The State Of The World in 30 Seconds.

Putin nails it in two phrases at Valdai. 

1. Our main mistake was in trusting West too much;

2. West's mistake (???) was in viewing Russia's trust as a weakness. 

The pp.1 is long ago not an issue--overwhelming majority of Russians doesn't trust the West. The West in general is viewed as not treaty-worthy party, which it is not, indeed. Any agreement with the West today is not worth the paper it is written on.  P.p.2, however, is more important since is one of the pillars on which this West's treaty untrustworthiness rests upon. There are still many people in European and, especially so American, elites who think that Russia still resides in 1990s, when the West loved to wipe its feet on her. This is not the case anymore and it is not the case since long ago. This whole blog from the inception is dedicated to this fact. The West has committed a gigantic mistake, but nowhere this mistake is more pronounced than it is in the US. By alienating Russia, the United States lost the ONLY potential geopolitical ally which could ensure the US' remaining relevant in new global configuration and, yes, in balancing out China. Now it is too late, even with Putin still, as usual, offering an equal dialogue with the West. Russian-Chinese economic, hence military-technological and, possibly, military-political alliance is now gaining a steam. This trade will reach $80 billion by the end of this year. But these are long term infrastructural projects which make it remarkable, from the Power of Siberia pipe-line to Russian-Chinese long range wide-body CR-929--all that has massive strategic ramifications and the Europeans are beginning to feel the itch from the outside. Inside European problems can not any longer be described as an itch, they are a major pain. Yet, the most important thing to be taken away from Valdai's revelations are that even Igor Shuvalov, a long perceived liberal pro-western lawyer-turn-economist strategist suddenly started talking about economic planning and massive national projects. Even Alexander Prokhanov was pleasantly startled by that--Russia's Economic Ministry, after moving into one of Moscow-City's skyscrapers will have a Planning Department. A sign of further departure from mindless and inhumane libertarian experiments. There is something huge afoot in Eurasia and it is being felt all over the world. Today it is impossible to deny anymore. Recall my almost three year old conclusion:

I observed for decades now a consistent pattern of the wrong assessments, loony strategies and deliberate misrepresentation (lies?) of facts coming from the top of US establishment, which since 1991 lives in the make-believe world built by the triumphalists. It is difficult to explain to the average Joe that Baseball World Series, or Superbowl "World Champions" have no relation to the World and are purely internal American affairs. That there is a huge wide world outside  and that it lives and moves not in accordance to the American narrative. 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.  

I think the moment of facing reality has arrived. Have a nice Friday. 

Mr. Obama, Russian Army Is Neither Second, First Nor Fifth In The World.

It is impossible to explain to Harvard lawyer that Russian Armed Forces are not interested in being ranked by anybody, as Obama tried to do in his press-conference, together with Italy's PM Renzi, remarks today. 

"We think that Russia is a large, important country with a military that is second only to ours and has to be a part of the solution on the world stage rather than part of the problem,"

Russian military is in the business of defending own country and as such has a track record without equals in the military history: from Teutonic Knights, Mongol--Tatars and Polish Invaders, to Napoleon and Hitler--these last two, accidentally, also loved to "rank" Russians. We all know how it all ended. For overwhelming majority of Russians war is not a joke and not a Hollywood movie--it is a historic reality spun over a millennium and ingrained in Russian cultural code. Russian Armed Forces have to be good at only one thing--destroying the enemy who tries to attack Russia proper and in her vicinity and in this business, as thousand year long history testifies, Russians are damn good at it. Probably, best in history. For some strange reason Russia simply does not like to be conquered, what a loser--doesn't Russia know about all benefits US "democratization" brings to people (I am being facetious, of course). Any "rankings" by anyone, be it POTUS, be it some "think tank" or some second rate journo from some faux-geopolitical rag--all of it is meaningless and reflects absolutely nothing as pertains to real military capabilities honed for achieving specific military-political goals, as stated in the military doctrine. Russia's Military Doctrine is explicitly defensive and does not, unlike it is with the US, define Russia as a "leader" or "global cop".  

Well, when speaking of Obama today, one has to bring his famous "Russia is a regional power" snafu and "Russia's economy in tatters" up. One has to, it is impossible to avoid it, especially against the background of voices within US who, however reluctantly and insincerely, begin to admit that basically they have no clue. Putting Russian Army in the 2nd, 5th, 1st or 21st place makes no difference for the cold hard fact of Russian Army today being able to conventionally defeat any opponent in her immediate vicinity. That is what Russian Army is designed for, that is how it is built. Russian sphere of vital interests is well defined and it is not global, it is, indeed, regional and, as Sergei Karaganov noted: "Russia will never again fight on her own territory". But these are capabilities which are characteristic of a superpower. Once the nuclear deterrent is added up here, the picture emerges of what Russians were longing for centuries--of the nation whose borders are untouchable. It also moves Russia into the status of whatever power label is in vogue today: super, pooper, hyper or great. But one is literally forced to ask Obama:"Mr. President, if Russia is a "regional" power, whose economy is in "tatters", how, then, this ever-declining power managed to built this military which is "second only to" US?" How does it work? Can Obama answer this question? I am sure his advisers will come up with something. 

But for the foreseeable future two things will remain the same--West "elites'" total ignorance of Russia and Russians and repetition of the mantra of US "providing global leadership" and with it running good ole' USA into the ground for the sake of narrow, greedy, cosmopolitan "elite" who has no loyalty to majority of the American people. Yet, this Obama's admission today is a stark indicator of lack of any serious foreign policy strategy for the US. It was on Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Obama's watch that United States officially has become a supporter of Al Qaeda and other Islamic terrorists. In this case, knowing whom Russia is dealing with today, it seems only natural for Russian Armed Forces to become, indeed, second to none in what they do--defend their own people. In this sense, Russian Armed Forces are on their way to become number one in that. After all, as Russian Emperor Alexander III succinctly observed: "Russia has only two allies--her army and her navy". And that is the essence of Russian history.