Standing up for Mother Russia
Because she is on the right side of history.
We are now a month into the Ukraine war. In the real world, things seem to be unfolding pretty much as the Russian army general staff planned it.
Russia has complete control of the air. It has the main forces of the Ukrainian army kettled and isolated from each other. With the exception of Mariupol, they have avoided major civilian casualties and destruction of infrastructure.
It looks like the Mariupol operation, against the worst of the worst of the Nazi fanatics, will be finished in a few days. The Russian command is always tight lipped about what is going on, and does not let reporters close to the actual fighting, but it seems the civilian population, those that have survived, are now safe.
The remaining maniacs are trapped in tunnels under this Azovstal complex. They have been given the ultimatum to give up or die. They seem disinclined to take up the offer. The Russian command has apparently decided to take no prisoners after this deadline.
For the defenders of the white race and European civilization against the Asiatic Hordes, trapped in other ‘cauldrons’ around the borders of Ukraine, this is their warning. The war crimes tribunals are being set up in Crimea for them. Decision time is coming; they can free their hostages, surrender and face justice, or die where they are.
Time is on the side of the Russian army and it is in no hurry. Even if the NATO powers were foolish enough to attempt an intervention, it would be dealt with quickly. The Russians are not too worried about all the equipment being sent into Ukraine; it cannot get to the fighting troops, who would not know how to use it anyway.
There is noise about enforcing a ‘no fly zone’ over Ukraine. There already is one, maintained by the Russian air force. Any NATO plane that sticks its nose over the Ukraine border will be very quickly shot down.
This comes from the idea that the armed forces of NATO countries are all-powerful. The reality is that NATO countries have very poor Armed forces. Even during the times of the cold war and the Soviet Union, the defence of Europe depended mainly on the nuclear deterrent.
For awhile during the 1990s when everything in Russia collapsed, NATO had an edge. It used this time window to drive Russia back to its borders. At that time Russia would likely have gone under but for two things; its own nuclear deterrent which it held onto, and the rise of the Putin government.
In the past twenty years Russia has learned how to create effective armed forces with a technological advantage, without spending a lot of money. One of the reasons this showdown is happening now is that Russian technical superiority is at a point where it could defeat NATO very quickly in any kind of war. The brass at NATO HQ in Brussels and at the Pentagon know this and are not eager to commit suicide.
The Russians have been advertising for several years now that any attack on Russia or on Russian armed forces anywhere will be immediately followed by a conventional or nuclear strike on the base from which the attack was launched, and from the HQ from which the order was given. The Russians now have quantities of well tested hypersonic missiles that travel too fast to be stopped by anything NATO has.
Even in an old fashioned ground war, the above mentioned brass admit that the Russian army fighting close to its own borders would defeat NATO within two days. It does not have logistical capacity to drive deep into NATO territory. The Russians do not need to, for reasons already made obvious.
Given this, the NATO and US generals are the main people putting the brakes on the hysteria to ‘do something’ about Russia. This hysteria is quite disturbing. It is quite blind to the facts stated above.
Where this drive for war is coming from is the big issue here, and it is not really clear. It is being driven by western politicians and news media, but these are the puppets, not the puppet masters. It emanates from the financialist/Atlanticist factions of the old ruling class, but the motive is bewildering.
The industrial oligarchy in Europe and North America are not as keen on this drive to war with Russia. They see China as their great threat. Yet they also are in an emotional meltdown as they see their dominance slipping away. They are also more nationally based.
The Atlanticists are a mostly hereditary elite. They have ruled the globe for two centuries. They have always had the goal of securing their authority over every inch of the earth’s surface and owning everything important on it.
The goal has been to prevent the emergence of any rival to their control. They have never been able to really achieve this dominance and now it is all slipping away from them. New powers are emerging which are outside their control and which cannot be defeated.
This seems to have shattered their sense of identity. Some elements among them may be seeking annihilation, unable to live with this loss of their self identity. The only thing which may be somewhat rational in this behaviour is an intention to isolate these powers which are threatening their illusion of control.
Thus the attempts to cut off all economic connections to Russia, using the Russian operation Z as the pretext. This really is insane; it would cause far more damage to the west than to Russia. However, it would create a new iron curtain, which they may think will preserve their control over their core domains in the Atlantic world.
However, it seems that this new iron curtain will only fence themselves off from the world, while their rivals remain connected to it. Western Europe and North America do not understand that they no longer produce much that the world wants. Russia is the world’s biggest exporter of resources and alternate sources could not be quickly found.
Of the things the Atlantic powers have done to hurt Russia that has and will rebound even sharper on themselves, the worst is to seize Russia’s currency reserves held in foreign banks, and to cut it off from the international payments system. Some have been amazed that Russia had half of its exchange reserves, needed to handle economic transactions, in the banks of countries hostile to it.
This might have been a deliberate ploy, a bait which the west took. Now, no one will want to keep their reserves in western banks. A well, Russia and China have developed a reputation for financial probity and are now offering an alternative for international business to park its money.
They have also been developing an alternative payments system and a reserve currency system not based on just one currency. They have now put this into full operation. From now on Russian gas will be paid for in Rubles, and China will buy its oil in RMB.
This will mean the end of the American dollar. What has kept the American empire going for so long has been that it has had the military power to intimidate everybody into doing all their business in dollars. Their military is now rotted out, despite all the money being spent on it.
A generation ago, all international trade was in dollars. This is now at 50% and it is going to go to zero pretty fast now. This will lead to the financial collapse of the USA. There is strong speculation that the last, desperate move of the US treasury would be a ‘bail in’, a seizure, of all foreign assets in American banks, which would really end the dollar as a ‘reserve currency.’
Thus we see that Mother Russia is losing the propaganda war to the western perception management machine in the areas it controls. In the rest of the world, this machine is failing. In Ukraine, the Russian army is working on its own timetable and is indifferent to what anyone in the west says, thinks, or does.
The Russian economy seems to be doing well. After a sharp drop earlier this month, the Ruble is back up to what it was before. The price of produce in Russian grocery stores has declined and availability increased, as less is being exported.
The Russian oil and gas business has made some new deals with China and India to compensate for any loss of markets in the west. In the west, the removal of Russian oil and gas from markets has led to a sharp increase in prices and a decline in supply. This will have severe effects on the economies of western nations, including Canada.
The list of ways by which cutting economic ties with Russia hurts the west more than Russia is very long. The USA will not even be able to launch satellites without Russian rocket motors. Russia grows a third of the world’s wheat. It supplies 40% of the world’s nitrogen fertilizer. It supplies most of the inert gasses needed for many manufacturing processes, including making microchips.
Of course, all the economic woes about to befall the western nations cannot be attributed solely to Mother Russia’s revenge. The effects of self defeating sanctions on Russia, failure to control the pandemic, and loss of confidence in western Economies, cannot be separated out in the perfect storm that is coming.
I think a radical change is in the cards for western governments. In a few years new western leaders will be knocking on Mother Russia’s door pleading that they are calling off the big snit. I think it will take them awhile to fully gain her confidence.
Someone might think from this piece that I am some kind of Russophile. Oh, no. I just have a slight affection for things Russian. I do not think everything is perfect in Russia.
There are some problems with the way things go in Russia. I do not think Putin or the kind of people around him will be running things there for much longer. Why that is, is a subject for a future blog. Feel free to subscribe.
Do Skorogo
Some of my recent pieces on the topic