This Is Not News ...

 ... really. It has been known for a long time and that is what has been considered by Russia's strategic planners since 2013 at least, in reality since 2008. 

Former Texas Representative Ron Paul said the U.S. economic order rests on “fraud” rooted in the 1971 break from gold and warned that the current system is nearing its end, in a wide-ranging 90th-birthday interview on The Tucker Carlson Podcast released Thursday. Paul, a Republican-turned-Libertarian-turned-Republican, tied his warning to the end of dollar convertibility into gold under President Richard Nixon, calling it the nation’s “first declaration of bankruptcy,” and argued that persistent money printing and deficits have created a brittle order primed for a severe correction.

The US has been into FIRE economy transition since 1980s, but it was in 1990s when the process of deindustrialization and Wall Streetization of the economy went into the overdrive. Today we have economy of this type:

With a bunch of morons who continue to believe in gimmicks and the idea that you can "make money" which are not supported by anything other than zeros in computers. As long as "growth" was provided by inflating the capitalization of some pseudo-techno mambo-jumbo they thought they should be fine. Well, no. Ponzi schemes do not last long. For a country such as the US 50 years is a short time. So, the chickens are coming home to roost. That also has been demonstrated by SMO. 

Meanwhile, 404 is now "drafting" ... midgets, FFS. 

Meanwhile: 

A majority of Germans support direct talks between German Chancellor Friedrich Merz and Russian President Vladimir Putin on ending the Ukraine conflict, the DPA news agency reported on Thursday, citing a recent YouGov poll. Some 58% of respondents said they would somewhat or strongly support such negotiations, according to the survey. Just over a quarter of respondents opposed the idea. Support for direct talks was especially high among Merz’ conservative voters, with 64% responding positively. The YouGov survey was conducted online over four days last week among more than 2,000 Germans.

There is one, well--two problems with that. There cannot be a "dialogue" anymore, only reading of the articles of capitulation. But most important one--majority of Russians do not want this "dialogue", they didn't forget German Leopards in Kursk Oblast. It is all too little, too late. This doesn't mean that normal Germans will not be met in Russia with open arms when immigrating, but Germany as an entity and as a nation is Russia's existential enemy, as is most of Europe. 

I Agree That He Was Always A Fraud ...

 ... albeit Born in the USA should it have been written from the moral and civic position of such people like Roger Waters it would have been a great protest song but it wouldn't be "anti-American", unless this Lewis guy wants to believe that the US went to Vietnam to do humanitarian work and not "to go and kill a yellow man". If Aaron doesn't understand that the US killed millions of Vietnamese civilians and that the US, certainly, deserved this "anti-American" song--he should have his head examined. But then again--explaining to people like Lewis what war crimes and crimes against humanity are will be exercise in futility. Yet, in one sense he is correct:

Springsteen is a fraud in human and artistic terms, because he is not and never was a man sharing struggles of American blue color class. He rode them to fame. Musically he had a huge success and he had a couple of masterpieces and a few good songs, the rest ... good marketing. Remarkably, if not for amazing covers by Manfred Mann's Earth Band of Springsteen's Blinded by the Light and Spirits in the Night (they did another one too--For You), few people would even remember those songs. In the Soviet Union we knew those because of MMEB covers. This one before Chris Thompson's magnificent vocals period. 

But, yes--this, an ultimate MMEB sound which makes those covers their own MMEB songs with Chris' incomparable voice. 

So, fuck Springsteen. 

Why They Hate....

Before I start, here is the guy who is a big honcho at CNN on "climate and inequality".  

Drew is a writer and producer for CNN Digital covering the climate crisis, inequality and much more. He joined CNN in January 2014.

His educational (lack of) "credentials" are impeccable and fit perfectly for a work in such a sewer as CNN since he knows how to push keyboards and has a substantial experience, and I quote, such as: Wrote, produced and edited text and video stories for CNN.com’s reader empowerment-focused Impact Your World initiative. Pitched original story ideas for sponsored series. Produced and edited obituary packages for air on CNN networks... Helped launch and co-wrote “The Good Stuff,” CNN’s newsletter focused on reader empowerment and “feel good” stories. So, the guy is like really powerful and has all the required background, like Greta Thunberg, for discussing a BS modelling which is known in the West as "climate science" fraud. But this guy, who, I assume, holds also Ph.D in golf and table games, has no problem writing this:

Scientists say the Arctic is a bellwether for the global climate. As the planet heats up due to human emissions of greenhouse gases, the effects of that warming are felt here first -- and foreshadow the changes to come in lower latitude climates.

Well, it is CNN, alright. But here is a strange twist.  Just follow my train of thought, OK? Drew Kann is an epitome of the modern day Western "expert" pushing an ultimate BS of the anthropogenic origin of the climate change, which, of course, changes (no one argues against that) all the time, and since this guy wouldn't know the difference between exponential and differential equations, he wouldn't know the difference between mathematical model predicting next bowel movement by the average patient in the hospital and climate change. Here is the another guy: 

He is Chung Rae Kwang, he is a former graduate of Georgetown University with degree in... in... drum roll... in... drum is still rolling... in, of course, Foreign Relations, and he is Korea's 2007 Nobel Prize winner for pushing Green Agenda and anthropogenic climate change theory because he is utterly "qualified" to pass the judgement on the methods of concocting stochastic models based on shitty data, also known as GIGO (Garbage In--Garbage Out). This dude spoke recently in Moscow (see his lecture here) on this climate thing and on the subject he is very, in fact disastrously, competent, as any dumbed down holder of degrees in various home economics and political "science" fields and he really went on an intellectual tour-de-force when proposed in this lecture that humanity needs "new science" which, in his view, should be driven by social sciences, because it is how he feels, you know, quoting him:"For me, they are the most important sciences." 

 

Well, obviously our Nobel winner doesn't understand the difference between real science and humanities and economic BS which is taught in the West as viable "educational" courses, but I pray for this man's good health and long years of life, because, God forbids, he will need a heart surgery or any other surgery, because he will need a Doctor of Medicine (a precise science, BTW, STEM really), not a doctor in Political Sciences, and he will need X-Ray, CT Scan, anesthesia and precision machine making technology, created by people with degrees in engineering, physics, chemistry, applied mathematics, software design and computer technologies and other NON-social sciences "educated" people who, actually,  together with labor force which extracts and processes raw materials at mines, manufacturing floors and assembly plants, are the main engines behind this simple fact that his chest cavity will be cut by a precision produced scalpel (or laser) not some barely honed stone, and he will not feel a thing instead of screaming in agony as had happened often even 100 years ago.  Same goes for this CNN dude who wouldn't know shit from shinola and will continue to parrot any kind of illiterate BS having circulation in the Western Goebbelsonean main-stream propaganda machine.     

Now to the point. West hates Russia and Russians for many reasons, but one of the major ones is because of Russia's real power. As with anything else, Russia's power rises then ebbs, but for the last 70 years Russians demonstrated several fields in human activity in which they are not just good, but damn good, in fact the best in history. Among few of those fields two stand out: space exploration and Arctic. If in space exploration even today there is a great deal of both competition and cooperation between the United States and Russia, the rest of the world remains still far behind (no, I don't mean this fraud and figure-head for NASA Elon Musk) these two; in Arctic, altogether, Russians simply have no rivals, period, not even close. And here we go back to CNN. Even this Ministry of Truth couldn't ignore this:

(CNN)Russia launched its space satellite Arktika-M on Sunday on a mission to monitor the climate and environment in the Arctic amid a push by the Kremlin to expand the country's activities in the region.The Arctic has warmed more than twice as fast as the global average over the last three decades and Moscow is seeking to develop the energy-rich region, investing in the Northern Sea Route for shipping across its long northern flank as ice melts.The satellite successfully reached its intended orbit after being launched from Kazakhstan's Baikonur cosmodrome by a Soyuz rocket, Dmitry Rogozin, the head of Russia's Roscosmos space agency, said in a post on Twitter.Russia plans to send up a second satellite in 2023 and, combined, the two will offer round-the-clock, all-weather monitoring of the Arctic Ocean and the surface of the Earth, Roscosmos said.

It is in this piece that CNN gives the link to the article about warming by introduced above Mr. Kann. But many may not understand a gigantic significance of this launch until one gets to talk to a Senior Designer of corporation Russian Space Systems which developed, launched and successfully operates Arktika-M, his name is Yuri Gektin (in Russian). This poor soul who designs cutting edge, in fact the most advanced, monitoring space systems in the world, obviously somehow missed on his "social sciences" thingy, concentrating instead on Physics and Engineering, and surely is barely qualified to speak on the issue of climate change because he lacks skills in "writing obituaries" and doesn't know how to "empower" people, he surely is not Nobel Prize winner for concocting a BS pseudo-scientific crap as this Korean dude, he surely is no Greta Thunberg. He just designs and builds, and operates satellites and their incredible scientific tools to monitor the actual climate change. This is where the problem for woke West is. 

Unlike climate "intellectuals", some of who I already described above, Russians know how mathematical models are created and they know that the data which goes into the Western "anthropogenic" climate change models is mostly BS. Plus, there is simply not enough of it and here is the wowser (in Russian) which IS NOT going to be delivered in the "free" West. 

In the issue #351 of Roskosmos popular broadcast of Space Environment, Yuri Gektin, starting at 8:30 mark, speaks in broadsides about stupidity of present "anthropogenic" models in a view of overwhelming data supporting Sun-driven climate change and a minuscule role humanity plays in this process. But also about Arktika-M (operational) and future satellites of this family providing a treasure trove of data which, as you might expect, is a clear and present danger to the whole "anthropogenic" climate change fraudulent pseudo-scientific Ponzi scheme in the West. This is all happening against the background of European imbeciles driving themselves into the energy insolvency and economic and cultural decline. Today, Russia is the only nation in the world (no, China is not it) with the economic, military and scientific wherewithal to stop this anti-scientific, degenerate and inhuman insanity being perpetuated by West's ignorant and illiterate elites. 

I know, it may sound too harsh, but let the actual science give answers and give competent forecasts, with totally corrupt Western STEM and a "science" of opinions by illiterate hacks with humanities degrees. It is about time somebody started to think about consequences, such as EU is facing now, and this is just the beginning. Gektin, especially through such a powerful platform as Roskosmos, is unequivocal about the necessity to provide new data which already is streaming and is being made available through the international network of hydro-meteorological information. You can sell obvious bullshit of anthropogenic climate change to Western public school students who are busy discovering new genders, rejecting their white privilege and reciting main postulates of Critical Race Theory, you cannot sell this shit in Russia to people who actually know the real science and how models are created. Russia has all the tools necessary to prove a complete corruption and cowardice of West's "science" which long ago lost any integrity and honor. Here is what modern Western "science" is busy with. That is why they hate Russia so much.

P.S. There is a lot of interesting Rogozin is presenting on Zevs in Dubai. Guess what? Right, environmental "scientists" are already screaming bloody murder because Zevs is nuclear-driven and they are concerned with space pollution. Do those cretins even know that the Sun, one of trillions of stars in our galaxy alone, is nothing more than one gigantic nuclear reactor. You cannot reason with a person who received degree in sociology from any Western university, they are know-it-all types because they are not educated. They are running the West today.   

Update: I will be pissed off severely if anyone will even think that this is in any way a schadenfreude on my part--it is not. In fact I wish with all my heart for guys a safe and healthy return. But it is what it is--space is a no fvcking joke and a PR stunt. It is dangerous and it starts--read my lips--with Life Support Systems which work. You don't have those, don't go there.

The next astronauts to return to Earth on a SpaceX Dragon won't be able use a crucial system on their trip home next month: the space potty. SpaceX's toilet on its Crew Dragon Endeavour will be off limits for the four Crew-2 mission astronauts once they leave the International Space Station in early November, NASA officials said late Friday (Oct. 29). That's because of a possible urine leak in the toilet like one seen on SpaceX's all-civilian Inspiration4 flight in September. SpaceX has since redesigned its toilet to avoid leaks on future flights.

Redesigned? Really? 

Oh, Boy, Oh, Boy!

Just when you think that you repeated that USD and US stock market papers are just virtual "values" which are "worth"... well, let's leave at that for now, enough times to drive point home, news come in which in these strange times take it to eleven. From yesterday (in Russian):

Правительство России разрешило инвестировать средства Фонда национального благосостояния (ФНБ) в национальную валюту и гособлигации Китая.

Translation:  Government of Russia allowed to invest resources of the Fund of National Wealth (FNB) into national currency and state obligations of China.

This is exactly what many of us here discussed very recently, and that means acceleration of the removal of the USD as one of many (yes, Pound Sterling, Euros, Swiss Franks are also there) cash (I stress it--cash, not some BS paper) from Russia's main piggy bank. That also shines a light on the long-term policy of growth of trade between China and Russia and that means, among many other things, dedollarization of the oil trade. Reputable "establishment" Gazeta Ru then proceeds to make this astonishing statement:

Доля европейской валюты в отечественном экспорте в КНР за год выросла с 12% до 45,6%. При этом импорт китайских товаров и услуг в Россию почти на 25% оплачивается в «других валютах». Вероятнее всего, это и есть юани. 

Translation: The share of European currency in domestic (Russia's) export to China grew in one year from 12% to 45.6%. Meanwhile, almost 25% of import of Chinese goods and services in being paid for almost 25%  in "other currencies", which, most likely are Yuans. 

This is what drives many people in the US (like yesterday's Paul Brandus) totally desperate and butt-hurt, because removal of USD in mutual payments between geopolitical players who matter IS the end of the petrodollar. It is a very practical end, without much fanfare--just normal everyday economic activity which is ongoing without employing USD and creating a financial fortress and common Eurasian market whose actual size dwarfs US economy even when this economy is valued by Wall Street  fraudst.... pardon me, exceptionalists. Ah, yes, about exceptionalism. Daniel Larison published today a good piece related to Andrew Bacevich's latest article:  

It Took COVID To Expose the Fraud of ‘American Exceptionalism.’ Our leaders were so preoccupied with remaking the world they failed to see that our country was falling apart around them.

Well, I have a minor quibble with this title, because this fraud was exposed way before any COVID was present. In fact, I launched this blog in 2014 to do precisely this, prior to that I formed opinion on this fraud years before. As I state ad nauseam, American exceptionalism is a self-replicating delusion which is organic to the US body-politic as a main prerequisite of achieving anything on the way to power and money. It is also a main driver behind degeneration of American political and intellectual elites. As Larison observes: 

The more that U.S. policies have proved “American exceptionalism” to be a pernicious myth at odds with reality, the more we have heard the phrase used to defend those policies. Republican hawks began the decade by accusing Obama of not believing in this “exceptionalism,” and some Democratic hawks closed it out by “reclaiming” the idea on behalf of their own discredited foreign policy vision. There may be differences in emphasis between the two camps, but there is a consensus that the U.S. has special rights and privileges that other nations cannot have. That has translated into waging unnecessary wars, assuming excessive overseas burdens, and trampling on the rights of other states, and all the while congratulating ourselves on how virtuous we are for doing all of it.

As the recent events of the 2020 have demonstrated so dramatically--to have some "special rights and privileges" one has to perform across the board, from economy, to military to culture, to society. And, I mean, of course, in real terms not by cooking books, declaring defeats victories and praising social illnesses as achievements. The world is not impressed anymore, not to mention this ever present fact that, as I wrote in my latest book:

Today, the same titanic battle for life on Earth is being waged globally for a new, better, freer, more just and more peaceful global order to emerge. This struggle is not for glory and the sword for forestalling evil has been forged. 

But it will be ultimately up to Americans and America's internal struggles to determine if, she can be, as Larison observes:

American exceptionalism has been the story that our leaders told us to excuse their neglect of America. It is a flattering story, but ultimately it is a vain one that distracts us from protecting our own country and people. We would do well if we put away this boastful fantasy and learned how to live like a normal nation.

One can only hope.      

A Needed Take?

Recall what I wrote (on a number of occasions, I merely refer to the latest one) about this whole Trump thing in May:

I resigned myself completely--it was a process--to the fact that Donald Trump is a hollow BSer once John Bolton entered Trump's Admin as National Security Adviser. I started to suspect that Trump was not what he tried to portray himself while running for the office even earlier. There were some signs, especially when one considers well documented emergence of "Mad Dog" Mattis as an "adult in the room". If Mattis was considered an adult in the room, one could only imagine who such a room was filled with. 

Bernhard of Moon of Alabama today posted an excellent range (well, the range having only two possibilities) of interpretations on Donald Trump and his national security (insanity?) team's idiocy around Iran. He refers to Alastair Crooke's opinion too.  

Trump is the president. He hired those people and is responsible for what they do. But does he know what they do? There are two possibilities. Trump wants a war with Iran and what we see is a good cop, bad cop strategy in which Trump plays the good guy for his voters until some 'grave incident' happens that lets him says that he has no choice but to 'hit back' at Iran. The other scenario is that Trump is a fool and that the war hawks use him as their tool to implement their preferred policies. Former MI6 agent Alastair Crooke says that the second scenario is the real one:

The consensus on ‘no conflict’ unfortunately, may turn out to have been overly sanguine. This is not because Trump consciously desires war, but because the hawks surrounding him, particularly Bolton, are painting him into a corner – from which he must either back down, or double down, if Iran does not first capitulate.And here is the point: the main Trump misconception may be that he does believe that Iran wants, and ultimately, ‘will seek a deal’.

Crooke describes how Bolton, and Netanyahoo behind him, outmaneuver the U.S. intelligence services over Iran. They stovepipe "intelligence" to the president and the media just like the crew of then Vice President Dick Cheney did in the run up to the war on Iraq:

Bolton chairs at the NSC, the regular and frequent strategic dialogue meetings with Israel – intended to develop a joint action plan, versus Iran. What this means is that the Israeli intelligence assessments are being stovepiped directly to Bolton (and therefore to Trump), without passing by the US intelligence services for assessment or comment on the credibility of the intelligence presented (shades of Cheney confronting the analysts down at Langley). And Bolton too, will represent Trump at the ‘security summit’ to be held later this month in Jerusalem with Russia and Israel. Yes, Bolton truly has all the reins in his hands: He is ‘Mr Iran’.

'Mr Anti-Iran' is a more precise moniker. Or one may just call him President Bolton.

It has to be understood very clearly that Bolton-Trump and Trump-Pompeo relations are symbiotic ones. If one recalls--Trump made his admiration for Bolton known even before Trump was considered a serious contender for the Oval Office. In the end, he DID hire Bolton. Both Trump and Bolton are frauds as statesmen: Bolton is a Beta-male and a coward who sublimates his complexes in aggressive rhetoric and behavior, this is not to speak of Bolton being an Israeli asset par-excellence.These are precisely the traits Trump recognizes in him because he is one himself. Recall his statement about his, Trump's, "military background" he received in a... boarding school for boys. Recall how Kevin Costner's character in undeservedly chastised The Postman, in the final battle with Will Patton's character, astutely notices how one fraud can recognize the other. This is exactly the situation. Trump is fool, but Bolton is merely an experienced bureaucrat, which testifies to the level of Trump's foolishness and incompetence. I doubt there is any Good Cop-Bad Cop dynamics there. 

The problem here is not with Trump, who by now paraded himself long enough as a person who is nothing more than NYC real estate shyster and one trick pony who ended up in Oval Office due to good reciting of speeches written for him by Stephen Miller. After all, one expects at least mediocre acting and diction from TV personality such as Trump. The issue is deeper--it is the fact that the person who formulates and drives US foreign policy, John Bolton that is, is himself a fraud who lacks, as did most US National Security Advisers, any serious background in what increasingly constitutes main drivers behind geopolitical balance. As Colonel Larry Wilkerson noted about his harsh encounter with John Bolton, Bolton stated "I do policy, you do war." How can anyone make policy without knowing war, especially against US dismal track record of both policy (so called) and military failures is beyond me, but it is what it is.  

So, Bolton, who is a coward and, hence, is obsessed with some kind of institutional violence which, in his opinion, may give him some relief from him understanding that he is a beta-male and a cuckold (literally) loser, and Pompeo who is a full blown Christian Zionist--they are essentially in charge of US foreign policy. They, plus, of course, as was stated not for once--Bibi. Phil Giraldi gives additional insight into Trump Administration's "foreign policy" cadres, so at issue here now is WHAT IS IT GOING TO BE? Most likely it will be repetition of April 2018 Syria's strike with "very smart missiles" (most of them intercepted). In the same time, considering an appalling lack of any expertise in the US top echelon of power and personalities who operate there--there is some, however insignificant now, chance that Trump could be manipulated (on the account of dick measuring contest) into more serious actions against Iran and then, well--good luck to those who are deployed in the Middle East. 

Trump Administration is the most Zionist, Israeli-first administration in the US history. It is a scale of corruption and real collusion with foreign power unprecedented in the existence of the American Republic, or, rather, whatever remains of it. There are many ways to explain how this happened, but as I stated in the previous post--top echelon simply has nobody better out there, period. US elites can not produce statesmen anymore, and even this mechanism which is in place in a shape of Ivy League universities teaching all kind of "humanities" crap, supposedly to future American "leadership", can only produce semi-literate doctrine-mongers who are only good for contriving false narratives and selling themselves out to a highest bidder, be that done on purpose or "accidentally".  

In related news, Russia issued a warning.

MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russia told the United States on Tuesday to drop what it called provocative plans to deploy more troops to the Middle East and to cease actions that looked like a conscious attempt to provoke war with Iran.

I guess we'll see soon where it is all going, but I would have given up a lot to learn what Moscow and Tehran are actually discussing between them. Or are they?   

What A Coincidence!

By now many of you know me in terms of most of my views. If you follow my writing--articles, books, this blog--you cannot fail to notice that I don't take kindly to all kinds of social, political  science and national security "studies" academe. First: political "science" is not a science and it used to be known as political history of the world. Secondly: geopolitics as it used to be known in times of its founding fathers, notably Halford Mackinder, is pretty much irrelevant today for a simple reason that it cannot exist without serious, very high academic level, understanding of the warfare. Modern warfare requires very serious knowledge of, both through academic training and experience, increasingly complex technology and the way it interacts with military and political institutions. One needs good level physics and things of such nature as weapons integration and operations theory to get some grip on it. They DON'T teach that in political "science" courses, nor classic geopolitics, born in the times of slow propeller driven bi-planes and main caliber guns of battleships shooting at the distances in excess of 30 kilometers, is applicable in the time when modern supers-sonic and hyper-sonic missiles have ranges in excess of 1,000 kilometers and receive targeting from satellite (among many other methods) recon systems. My book, which is about to hit the shelves, is precisely about it. My first one was also about it to a large degree.

Well, surprisingly, here are opinions at TAC.

For decades, international relations scholars have increasingly worried that American foreign policymakers aren’t buying what they’re selling. From the Vietnam war to NATO expansion to the Iraq war, the Beltway foreign policy elite has frequently ignored the work of academics who study those subjects, often at great cost to the nation. Why do foreign policymakers so rarely pay attention to scholarship on the regions they are bombing and seeking to dominate?Michael C. Desch, political science professor at the University of Notre Dame, lays blame at the feet of the academy. In his new book, Cult of the Irrelevant: The Waning Influence of Social Science on National Security, Desch writes that “the privileging of complex methods and universal models over engaging substantive issues…reduced the policy relevance of the work of many academic defense intellectuals.” In other words, by moving toward abstruse ontological questions (“Sovereignty and the UFO” comes to mind) or complex statistics or formal modeling (coefficients or Greek letters), incentives inside the academy have shifted the field in the direction of policy irrelevance.

It became irrelevant because it was irrelevant from the inception, because specifically in the West this field couldn't established simplest causalities--relations between cause and effect--because:

1. Western approach to history, as recent events so dramatically demonstrated, is about feel good, not about looking facts in the face and their proper arrangement which satisfies these very cause and effect. The problem here is deeper, it is in metaphysical view that truth is really unknowable--but that is grossly inaccurate, to say the least;

2. One can not develop policy (or strategy) when one operates on a delusion and profound ignorance of warfare, which defines human history. United States as a society has no experience with that in modern times 20-21st centuries. Hence, as Justin Logan (the author of the piece) motes:

In a country as powerful and secure as the United States, elites can make policy built on shaky foundations. Eventually, the whole thing may collapse. Scholars should focus on pointing out these fundamental flaws—and thinking about how they might help rebuild. 

Removing all this pseudo-academic BS such as "ontological", "epistemic" etc., it all comes down to this: unless one has a serious background in military, one shouldn't be getting into modern warfare, especially with a "method" which distorts grossly a picture of military balance, operational art, tactics, technology, which, as we all witnessed in the last 20 years, is a road to hell. I write about this non-stop for years, especially after it became very clear that the view of war, military history and of real geopolitics Western political "science" produced in the last 30 years is nothing short of a disaster, which unfolded upon encountering global realities, and, with some very few and, frankly, minor exceptions, is mostly a trash. In even simpler words--political "scientist" needs to understand how real geopolitical balance forms, before any of those scientists decide to bless the world with their "wisdom"--a skill long ago lost in the West in "academe" because they don't teach it properly, if at all. 

On Some Russian "Experts" And INF Treaty.

The urban dictionary defines Hussler as a person who gets money from other people. In general, a person who hussles. Of course there is another way to define operation of swindling, by using good ol' Hustling, which is:

The act of swindling by some fraudulent scheme; "that book is a fraud"

That's more like it. This is the issue I address on a regular bases when speaking about "expertdom" which both in US, Russia and elsewhere tries to present itself as the only voice of wisdom and which, most of the time has no real expertise in the subjects this "expertdom" tries to preach. Enter CAST, Moscow "Center of Analysis of Strategies and Technologies". The organization also known for maintaining a rather popular in some circles Blog BMPD which is an excellent platform for mutual insults and fanboys' exchanges on military toys. I communicated on some forums with one of the CAST "experts", Mikhail Barabanov, who among some people in Russia passes for "expert" in the navies, and who didn't serve a single day in uniform and has a degree from Moscow Institute of Culture, allegedly in either librarian or screenplay writing fields, something like that. Barabanov is known as a mindless and utterly incompetent herald of US Navy's "ideas" (without knowing anything of substance about them) and his main "expertise" is in memorizing types of weapons and some technical data and parroting mostly Western views on warfare. Just to give you some taste of his "expertise", here is his piece in...drum roll, where else, The National Interest. Generally, CAST is a classic hustler organization which shuffles among military people in Moscow, collects rumors and reads open press and after that calls itself an analytical organization. I read their views on Russian Navy once--a total strategic and operational delirium written by liberal amateurs.

But CAST's other big honchos, namely Kosnstantin Makienko, who is a graduate of famed MGIMO with specialty in...drum roll..."International Relations" and then of some French madras, also in some..something-something not really military, publishes yesterday a CAST's "manifesto" on the death of INF Treaty in Russian here. The article by Makienko, whose experience on a tactical, operational, weapons' design, integration and other relevant military issues is exactly zero (with the exception of reading open pop-military media), laments many things. I would have omitted addressing yet another "pearl" of strategic thinking by CAST but this one really interested me as a psychiatric case of utter ignoramuses firmly believing that they have capability to produce something sensible on a rather very complex issue of defense policy of Russia and America, this is not to mention the fact that Makienko, as well as all of CAST enterprise have a very vague idea about US economy and her military-industrial complex. 

Here is the opening wowser salvo of Makienko's "lament" from his symptomatically titled piece What is the Threat to the World from INF Treaty's Liquidation. 

Крах ДРСМД будет иметь для военной безопасности России чрезвычайно тяжелые последствия. Главную опасность представляет совершенно неминуемая разработка и развертывание Соединенными Штатами нового поколения баллистических ракет средней и меньшей дальности, в том числе с гиперзвуковыми блоками. Причем эта разработка может быть реализована в сжатые сроки. Не стоит впадать в прекраснодушное заблуждение относительно сегодняшнего предположительного американского отставания в области гиперзвука от России. Учитывая невероятную научную и технологическую мощь США, это отставание, если оно вообще существует, будет ликвидировано очень быстро. А принимая во внимание колоссальный американский индустриальный потенциал, необходимо исходить из того, что производство таких ракет легко может составить сотни и тысячи единиц.    

Translation: the crash of the INF Treaty will have an extraordinarily grave consequences for Russia's security. The main threat is inevitable development and deployment by the US of new generation of the intermediate range ballistic missiles, including with hyper-sonic blocks. Moreover, this development could be conducted within short time-frame. Do not fall for placid delusion regarding current US lagging behind Russia in hyper-sonic technology. Considering incredible scientific and technological power of the United States this gap, if it even exists, would be closed very fast. Moreover, considering colossal American industrial potential we need to assume that production of such missiles will easily number hundreds and thousands of units. 

I don't know where to start here, but I'll try. 

1. It is obvious that Mr. Makienko has a very vague idea of the genesis of INF Treaty and who and why signed it. Here, instead of me elaborating on this treaty, again, and again, I will only give the link to Dmitry Orlov's piece on this Treaty which will help.  

2. My real issue is this: there is very little doubt that the United States will develop new missiles and I stressed this simple fact non-stop whenever talking about hyper-sonic weapons for years. There is one little, teeny-weeny thing, though, of which Mr. Makienko--an obvious product of very "westernized" humanities education simply doesn't know--it is expected from experts in "international relations" who have zero military, industrial and technological background. Obviously, the horizon of Makienko's views on the United States is, at best, that of a tourist, at worst that of a consumer of American economic propaganda. I don't know if Makienko read this:

Assessing and Strengthening the Manufacturing and Defense Industrial Base and Supply Chain Resiliency of the United States.

If he didn't do this yet, I would strongly suggest he and his colleagues from CAST start studying this document in earnest. Because unlike them, I live and work (in real industry) in the United States and know this country quite well. Makienko uses rather outdated categories when speaking about American incredible scientific and technological power. United States still remains an industrial powerhouse but reality is such that it is nowhere near what it used to be in 1970s and 1980s. I'll quote for Mr. Makienko just one thing from Inter-agency Report to POTUS and if they do "analysis", as their title of CAST suggests, they better start learning real industrial economy and what serious manufacturing sector is.

Inadequate U.S. Skilled Labor Supply

The U.S. machine tools sector lacks assured access to a sufficiently large pool of skilled labor. Many skilled workers are exiting the workforce due to age, and there are too few technical educational programs to train those who could take their place. Without concerted action that provides both a ready workforce and a continuously-charged pipeline of new employees, the U.S. will not be able to maintain the large, vibrant, and diverse machine tools sector needed to produce the required number and types of products when needed. Market Forces Decreasing Domestic Capabilities The U.S. machine tools sector has been shrinking since at least the 1980s due to a number of primary and contributing factors with the U.S. standing dropping significantly since 2000.  In 2015, China's global machine tool production skyrocketed to $24.7B accounting for 28% of global production, while the U.S. accounted for only $4.6B, after China, Japan, Germany, Italy, and South Korea. According to the U.S. Census Bureau data, in 2015 there were 1,028 machine tool firms employing 27,919 people. 

I don't know if they taught them in MGIMO what this, among very many other debilitating factors, means but I'll give a hint, if one removes monetary comparison in US Dollars (inaccurate as it is), then the gap between US and others becomes even larger, once one considers high costs of US production, which, when combined with purely FIRE "economy" values inflate US GDP to the absurdity it is today. American economic and industrial reality today is such that it is much smaller than many (Russian western liberal cabal especially) think.   

3. But then, of course, there is purely military (and technological) aspect to all that, since Russia's real security is not limited by the intermediate range weapons only and it must be viewed as a complex of means and measures designed to prevent attack on Russia across the whole spectrum of modern warfare--from informational, to conventional combined arms to nuclear strategic. I thought that CAST which does "analyze strategies" should know that. Let me go out on a limb here and, shamefully, with my head down, assume that Chief Designer of strategic missile systems Yuri Solomonov, while having pathetic credentials of a creator of latest generation of strategic missiles not to mention his clearance, when compared to a monstrous academic and military experiences of Barabanov, or Makienko, still knows just teeny-weeny bit more about subject matter than Makienko. This is what Solomonov states:

Indeed, we lead Americans by 10-15 years. This doesn't mean that they will not be able to do the same. If they put their minds to it they can do the same.  

Q. Who is breathing down our necks? I mean us and Americans, I mean members of the nuclear club?

A. Nobody. From the point of view of our nuclear potential we are far ahead. This is not bravado, it is objective.

But then, there is another issue of CAST's members situational (un)awareness--it is the fact of failing to analyze that:

a) Russia's military and technological record of the last 15 years;

b) US military and technological record of the last 15 years;   

For a person with even rudimentary military background it becomes very clear that many Pentagon's military programs are nothing but a technological, hence tactical, and operational disaster. Of course, one may use good ol' examples of F-35, LCS or even new Columbia-class SSBN which even before being built already has some huge cost and technology issues. Sure, when one sub costs as much as the whole 8 hulls of Borei-class SSBNs one is bound to notice. But, the issue is with procurement practices which, being utterly corrupt on practically every level, increasingly fail to deliver any serious capability for even grossly inflated investment in dollars. But here we enter the field which CAST firm is simply unfamiliar with--it is system analysis, analysis of operations (aka Theory of Operations) and other things which require a lot of background in math, technology, physics, tactics etc.--exactly the fields in which CAST has zero competencies. In the end, knowing what Russia's current political and military leadership is, which navigates Russia for the last 5 years brilliantly from one geopolitical, economic, military triumph to another, I would say those guys in General Staff (especially its GOU) calculated a rather impressive number of contingencies before playing out INF Treaty's dismantling. Unlike CAST members who never commanded a single sailor, marine or soldier, those people have the lives of 148 million of their compatriots in their hands and they do not have luxury of going around proclaiming themselves "experts" while BSing, sorry, "consulting" those who are willing to listen and are dumb enough to pay (after all, CAST is very similarly constructed as famous frauds from STRATFOR). This is not how Soviet/Russian military works and it has, unlike CAST, an enormous record of success to back it up. In other words, those people know what they are doing, precisely because they are real experts.

In conclusion. I don't know what's the deal with these CAST people and navies, could it be the fact that they are attracted to a shiny beautiful objects such as ships and submarines? I don't know, I remember Mikhail Barabanov, a naval "expert", about 15 years ago BSing a whole military-historical forum about US Navy's cruise missile developments--mind you, the person saw sea or ocean mostly at the beaches and probably took a tourist tour on some ships--plus expressing some mind-boggling ideas on force requirements (using very peculiar "math"), effectiveness and other broad generalizations on the naval warfare. Now comes Barabanov's boss Makienko and delivers another naval "pearl":

Еще один теоретический профит для России состоит в возможности отказа от дорогостоящей политики «калибровизации» флота в виде строительства дорогих и нелепых «Буянов-М» и «Каракуртов» по цене в половину фрегата при техническом уровне малых ракетных кораблей 40-летней давности. Строительство дорогих морских платформ-носителей «Калибров» теряет смысл при отсутствии ограничений на их сухопутное развертывание.      

Translation: Another theoretical profit (yes, he says this in Russian) for Russia is the possibility of rejection of the expensive policy of Kalibralization of the navy by means of constructing of ridiculous and expensive Buyan-M and Karakurts with the price of the half of the frigate with the technical level of the Small Missile Ships of the 40 years ago. Construction of the expensive platforms-carriers of Kalibrs loses any sense with the loss of limitations for Kalibrs' land deployment. 

The level of ignorance of this statement by Makienko is such that it is simply difficult to even react properly. How to explain to him (he wouldn't know anyway) what could be the "profit" in the littoral, anti-access operations by the KUG of 3-4 Karakurts armed with 3M54 (forget coming Zircons for those types of ships) and shore based aviation against even the group of FREMMs or Burkes at the edge (range) of the launch of TLAMs. I know Makienko wouldn't know shit from shinola when dealing with augmented Salvo Equations, attrition models and combat effectiveness among other things required for professional rough assessment, but here you are. As I said not for once--for some reason these type of "experts" rush into the military field, instead of gynecology or open heart surgery, but it is zeitgeist--ignorance rules. My suggestion to CAST in this case, if they have no human, forget professional, integrity to recognize themselves ignorant pretentious hustlers and to try to get busy with something they actually were taught, be that librarian, "international relations", what have you, humanities-based field,  stop spewing an utter unprofessional BS on issues you have no clue about. Do you even understand what an embarrassment and fraud you are? I guess not. For failing to recognize that, one has to be Russia's urban liberal with "humanities" degree and this, I guess, is a diagnosis. 

I Don't Know How To Live Anymore, LOL!!

About a year ago I had a spirited discussion with some liberal urbanites who were trying to convince me that their deity, also known in this sinful world as fraudster Elon Musk, was about to unleash on the world a new, super-pooper, affordable and long-range capable Tesla which, in their mind, will immediately change the world for the better. He "unleashed" it alright. Now he ununleashes it back, leaving us with only one "affordable" vehicle, that is $75,000 base price for 7D whatever model. 

Tesla will discontinue its most affordable Model S this Sunday 

Do I have an acute case of schadenfreude? You bet I do. Each time I observe all those tech gurus (most of them are professional suckers of government's financial teat) such as late (another deity) Steve Jobs or, already mentioned by me Musk, who continue to BS the world of mostly baby boomers and students of liberal arts colleges in coastal cities into paying for all kind of shiny crap, I always ask the question--do you really need all this, supposedly hi-tech, junk? It is a not very easy question to answer for those who never worked productively a day in their life and who treasure style over substance 90% of the time.  But here is one thing which I want to share: fast receding American civil liberties, which for some time were the envy of the world, were based on two quintessential American things: good highways and a car, which could take one, say, from Seattle to L.A. or from Phoenix to Houston, if one wished, with no problem at all. In the end, I myself took very long drives, well in excess of 1,000 miles, not for once. It was always an adventure.  Now, for any normal person the very notion that you can get in the car and just go is this very notion which is in the foundation of one of those liberties. Try to get from Seattle to Phoenix in one full day, as I did several times (being exhausted, of course by the end) on any Tesla model--good luck with that. 

Remember this?

During an interview with Danish media, Elon Musk revealed that he estimates Tesla will be able to offer a model with a 600-plus-mile electric range by 2017. Tesla’s CEO was attending the opening of Tesla’s first factory in Europe when he disclosed that, within a year or two, the EV automaker should have the right battery and powertrain technology to equip models for 1,000 kilometers or 620 miles per charge. Now before you call it “game over” for the internal combustion engine, it’s worth noting that Musk’s 600-plus range claim was based on the fact that a Tesla Model S P85D just managed to travel 452 miles on a single charge by hovering at 24.2 miles per hour for its entire journey. Real-world range will be substantially less, but the point is this: range anxiety will slowly be less of an issue for electric vehicle consumers and prospects.

So, you know now how fraud sounds. In America where civil liberties, once being a given, are being infringed upon every day, who wants to join some company which has a very good track record of exaggeration and, well, under-performing and lose yet another essential American liberty--to drive as far as one wants when one wants. Yes, yes, I am readying myself for the flight to Mars on Musk's reusable rocket, you know the one he promised will cut costs 50%... oops, it never did actually, not even close. As for rich progressive snobs--let them spend their money any way they want, as long as they don't try to convince me that a piece of crap is a viable alternative.