Wilkerson describes as a "Grand chess-master-in-chief" and his last hope.  Hell, come to think about it, Putin today is, indeed, the only man in the world who keeps it from sliding into abyss. As strange as it sounds, he might be the man who gives the United States a chance to survive and maybe turn into normal country. But that is the issue of geopolitical currency and it may require a separate book.  

UPDATE:  

An excellent input on the situation from M.K. Bhadrakumar--an Indian diplomat. 

What Interests?

I am often critical and sometimes outright dismissive of US foreign policy and a "doctrine" which is in the foundation of a disaster which US foreign policy is. I still remain on this position and I can justify it; it is not very difficult to do. Having said all that, when looking at the sorry state of today's world and understanding that it is undergoing profound changes, there are constants one must consider when analyzing those changes. Among those constants are legitimate national interests of the United States of America. The United States does have national interests which she absolutely must protect and her livelihood depends on protection of those interests. But what are those interests? What is "legitimate" in this case, what is worth for the US to draw real red lines and fight for? This is not an easy question to answer. Once pathos-ridden globalist rhetoric, which permeates most of American geopolitical documents, is discounted, one has to recognize that far from being self-proclaimed guarantor of "world order", the United States not only contributed greatly to its destabilization but ran out of resources to even barely maintain this order, let alone take on what US considers her main geopolitical rivals: Russia and China. 

As Bronislaw Malinowski wrote in his An Anthropological Analysis Of War in 1941:  

Another interesting point in the study of aggression is that, like charity, it begins at home. 

In 1951 Daniel J. Levinson in his Authoritarian Personality And Foreign Policy went further: 

America has only recently come of age internationally; the understanding of international relations requires an ability and a readiness to think in terms of institutional abstractions to which Americans are only just getting accustomed; our newspapers and other communications media tend to perpetuate the existing confusion and ideological immaturity...  The American nation as a symbol is glorified and idealized; it is regarded as superior to other nations in all important respects. Great emphasis is placed on such concepts as national honor and national sovereignty. Other nations are seen as inferior, envious, and threatening. At the worst they are likely to attack us; at best they seek alliances only to pursue their own selfish aims and to "play us for a sucker".

This was written 66 years ago. Most of it applies today easily to current America and it is precisely a set of the US' recurring attitudes which prevents her from both formulating her vital national interests and defending them. I could go deep into American Founding Fathers ideas and wax historical here but those points of view and ideas are so well known that it simply makes no sense to repeat them again. Maybe with the exception of John Quincy Adams' reminder to US Congress in 1821 that America:

But she goes not abroad in search of monsters to destroy. She is the well-wisher to the freedom and independence of all. She is the champion and vindicator only of her own. She will recommend the general cause, by the countenance of her voice, and the benignant sympathy of her example. She well knows that by once enlisting under other banners than her own, were they even the banners of foreign independence, she would involve herself, beyond the power of extrication, in all the wars of interest and intrigue, of individual avarice, envy, and ambition, which assume the colors and usurp the standard of freedom. The fundamental maxims of her policy would insensibly change from liberty to force. The frontlet upon her brows would no longer beam with the ineffable splendor of freedom and independence; but in its stead would soon be substituted an imperial diadem, flashing in false and tarnished lustre the murky radiance of dominion and power. She might become the dictatress of the world: she would be no longer the ruler of her own spirit.

Adams was prescient. But the problem of modern day America turning into "empire" is the fact that US fails miserably as an empire to start with and, for all intents and purposes, is not very good at fighting those "imperial" wars. Not to speak of Adams' warning which came true completely--"enlisting under other banners", those banners being, of course, first of all banners of Israel and of Arabian Peninsula medieval satrapies. A catastrophe in the Middle East was not in American national interest, not to speak of the millions upon millions killed, maimed, displaced innocent Arabs, Christians, Alawites etc. But then again, how US can define her real national interest when she fights constantly for someone else' interests, many of which far from being merely economic ones, are very often genocidal, such as the case of Saudi Arabia's (with US support) behavior in Yemen or Israel being more interested in the existence of Al Qaeda and ISIS than of secular Syrian government. 

One may wax anti-colonial and anti-imperialist whatever one wants--yes, Belgian behavior in Kongo was inhumane--but British imperialism didn't leave just negative marks on its colonies. It left after itself often whole government institutions which worked, it also left skilled administrative, technical and intellectual local elite, it also provided a developmental impetus in places where such a development was greatly retarded. It is not a secret that many in current political and military elite in India went through Oxford and Sandhurst. Friedrich Engels, hardly a Russophile, defined Russian imperial expansion as:

Despite her Slavic dirt and baseness, Russia provides civilizing influence on her Asiatic subjects.      

But this is not what US does with her "empire". Whole Middle East is on fire, Western Europe which was liberated by Allies in WW II is in a cultural death spiral and economic troubles, US involvement in Indo-China in 1960s resulted in utter destruction of the region, with millions of people dead. Building "democracy" in Afghanistan or even Iraq--places which never had a culture even remotely compatible with "democracy"--is an unmitigated disaster. In the end, the so called "liberal democracy" practiced in US resulted in cultural and political trends which completely torn the nation apart and threaten to bury it completely under the rubble of cultural, racial, economic, ideological and political warfare. How can one possibly formulate sensible national interests when the subject which must generate these interests is in a state which is hardly conducive for calm and productive discussion on what real American national interests ARE? 

Are American national interests "large" in economic sense? Absolutely they are--US is still second economy in the world and has a huge internal market and it shouldn't have surrendered her industry to China to start with. What are REAL military threats to the US? Is North Korean missile program a threat to the US? Potentially, yes but how serious a threat? The Fat Thing in Pyongyang is not suicidal. Is Russia a threat? Militarily--only within US globalist world view, since will keep US from global military "dominance" (greatly overrated and talked up), once globalist (and treasonous) US "elite" is discounted, Russia becomes a natural ally, but what about China? Is US maritime dominance under challenge? Only in littorals of the nations US wants to attack, Russia included. US ocean dominance is not under threat and nobody really cares to challenge it there--overwhelming majority of nations are for safe navigation and movement of the goods. Is Latin America a US' "backyard"? Objectively it is but what is US' game plan there? Is globalism a national security threat to US herself? Absolutely--it is poison which kills US slowly but surely. Those questions are numerous and they must be first stated and then answered before one can even start formulating real national interests of the United States. Donald Trump started doing this during his campaign but we all can chip in.  Will we? 

UPDATE: what a coincidence, Pat Buchanan, whom I respect deeply, despite not always agreeing with  his point of view, published today (a day after my post) a piece with telling title: 

             What Is America's Goal In The World. 

There Pat discusses a lot of issues which I posted about yesterday. As I said, I do not always agree with Pat but he is always worthy of listening to.