Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin (Complete Transcript And Video)

Pernicious frauds have tricked miseducated subjects into the absurd delusion that the whole Russian awakening and change of course has been the result Putin's takeover. But ask yourself, who chose him and made Yeltsin put him up as PM? 

Russia may not have the deep state in the same way that the U.S. does, but influential and respected Russian elders had and continue to have a way to make themselves heard. Very obviously, a group of elder Russian statesmen got together - worried about Russia going to the dogs - and engineered a quiet changeover. However it happened, Putin did not make it to the top by himself, and most certainly he has not been alone in running things, as the West would like its most simple-minded subjects to believe.

So do not worry about Valodya's health and Russian leadership's succession.  Everyone in Russia has learned the lesson from the 1990s. The support that Russians extend to Putin is not so much personal, it is instead support for his policies for making Russia strong, independent and proud. 

The idea that the Russian people would fall for Western "beads" again is ludicrous.

RG-RU.Translate.Goog  |  Vladimir Putin: Thank you very much! Dear Kassym-Jomart Kemelevich! Dear friends, colleagues!

I greet the participants and guests of the anniversary XXV St. Petersburg International Economic Forum.

It is taking place at a difficult time for the entire world community, when the economy, markets, and the very principles of the global economic system are under attack. Many trade, production, and logistics ties that were previously disrupted by the pandemic are now going through new tests. Moreover, such key concepts for business as business reputation, inviolability of property and trust in world currencies have been thoroughly undermined - undermined, unfortunately, by our partners in the West, and this was done intentionally, for the sake of ambition, in the name of preserving outdated geopolitical illusions.

Today ours - when I say "ours" I mean the Russian leadership - has its own view of the situation in which the global economy finds itself. I will dwell in detail on how Russia is acting in these conditions and how it is planning its development in a dynamically changing environment.

A year and a half ago, speaking at the Davos Forum, I once again emphasized that the era of the unipolar world order is over - I want to start with this, there is no getting away from it - it has ended despite all attempts to preserve it, to conserve it by any means. Changes are a natural course of history, since the civilizational diversity of the planet, the richness of cultures is difficult to combine with political, economic and other patterns, patterns do not work here, patterns that are rudely, without alternative, imposed from one center.

The flaw lies in the very idea, according to which there is one, albeit a strong power with a limited circle of approximate or, as they say, states admitted to it, and all the rules of business and international relations - when it becomes necessary - are interpreted exclusively in the interests of this power , as they say, work in one direction, the game goes in one direction. A world based on such "dogmas" is definitely unsustainable.

The United States, having declared victory in the Cold War, declared itself to be the messengers of the Lord on Earth, who have no obligations, but only interests, and these interests are declared sacred. They do not seem to notice that over the past decades, new powerful centers have been formed on the planet and are louder and louder. Each of them develops its own political systems and public institutions, implements its own models of economic growth and, of course, has the right to protect them, to ensure national sovereignty.

We are talking about objective processes, about truly revolutionary, tectonic changes in geopolitics, the global economy, in the technological sphere, in the entire system of international relations, where the role of dynamic, promising states and regions is significantly increasing, whose interests can no longer be ignored.

I repeat: these changes are fundamental, pivotal and inexorable. And it is a mistake to believe that the time of turbulent changes can, as they say, sit out, wait out, that, supposedly, everything will return to normal, everything will be as before. Will not.

However, it seems that the ruling elites of some Western states are just in this kind of illusion. They do not want to notice obvious things, but stubbornly cling to the shadows of the past. For example, they believe that the dominance of the West in global politics and economics is an unchanging, eternal value. Nothing is eternal.

Moreover, our colleagues do not simply deny reality. They are trying to counteract the course of history. They think in terms of the last century. They are captivated by their own delusions about countries outside the so-called "golden billion": they consider everything else to be the periphery, their backyard, they still treat them like a colony, and the peoples living there consider them second-class people, because consider themselves exceptional. If they are exceptional, then everyone else is second-class.

Hence - an irrepressible desire to punish, economically crush the one who stands out from the general ranks, does not want to blindly obey. Moreover, they rudely and shamelessly impose their own ethics, views on culture and ideas about history, and sometimes question the sovereignty and integrity of states, create a threat to their existence. Suffice it to recall the fate of Yugoslavia and Syria, Libya and Iraq.

If some "rebel" cannot be hounded, pacified, then they try to isolate him or, as they say now, "cancel". Everything is used, even sports, the Olympic movement, a ban on culture, masterpieces of art - for the sole reason that their authors are of the "wrong" origin.

This is the nature of the current attack of Russophobia in the West and insane sanctions against Russia. Crazy and, I would say, thoughtless. Their number, as well as the speed of stamping, knows no precedents.

Global Redistribution Of Resources And Power CAN NOT Be Peaceful

valdaiclub |  In the event that the growing conflict in and around Ukraine does not lead to irreparable consequences on a global scale in the near future, its most important result will be a fundamental demarcation between Russia and Europe, which will make it impossible to maintain even insignificant neutral zones and will require a significant reduction in trade and economic ties. Restoring control over the territory of Ukraine, which, most likely, should become a long-term goal of Russian foreign policy, will solve the main problem of regional security — the presence of a “grey zone”, the management of which inevitably becomes the subject of a confrontation that is dangerous from the point of view of escalation. In this sense, we can count on a certain stabilisation in the long term, although it will not be based on cooperation between the main regional powers. However, it is already obvious that the road to peace will be long enough and will be accompanied by extremely dangerous situations.

In his speech to the participants in the Davos forum, Henry Kissinger, the patriarch of international politics, pointed to just such a prospect as the least desirable from his point of view, since Russia then “could alienate itself completely from Europe and seek a permanent alliance elsewhere”, which would lead to the emergence of diplomatic distances on the scale of the Cold War. In his opinion, peace talks between the parties would be the most expedient way to prevent this; these would result in Russian interests being taken into account. For Kissinger, this means that in some respect, Russia’s participation in the European “concert” is an unconditional value, and the loss of this must be prevented as long as some chance remains.

However, with all the highest appreciation of the merits and wisdom of this statesman and scholar, the impeccable logic of Henry Kissinger faces only one obstacle — it works when the balance of power is determined and relations between states have already passed the stage of military conflict. In this sense, he certainly follows in the footsteps of his great predecessors — Chancellor of the Austrian Empire Klemens von Metternich and British Foreign Secretary Viscount Castlereagh, whose diplomatic achievements were the subject of Kissinger’s doctoral dissertation in 1956. Both of them went down in history precisely as the creators of the new European order, established after the end of the Napoleonic era in France and which persisted, with minor adjustments, for almost a century in international politics.

Like his great predecessors, Kissinger appears on the world stage in an era when the balance of power between the most important players is already being determined by “iron and blood.” The time of his greatest achievement was the first half of the 1970s — a period of relative stability. However, one cannot ignore the fact that the ability of states to behave in that way was due not to their wisdom or responsibility to future generations, but to much more mundane factors. The first factor was the completion of the “shrinkage” of the order which obtained its approximate features as a result of the World War II. Over the next 25 years (1945 — 1970), this order was “finalised” during the war in Korea, the US intervention in Vietnam, the USSR’s military actions in Hungary and Czechoslovakia, several indirect wars between the USSR and the US in the Middle East, the completion of the process of disintegration of the European colonial empires, as well as a significant number of smaller, but also dramatic events. So now it would be difficult to expect diplomacy to be able to take first place in world affairs at the initial stage of the process, which promises to be very long and, most likely, quite bloody.

The material basis of that order, which was given its final polish by Kissinger’s diplomacy, the policy of “détente” with the USSR and the 1972 reconciliation with China, was the strategic defeat of Europe as a result of two world wars in the first half of the 20th century. The collapse of the European colonial empires and the historic defeat of Germany in its attempt to take centre stage in world affairs brought the United States to the forefront, which made it possible to make politics truly global. As a result of the self-destruction of the USSR, this order turned out to be short-lived. We see now that this was a great tragedy, since it led to the disappearance of the balance of power in favour of the dominance of only one power.

Now we can assume that the massive emancipation of mankind from Western control is of central importance, the most important factor of which is the growth of China’s economic and political power. If China itself, as well as India and other major states outside the West, cope with the task entrusted to them by history, in the coming decades the international system will acquire features that were completely uncharacteristic before.

Most of the significant events that are taking place now, both globally and regionally, are connected with the objective process of the growth in the importance of China and, following it, other large Asian countries. The determination Russia has shown in recent years, and especially months, is also associated with global changes. The fact that Moscow so purposefully stood up to protect its interests and values was due not only to domestic Russian reasons, although they are of great importance. Nor were they predicated upon expectations of direct material assistance from China, which could compensate for the losses during the acute phase of the conflict with the West.

Disquiet At Davos And The Fear Of Failure

strategic culture |  "Klaus Schwab, passionate for Ukraine, essentially configured the World Economic Forum (WEF) to showcase Zelensky and to leverage the argument that Russia should be kicked out of the civilised world. Schwab’s target was the assembled crème de la crème of the world’s business leaders assembled there. Zelensky pitched big: 'We want more sanctions and more weapons'; 'All trade with the aggressor should be stopped'; 'All foreign business should leave Russia so that your brands are not associated with war crimes', he said. Sanctions must be all encompassing; values must matter.

"Disquiet ran through the Davos set: The WEF is high-octane globalist, right? Yet this Schwab line suggests a de-coupling ‘on stilts’. It precisely reverses interconnectedness. Plus, the western generals in charge are saying that this conflict may last not just years, but decades. What will this signify for their markets in parts of the world that refuse action against Russia, the moneymen were wondering?"

Prior to Kissinger's words that got him sanctioned by Zelensky, both a NYT OP/ED and Congressman Eric Cantor opined in a similar vein:

The Davos ‘greater disquiet’ emerged however, from an unexpected quarter. Just before the WEF began, the NY Times had run a piece from the editorial team urging Zelensky to negotiate with Russia. It argued that such engagement implied making painful territorial sacrifices. The piece attracted indignant and angry push-back in Europe and the West, possibly because – albeit couched as advice to Kiev – its target was evidently Washington and London (the arch belligerents).

Eric Cantor, a former whip in the U.S. House of Representatives (a legislator well versed on Iran sanctions), also at Davos, questioned whether the West would be able to maintain a united front in pursuit of such maximalist aims as Zelensky and his Military Intelligence Chief have demanded. “We may not get the next vote”, Cantor opined (in wake of the $40 billion vote ostensibly earmarked for Ukraine).

Cantor said excluding Russia entirely would require secondary sanctions against other countries. This would place the West into a head on clash with China, India, and the almost 60 states which had refused to back a UN resolution denouncing Russia’s invasion. He warned that the U.S. may be in danger of overplaying its hand.

Add Kissinger's remarks, and that makes a massive FUBAR far worse than Afghanistan.

Eric Cantor, and other Americans at WEF may frame their disquiet over western objectives in ‘polite company’ as simply articulating their uncertainties over America’s grand strategy – whether the U.S. is trying to punish Russia for its aggression, or whether the goal is a subtler use of policy that gives the Kremlin a ‘route out of sanctions’, were it to change course. But behind the narrative lies a darker fear. The unsaid fear of failure.

What does this mean? It means that the West’s ultimate war aims in Ukraine have so far been able to stay opaque and undefined, the details swept aside in the mood of the moment.

Paradoxically, this opacity has been preserved despite the public failure of the West’s first statement of aims – which was that the seizure of Russia’s offshore foreign reserves; the Russian bank expulsions from SWIFT; the sanctioning of the Central Bank; and the broadside of sanctions would, in and of itself alone, turn the rouble to rubble; cause a run on the domestic banking system; collapse the Russian economy; and provoke a political crisis that Putin might not survive.

In short, ‘victory’ would be quick – if not immediate. We know this, because U.S. officials and the French Finance Minister, Bruno Le Maire bragged about it publicly.

So confident in a quick financial-war success were these western officials that there seemed little need to invest deep strategic reflection on the aims or the course of the secondary Ukrainian military thrust. After all, a Russia already economically collapsed, with its currency ruined and its morale broken, would likely put up little or no fight as the Ukrainian army swept across Donbas and into Crimea.

Well, the sanctions have proved a bust and Russia’s currency and oil revenues are bountiful.

And now, western politicians are being warned in the media, and by their own military, that Russia is ‘close to a major victory’ in Donbas.

This is the unspoken fear disquieting Davos attendees – fear of another débacle, following that of Afghanistan. One made all the worse as the ‘war’ on Russia boomerangs into an economic collapse in Europe, and with NATO’s eight-year investment in building-up a successful proxy-army to NATO standards turning to dust.

This is what Kissinger’s comments – decoded – urge: ‘Don’t procrastinate’; get a quick deal (even an unfavourable one), but one that can be dressed up, and somehow spun as a ‘win’. But don’t wait, and let events lead the U.S. into yet another unmistakable, undeniable débacle.

Why Did Obama Authorize Integration Of Military Drones Into U.S. Domestic Air Space?

covertactionmagazine |  April 1^st was a good news/bad news kind of day for U.S. military drone-maker General Atomics. First, it was reported that the government of Australia had revealed that they were canceling the planned purchase of 12 MQ-9B SkyGuardian drones, made by General Atomics (GA). Since the deal would have been worth a cool one billion dollars to GA, this was definitely the bad news.

[Source: breakingdefense.com]

Luckily, GA had a good news story in the works. And as luck would have it, it would run on the same day as the bad news story.

[Source: ga.com]

Back in January, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) handed GA $1.5 million to fly the 79-ft. 12,000 lbs SkyGuardian over North Dakota for 10 hours. (GA apparently didn’t feel the need for a press release and the resulting news article until the day before some bad news from down under was in the pipeline.)

General Atomics Sky Guardian [Source: ga.com]

The stated purpose of the FAA grant to GA was “to research Detect and Avoid (DAA) capabilities.” (DAA, the ability for an unmanned aircraft to ‘detect’ another aircraft, and ‘avoid’ it, is the Holy Grail of drone integration. “Integration” is the process of removing restrictions against drones operating in domestic U.S. airspace.)

That’s right—the FAA was PAYING a U.S. arms manufacturer $1.5 million in public monies to demonstrate their newest military surveillance drone over domestic U.S. territory.

If this is all a surprise to you, you’re not alone. The program to integrate military drones into U.S. domestic airspace has been operating for 10 years. It involves various federal agencies—DoD, FAA, NASA, Commerce, Energy, DHS, etc. But it hasn’t been reported on in any major news venue since the day before the bill creating it was signed into law in 2012 by then-President Barack Obama.

Drone Swarms Have Been Probing The Military And The Pentagram Pretends It's UFO's

thedrive |  Earlier this year The War Zone exclusively reported about a series of 2019 incidents that involved unidentified drones stalking US Navy vessels over several nights in the waters off of Southern California. Our initial report also covered the Navy’s investigation into the incidents, which appeared to struggle to identify either the aircraft or their operators. Chief of Naval Operations Admiral Michael Gilday later clarified that the aircraft were never identified, and that there have been similar incidents across the service branches and allied militaries.

Newly released documents obtained via the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) show that the full scope of these drone incursions was greater than it initially appeared, and they persisted well after the Navy’s investigation was launched. Deck logs indicate that drone sightings continued throughout the month of July 2019 and included events where drone countermeasure teams were called into action. One notable event involved at least three ships observing multiple drones. Uncharacteristically for unclassified deck logs, the details on this event are almost entirely redacted.

It is also noteworthy that these events occurred well after Navy investigators sought to “correlate or rule out operations” with Fleet Area Control and Surveillance Facility (FACSFAC) based in San Diego. Indeed, an investigation began immediately after the initial events on July 16th, with information on the incidents being routed to the Chief of Naval Operations as early as July 18th. Given the progress of the investigation, more prosaic causes like errant US aircraft or civilian activity had already been examined. Whatever the outcome of the July 30th event, it was likely closely scrutinized by Navy leadership.

The lack of concrete identification of the aircraft involved also led to widespread public speculation earlier this year. Leaked photos and videos said to pertain to the July 15th and 16th incident were released this summer by filmmaker Jeremy Corbell. The materials consisted of footage of radar screens showing multiple unknown contacts, video of an object apparently falling into the ocean, and a brief video of a triangular-shaped light flying over the deck of a ship. The apparent triangular shape of the object has been strongly debated, as many have posited it was the result of a common optical artifact. 

The Department of Defense was quick to partially authenticate the material, acknowledging that the videos were taken by Navy personnel. However, to date, the Pentagon has not provided any details that corroborate the location or timeframe of the footage or any clarification on what the objects were. Corbell maintains that the videos depict extraordinarily complex vehicles capable of “transmedium” travel, or the ability to traverse both water and the atmosphere with ease. Chief of Naval Operations Michael Gilday explained in a press briefing earlier this year that while the Navy had not positively identified the aircraft, there were no indications they were extraterrestrial in nature.

There has been significant overlap in the discussion of the mounting threat from lower-end drones and resurgent interest in UFOs in recent years. That overlap is conspicuous in the recent National Defense Authorization Act language, which authorizes an expansive approach to the Pentagon’s study of UFOs. The language, introduced by Senator Kirsten Gillibrand, a New York Democrat, creates a requirement for conducting “field investigations,” as well as new mandates to scientifically examine UFO reports. An amended version of Gillibrand's proposal was ultimately adopted in the NDAA and awaits President Biden's signature. While many have focused on otherworldly explanations for UFO sightings, Senator Gillibrand told Politico that the rationale for her interest encompassed conventional and emerging technology and not only the “unknown.” She explained, “you're talking about drone technology, you're talking about balloon technology, you're talking about other aerial phenomena, and then you're talking about the unknown.”

The urgency surrounding the drone issue has been a growing focus among defense policymakers as encounters with both civilian and military aircraft have become widespread. In the last five years the Federal Aviation Administration has gathered approximately ten thousand drone incident reports. We have made many of these reports available in an interactive tool that maps the location and descriptions of the incident. 

Far from being only a domestic issue, drones have also become a matter of grave concern for military leaders. Earlier this year Marine General Kenneth McKenzie Jr. said in a speech to the Middle East Institute that “the growing threat posed by these systems coupled with our lack of dependable, networked capabilities to counter them is the most concerning tactical development since the rise of the improvised explosive device in Iraq.” McKenzie also explained that drones “provide adversaries the operational ability to surveil and target U.S. and partner facilities while affording plausible deniability and a disproportionate return on the investment, all in our adversaries’ favor.” 

In the case of the 2019 Southern California incidents, several of these factors appear to be at work. The newly released map clarifies just how closely drones were shadowing Navy ships, likely affording opportunities to gather a variety of valuable intelligence. The lack of positive attribution of the aircraft even today speaks to McKenzie’s comments about plausible deniability and disproportionate return.

 

Nina Jankowicz Worked For CIA/Zelensky Now Defended By Taylor Lorenz

What, specifically, is the "DHS's work" when it comes to disinformation? Do they decide what is and is not disinformation? Do they use specific powers to "combat" it? It's not just the new Board itself that is unclear. DHS's entire role in all of this is unclear - and creepy. https://t.co/0PJGcTlqul

— Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald) May 18, 2022

politico  |  President Zelensky has made ending the war in Ukraine’s eastern Donbas region—which was instigated and is sustained by Russia and has claimed 13,000 lives and counting—his administration’s top priority. He has made some progress toward that goal, overseeing a historic prisoner swap with Russia that saw one of Ukraine’s most respected filmmakers as well as 24 sailors captured last November returned home. According to information from the U.N. High Commissioner on Human Rights, fewer civilians have been killed in the conflict this year than any year previously. A July cease-fire at the contact line seems to be holding firmer than its previous incarnations.

For Zelensky, Trump could be the key to ending the war in the Donbas. The American president has made his admiration for and cozy relationship with Russian President Vladimir Putin no secret. Likewise, Trump’s views about Ukraine—ambivalence about the status of Crimea, which Russia illegally seized in 2014, and support for ending the sanctions placed on Russia in response to its activities in Ukraine—make Ukrainians nervous. A cordial relationship between Trump and Zelensky could give Trump insight into Ukraine’s perspective and give Ukraine leverage it did not enjoy under former President Petro Poroshenko, who struggled to connect with the U.S. leader.

Ukraine does not have the luxury to pick and choose its international partners, something I learned when I served as an adviser to the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry in 2016 and 2017 under the auspices of a Fulbright Public Policy Fellowship. Ukraine relies on its larger, richer allies as it attempts to shed its post-Soviet legacy. The United States—its largest and richest ally—provides not only for the now-famous military aid package, but hundreds of millions of dollars in civilian aid, supporting projects in just about every sector. The containment of the Chernobyl nuclear site, fighting HIV/AIDS, building cybersecurity capabilities, and creating government bodies that are more responsive to citizens are just a few of the projects that U.S assistance makes possible. Continued reform, including the pursuit of energy independence from Russia and the cleanup of the court system, the biggest obstacle to Ukrainian anti-corruption efforts, would be imperiled without this assistance. The United States also plays a key role in corralling European partners to uphold their own sanctions on Russia and to continue to support Ukraine as it walks the long and often bumpy road of democratic reform.

There are reasons to believe Zelensky’s slippery answers to President Trump’s repeated requests that he investigate former Vice President Joe Biden and his son Hunter were deliberate. According to congressional staff who recently visited Ukraine and spoke with senior Ukrainian officials, the Zelensky administration was upset at feeling that it was being used and didn’t want to be a pawn in America’s domestic political machinations. In the phone call and at the meeting of the two presidents Wednesday at the U.N. General Assembly, Zelensky was careful not to let the name Biden cross his lips. Instead, Zelensky says he will “look into the situation” related to Burisma, the company on whose board Hunter Biden sat, more generally. At the U.N., Zelensky also mentioned a few of the other important cases he hoped his new prosecutor would investigate in addition to Burisma, and maintained that he didn’t want to be dragged into American politics. 

Nina Jankowicz, who served as a Fulbright fellow, works in a press room at Volodymyr Zelensky's campaign headquarters in 2019 in Kyiv, Ukraine. Jankowicz was recently named the head of the Department of Homeland Security's Disinformation Governance Board.

WaPo  | On the morning of April 27, the Department of Homeland Security announced the creation of the first Disinformation Governance Board with the stated goal to “coordinate countering misinformation related to homeland security.” The Biden administration tapped Nina Jankowicz, a well-known figure in the field of fighting disinformation and extremism, as the board’s executive director.

In naming the 33-year-old Jankowicz to run the newly created board, the administration chose someone with extensive experience in the field of disinformation, which has emerged as an urgent and important issue. The author of the books “How to Be a Woman Online” and “How to Lose the Information War,” her career also featured stints at multiple nonpartisan think tanks and nonprofits and included work that focused on strengthening democratic institutions. Within the small community of disinformation researchers, her work was well-regarded.

But within hours of news of her appointment, Jankowicz was thrust into the spotlight by the very forces she dedicated her career to combating. The board itself and DHS received criticism for both its somewhat ominous name and scant details of specific mission (Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas said it “could have done a better job of communicating what it is and what it isn’t”), but Jankowicz was on the receiving end of the harshest attacks, with her role mischaracterized as she became a primary target on the right-wing Internet. She has been subject to an unrelenting barrage of harassment and abuse while unchecked misrepresentations of her work continue to go viral.

Four Hundred Pound Plus Preachers In Purple Support The Ukraine War Machine

BAR  |   On April 4, 1967 Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. gave one of the most significant speeches of his career. In “Beyond Vietnam - Time to Break Silence ” King declared his unequivocal opposition to the war in Vietnam. His very public break with Lyndon Johnson was greeted with derision, including from his own allies, who believed that the president was an ally who should not be attacked. The NAACP board passed a resolution calling King’s statement a “serious tactical mistake” that would neither “serve the cause of civil rights nor of peace.” The media joined in the condemnation, with the New York Times characterizing his comments as “facile” and “slander.” Even Black newspapers such as The Pittsburgh Courier judged his remarks to be “tragically misleading.”

It is important to remember this speech in which he declared that the United States was “the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today.” There are individuals and organizations who routinely claim King’s mantle until they fall prey to the war propaganda promoted by the present day purveyors of violence.

The Rev. Dr. William Barber is sadly one such person. In an April 30, 2022 email on the subject Moral Clarity About Our Own Atrocities he made many specious arguments on the issue of war as it pertains to U.S. policy in Ukraine.

“To see the butchery at Bucha or the massacre at Mariupol and do nothing would be to forfeit any claim to moral authority. We know this instinctively. It is why, despite the political gridlock on Capitol Hill, Republicans and Democrats have acted swiftly to approve historic military aid to Ukraine. In the face of such a moral imperative, it would be anathema for either party to ask, “How are we going to pay for it?”

There is no independent investigation of what the Biden administration and corporate media label as “massacres.” No one who claims to act in the interests of humanity should praise the historic levels of military aid to Ukraine, an oligarchic kleptocracy under U.S. control which depends upon military and police support from openly neo-Nazi formations. So blatant are the connections that in past years members of congress have moved to ensure that these groups are denied U.S. aid .

Furthermore, Rev. Barber ought to know that questions of funding for domestic needs must always be raised. Joe Biden is requesting $33 billion in aid to Ukraine, which means money for the military industrial complex, after ending stimulus payments and other support for struggling people in this country. Barber opens his email with the story of a woman who lost children in her care to a child welfare agency after the termination of the child tax credit program plunged her into poverty. It is disturbing to see Barber’s attempt to have it both ways, demanding help for the poor while also supporting the system that keeps them in their condition.

The child tax credit which kept families afloat disappeared, along with enhanced unemployment benefits, anti-eviction protection, and free covid related treatments to the uninsured. The much vaunted Build Back Better bill is dead and Biden seems uninterested in resurrecting it. It is reasonable to ask the Biden administration for a monetary accounting  and for an explanation of how their actions led to a humanitarian disaster for the Ukrainian people, mass theft from Americans’ public resources, and a risk of hot war with the Russian Federation.

Barber and the Poor People’s Campaign are preparing for a  Poor People’s and Low-Wage Workers Assembly and Moral March on Washington and to the Polls taking place on June 18, 2022. His ill conceived email was meant to bring attention to this event but instead he brought attention to the deep connections that liberal politics has with right wing forces. Barber is not alone in his capitulation as members of congress who claim to be progressive march in lock step with imperialism and austerity which create suffering in this country and around the world.

America's Middle-East Garrison State Is Summoned To The Western Alliance

bloomberg  |  Two months into Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, U.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin convened an extraordinary conclave of allies and partners at the U.S. military base in Ramstein, Germany. They were there to establish a wartime coalition whose announced aim, at the time, was to protect Ukraine from further Russian aggression.

The participants were mostly members of the NATO alliance. They were joined by a dozen or so pro-U.S. nations. Among them was Israel, a country that began the war with the hope of remaining neutral but has been reluctantly, incrementally and inexorably drawn toward the American side. Israel’s presence at the conference signaled that it was now all in.

The question is, all in on what? Israel accepted the invitation assuming that it would be asked to play a small part in arming Ukraine with advanced weapons that would enable Kyiv to hold off and push back the invaders. But after the conference, Austin told journalists that the goal of the Ramstein alliance would be to weaken Russia in a way that would prevent it from using military force against its neighbors. In other words, to reduce Russia from a superpower to a more minor status. The Ramstein Group would be meeting once a month, moreover, a sign America is anticipating a long war.

Russia replied by signaling that it wouldn’t accept the sort of total defeat that the U.S. and its partners had in mind. Putin made it clear that Russia would, if necessary, use nuclear weapons to prevent such an outcome.

The government of Israel didn’t tell the public in advance that it had decided to join a wartime alliance that in theory could lead to a nuclear war. And it has yet to react to the Russian threat. But going to Ramstein was a defining decision. There is no off-ramp.

Military alliances are new to Israel. In the 1991 Gulf War its efforts to join the U.S.-led coalition were rebuffed by Arab members. It isn’t a NATO nation, which means that it has no mutual security guarantee. It also has no formal defense treaty with the U.S. Israel is a country accustomed to fighting neighborhood battles on its own. Signing up for a prolonged conflict against Russia in Ukraine, perhaps a wider war in Europe or even Armageddon isn’t something Israel appears to have thought about deeply.  

Most of the Ramstein countries don’t have Russian troops on their borders. Israel does, in Syria. In recent years, Israel and Russia have coordinated military efforts that allowed Israel to wage a shadow war against Iran and its proxies. An antagonized Russia will be much less likely to prevent Iran from supplying its proxy army in Lebanon or moving its own Islamic Republic army closer to Israel’s frontier. It’s clear that ties between Russia and Israel are already fraying. On Monday, Israel denounced recent comments by Russia’s foreign minister saying he believed Hitler had Jewish roots.

As the war in Ukraine evolves, Jerusalem will do what Washington asks, up to clear red lines. No presently conceivable Israeli government would send large combat forces to fight in Ukraine. There is also little chance Israel will ship heavy military gear there. NATO countries have more than enough advanced weapons to go around, especially now that the U.S. is ramping up domestic arms production. Israel also will refrain from sharing its closely held military secrets with coalition allies (although there are very few that the U.S. isn’t privy to).

Has Interception Of Straight Line Ballistic Missiles Been Demonstrated In Combat?

moonofalabama |   The Americans are now crying ‘uncle’ about Russia’s hypersonic weapons. After the most recent flight test of the scramjet-powered Zircon cruise missile, the Washington Post on July 11 carried a Nato statement of complaint:

"Russia’s new hypersonic missiles are highly destabilizing and pose significant risks to security and stability across the Euro-Atlantic area," the statement said.

At the same time, talks have begun on the ‘strategic dialog’ between the US and Russia, as agreed at the June 16 Geneva Summit of the two presidents. The two sides had already agreed to extend the START treaty on strategic weapons that has been in effect for a decade, but, notably, it was the US side that initiated the summit—perhaps spurred by the deployment of the hypersonic, intercontinental-range Avangard missile back in 2019, when US weapons inspectors were present, as per START, to inspect the Avangard as it was lowered into its missile silos.

But what exactly is a hypersonic missile—and why is it suddenly such a big deal?

We all remember when Vladimir Putin announced these wonder weapons in his March 2018 address to his nation [and the world]. The response from the US media was loud guffaws about ‘CGI’ cartoons and Russian ‘wishcasting.’ Well, neither Nato nor the Biden team are guffawing now. Like the five stages of grief, the initial denial phase has slowly given way to acceptance of reality—as Russia continues deploying already operational missiles, like the Avangard and the air-launched Kinzhal, now in Syria, as well as finishing up successful state trials of the Zircon, which is to be operationally deployed aboard surface ships and submarines, starting in early 2022. And in fact, there are a whole slew of new Russian hypersonic missiles in the pipeline, some of them much smaller and able to be carried by ordinary fighter jets, like the Gremlin aka GZUR.

The word hypersonic itself means a flight regime above the speed of Mach 5. That is simple enough, but it is not only about speed. More important is the ability to MANEUVER at those high speeds, in order to avoid being shot down by the opponent’s air defenses. A ballistic missile can go much faster—an ICBM flies at about 6 to 7 km/s, which is about 15,000 mph, about M 25 high in the atmosphere. [Mach number varies with temperature, so it is not an absolute measure of speed. The same 15,000 mph would only equal M 20 at sea level, where the temperature is higher and the speed of sound is also higher.]

But a ballistic missile flies on a straightforward trajectory, just like a bullet fired from a barrel of a gun—it cannot change direction at all, hence the word ballistic.

This means that ballistic missiles can, in theory, be tracked by radar and shot down with an interceptor missile. It should be noted here that even this is a very tough task, despite the straight-line ballistic trajectory. Such an interception has never been demonstrated in combat, not even with intermediate-range ballistic missiles [IRBMs], of the kind that the DPRK fired off numerous times, sailing above the heads of the US Pacific Fleet in the Sea of Japan, consisting of over a dozen Aegis-class Ballistic Missile Defense ships, designed specifically for the very purpose of shooting down IRBMs.

Such an interception would have been a historic demonstration of military technology—on the level of the shock and awe of Hiroshima! But no interception was ever attempted by those ‘ballistic missile defense’ ships, spectating as they were, right under the flight paths of the North Korean rockets!

The bottom line is that hitting even a straight-line ballistic missile has never been successfully demonstrated in actual practice. It is a very hard thing to do.

But let’s lower our sights a little from ICBMs and IRBMs [and even subsonic cruise missiles] to a quite ancient missile technology, the Soviet-era Scud, first introduced into service in 1957! A recent case with a Houthi Scud missile fired at Saudi Arabia in December 2017 shows just how difficult missile interception really is:

At around 9 p.m…a loud bang shook the domestic terminal at Riyadh’s King Khalid International Airport.

‘There was an explosion at the airport,’ a man said in a video taken moments after the bang. He and others rushed to the windows as emergency vehicles streamed onto the runway.

Another video, taken from the tarmac, shows the emergency vehicles at the end of the runway. Just beyond them is a plume of smoke, confirming the blast and indicating a likely point of impact.

The Houthi missile, identified as an Iranian-made Burqan-2 [a copy of a North Korean Scud, itself a copy of a Chinese copy of the original Russian Scud from the 1960s], flew over 600 miles before hitting the Riyadh international airport. The US-made Patriot missile defense system fired FIVE interceptor shots at the missile—all of them missed!

Laura Grego, a missile expert at the Union of Concerned Scientists, expressed alarm that Saudi defense batteries had fired five times at the incoming missile.

‘You shoot five times at this missile and they all miss? That's shocking,’ she said. ‘That's shocking because this system is supposed to work.’

Ms Grego knows what she’s talking about—she holds a physics doctorate from Caltech and has worked in missile technology for many years. Not surprisingly, American officials first claimed the Patriot missiles had done their job and shot the Scud down. This was convincingly debunked in the extensive expert analysis that ran in the NYT: Did American Missile Defense Fail in Saudi Arabia?

This was not the first time that Patriot ‘missile defense’ against this supposedly obsolete missile failed spectacularly:

On February 25, 1991, an Iraqi Scud hit the barracks in Dharan, Saudi Arabia, killing 28 soldiers from the U.S. Army's 14’th Quartermaster Detachment.

A government investigation revealed that the failed intercept at Dhahran had been caused by a software error in the system's handling of timestamps. The Patriot missile battery at Dhahran had been in operation for 100 hours, by which time the system's internal clock had drifted by one-third of a second. Due to the missile's speed this was equivalent to a miss distance of 600 meters.

Whether this explanation is factual or not, the Americans’ initial claims of wild success in downing nearly all of the 80 Iraqi Scuds launched, was debunked by MIT physicist Theodore Postol, who concluded that no missiles were in fact intercepted!

 

Clinton/Obama Intel Officials Claim That Big Tech Monopolies Are Essential To National Security

greenwald  |  Needless to say, the U.S. security state wants to maintain a stranglehold on political discourse in the U.S. and the world more broadly. They want to be able to impose propagandistic narratives without challenge and advocate for militarism without dissent. To accomplish that, they need a small handful of corporations which are subservient to them to hold in their hands as much concentrated power over the internet as possible.

If a free and fair competitive market were to arise whereby social media platforms more devoted to free speech could fairly compete with Google and Facebook— as the various pending bills in Congress are partially designed to foster — then that new diversity of influence, that diffusion of power, would genuinely threaten the ability of the CIA and the Pentagon and the White House to police political discourse and suppress dissent from their policies and assertions. By contrast, by maintaining all power in the hands of the small coterie of tech monopolies which control the internet and which have long proven their loyalty to the U.S. security state, the ability of the U.S. national security state to maintain a closed propaganda system around questions of war and militarism is guaranteed.

In this new letter, these national security operatives barely bother to hide their intention to exploit the strong animosity toward Russia that they have cultivated, and the accompanying intense emotions from the ubiquitous, unprecedented media coverage of the war in Ukraine, to prop up their goals. Over and over, they cite the grave Russian threat — a theme they have been disseminating and manufacturing since the Russiagate fraud of 2016 — to manipulate Americans to support the preservation of Big Tech's concentrated power, and to imply that anyone seeking to limit Big Tech power or make the market more competitive is a threat to U.S. national security:

This is a pivotal moment in modern history. There is a battle brewing between authoritarianism and democracy, and the former is using all the tools at its disposal, including a broad disinformation campaign and the threat of cyber-attacks, to bring about a change in the global order. We must confront these global challenges. . . . U.S. technology platforms have given the world the chance to see the real story of the Russian military’s horrific human rights abuses in Ukraine. . . . At the same time, President Putin and his regime have sought to twist facts in order to show Russia as a liberator instead of an aggressor. . . .

The Russian government is seeking to alter the information landscape by blocking Russian citizens from receiving content that would show the true facts on the ground. .. . . . Indeed, it is telling that among the Kremlin’s first actions of the war was blocking U.S. platforms in Russia. Putin knows that U.S. digital platforms can provide Russian citizens valuable views and facts about the war that he tries to distort through lies and disinformation. U.S. technology platforms have already taken concrete steps to shine a light on Russia’s actions to brutalize Ukraine. . . . Providing timely and accurate on-the-ground information – and disrupting the scourge of disinformation from Russian state media – is essential for allowing the world (including the Russian people) to see the human toll of Russia’s aggression. . . . [T]he United States is facing an extraordinary threat from Russian cyber-attacks . . .

In the face of these growing threats, U.S. policymakers must not inadvertently hamper the ability of U.S. technology platforms to counter increasing disinformation and cybersecurity risks, particularly as the West continues to rely on the scale and reach of these firms to push back on the Kremlin . . . . Russia’s invasion of Ukraine marks the start of a new chapter in global history, one in which the ideals of democracy will be put to the test. The United States will need to rely on the power of its technology sector to ensure that the safety of its citizens and the narrative of events continues to be shaped by facts, not by foreign adversaries.

It is hardly controversial or novel to observe that the U.S. security state always wants and needs a hated foreign enemy precisely because it allows them to claim whatever powers and whatever budgets they want in the name of stopping that foreign villain. And every war and every new enemy ushers in new authoritarian powers and the trampling of civil liberties: both the First War on Terror, justified by 9/11, and the New Domestic War on Terror, justified by 1/6, should have taught us that lesson permanently. Usually, though, U.S. security state propagandists are a bit more subtle about how they manipulate anger and fear of foreign villains to manipulate public opinion for their own authoritarian ends.

Perhaps because of their current desperation about the support these bills have attracted, they are now just nakedly and shamelessly trying to channel the anger and hatred that they have successfully stoked toward Russia to demand that Big Tech not be weakened, regulated or restricted in any way. The cynical exploitation could hardly be more overt: if you hate Putin the way any loyal and patriotic American should, then you must devote yourself to full preservation of the power of Google, Facebook, Apple, and Amazon.

It should go without saying that these life-long security state operatives do not care in the slightest about the dangers of "disinformation.” Indeed — as evidenced by the fact that most of them generated one Russiagate fraud after the next during...

Africom Advisors And Trainers Failing To Convert Their Trainees Into Responsible Negroes?

WSJ  |  The U.S. has trained thousands of African soldiers, from infantrymen rehearsing counterterrorism raids on the edge of the Sahara to senior commanders attending the U.S. Military Academy at West Point. The programs are a linchpin of U.S. policy on the continent, intended to help African allies professionalize their armed forces to fight armed opponents both foreign and domestic.

But U.S. commanders have watched with dismay over the past year as military leaders in several African allies—including officers with extensive American schooling—have overthrown civilian governments and seized power for themselves, triggering laws that forbid the U.S. government from providing them with weapons or training.

“There’s no one more surprised or disappointed when partners that we’re working with—or have been working with for a while in some cases—decide to overthrow their government,” Rear Adm. Jamie Sands, commander of U.S. special-operations forces in Africa, said this week. “We have not found ourselves able to prevent it, and we certainly don’t assess that we’re causing it.”

The strategic setback was apparent in recent weeks here at Fort Benning, where the U.S. Army hosted its annual gathering of top ground-force commanders from around Africa. Senior soldiers from three dozen African countries watched American recruits tackle boot-camp obstacle courses, witnessed parachute training and saw live-ammo tank and mortar demonstrations.

The Army withheld invitations from coup leaders in Mali and Burkina Faso, West African countries engaged in existential struggles with al Qaeda and Islamic State. Guinean soldiers, who in Septembertoppled the West African nation’s civilian government, were left out of the Fort Benning events and are no longer included in U.S.-led special-operations exercises.

Sudan’s ruling junta, which last year reversed a U.S.-supported transition to democratic rule, was unwelcome at the Fort Benning summit. Ethiopia hosted the last such gathering in 2020; this year its military is on the outs with the U.S. over alleged human-rights abuses in its war against Tigrayan rebels.

“We don’t control what happens when we leave,” said U.S. Army Col. Michael Sullivan, commander of the 2d Security Force Assistance Brigade, a unit created to advise and train African armies. “We always hope we’re helping countries do the right thing.”

Last year, a logistics advisory team from Col. Sullivan’s brigade had just arrived in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia’s capital, and was waiting out its Covid-19 quarantine at a hotel when the Biden administration decided to cancel the deployment “due to our deep concerns about the conflict in northern Ethiopia and human-rights violations and abuses being committed against civilians,” according to a State Department spokesperson.

 

How Information Slavery Was Imposed On You Beehotches During My Lifetime - Part II.

foreignpolicy |  For decades, a so-called anti-propaganda law prevented the U.S. government’s mammoth broadcasting arm from delivering programming to American audiences. But on July 2, that came silently to an end with the implementation of a new reform passed in January. The result: an unleashing of thousands of hours per week of government-funded radio and TV programs for domestic U.S. consumption in a reform initially criticized as a green light for U.S. domestic propaganda efforts. So what just happened?

Until this month, a vast ocean of U.S. programming produced by the Broadcasting Board of Governors such as Voice of America, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, and the Middle East Broadcasting Networks could only be viewed or listened to at broadcast quality in foreign countries. The programming varies in tone and quality, but its breadth is vast: It’s viewed in more than 100 countries in 61 languages. The topics covered include human rights abuses in Iran, self-immolation in Tibet, human trafficking across Asia, and on-the-ground reporting in Egypt and Iraq.

The restriction of these broadcasts was due to the Smith-Mundt Act, a long-standing piece of legislation that has been amended numerous times over the years, perhaps most consequentially by Arkansas Senator J. William Fulbright. In the 1970s, Fulbright was no friend of VOA and Radio Free Europe, and moved to restrict them from domestic distribution, saying they "should be given the opportunity to take their rightful place in the graveyard of Cold War relics." Fulbright’s amendment to Smith-Mundt was bolstered in 1985 by Nebraska Senator Edward Zorinsky, who argued that such "propaganda" should be kept out of America as to distinguish the U.S. "from the Soviet Union where domestic propaganda is a principal government activity."

Zorinsky and Fulbright sold their amendments on sensible rhetoric: American taxpayers shouldn’t be funding propaganda for American audiences. So did Congress just tear down the American public’s last defense against domestic propaganda?

BBG spokeswoman Lynne Weil insists BBG is not a propaganda outlet, and its flagship services such as VOA "present fair and accurate news."

"They don’t shy away from stories that don’t shed the best light on the United States," she told The Cable. She pointed to the charters of VOA and RFE: "Our journalists provide what many people cannot get locally: uncensored news, responsible discussion, and open debate."

A former U.S. government source with knowledge of the BBG says the organization is no Pravda, but it does advance U.S. interests in more subtle ways. In Somalia, for instance, VOA serves as counterprogramming to outlets peddling anti-American or jihadist sentiment. "Somalis have three options for news," the source said, "word of mouth, al-Shabab, or VOA Somalia."

This partially explains the push to allow BBG broadcasts on local radio stations in the United States. The agency wants to reach diaspora communities, such as St. Paul, Minnesota’s significant Somali expat community. "Those people can get al-Shabab, they can get Russia Today, but they couldn’t get access to their taxpayer-funded news sources like VOA Somalia," the source said. "It was silly."

Lynne added that the reform has a transparency benefit as well. "Now Americans will be able to know more about what they are paying for with their tax dollars — greater transparency is a win-win for all involved," she said. And so with that we have the Smith-Mundt Modernization Act of 2012, which passed as part of the 2013 National Defense Authorization Act, and went into effect this month.

But if anyone needed a reminder of the dangers of domestic propaganda efforts, the past 12 months provided ample reasons. Last year, two USA Today journalists were ensnared in a propaganda campaign after reporting about millions of dollars in back taxes owed by the Pentagon’s top propaganda contractor in Afghanistan. Eventually, one of the co-owners of the firm confessed to creating phony websites and Twitter accounts to smear the journalists anonymously. Additionally, just this month, the Washington Post exposed a counter-propaganda program by the Pentagon that recommended posting comments on a U.S. website run by a Somali expat with readers opposing al-Shabab. "Today, the military is more focused on manipulating news and commentary on the Internet, especially social media, by posting material and images without necessarily claiming ownership," reported the Post.

U.S. Dollar Hegemony Ended Last Wednesday

popularresistance |  Margaret Flowers: You’re listening to Clearing the FOG, speaking truth to expose the forces of greed, with Margaret Flowers. And now I turn to my guest, Michael Hudson. Michael is the president of the Institute for the Study of Long-term, Economic Trends, ISLET. He’s a Wall Street financial analyst and a distinguished research professor of Economics at the University of Missouri, in Kansas City. He’s also the author of numerous books and recently updated his book, “Super Imperialism: The economic strategy of American Empire.” Thank you for taking time to speak with me today, Michael.

Michael Hudson: Well, thanks for having me on Margaret.

MF: You’ve talked a lot and written a lot about dollar hegemony and what’s happening now with de-dollarization. Can you start out by explaining to my listeners what dollar hegemony is and how it has benefited the wealthy class in the United States?

MH: Dollar hegemony seems to be the position that has just ended as of this week very abruptly. Dollar hegemony was when America’s war in Vietnam and the military spending of the 1960s and 70s drove the United States off gold. The entire US balance of payments deficit was military spending, and it began to run down the gold supply. So, in 1971, President Nixon took the dollar off gold. Well, everybody thought America has been controlling the world economy since World War I by having most of the gold and by being the creditor to the world. And they thought what is going to happen now that the United States is running a deficit, instead of being a creditor.

Well, what happened was that, as I’ve described in Super Imperialism, when the United States went off gold, foreign central banks didn’t have anything to buy with their dollars that were flowing into their countries – again, mainly from the US military deficit but also from the investment takeovers. And they found that these dollars came in, the only thing they could do would be to recycle them to the United States. And what do central banks hold? They don’t buy property, usually, back then they didn’t. They buy Treasury bonds. And so, the United States would be spending dollars abroad and foreign central banks didn’t really have anything to do but send it right back to buy treasury bonds to finance not only the balance of payments deficit, but also the budget deficit that was largely military in character. So, dollar hegemony was the system where foreign central banks keep their monetary and international savings reserves in dollars and the dollars are used to finance the military bases around the world, almost eight hundred military bases surrounding them. So, basically central banks have to keep their savings by weaponizing them, by militarizing them, by lending them to the United States, to keep spending abroad.

This gave America a free ride. Imagine if you went to the grocery store and you just paid by giving them an IOU. And then the next week you want to buy more groceries and you give them another IOU. And they say, wait a minute, you have an IOU before and you say, well just use the IOU to pay the milk company that delivers, or the farmers that deliver. You can use this as your money and just you’ll as a customer, keep writing IOU’s and you never have to pay anything because your IOU is other people’s money. Well, that’s what dollar hegemony was, and it was a free ride. And it all ended last Wednesday when the United States grabbed Russia’s reserves having grabbed Afghanistan’s foreign reserves and Venezuela’s foreign reserves and those of other countries.

And all of a sudden, this means that other countries can no longer safely hold their reserves by sending their money back, depositing them in US banks or buying US Treasury Securities, or having other US investments because they could simply be grabbed as happened to Russia. So, all of a sudden this last week, you’re seeing the world economy fracture into two parts, a dollarized part and other countries that do not follow the neoliberal policies that the United States insists that its allies follow. We’re seeing the birth of a new dual World economy.

MF: Wow, there’s a lot to unpack there. So, are we seeing then other countries starting to disinvest in US dollars? You’ve written about how the treasury bonds that these central banks buy up have been basically funding our domestic economy. Are they starting to shed those bonds or what’s happening?

Thanks To Sanctions, Valodya's Getting W's Far Beyond What He Gamed Out

 nakedcapitalism |  His bottom line is, as he says near the top of a two hour-talk:

The Russians are grinding down the Ukrainians and they are doing it with flipped math. 200,000 guys are grinding down 600,000 guys. It’s one of the most amazing things. When this story is finally told, people are going to be stunned. All these people now are saying, “Oh, the Russians, they are doing so poorly, the Russians this…”. Maybe they are. Maybe I’m getting this all wrong. But you know, I’ve studied military history, I think I know how to read a map, I think I know how to look at the balance of forces, I think I know how to study logistics and stuff, and I think I’m reading this right….This war is closer to being over than many people think.

Ritter also argues, interestingly, that it is of paramount importance that Zelensky surrenders to Russia, or the functional equivalent by signing a peace on Russian terms. Ritter argues that at this juncture, that means Russians cannot win too quickly. Ukraine has to look like it has exhausted its options.

Not that this is factoring into how Russia proceeds on the field, but a slower tempo favors Russia politically. Whether Zelensky accedes to Russia’s demands is ultimately a US call, unless he has found a way to go rogue. The West is at present unprepared to accept that, given that they believe their own/Ukraine’s propaganda that Russia is losing the war and that Russia’s economy is collapsing under the sanctions.

Western leaders and pundits appear not to have worked out that the rouble falling (so far much less than in the 1998 crisis) is not the same as a domestic economic seize-up. Aside from Western goods being hoovered up after the sanctions hit, we have yet to hear of domestic shortages. Admittedly, new hardships could kick in starting in a few months as important speciality items from the West like car parts become unattainable.

But the US and Europe are about to see energy price pain kick in in April, and that may soften them up with respect to a Ukraine settlement. We linked to this story on Saturday, but it’s important to keep in mind. From the Financial Times, IEA calls for driving restrictions and air travel curbs to reduce oil demand:

How the West Helped Putin With Sanctions

Ritter is amped up on the topic of sanctions. He argues that Saddam Hussein would have been shot by his own generals after the loss of the 1991 war save for Western sanctions, which unified the country behind him.

As for Putin, Ritter contends that Putin, who was originally pro-Western, became convinced of the time of the need to distance Russia from Europe, but was hampered by the roughly 20% of Russians who are middle class, normally politically indifferent, but would turn on Putin if he threatened their access to European goods and vacations. Per Ritter:

The West just did Putin the greatest favor in the world. They don’t even realize how stupid they were. The West divorced itself from Russia. Putin said, “Thank you. Thanks you very much! You’ve now allowed me to do what I needed to do.”