commondreams | There are many reasons for Russia's invasion. Some concern politics,
history, culture, and territory—including preventing NATO expansion. Not
often mentioned, however, is that this small country has 5% of the earth's natural and mineral resources,
including coal, oil, natural gas (2nd most in Europe), lithium (for
batteries), iron ore (for industry), titanium (20% of proven world
reserves, for aerospace) and gallium (2nd most in world, for
electronics). Ukraine is also incredibly rich agriculturally—1st
in Europe in arable land and 25% of the world's volume of black soil
—capable of meeting the food needs of 600 million people.
This is more than a political war. It's a resource war.
Immense
resources translate to immense wealth—and power. Russia wants control
over them. So do western nations and transnational
corporations—including energy, mining, and agricultural companies. U.S. military contractors—Raytheon
and Lockheed Martin corporations—are telling their investors the
tensions are good for business, while General Dynamics corporation
boasts that past such disputes have expanded their bottom line.
The
U.S. has committed more than $3 billion in military assistance to
Ukraine since 2014, including $350 million worth of weapons recently
authorized by President Biden. Lobbying and political campaign contributions
by the weapons industry will surely be a factor in continuing the flow
of arms. To the degree that energy, mining, and agricultural
corporations believe they can eventually grab a piece of Ukrainian
resources, they too will use their never-intended First Amendment corporate constitutional rights to press Congress for more funding.
Wars
are not only, in general, profitable to weapons makers and corporations
that directly benefit from occupations and any eventual access to raw
materials and cheap labor. Justification for a "permanent war economy"
(which best describes our national economic policy) also greatly
benefits other corporations.
Financial corporations (part of the largest single sector of campaign contributions to federal candidates and parties)
profit from war. They facilitate the selling of U.S. Treasury debt
bonds to foreign nations (since most military spending increases the
nation's debt). They also provide loans internationally to rebuild
war-torn nations and domestically to communities (via purchasing
municipal bonds with high yields) to fill the gap of declining public
funding. Past and current military spending equals 48% of all spent federal tax dollars.
Relatedly,
federal spending priorities favoring militarism over funding to states
and communities have placed greater pressure on them to provide basic
human and community needs—from programs addressing poverty, health care,
education, hunger, homelessness, the environment and physical
infrastructure. Privatization/corporatization of public assets—roads,
water/sewer systems, utilities, prisons, schools, airports, rail/bus
services, medical services—is increasingly the result, much to the
delight of slews of corporate entities more than willing to monetize and
profit from what formerly had been publicly funded public services.
Smedley Butler, a retired U.S. Marine Corp Major General, gave a speech in 1935 entitled "War is a Racket."
In it, he said, "I spent thirty-three years and four months in active
military service as a member of this country's most agile military
force, the Marine Corps...I spent most of my time being a high class
muscle-man for Big Business, for Wall Street and for the Bankers. In
short, I was a racketeer, a gangster for capitalism…"
johnhelmer | In the history of the world wars, or the last century of wars in Europe, or the wars the US has waged since 1945, it has never happened that what the President of the US says, and what the head of the front-line country which the US is fighting to defend says, have mattered less than what Joseph Biden and Vladimir Zelensky say now.
The reason is that no US president running a war has ever been as incapacitated in command and control as Biden, nor as impotent among his own officials as Zelensky. Rule by crock and rule by stooge aren’t rule at all.
US public opinion polls measuring Biden’s job approval rating demonstrate that most American voters already realize this. The growing spread between American voters’ disapproval and approval of Biden’s performance since the Russian operation began on February 24 indicates also that this understanding is growing.
But this isn’t anti-war sentiment, let alone an American stop-the-war movement. At present US officials headed by Secretary of State Antony Blinken aim to fight the war to the capitulation or destruction of Russia; they will fight to the last Ukrainian to achieve this goal; they will negotiate no end-of-war terms; they are not influenced or constrained by American public opinion or votes. Not yet.
Zelensky has declared he is in favour of negotiations to end the war; he has declared he is opposed to the terms which President Vladimir Putin and the Russian leadership have made clear, long before the war began and ever since, were the casus belli, the objectives for which they are fighting. The reason Zelensky regularly contradicts himself is that his power – his survival in office – depends on the Galician faction headquartered around Lvov, whose only occupation is permanent warfighting, and whose only income flows from the US and the NATO alliance. They are as committed as Blinken to operating the Ukraine as a gun platform targeted at Russia; the Galicians will destroy all of eastern Ukraine as they withdraw, in order to keep firing. The Germans thought and did as much on the same battlefields eighty years ago.
Biden, Blinken, Zelensky, and the Galicians also hate Russians with more racial virulence than has ever been shown by Americans towards a European enemy in the history of American wars.
Race hatred towards Russians now far exceeds American public opinion measured towards Germans during World War I or World War II. It is only matched, according to the US War Department’s surveys of American soldiers, by hatred towards the Japanese. During that war, six times the number of GIs polled said they “would really like to kill” a Japanese soldier as said the same for a German. When combat veterans were asked “what would you like to see happen to the Japanese and the Germans after the war”, almost one in two GIs from the Pacific theatre supported wiping out the entire Japanese nation; one in eight from the European theatre said that of Germany. During the Vietnam War, US race hatred for the Vietnamese was even less.
If these lessons are true, or if the commands in Moscow and in Washington believe them, what end to the war can be negotiated short of the destruction of one side or the other?
The simpleton’s conclusion is none – there can be no end to this war unless the Ukraine is destroyed, or Russia, or Europe, or the US. How simple-minded is that?
gilbertdoctorow | there is today no Russian ‘rhetoric’ at all regarding its own
planned use of chemical and nuclear weapons in the Ukrainian theater.
They have mentioned chemical weapons only with respect to an expected
‘false flag’ operation which the Ukrainian nationalists may carry out by
releasing into the atmosphere toxic chemicals stored in one or another
Ukrainian factory so as to blame advancing Russian forces for an
“attack.” One such incident was already reported on Russian news in the
past week, though the ammonia leaks were quickly repaired and there was
no harm to nearby Ukrainian villagers.
With respect to Russia’s supposed “history of using chemical agents
against its enemies,” we can well imagine that the author had in mind
the Novichok poisoning of the Skripals and of Alexei Navalny or the
polonium poisoning of Alexander Litvinenko several years ago. These
cases were proven only in the court of public opinion thanks to heavy
pressure on the media from the British government. There is good reason
to suppose that they were all MI6 operations intended to discredit the
Russian government, not actual Russian attacks. Similarly the supposed
chemical attacks on his opponents by al-Assad were very likely ‘false
flag’ operations by one or another Jihadi group aided by Western
intelligence operatives.
But let us put these contentious issues aside for a moment and ask
whether the Russians have any reason whatsoever to resort to weapons
that violate all international conventions for the sake of victory in
their Ukraine campaign. On the basis of available information about the
state of the fighting, rumored losses of personnel and depletion of
conventional weapons, there are no reasons for such action by the
Russians. All evidence suggests that the Russian campaign has been
conducted so far with a view to reducing civilian deaths to a minimum.
The UN agency responsible for monitoring such things has reported a
little over 2,000 deaths in the first month of the Russian military
operation. This is absolutely miniscule for a campaign of this
magnitude. U.S. forces inflicted hundreds of thousands of civilian
deaths in their own operations in Iraq in 2003 at this stage in the
fighting. Moreover, the recent slowdown in the Russian offensive may be
little more than a regrouping for continued assault when fresh reserves
and equipment arrive. The heaviest fighting, in Mariupol, appears to be
headed for total Russian victory in a matter of days, despite the city
having been held by the fanatical nationalist Azov battalion in addition
to substantial regular army units. Chechen forces deployed in Mariupol
yesterday claimed to have taken the municipal government buildings and
to control a large part of the city. Once Mariupol is secure, the large
Russian contingent besieging the city will likely be moved north to
facilitate encirclement and destruction of the main Ukrainian military
force encamped west of the line of demarcation with Donbas.
One further sign that supposed Russian setbacks of a scale that would
give rise to drastic change in their conduct of the war is nothing more
than a bare-faced lie was the remark by Biden in answer to a
journalist’s question at yesterday’s press conference in NATO
headquarters. Would the United States agree to Ukraine’s making
territorial concessions to Russia for the sake of a cease-fire and
peace? Said Biden, that decision is entirely up to the Kiev
authorities. The remark is as good as confirmation that Ukraine is
losing the war and will have to sue for peace.
If I am correct and there is no factual or logical basis to assume
that the Russians will deploy internationally prohibited weapons of mass
destruction in Ukraine, then why all the noise about it? To answer that
question, you have to turn to Russian media.
Yesterday’s Russian television broadcasts give you the answer.
Programming was filled with one dominant issue: the documentary
evidence that Russian military investigators have found in their seizure
of biological laboratories in Ukraine financed by the Pentagon and
curated by Americans. The Russians are asserting that these labs were
being used to conduct internationally prohibited development of
biological weapons. They provide details on the various toxins produced
there and on human experiments, including on Ukrainian soldiers,
resulting in multiple fatalities and hospitalizations. The documents and
other evidence were shown on the screen quickly, but I have no doubt
that they will be properly published in the days ahead.
Perhaps most damaging in the present U.S. – Russian confrontation
which has become so personalized on the two presidents is that the
Russians are publicizing documents showing that Joe’s son Hunter was
directly involved in the work of the criminal biological labs through a
company of his that operated in Ukraine during the presidency of Barack
Obama.
If true, then the Biden family is up to its neck in criminal activity
and yesterday’s Public Relations push against Russia over weapons of
mass destruction is just a smoke screen to conceal the real culprits.
WaPo | The Ukrainians’ effective resistance is forcing President Biden to make a
delicate calibration that he is fortunate to be in a position to make:
How much embarrassment can Putin suffer without taking a catastrophic
step — use of a tactical nuclear weapon? Biden’s calculation occurs in
this context of Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s saying
U.S. objectives are the restoration of Ukraine’s sovereignty and
territorial integrity. This might maximally imply the reversal of
Putin’s 2014 annexation of Crimea.
The
rhetoric of imagined but rarely attained precision is common in modern
governance. Policymakers speak of “fine tuning” an economy that is
powered by hundreds of millions of people making hundreds of billions of
daily decisions and subject to “exogenous” events unanticipated by
policymakers. Military planners contemplate “surgical strikes” as
“signaling devices” as conflicts ascend the “escalation ladder.” In 1965, war theorist Herman Kahnpostulated
44 rungs on that ladder. The 22nd: “Declaration of Limited Nuclear
War.” The 44th: “Spasm or Insensate War.” Rung 21 was “Local Nuclear War
— Exemplary.” As Biden calibrates, we might be rising from Rung 20:
“‘Peaceful’ World-Wide Embargo or Blockade.”
After
1945, it was understood that nuclear weapons might, by deterring
military interventions to counter aggressions, enable wars of
considerable conventional violence. Biden, however, has orchestrated a symphony of sanctions and weapons deliveries
that has — so far — nullified Putin’s attempt to use nuclear threats to
deter effective conventional responses to his aggression.
Presidents are pressured by friends as well as foes. In 1976, as Republicans convened in Kansas City, Ronald Reagan was almost tied in the delegate count, having potently attacked President Gerald Ford’s policy of U.S.-Soviet detente, including Ford’s refusal
to meet with Soviet dissident Alexander Solzhenitsyn. In Kansas City,
Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, detente’s architect, asked Tom Korologos,
a Ford aide who enjoyed tormenting Kissinger, who would be Ford’s
running mate. Korologos answered: “Solzhenitsyn.” Volodymyr Zelensky is
to Biden what Solzhenitsyn was to Ford, someone whose prestige
encourages firmness.
Ukraine’s president illustrates Churchill’s axiom
that courage is the most important virtue because it enables the
others. Zelensky has stiffened the West’s spine, made something like
victory seem possible, and made it impossible to blur the conflict’s
moral clarity. So, a collateral casualty of the conflict is a 19th
century German philosopher.
Before sinking into insanity, Friedrich Nietzsche propounded a theory
that still reverberates in the intelligentsia: There are no “facts,”
“only interpretations.” That today’s war has been caused by one man’s
wickedness is a fact. War is a harrowing means of embarrassing the faux
sophisticates’ moral relativism, but by doing so, this ill wind has
blown some good.
here is the text conversation between Hunter & Joe Biden. Natalie is Joe’s granddaughter/Hunter’s niece. Rudy Gulianni who viewed the laptop told us about it before the election- but of course we made him out to be an idiot. Our president is a pedo protector. 💔 pic.twitter.com/FqfoEJu0s7
— She Was A Stunner ✌🏼❤️🉑 (@Idontbelievey13) March 18, 2022
“The White House can’t just wash away the stink of Hunter Biden’s laptop” [New York Post]. “[A]s a grand jury in Delaware moves closer to potentially indicting Hunter, 52, over alleged tax evasion, money laundering and violations of the Foreign Agents Registration Act, pressure is mounting on the president finally to explain his role in the international influence-peddling scheme run by his son and his brother Jim Biden while he was vice president. The laptop, along with evidence provided by Hunter’s former business partner Tony Bobulinski, and Treasury documents provided to a Senate inquiry, reveal millions of dollars flowing to the Biden family and associates from dubious foreign sources, including three flashpoint countries vital to US national security: Russia, Ukraine and China. Evidence also exists showing that Joe Biden financially benefited from his then-drug-addicted son’s overseas business dealings — perhaps by several million dollars. White House press secretary Jen Psaki played dumb last week and refused to answer questions from The Post’s Steven Nelson about how the president is navigating conflicts of interest during the Ukraine-Russia war when it comes to sanctioning people who have done business with his family. Specifically, Nelson asked about Russian oligarch Yelena Baturina, who has not been sanctioned, but who allegedly wired $3.5 million on Feb. 14, 2014, to a firm associated with Hunter’s former business partner Devon Archer. That wire was flagged in a suspicious activity report provided by the Treasury Department to a Senate Republican inquiry, chaired by Sens. Chuck Grassley and Ron Johnson. Now, new evidence has emerged via the laptop showing that Baturina wired as much as $118 million to various offshoots of Rosemont Seneca Partners, the consulting firm co-founded by Hunter, Archer and John Kerry’s stepson, Chris Heinz.” • Hmm. I haven’t followed the detail on this. However, I believe The Bidens would say that the Biden family has form, and this is what it is.
sputniknews | In
recent weeks, the Russian Defence Ministry has peeled back layers of
information about 30+ Pentagon-funded biolabs feared to be engaged in
dangerous and illegal research into deadly pathogens in Ukraine. US
officials and media initially denied that the labs existed, but a senior
Biden administration official later confirmed their presence.
An
investment firm connected to US President Joe Biden's son Hunter Biden
has been implicated in the financing of the Pentagon's military
biological programme in Ukraine, the head of Russia's Radiation,
Chemical and Biological Defence Troops has announced, citing fresh
documents.
"Incoming
materials have allowed us to trace the scheme of interaction between US
government bodies and Ukraine's biolabs. The involvement in the
financing of these activities by structures close to the current US
leadership, in particular the Rosemont Seneca investment fund managed by
Hunter Biden, draws attention to itself," RCBD Troops chief Igor
Kirillov said in a briefing Thursday.
According
to the MoD's information, the fund has at least $2.4 billion in
investment capital. "At the same time, a close relationship has been
established between the the fund and key contractors of the US military,
including Metabiota, which alongside Black & Veatch is one of the
main suppliers of equipment for Pentagon biolaboratories around the
world," Kirillov added.
The
Los Alamos National Laboratory - birthplace of the US atomic bomb, has
served as one of the chief curators of the US military biological
programmes in Ukraine, Kirillov said.
Russian
Defence Ministry presentation detailing coordination between
Ukraine-based labs and US agencies and companies, including Hunter Biden
and George Soros (far left), the US State Department, USAID, Gilead
Sciences, SkyMount Medical, Metabiota, Black&Veatch, CH2M Hill, the
US Embassy in Ukraine (center) and the CDC, the National Laboratory at
Los Alamos and the universities of Tennessee, Alaska, Florida, New
Mexico and Virginia (right). Below, ties are shown to the Lugar Center
in Georgia, the Ukrainian Ministry of Health and associated centers and
institutes, and teh Ukrainian Defence Ministry's epidemiological
departments.
sputniknews | Salacious
stories have swirled for years about US President Joe Biden’s son,
Robert Hunter Biden, but they have concealed a deep web of corruption in
which Hunter sought to use his father’s notoriety to score unscrupulous
business deals from Ukraine to Hong Kong.
On Thursday, the Russian Ministry of Defense revealed new information about US-funded biolabs it has discovered in eastern Ukraine
amid the Kremlin's special “neutralization” operation in the nation.
According to findings by Russia’s Radiation, Chemical and Biological
Defense Troops, one company connected to these biolabs and their work
was founded by Hunter Biden and Christopher Heinz, the latter the
stepson of former US Secretary of State John Kerry.
"Incoming
materials have allowed us to trace the scheme of interaction between US
government bodies and Ukraine's biolabs. The involvement in the
financing of these activities by structures close to the current US
leadership, in particular the Rosemont Seneca investment fund managed by
Hunter Biden, draws attention to itself," RCBD Troops chief Igor Kirillov said in a briefing Thursday, noting the fund has at least $2.4 billion in investment capital.
Rosemont
Seneca Partners was founded in 2009 by Biden, Heinz and Heinz’s college
roommate and fellow financier, Devon Archer, according to the Financial Times. Biden and Heinz were described as company co-owners and Archer as a “managing partner” in a report to the US Securities and Exchange Commission.
The
private equity firm was anchored by the Heinz family alternative
investment fund, Rosemont Capital, and was formed to “be populated by
political loyalists and positioned to strike profitable deals overseas with foreign governments and officials with whom the US government was negotiating,” according to the 2018 book “Secret Empires: How the American Political Class Hides Corruption and Enriches Family and Friends,” by Peter Schweizer.
Some
of those deals attracted significant concern as they seemed contrary to
US political interests, including in China and Ukraine. In a deal in
2014, Rosemont Seneca raised some $1.5 billion for a fund launched by
Harvest Fund Management and Bohai Industrial Group, a group closely tied
to Chinese state-owned enterprises. The resultant group was dubbed
Bohai Harvest RST.
This
became a problem the following year, when BHR joined the Chinese
state-owned defense firm Aviation Industry Corporation of China (AVIC)
to buy anti-vibration automotive parts from American precision-parts manufacturer Henniges - a deal agreed to during the Obama administration. A US Senate investigation in 2019
found a significant conflict of interest in the deal, as anti-vibration
technology is considered “dual use,” having both civilian and military
applications.
FT | Some days back a top forex trader and now monetary
economist for HSBC Global Market remarked recently that following
Russian Central Bank’s foreign currency dollar asset freeze order by US,
it’s only a matter of time that the Russia would be forced to go for
trading with the west in Rouble only or Rouble and Yaun/Renminbi
currencies only to ensure it remains 100% risk free from sanctions and
asset freezes, despite potential risk of inflationary costs at home.
India, one of the major economies and the largest democracy in the
world has already been trading with Russia under Rouble – Rupee exchange
agreements for many decades. Indian banking and finance lawyers
privately say that India’s finance ministry along with Reserve Bank of
India (RBI) and Bank of Russia is “racing against time” in exploring
options to “internationalise” Russian version of the SWIFT version –
SPFS, starting with India as a launch base outside Russia (being helped
by the fact that India has reservations in dealing with China’s CIPS –
China’s version for SWIFT – though it is ready to accept expansion of
China’s UnionPay card payment system subject to restrictions).
In fact many Indian online retailers, like Israeli online retailers
and service providers, have/are on the verge of setting up Russia’s Mir
card payment system online to enable Russian citizens to trade with/buy
products from India.
Israel has/soon to have similar arrangements in place. Turkey,
Malaysia, Bangladesh, Argentina, Venezuela, Iran, Saudi Arabia, South
Africa and many AU countries and of course China all have (or most
already rushing to have) rouble + their respective currency exchange
agreements in place.
A number of lawyers based at Indian corporate law firms in Mumbai say
“they are working around the clock” like never before following the
outbreak of Ukraine war, in advising number of governments of African
Union countries on enabling rouble-based trades and also currently
advising many of the corporations and conglomerates based in emerging
markets on setting up rouble based contracts, given India’s
half-a-century unsurpassed experience in trading with Russia under
rouble – rupee exchange agreement/and or rouble – rupee swaps.
However, notwithstanding this, Indian corporate law firms are
advising many large corporations based in the emerging markets to
evaluate their governing contract and arbitration clause options and to
seriously consider other major jurisdictions available as alternative to
London, New York, Paris and Singapore, with the options of Dubai, Hong
Kong being on the table among others.
Corporate law firms in India’s financial capital Mumbai say that
government of India with the help of country’s premier members of the
legal profession is also seriously considering to see current
Russian-Ukraine crisis as “either or never” opportunity for India to
emerge as future international arbitration centre alternative to London,
Paris, New York, Singapore and Switzerland and evaluate whether it can
become alternative to London and New York as governing law provider for
English law or New York law respectively, by using India’s well
established English common law system, though this is likely to take
some time (Dubai, Singapore and Hong Kong provides a tough competition).
On another note, an Indian lawyer said they along with Hong Kong and
Dubai based lawyers are advising banks in Bangladesh, UAE, Pakistan and
African Union member countries alongside Bank of Russia in exploring
options to consider rolling out/enable cross-border Russia’s Mir and
China’s Union Pay systems in the said countries’ retail and commercial
banking as well as to roll out rouble currency accounts for retail
customers as FCY account options for customers wishing to open forex
based rouble (or alongside limited capacity Renminbi Yua) fixed deposit
schemes for the purpose of sending their children to Russia for
education and medical treatments, given that Ukraine is out of the
equation for many; until recently, Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, Georgia
after the west, Turkey and the Far East was considered one of the most
attractive cheaper alternatives for study medicine and study abroad for
STEM subjects for middle class citizens from the emerging markets.
indianpunchline | Succinctly put, the big-power struggle in faraway Europe,
precipitated by the Biden administration for geopolitical purposes to
isolate and weaken Russia, erupted at a most critical juncture when
India has been increasingly sceptical about American policies and
statesmanship. The picture that the US is presenting itself is far from
convincing either: a battleground of tribalism and culture wars, an
ageing superpower in decline with dwindling influence globally.
In
the Indian economy’s tryst with destiny, the US is of no help. On the
other hand, the waning multilateralism and the new constraints imposed
on growth by the US’ growing propensity to weaponise the dollar,
threaten to blight the shoots of post-pandemic growth in the Indian
economy.
On Monday, Biden celebrated a Business Roundtable with the CEOs
of the largest corporations in the American economy. He boasted: “6.7
million jobs last year –- the most ever created in one year; more than 7
million now. 678,000 created just last month, in one month.
Unemployment down to 3.8 percent. Our economy grew at 5.7 percent last
year, and the strongest in nearly 40 years… We reduced the deficit by
$360 billion last year… And we’re on track to reduce it by over $1
trillion this year.”
Biden
is understandably thrilled beyond words. Yet, when he deliberately
orchestrated a confrontation with Russia at this juncture, it didn’t
occur to him what crippling impact and downstream consequences his
draconian “sanctions from hell” against a major G20 economy would have
on the developing economies.
A UNCTAD report on March 16, titled The Impact on Trade and Development of the War in Ukraine,
concludes, “The results confirm a rapidly worsening outlook for the
world economy, underpinned by rising food, fuel and fertiliser prices,
heightened financial volatility, sustainable development divestment,
complex global supply chain reconfigurations and mounting trade costs.
“This
rapidly evolving situation is alarming for developing countries, and
especially for African and least developed countries, some of which are
particularly exposed to the war in Ukraine and its effect on trade
costs, commodity prices and financial markets. The risk of civil unrest,
food shortages and inflation-induced recessions cannot be discounted…”
Does
Biden even know that at least 25 African countries depend on Russia for
meeting more than one-third of their wheat imports? Or, that Benin
actually meets 100% on Russia for its wheat imports? And that Russia
supplies wheat at concessional price for these poor countries?
Now,
how do these meek and wretched countries of the planet import from
Russia when Biden and EU chief Ursula Gertrud von der Leyen join hands
to block the banking channels for trading with Russia? Can Delaware find
a solution?
The cruelty and cynical complacency with which the
Biden Administration and the EU conduct their foreign polices is
absolutely stunning. And, mind you, all this is happening in the name of
“democratic values” and “international law”!
India
cannot agree with the US and EU’s reckless attempt to weaponise global
economic links. The fact of the matter is that the US and EU may not
even win this war in Ukraine. Russia has almost completed 90 percent of
its special operations. Unless Biden allows Kiev to agree to a peace
settlement, the division of Ukraine along the Dnieper river is in the
cards.
The US is
destabilising the European security order while the western sanctions
are destabilising the global economic order. The US and EU must bear
responsibility for this collateral damage. The West is in panic that the
world is living in the Asian century already.
newsweek | How did Hunter Biden's depraved behavior and his and his family members' dubious dealings with adversaries and oligarchs compromise and corrupt Joe Biden? What did Joe know, when did he know it and did he directly or indirectly profit? To what extent would—and today, does—the Biden family's conduct loom over vital issues of American foreign policy, and thus national security?
We
were deprived of the answers to these critical questions during the
2020 election—deprived of hearing the questions asked themselves—because
of one of the gravest American information operations in history,
masquerading as a defense against a Russian information operation.
Now,
our Ruling Class' chief organ has admitted it. It took 17 months, and
24 paragraphs into an article at first glance unrelated, but buried in a
New York Times report
on the apparently sprawling federal investigation into Hunter Biden,
the "Paper of Record" revealed the truth we've long known: Hunter's "laptop from hell" is real.
We knew this before Joe Biden was elected. But millions of Americans
didn't because the corporate media, the Deep State for which it serves
as a conduit and the Big Tech that propagates their Official Narratives
conspired together to suppress the true story while amplifying the
politically beneficial one.
The
people who purport to defend "our democracy," in other words, thwarted
the republic by concealing from the public the kind of crucial
information on which war and peace hinges.
The
many layers to this scandal are worth recounting because they so
vividly reveal a pervasive rot at the core of our country that is poised
to fester absent a massive reckoning.
There's
the fact the corporate media unquestioningly ran with a narrative that
the story was "Russian disinformation" to justify its dismissal of it,
despite lacking a scintilla of concrete evidence to substantiate that
dubious claim.
There's the fact dozens of senior then-ex
intelligence community (IC) officials—people whose profession ostensibly
demands equipoise, analytical rigor and the setting aside of
politics—fed the corporate media that narrative, abusing their positions
with reckless abandon.
The more than 50 prominent IC members, former CIA
directors and on down, used their names and reputations to baselessly
speculate that the laptop contents and circumstances around their
release "ha[d] all the classic hallmarks of a Russian information
operation"—naturally in contravention of the ignored Trump
administration officials actually in command of the intelligence
apparatus at the time, who vigorously denied the charge. The
Trump-hating spooks, like the corporate media, presented not one
scintilla of evidence to justify their charge.
Sure, they hedged,
admitting that"we want to emphasize that we do not know if the
emails...are genuine or not and that we do not have evidence of Russian
involvement... ." But they knew well Politico and others would run with headlines like: "Hunter Biden story is Russian disinfo, dozens of former intel officials say."
How
contrived was the operation? Consider that it was a former top aide to
former CIA Director John Brennan—perhaps the most Trump-deranged and
notoriously dishonest of the overwhelmingly Democrat-serving officials endorsing the letter—who arranged for the letter's distribution to Politico. He delivered it to one of the Trump-loathing Deep State's friendliest of reporters—perhaps most well-known for promoting the notorious Steele dossier at the heart of the Russiagate hoax—surely knowing this would set the narrative in motion.
newsweek | Russia's conduct in the brutal war tells a different story than the widely accepted view that Vladimir Putin
is intent on demolishing Ukraine and inflicting maximum civilian
damage—and it reveals the Russian leader's strategic balancing act. If
Russia were more intentionally destructive, the clamoring for U.S. and NATO
intervention would be louder. And if Russia were all-in, Putin might
find himself with no way out. Instead, his goal is to take enough
territory on the ground to have something to negotiate with, while
putting the government of Ukraine in a position where they have to
negotiate.
Understanding the thinking behind Russia's limited attacks could help map a path towards peace, experts say.
In
nearly a month since Russia invaded, dozens of Ukrainian cities and
towns have fallen, and the fight over the country's largest cities
continues. United Nations human rights specialists say that some 900 civilians have died in the fighting (U.S. intelligence puts that number
at least five times UN estimates). About 6.5 million Ukrainians have
also become internally displaced (15 percent of the entire population),
half of them leaving the country to find safety.
"The destruction is massive," a senior analyst working at the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) tells Newsweek, "especially when compared with what Europeans and Americans are used to seeing."
But, the analyst says, the damage associated with a contested ground
war involving peer opponents shouldn't blind people to what is really
happening. (The analyst requested anonymity in order to speak about
classified matters.) "The heart of Kyiv has barely been touched. And
almost all of the long-range strikes have been aimed at military
targets."
In the capital, most observable to the west, Kyiv city
authorities say that some 55 buildings have been damaged and that 222
people have died since February 24. It is a city of 2.8 million people.
"We
need to understand Russia's actual conduct," says a retired Air Force
officer, a lawyer by training who has been involved in approving targets
for U.S. fights in Iraq and Afghanistan. The officer currently works as
an analyst with a large military contractor advising the Pentagon and was granted anonymity in order to speak candidly.
"If
we merely convince ourselves that Russia is bombing indiscriminately,
or [that] it is failing to inflict more harm because its personnel are
not up to the task or because it is technically inept, then we are not
seeing the real conflict."
In the analyst's view, though the war
has led to unprecedented destruction in the south and east, the Russian
military has actually been showing restraint in its long-range attacks.
As
of the past weekend, in 24 days of conflict, Russia has flown some
1,400 strike sorties and delivered almost 1,000 missiles (by contrast,
the United States flew more sorties and delivered more weapons
in the first day of the 2003 Iraq war). The vast majority of the
airstrikes are over the battlefield, with Russian aircraft providing
"close air support" to ground forces. The remainder—less than 20
percent, according to U.S. experts—has been aimed at military airfields,
barracks and supporting depots.
Can you imagine what would happen if, through Russian diplomacy, that
India and China were reconciled to each other and then went into
partnership that would include at its core China, Russia, India and Iran
with a whole bunch of ‘stans
tossed in for good measure? Just in terms of population and resources
alone it would leave us in the west in the dust and I am sure that
Africa and South America would be interested in signing trade treaties
with such an organization. For the fourth partner Iran and China sign 25-year cooperation agreement
For all we know,
it may just happen and sooner than we think.
“Yevgeni Primakov drafted the concept of a Russia, India, China strategic triangle as a counterbalance to the western alliance.”
In my assessment, the next phase of Putin’s and Xi’s confrontation with Biden is now moving to the Putin-Modi-Xi relationship.
Examining an Asia-Middle East map, you see that with geography, BRI
and bi-lateral agreements, China along with Russia have placed India in
an agricultural and industrial resources cauldron.
I believe Modi’s escape from this cauldron starts with repeating with
China the border adjustment effort that China made with Russia two
decades ago resulting in a mutually secure border.
I believe Xi is ready to accommodate Modi for their mutual interest in military and food security for their respective 1.4Billions of people.
Biden's puppeteers have made their third mistake:
Mistake 1: refusal to address Russia’s legitimate security concerns
forcing Putin to initiate a Preventive War (Just War Theory) against
Ukraine and by extension NATO.
Mistake 2: seizure of Russia’s Central Bank assets bringing into question (1) what is money; and (2) what is the US dollar.
Mistake 3: threatening China to take the US side against Russia.
In the next months the CCP will be conducting a number of important
events culminating with the re-confirmation of Xi as President.
If Xi accedes to Biden’s threats, China will start down the slippery
slope of vassalization to the US. Its stored wheat will be given to
MENA, US troops will occupy Taiwan, etc etc. Another century of
humiliation.
Time to pull out the map.
China has a militarily-secure, economically-transparent 2,600 mile border with Russia.
Together with Russia via the CSTO, SCO, etc, China has moderately stable borders with Central Asia.
Its border with India and southern Asia is becoming uncomfortable as
Himalayan water is affected by rapid climate change and dam building.
But this issue can be (and must be) resolved with multi-national
agreements. India must step forward to initiate this process by asking
for border resolution negotiations similar to China with Russia two
decades ago. China’s door is open.
To the east are South Korea and Taiwan. Intel and others produce the
sapphires, rubies, etc of semiconductors but Samsung and TSMC produce
the diamonds.
Seoul is within artillery range of North Korea and Taipei is within cruise missile range of China.
I believe Xi must make increasingly explicit gestures supporting Putin’s Preventive War.
Perhaps starting with an airlift of medical supplies. Then next an
airlift of medical personnel with field hospitals. And continuing to
military items.
At some point Biden's puppeteers will make their fourth mistake.
RT | So America is bringing about exactly the opposite of what it
intended. It’s hopeless to somehow isolate Russia and then be able to go
after China without Russia. And instead, what it’s doing is integrating
the Eurasian core, Russia and China, exactly the policy that Henry
Kissinger warned against going all the way back to Mackinder a century
ago that said, Eurasia is the world island, Russia and China could be
the whole world center. That’s what the fight is all about.
Well, American sanctions are driving Russia and China together, and
America has gone to China and said, Please don’t support Russia. It most
recently, on Monday, March 14, Jake Sullivan came out and told China,
we will sanction countries that break our sanctions against Russia. And
basically, China said, fine. You know, we’ll just break off all the
trade between East and West now and the East, Eurasia is pretty much
self-sufficient. The West is not self-sufficient since it began to
industrialize, and it’s heavily dependent on Russia for not only oil and
gas, but palladium and many raw materials. So the sanctions are ending
up driving a wedge between the European countries.
Ross [00:03:31] Don’t people who apply these
sanctions think this through? Are they so short-sighted they don’t
understand that these sanctions are going to build further capacity
within Russia, push Russia further towards China, make that economic
alliance concrete and, ultimately, you’re not going to be able to keep
the lights on in in Europe? All the while underestimating the fact that
from a food security point of view – take the U.K., for instance, a net
importer of food – not appreciating the fact that, for instance,
Russia/Ukraine, they create twenty five percent, a quarter, of all wheat
annually. The estimation this year is one hundred and two million tons
Russia and Ukraine, wheat. Don’t people realize that there’s going to be
a massive knock on effect?
Michael Hudson [00:04:23]Yes, they do realize it. Yes, they’ve thought it all through. I worked with these people for more than 50 years.
Ross [00:04:31] Who are these people?
Michael Hudson [00:04:32]The neocons, basically, the
people who are in charge of U.S. foreign policy? Victoria Nuland and
her husband, Robert Kagan, the people that President Biden has appointed
all around him, from Blinken to Sullivan and right down the line. They
are basically urging people around the New American Century. They’re the
people who said America can run the whole world and create its own
reality.
And yes, they know that this is going to cause enormous problems for
Germany. They know that not only will it block the energy that Germany
and Italy and other countries in Europe need through their oil and gas,
but also it’ll block the use of gas for fertilizer, upping their
fertilizer production and decreasing their food production. They look at
this and they say, How can America gain from all of this? There’s
always a way of gaining what something looks to be bad. Well, one way
they’ll gain is oil prices are going way up. And that benefits the
United States whose foreign policy is based very largely on oil and gas.
The oil industry controls most of the world’s oil trade, and that
explains a lot of the US diplomacy. This is a fight to lock the world
energy trade into control by U.S. companies, excluding not only Iran and
Venezuela, but also excluding Russia.
Ross [00:06:16] So as Europe pushes towards more and
more green and renewable energy and this for the Americans they must
think it’s a dreadful scenario insofar as they can’t sell the oil as
Europe becomes or wants to become more self-sufficient. So ultimately,
and Britain net zero, whatever that means. But but going down the
renewables path, going down the solar path takes America’s dependency or
dependency on America out the game, doesn’t it?
Michael Hudson [00:06:49]This is exactly the point
that the European public has not realized. While most of the European
public wants to prevent global warming and prevent carbon into the
atmosphere, U.S. foreign policy is based on increasing, and even
accelerating, global warming, accelerating carbon emissions because
that’s the oil trade. Suppose that Europe got its way. Suppose if the
Greens got what they wanted and Germany and Europe were completely
dependent on solar energy panels, on wind energy and to some extent, on
nuclear power, perhaps? Well, if they were completely self-sufficient in
energy without oil or gas or coal, America would lose the primary
lever. It has over the ability to turn off the power and electricity and
oil of any country that didn’t follow U.S. diplomatic direction.
Ross [00:07:48] So when we take your analysis here
and we think about how the sanctions are going to build capacity, push
Russia and China together, when we start to look at sort of piggy in the
middle, if you like the EU, when we’re thinking about America, the EU
has had a sort of abusive relationship with the Americans for quite some
time now, hasn’t it?
Michael Hudson [00:08:06]Well, that’s true in the
sense that EU foreign policy has basically been turned over to NATO. So
instead of European voters and politicians making their policy, they’ve
relinquished European foreign policy to NATO, which is really an arm of
the US military. So yes, Europe has had a decent relationship with the
United States diplomatically by saying yes, yes, please or yes, thank
you by not being independent. Of course, if it were independent, the
relationship would not be so friendly and decent.
Ross [00:08:46] So for countries that are net
importers of food, need to keep the lights on, need heating and need
cheap oil. How does this pan out? What does it look like for the UK?
What does it look like for the EU?
Michael Hudson [00:08:59]Well, Vice President,
Kamala Harris the other day said to Americans, Yes, life is going to be
much more expensive. Our oil prices are going up and squeezing families.
But think of the poor Ukrainian babies that we’re saving. So take it on
the chin for the Ukrainian babies.
So basically the United States is presenting horror stories of the
Ukraine and saying, if you don’t willingly suffer now by isolating
Russia, then Russia is going to roll over you with tanks just like it
rolled over Central Europe after World War Two. I mean, it’s waving the
flag of Russian aggression, as if Russia or any country in today’s world
has an army that’s able to invade any other industrial nation. All
military can do today of any country is bomb and kill other populations
and industrial centers. No nation is able to occupy or rollover any
industrial country.
And the United States keeps trying to promote this mythology that
we’re still in the world of 1945. And that world ended really with the
Vietnam War when the military draught ended. And no country is able to
have a military draught to raise the army with necessary to fight to
invade. Russia can’t do it any more than Europe or the United States
could do it. So all the United States can do is wave warnings about how
awful Russia is and somehow convince Europe to follow the US position.
But most of all, it doesn’t really have to. Europe doesn’t really have a
voice, and this is what the complaint by Putin and Foreign Secretary
Lavrov have been saying. They say that Europe is just following the
United States and it doesn’t matter what the European people want or
what European politicians want. The United States is so deeply in
control that they really don’t have much of a choice.
Ross [00:11:15] When does the consumer start to feel
this? When does the European or British consumer start to feel the
pinch when these sanctions are enacted? And what does that look like?
Michael Hudson [00:11:25]Well, it depends on how
fast the sanctions work. The United States said Well, in another year
and a half, we’ll be able to provide Europe with liquefied natural gas.
Well, the problem is, first of all, they’re not the ports to handle the
liquefied natural gas to go into Europe. Secondly, there are not enough
ships and tankers to carry all of this gas to Europe. So unless there
are very warm winters, Europe is not going to have a very easy time for
the next few years.
oneworld | The top five geostrategic trends that were identified
in this analysis are also importantly occurring within the ongoing
'Great Reset'/'Fourth Industrial Revolution' (GR/4IR), the full-spectrum
paradigm-changing processes of which were accelerated by the
international community’s uncoordinated efforts to contain COVID-19
('World War C'), which even Russia has embraced to a certain extent in
line with its own interests as its leadership understands them to be.
US President Joe Biden declared
on Monday that “There’s going to be a new world order out there, and
we’ve got to lead it, and we’ve got to unite the rest of the free world
in doing it.” Up until this point, the very phrase “New World Order”
(NWO) was treated as a so-called “conspiracy theory” and ruthlessly
suppressed in the Mainstream Media (MSM) discourse despite former US
President George H. W. Bush having been responsible for introducing this
concept around the end of the Old Cold War. Nevertheless, now that
Biden publicly uttered that phrase, it’s no longer “politically
incorrect” to discuss it. In fact, it might even become part of the
official MSM narrative in the coming future. What the present piece aims
to do is identify the top five geostrategic trends of the NWO and
predict their future trajectory.
1. The US-Led Western Bloc Has Consolidated
The unprecedented and preplanned reaction of the US-led West to Russia’s ongoingspecialmilitaryoperation in Ukraine served to consolidate this bloc
under America’s hegemony. The EU sacrificed its strategic sovereignty
to its transatlantic patron under the pretext of “defending against the
Russian threat” despite this leading to enormous self-inflicted economic
consequences. That outcome will be exploited by the Anglo-American Axis
(AAA) to drive their companies’ competitors out of business, buy up
some of those that remain, and permanently handicap the bloc’s
comprehensive competitiveness in the coming future. The hegemonic model
being actively implemented by the US nowadays can also eventually be
employed to curtail and ultimately cut off Chinese-EU relations too.
2. Russia Will Accelerate Its Grand Strategic Reorientation
The
Eurasian Great Power has been reorientating its grand strategic focus
to the Global South since the initial onset of the US-led West’s
sanctions in 2014 but will accelerate this trend since it literally has
no alternative anymore. To its credit, though, Russia made impressive
strides all across the non-West in the past eight years. In brief, it
coordinates with China as dual engines of the emerging Multipolar World Order (MWO); relies on a combination of its UmmahPivot with majority-Muslim countries like Pakistan and its reaffirmed strategic partnership with envisioned Neo-NAM co-leader India
to preemptively avert disproportionate dependence on the People’s
Republic; became the kingmaker of West Asian affairs due to its irreplaceable role in Syria; and is rapidly expanding its influence in Africa and Latin America too.
3. Neutrality Has Been Reborn
The
fact that the vast majority of the international community has refused
to sanction Russia despite immense American pressure to do so speaks to
their desire to remain neutral in the New Cold War’s Western Eurasian
theater between Russia and the US. Major countries like China, India, Iran, and Pakistan also didn’t vote against Russia at the UNGA, nor did quite a few African countries either. The rebirth of principled neutrality
in International Relations, which will also predicably be practiced
once the Eastern Eurasian theater of the New Cold War between America
and China inevitably heats up along the lines of the Western Eurasian
model with Russia, proves that the US is no longer capable of
unilaterally exerting its will onto all others like during the 1990s and
early 2000s.
WaPo | On the eve of his murderous invasion, Russian President Vladimir Putin
delivered a long and rambling discourse denying the existence of Ukraine
and Ukrainians, a speech many Western analysts found strange and
untethered. Strange, yes. Untethered, no. The analysis came directly
from the works of a fascist prophet of maximal Russian empire named
Aleksandr Dugin.
Dugin’s
intellectual influence over the Russian leader is well known to close
students of the post-Soviet period, among whom Dugin, 60, is sometimes
referred to as “Putin’s brain.” His work is also familiar to Europe’s “new right,” of which Dugin has been a leading figure for nearly three decades, and to America’s “alt-right.” Indeed, the Russian-born former wife of the white nationalist leader Richard Spencer, Nina Kouprianova, has translated some of Dugin’s work into English.
But
as the world watches with horror and disgust the indiscriminate bombing
of Ukraine, a broader understanding is needed of Dugin’s deadly ideas.
Russia has been running his playbook for the past 20 years, and it has
brought us here, to the brink of another world war.
A
product of late-period Soviet decline, Dugin belongs to the long,
dismal line of political theorists who invent a strong and glorious past
— infused with mysticism and obedient to authority — to explain a
failed present. The future lies in reclaiming this past from the
liberal, commercial, cosmopolitan present (often represented by the
Jewish people). Such thinkers had a heyday a century ago, in the
European wreckage of World War I: Julius Evola, the mad monk of Italian fascism; Charles Maurras, the reactionary French nationalist; Charles Coughlin, the American radio ranter; and even the author of a German book called “Mein Kampf.”
Dugin tells essentially the same story
from a Russian point of view. Before modernity ruined everything, a
spiritually motivated Russian people promised to unite Europe and Asia
into one great empire, appropriately ruled by ethnic Russians. Alas, a
competing sea-based empire of corrupt, money-grubbing individualists,
led by the United States and Britain, thwarted Russia’s destiny and
brought “Eurasia” — his term for the future Russian empire — low.
In his magnum opus, “The Foundations of Geopolitics: The Geopolitical Future of Russia,”
published in 1997, Dugin mapped out the game plan in detail. Russian
agents should foment racial, religious and sectional divisions within
the United States while promoting the United States’ isolationist
factions. (Sound familiar?) In Great Britain, the psy-ops effort should focus on exacerbating historic rifts
with Continental Europe and separatist movements in Scotland, Wales and
Ireland. Western Europe, meanwhile, should be drawn in Russia’s
direction by the lure of natural resources: oil, gas and food. NATO
would collapse from within.
I wonder whether Biden coming out and admitting that the Russian
hypersonic missile “is a consequential missile” that can penetrate any
US/Nato air defense system, when paired with the realization happening
right now in the cold light
of day that the damage inflicted by sanctions is a two way street
- together - signal a potential change in the US/EU calculus with respect to either fanning or
dousing the flames of war.
It’s highly unusual for a US president to
puncture the narrative infinitum that Russians
are technologically backward. This comes with yet other stupid bon mots like “their
missiles have probably fallen into disrepair”, they'll use chemical weapons on civilians. To say what Biden said is rather profound narrative breach at a time when the incentive is highest to project
Russia as weak and ineffectual.
Biden acknowledges that Russia’s hypersonic missile is simply unstoppable.
The hypersonics don’t show desperation, they show a degree of escalation
dominance outside the use of nuclear weapons. If reports are true, the
Kinzhal struck a Soviet nuclear bunker and was able to ignite the
ammunition stores inside it.
If other reports are true, Russia demonstrated that it can erase the
Pentagon without going nuclear and not only is there no defense, but
there’s a good chance there will be no warning. The time from over the
horizon identification to impact may be as short
as 3 seconds.
Ivano-Frankivsk got zero attention in the news. It was an old mine turned in 1955 into a nuclear weapons storage facility. It was emptied in 1993 when the weapons were transferred to Russia. In 2018 it was reopened as the barracks for 2 battalions of 10th Mountain Assault Brigade. Apparently also a conventional weapons storage, since the Ukrainians announced several secondary explosions on the site. It’s supposed to be nuclear missile proof, though, so either it actually wasn’t or there was a load of ammunition leaving or entering the place.
A warhead that weighs 500 kg travelling at hypersonic speed carries kinetic energy equivalent to the explosive force of 4000 odd kg of TNT. Delivered directly to the roof of an underground bunker, the kinetic punch would be greater than a small nuclear bomb exploding in the air above. The blast ‘overpressure’ would be as lethal as explosions and flying objects.
Just like with other previous weapons of such a nature, the ‘overpressure’ can be the killer, not just explosions and flying objects.
sciencedirect | Vapor
cloud explosions are caused by the rapid combustion of flammable gas,
mist, or small particles that generate pressure effects due to
confinement; they can occur inside process equipment or pipes,
buildings, and other contained areas. A vapor cloud explosion can be
either a deflagration or a detonation (the distinction is important when deciding on whether or not to use a flame arrestor in pressure relief systems).
A deflagration
occurs when a flame front propagates by transferring heat and mass to
the unburned air-vapor mixture ahead of the front. The combustion wave
travels at subsonic speeds
to unburned gas immediately ahead of the flame front. Flame speeds
range from 1 to 350 meters per second. At low speeds there is little
effect from the blast overpressure
while at high speeds, peak overpressures can be as high as 20 times the
initial pressure. Most vapor cloud explosions are deflagrations.
A detonation occurs when the flame velocity reaches supersonic speeds
above 600 meters per second (they are generally in the 2000 to 2500
meter per second range). Peak overpressures can be 20 to 100 times the
initial pressure. Detonation can be initiated either by use of a high
explosive charge or from a deflagration wave that accelerates due to
congestion and confinement. Certain chemicals are more prone to create
detonations than normal hydrocarbons. These include ethylene, acetylene,
and hydrogen.
The United
States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) provides tables and simple
equations for some of the more common chemicals to calculate the
distance of the overpressure waves. These tables are generally
conservative, i.e., they predict greater impact than would be likely to
actually occur. Nevertheless, they do provide a useful starting point.
Blast effects
The calculation of explosion effects is a complex topic involving many variables. Table 9.5 shows some overpressure values with typical effects.
WaPo | Sputnik that provided an early edge in the space race.
Milley,
noting that the term “Sputnik moment” had been used in some news
reports since the test, stopped short of that assessment in his
interview with Bloomberg. “I don’t know if it’s quite a Sputnik moment,
but I think it’s very close to that,” he said, adding, “It has all of
our attention.”
Milley
noted that the United States also is “experimenting, and testing and
developing technologies to include hypersonics, artificial intelligence,
robotics — a whole wide range.”
Kirby,
speaking during a routine news briefing at the Pentagon, would not
detail how far along the United States is in its development of such
systems, except to say “our own pursuit of hypersonic capabilities is
real, it’s tangible and we are absolutely working toward being able to
develop that capability.”
“It’s
not a technology that is alien to us,” he added. “And I would argue
that it’s not just our own pursuit of this sort of technology, but our
mindfulness that we have defensive capabilities too that we need to
continue to hone and improve.”
Both
Kirby and Milley stressed that the test reflects just one weapon system
on Beijing’s side, with the general acknowledging China’s capabilities
“are much greater than that.” Referring to its growing capacities in
space, cyberspace and traditional domains of land, sea and air, he said,
“They’re expanding rapidly.”
“We’re
in one of the most significant changes in what I call the ‘character of
war,’ ” Milley said. “We’re going to have to adjust our military going
forward.”
China’s
test is a reminder that Beijing has become what Defense Secretary Lloyd
Austin frequently calls the United States’ “pacing challenge”
militarily — and of the lack of consensus over how Washington should
respond.
China
has been secretive about its weapons testing — in fact, on Oct. 18, it
denied even conducting a hypersonic test. A spokesman for Beijing’s
foreign ministry argued that China merely had tested “regular
spacecraft” intended for “peaceful uses of outer space.”
Four of the six weapons Putin mentioned are, if Putin is to be
believed, already developed: the Sarmat heavy Intercontinental Ballistic
Missile (ICBM), a nuclear powered cruise missile, a nuclear powered
underwater drone, and an aircraft launched Kinzhai hypersonic missile.
They are breathtaking for their speed, range, maneuverability,
undetectability, and miniaturization of nuclear reactor technology. The
other two, the Avangard hypersonic projectile and laser weapons (which
Putin only cryptically mentioned), are believed to be still under
development.
Hypersonic means a minimum of at least 5 times the speed of sound
(Mach 1 or 741 mph, Mach 5 is 3705 mph). Putin claimed the Kinzhai
hypersonic missile travels at Mach 10 (7410 mph). The Avangard
hypersonic projectile may hit Mach 20 (14020 mph). Intercepting missiles
traveling at supersonic speeds (Mach 1 to Mach 5) has proven difficult
enough. Even in the limited, controlled tests that have been conducted,
present technology has not been 100 percent effective. Presumably, in
real world situations they would be even less effective. The
difficulties of intercepting weapons traveling at hypersonic speeds are
obvious and daunting.
Compounding those difficulties are the weapons’ range and
maneuverability. The Sarmat ICBM is believed to have range of at least
10,500 miles (Putin said it has “practically no range restrictions”) and
can attack targets via either the North or South Pole (US missile
defenses are oriented towards the North Pole). It is able to constantly
maneuver at a speed of what is believed to be Mach 5 or Mach 6, and to
carry 15 warheads with yields estimated at 150 to 300 kilotons (the
Nagasaki atomic bomb had a yield of 23 kilotons).
Powering cruise missiles and underwater drones (both of which can
carry nuclear warheads) with miniature nuclear reactors gives them
virtually unlimited range. Putin claimed the Kinzhai missile, “can also
manoeuvre at all phases of its flight trajectory, which also allows it
to overcome all existing and, I think, prospective anti-aircraft
and anti-missile defence systems.”
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