I am on record, I do not hold much of the Moscow's "think-tankdom" in high regard, because as any "geopolitical" think-tanks anywhere they are staffed (and stuffed) with good ol' boys and girls whose only claim to any expertise is that of being from the "right" Moscow families and social circle, and their social agility when swimming in the murky waters of Moscow's "intellectual" Parnassus. Fyodor Lukyanov is one of them and he is a darling, together with a number of clueless humanities educated "experts", of RT. You can take a look at Lukyanov's bio and "credentials" here. Yes, yet another Kreakl who still didn't recognize that political science is not a science and that any discussion on contemporary geopolitics without a firm grasp of real economy and military power--two fields which require way more than a degree in philology--is nothing more than a demagoguery using big words. And here is the issue.
Mr. Lukyanov, narrating beaten to death headlines, concludes:
It is one of those "Duh" or "No Shit" moments but I want to send you back a few years ago, namely 6 years ago, and remind you that I wrote and warned on the danger of Western, and Moscow's Parnassus, delusions about real economy for more than a decade.
The reason I warned and countered this delusion was and remains very pragmatic--US bullying's fundamental principle is "never get to fight a serious enemy". For decades pseudo-economic Voodoo about US (and West's) actual economy, the same as about that of Russia has created a false sense of both security and entitlement on the American part. The reality that US economy and its capability are vastly smaller than was declared, while Russia' economy and its capability are vastly larger than was declared by geopolitical "experts", never occurred to primarily humanities educated "masters of discourse" on the both sides of the Atlantic and that played a crucial role in the military-economic suicide of the United States which we observe right now. Recall, 8 years ago, and I will continue to repeat that ad nauseam:
I didn't write it because I wanted to exercise my abilities or, rather, lack there of, in global "forecasting" but because I simply know about real economy and technological realities of the modern world just a teeny-weeny more than all those "experts" in Russia who continue to abuse their "intellectual" sinecures and wouldn't know the difference between sine and cosine, let alone between the icebreaker and the ice maker. Today, when some of them begin to wake up to the reality that Russia's economy is not just larger, but much larger than same of Germany--I warned about this fact for years--and that, for example, the United States cannot even develop, let alone produce a completely new Main Battle Tank (MBT) and they recognize that Russia commands an immense share of critical strategic resources, people like Lukyanov begin to write trivial pieces, when the main position and task of all this Moscow "expert community" for the last 10 years should have been a firm delivery to the combined West the facts about the true state and correlations of Russia and the US CINCs (Combined Index of National Capability) and the insistence on framing the academic discussion within those proverbial Barnett's 14 points. They failed miserably, being led on the primrose path by the Wall Street virtual economy and technological "expertise" limited by the knowledge of the brands of luxury cars and iPhones. Well, I am being unjust here: they, probably, have a good expertise in good booze too.
But then again, can you imagine explaining to those people from Moscow's "geopolitical" Parnassus that the guidance and targeting systems of cruise missiles such as 3M14 or X-101, or satellite constellations of GLONASS and Liana, among many other things, the same as economy which creates them, are the main drivers of modern geopolitics and it is them on which the whole of modern Russian diplomacy and foreign relations are based upon, not some BS pseudo-intellectual constructs about geopolitics whose discussion without real solid expertise in manufacturing, including extraction, technology and weapons is the exercise in futility and demagoguery. And here we are today, the Captain Obvious discovered for himself that Russia's "economic role" in the "global" economy is more significant. I, of course, omit here the issue of military power of Russia which rests on a massive manufacturing, including dual purpose technologies. Enough to take a look at Russia's commercial aviation and the development of even SSJ-100 New.
But, of course, these are new iPhones which really matter, right? I am sure UK citizens will have no issues with food and heat since they will have new iPhones, assembled in Asia. It is sarcasm, of course, but when I see such "experts" as Lukyanov making discoveries of what is obvious to anyone with a good mind and serious life and industry experiences, I have nothing but contempt and sadness that those "experts" never got their academic priorities straight. But then again, I wrote three books on this issue. Recall the title of the last one.
As anyone knows who reads this blog and my books--victory is defined by achieving political objectives of the war. Political objectives of the war in Ukraine are removal of criminal regime in Kiev and establishing Ukraine as fully neutral nation. This main political objective is subdivided into two major military-political objectives which are:
1. Demilitarization of Ukraine, meaning destruction of Ukraine's Armed Forces and her military-industrial complex;
2. Denazification.
The first objective is largely met and transitioning of the combined arms operation into the counter-insurgency and police operation is in progress. The second one is only partially met by means of physical annihilation of military arm of the Ukrainian Neo-Nazism, the police and state security work on that is largely ahead and it is a combination of operative, paramilitary, detective, media and social measures which are being implemented. But in the midst of this constant tactical "analysis" masturbation in the Western media based solely on Ukie propaganda and fakes, with BBC finally being thrown out of Russia today (long overdue), real huge developments in the larger world outside should not be forgotten. In fact, they are even more important than what is happening now in 404.
The US, after being told to go and pound the sand by Chinese, is now applying its pressure on India. Well...get a load of this. As Times of India reports:
While initial amount of crude is not large, one should not forget that Russia is called ally of India by India and the original article in the Times of India is very specific in terms of ongoing consultations between Russia and India on setting up a Rupee--Ruble payments mechanism and results will be announced soon (several days). The United States if not understands, at least senses, a grave danger for the US status, grossly exaggerated from the inception, of a global power but promises to accelerate, already in progress, of process of cutting the US economy to size. Its REAL size.
Evidently Pakistan also is in a full blown mode of "give it to me, baby" in terms of Russia-Pakistan gas pipe-line:
So, as you can see, huge physical economy and military superpowerdom of Russia buy her a lot of goodies and ensure that those goodies will not be snatched by the declining West headed by the US. For Western "experts", such as Germany's Economic Minister Robert Habeck, who holds Doctorate IN philosophy (with zero engineering background) and is a fanatical Grune, or Lindsey Graham with Ted Cruz (both attorneys)--Russia does have all necessary competencies, technological expertise and industry to completely on her own to build just about anything. Here is one of those plants. But then again, in the world where Russia loses war in Ukraine, by means of annihilating VSU and surrounding key cities, anything is possible in regards to Russia. That is why even those people who try to stay objective and mean no ill to Russia, even those people sometimes fail to grasp what modern Russia is economically, technologically and scientifically.
Make no mistake, Russia has her own problems, no doubt about it, but those are the problems of the superpower--the fact that US so called "elites" try to avoid admitting because it will discount immediately the actual weight of the United States and, most importantly, will illuminate utter corruption of the America's political, military and economic institutions. I know this pain, and I know how cognitive dissonance between perceived "greatness" and rather unimpressive realty can exacerbate mental problems, especially among very provincial in their outlook US "elitists". This is what US "elites" are going through right now. Some, like fanatical neocons, are ready to unleash WW III, others try to convince themselves that the United States is the "greatest nation in history" still, or that Russian military technology is still not as good as American, or this or that, but one cannot escape the reckoning. It is not coming--it is IN progress as I type this. Reality is a bitch, and it inevitably bites and it hurts like hell, believe me, I know.
For starters--I love this guy. He is amazing in his grasp of Dune epic and is joy to listen to. I am subscribed to his channel on Youtube and went today to get my updates on the new Dune movie.
And while enjoying it I was dropped to the floor by discovering that The National Interest which was turning into tabloid for years now got itself into the... Dune universe. Get a load of this:
Oh, goodness, no "technology" in Dune, like faster than light space travel, which sure as hell doesn't qualify as "technology", right? Obviously lack of computing power wiped out in a Butlerian Jihad somehow should make, in accordance to the author:
Otherwise, we’ll have to hope it has terrific special effects and a music score equal to what John Williams produced for Star Wars. Lacking that, Dune is destined to be another crashing bore, because the actual characters in the story are not very relatable or likable.
Evidently, former Lt.Colonel James Carafano, doesn't understand the difference between cosmic fairy tale of Star Wars, which lobotomized Sci-Fi genre (not to mention borrowing heavily from Dune, admitted by none other that Lucas himself) and actual Sci-Fi which Dune, certainly, is. Not to mention that relatability of Dune to modern movie-goers is absolutely irrelevant here--Dune is not for consumers of woke Star Wars, Wonder Woman and other woke and talent-less PC shit being poured over the heads of infantile cretins who never left their childhood even when in their 30s. If they don't get it--fvck them, life will (already) teach them a serious social lesson on how to relate to real manhood, or femininity, sacrifice, friendship and love, things these people hardly know about.
Dune is not for them, it is for those who appreciate real life, with all its complexities and, often, horror, conveyed through what arguably could be called the Sci-Fi equivalent of War and Peace which is classic for a simple reason--remaining relatable for normal people throughout centuries, with or without smart-phone in their hands or ability to grasp how firing solution is developed in missile, because it is the story of a human, in the end. But I am sure Mr. Carafano is aware of that, right? For everything else, there is Star Wars. After all we all can make it to the movie theater in less than 12 parsecs.
I write about them all the time. Why is the US a superpower in aerospace? Obvious--US can produce aircraft from literally a scratch. US can produce all required materials, all required parts, fuselage, avionics, engines, APU... Ah, yes, APUs--those proverbial Auxiliary Power Units which no modern aircraft can exist without today. Those units do it all while aircraft engines are silent--they keep engines warm, they run all on-board systems, from air conditioners to lights, in the end--they start main engines. APU is an extremely important, crucial aircraft system. Well, here is the news (in Russian), Russians certified own APU TA18-100 by EASA. EASA is European Aviation Safety Agency which issues certificates of type of aviation systems and grants permission to operate both aircraft and systems in EU.
This seemingly not important fact is actually huge because it clears road to Russian commercial aircraft such as MC-21 and SSJ-100 to a complete Russification. Yes, yes--that means removing many American parts and substituting them with Russian-made, thus opening the market not only for Europe, but to...Iran and whomever else the US will put under sanctions. And this is not all, apart from certification of excellent PD-14 which has ZERO foreign components. In related news, in Samara at Aviaagregat (in Russian) they already manufacturing all required pipes for SSJ-100s. Now wait what KRET will come up with in terms of avionics and voila', 90+% Russian-made MC-21 and SSJ-100s are ready to be delivered to anyone, US sanctions or no sanctions. Didn't I tell you (and not me alone) that sanctions are good for Russia? And here I have to recall recent talk by some of Russia's media figures who almost ranted (fully justifiably) about sanctions. I will add here my take too: in the beginning of sanctions and spreading of the myth of Russian "economy left in tatters", I recall many economic "experts" from all kinds of BS organizations and rags, such as WSJ, making smart faces on TV telling that Russia depends on Western extraction technology, aircraft technology, some other technology. I have one question for them: morons, do you understand that the country which builds Borey-class SSBNs or flies into space will have no fvcking difficulty creating some drilling pump or materials for drills or any other equipment. The only thing Russia needed was time. Here are the results.
Will Russian commercial aircraft be competitive on the international markets? Hell, yes, especially secondary markets such as Iran, Iraq, many African nations, Indonesia etc. Well, look for yourself what US sanctions here. All hi tech, especially many in aviation related fields (not only, of course). So, we may yet witness some amazing moves at commercial aircraft market and there will be a lot of sabotage, blackmailing and arms twisting, such as with Indonesia who wanted to buy SU-35s. Nothing personal--just business.
I deliberately used in the header of this post the title of Al-Ghazali's famous 11th century treatise which, effectively, shut down any legitimacy of deterministic causality in Islam, promoted by early Islamic philosophers such as Avicenna, and ensured the victory of Asharite school of thought. It also is in the foundation of overall backwardness of contemporary Ummah the scale of which most Western so called "scholars" simply fail to grasp. Yet, as much as The Incoherence Of The Philosophers cuts contrary to every single experience of modern West (Russia including in this case), the title itself is perfect. Here is why.
In times of Greek philosophers such as Plato it was, not taking away genius and incisiveness of their views and thoughts (Republic, anyone), truth is--life was primitive. Anyone with even average intelligence could, if he (she) would put some effort into it, grasp how the stone masonry was done, how the sword or spear were made, how sail worked--in all, with the exception of more advanced math, people would see and understand how things worked. Philosophers would know this too and then they will generalize what they saw and develop their own abstracts to describe what they saw. Great! We owe them a lot, to say the least--we owe them one of the major pillars of our culture.
Then, later on, things got a little dicey, more complex in terms of philosophy and Christian theology interacting with each-other but, in general, things remained pretty much the same as they were in Greece and Rome with Byzantine. Pretty much same sail ships, same swords, same masonry etc. The world for the most part remained in material sense very much unchanged. That is until Renaissance hits the fan, we get people of the immense scale such as Leonardo, and voila'--the world begins to progress really fast and is becoming increasingly complex in its material expressions, from printing press to powder and muskets with artillery. Suddenly, it stops being that simple for a laymen. The world outside begins to require for philosophers a grasp of very many complex things. Yes, ballistics required people of mathematical mind of Nicollo Tartaglia to describe. Algebra, physics, astronomy, mechanics became much much more complex and all this ends with Sir Isaak who invents calculus (real one, not the stone of the same name in ancient Roman empire). No wonder that most middle-age philosophers were primarily men of precise sciences, such as Rene Descartes. Make a note for yourself--people of Science, from Galileo to Copernicus, to already mentioned Descartes, to well, Carl Sagan and Stephen Hawking. From there we get what Marx considered in Das Capital a key development--steam powered machines and belt transmission. Welcome to the dawn of the industrial capitalism and everything it brought us--it changed the face of the world, both in positive and negative ways, and made this world in the 20th century immensely complex. Complex as in laymen NOT being able anymore to grasp all laws and patterns behind increasingly complex material world.
Here we are, today, in the world of global communications, space travel, signal processing, mind-boggling weapons and warfare, robots, multi-axis CNC machining centers, nuclear energy, commercial airspace, lasers, computers etc. It is the world in which knowledge of how things work becomes crucial but it also becomes immensely difficult to obtain--because the way things work became immensely more complex than in the times of Aristotle and Descartes. Greek philosophers could get their minds wrapped around how Athenian economy worked or how Spartans fought, today, however, explaining to a modern philosopher what modern war is or how modern aircraft are created will be the waste of time. Unless a "philosopher" is a product of a comprehensive fundamental precise sciences or engineer background--any venturing into the actual workings of modern world for contemporary philosopher will be extremely difficult, if not altogether impossible. The spread is very simple--good level engineer, or scientist, can become a philosopher (in fact, many do--again, Carl Sagan, Hawking, Michio Kaku etc.), the opposite is usually impossible. Specially trained philosophers make very bad engineers, worse scientists, lousy military leaders and, not always good, electricians. That is why we had such things as The End Of History and Iraq War, and suicidal concept of multiculturalism--all products of modern "philosophers" who got simply lost in complexities of a modern world and are not capable to distinguish between information and knowledge.
Contemporary philosophy today is akin to a local jazz music festival where audience is hard pressed to recognize whether the band is really good or if it pretends to be good and hides behind complexities of jazz music.
In the end, BS can always pass as an incredible insight or some truth not "understandable" by mere mortals. And here is one such example, which fits perfectly my point (on Russia). In the magazine Questions (Issues) Of Philosophy, no less, real Ph.D in Philosophy, Boris Mezhuev waxes "intellectual" and comes up with this of ever so important question if Russia has her own civilizational code (in Russian). Here is English summary:
Unlike unhinged illiterate dumbfvck such as Egor Kholmogorov, who passes as "conservative thinker" (the guy dropped out of the first year of history in MSU--shows the level of "intellect") among some confused people, Mezhuev is bona fide philosopher with a lot of "scientific" credentials to back him up, including teaching position in Moscow State in the department of History of Russian Philosophy. So, Mezhuev goes full philosophical "retard" in the issue which is, indeed, important for Russia but while doing so, invoking all those great ghosts of important Russian thinkers such as Chaadaev, Kluchevsky--you name it. He arrives to this "philosophical" conclusion:
Если у
России и существует некий особый «цивилизационный код», то он состоит в
явном сопротивлении тренду на дискредитацию фигуры Отца-Царя-Бога, то
есть в спасении основ патриархальной цивилизации, но в рамках
христианства.
Translation: If Russia has any unique civilizational code, then it is in resistance to the trend on discrediting of Father-Czar-God figure, that is in saving of fundamentals of patriarchal civilization in Christian framework. Well, it is all fine and dandy and I actually agree here, but Mezhuev immediately makes this remark:
Собственно,
сейчас, в эти годы, даже месяцы Россия тестируется на всамделишность ее
многовековых претензий на «цивилизационную особость» – нельзя
исключать, что идущие с Запада социокультурные инновации рано или поздно
будут приняты и у нас, тем более что ресурсная база «внутреннего
Запада» в России более значительна, чем материальные возможности всех
потенциальных изоляционистов.
Однако нельзя исключить, что в ближайшие уже годы мы увидим медленный
дрейф российского общества в сторону принятия европейских стандартов: и в
плане культурной открытости трансгендерам и сексуальной меньшинствам, и
в виде изживания следов патриархальности в политике, культуре и
религии. Это будет означать только одно: что Россия откажется быть
цивилизацией, выбрав путь конформного приспособления к нормам
Евро-Атлантики. Никто не поручится, что, в конце концов, Россия не
изберет именно этот конформистский путь, который «внутренний Запад»
назовет передовым, а агентура цивилизационной самобытности,
соответственно, пораженческим.
Translation: Actually, now, these years and even months, Russia is being tested on realness of her centuries' old claim to civilizational uniqueness--one can not exclude that socio-cultural innovations coming from the West, sooner or later, will be accepted in Russia, especially because resource base of "internal West" in Russia is more substantial than material capabilities of all potential isolationists. However, we can not discount the possibility, in the nearest years, of witnessing a slow drift of Russian society towards acceptance of European standards: in both cultural openness to transgender and other sexual minorities, also in terms of purging the traces of patriarchy in politics, culture and religion. That would mean only one thing: Russia's refusal of being a civilization, instead choosing the way of conformance to the norms of Euro-Atlanticism, the way which "internal West" will call progressive, while agents of civilizational uniqueness will call it defeatist.
You see, what I am talking about? I just wrote and published one book on that, and writing another--that allowing all kinds of ignoramuses waxing philosophical and geopolitical without knowing that Russian civilizational code IS warfare on unprecedented scale and her Armed Forces, in the words of Prokhanov, is Second Church... Well, you know--that is what one gets from people who have no knowledge of both West and Russia, especially her history which IS the history of wars and survival. I do not want to continue dragging this for much longer but here is one reason why those "European standards" will not be accepted--Russian society is, using Western parlance, "militaristic one", it has to be--it is the culture which extols warrior--it is environment where Moscow hipsters (a precise environment of Mezhuev's academic activity) and their behavioral matrices can not survive. While bunch of Moscow douche-bags try to get into Timathy's Burger Place on new Arbat, 30 000 people of Voronezh lined up for the last goodbye to Major Roman Filipov. In the end, Mezhuev better watch this:
And ask himself a question: will the society which marches in tens of millions to commemorate their heroes accept gender neutrality and debilitating culture of mostly large urban centers Russian "internal West". But here is the point--for me to explain to philosopher WHAT and HOW goes into Russia's defense on material, economic, scientific, cultural and spiritual level will be impossible--philosophers are simply incoherent and not educated enough to get it in this immensely complex and confusing world of ours. As per Russia, she always was:
