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What Russia Says About Its Not-An-Ultimatum Demands To The U.S. And NATO
Russia has detailed its security demands to the U.S. and NATO in form of two draft treaties.
Besides yours truly many knowledgeable bloggers and publicists have also written about the issue:
Andrei Martyanov also explains the timing. Russia is technologically and militarily in a strong position and currently can survive a break with the 'western' world without too much trouble. The U.S. is in disarray and NATO not ready to fight. It is simply the right moment.
To add to his short video I will also note that it is winter and that Europe depends on Russian gas. Gazprom is no longer offering gas at European spot markets but only delivering in previously agreed quantities to long term contract partners. This puts pressure on German regulators to finally sign off on Nord Stream II which the U.S. and Ukraine want to prevent by all means. Russia does not need that pipeline but Germany does.
The timing thereby guarantees that the issues Russia has noted will get the appropriate attention in all of Europe.
Some 'western experts' like the anti-Russian Dimitri Alperovitch believe that Russia will wage war on Ukraine no matter what but especially if the U.S. and NATO reject the treaties.
I believe that to be false. If something has to be done about Ukraine, which is currently not the case, it will be a Gulf War 1 style war that will destroy its armed forces but not invade the country. It is not worth the effort.
Andrei Martyanov lists a number of impressive weapons systems Russia could set up on its ground or around the world and sell to "more than allies" China, India and other customers. The U.S. forces would thereby come under severe threats in several theaters.
I believe that Russia has also a number of impressive new arms and systems that it has not unveiled yet. Those too can be station in many places and can also get sold to its allies. Those who threaten Russia will come under at least equally strong threats in their offices and homes.
Raevsky and Armstrong present more options in their last pieces listed above.
Meanwhile Russia has increased the pressure on the issue. Throughout the last days everyone of higher rank relevant to foreign policy and defense has held some talk on the issue. All of them were translated to English. This will supposedly help to get the attention the Russian steps deserve.
When Russia talks one should listen. Here are therefore the relevant excerpts from all these interviews and speeches.
On December 18 in an long interview with Interfax Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov, the point man for the treaties, explained the reasoning behind the demands:
The security situation in Europe, the Euro-Atlantic region and Eurasia has indeed greatly deteriorated recently. This has happened because of a series of concerted actions by the United States and its NATO allies, which, generally speaking, can be described as an attempt to undermine Russia’s security and to create a hostile environment around us. We cannot accept this.
Ukraine is in the focus of this policy. Ukraine’s decisions are not independent but are subject to change in the situation. When the West provides unconditional and unqualified support to Ukraine, certain quarters in Kiev play up to the worst Western objectives and formulas. And the possibility of Ukraine eventually joining NATO, which some Ukrainian officials keep talking about, is categorically unacceptable to us. We will do our best to prevent this.
Ryabkov rejects to call the draft treaties an 'ultimatum' and he leaves open what Russia would do if the U.S. and its European proxies fail to react positively to Russia's concerns:
Question: But if, say, they reject our proposal, will that untie our hands?
Sergey Ryabkov: We will use the appropriate methods and approaches we need to ensure our security. We do not want a conflict and we would like to come to terms on a reasonable foundation. …
On December 18 Ryabkov's colleague Deputy Foreign Minister Alexander Grushko gave an interview to the Solovyov Live YouTube channel. TASS reported on it:
Russia will engage in creating counter threats if NATO turns down the Russian proposals for security guarantees, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Alexander Grushko said on Solovyov Live YouTube channel on Saturday.
"We are making clear that we are ready to talk about switching over from a military or a military-technical scenario to a political process" that will strengthen the security of all countries in the area of the OCSE, Euro-Atlantic and Eurasia, he said. "If that doesn’t work out, we signaled to them (NATO-TASS) that will also move over to creating counter threats, but it will then be too late to ask us why we made these decisions and why we deployed these systems."
On December 20 Grushko also gave an interview to Rossiyskaya Gazeta. He is asked what Russia would do if no agreement is found:´
Question: Mr Grushko, discussions of the action plan regarding NATO’s expansion, which Russia has proposed to Washington, are ongoing. You have mentioned a “military-technical alternative,” if NATO rejects Moscow’s proposals. What do you have in mind?
Alexander Grushko: If our concerns are disregarded and NATO countries are not ready to show military restraint, we will have to use the response instruments at our disposal. There is no other option. If the other side decides to project, let alone use force, that is, if it applies its defence capability as a means of economic or political pressure, this will be unacceptable to Russia, and we will find methods to neutralise these threats.
Question: What methods could this be?
Alexander Grushko: For example, if strike systems capable of reaching our command centres within a matter of minutes are deployed in the territory of NATO countries, we will have to create an appropriate situation for them.
The flight time of a hypersonic missile fired from a Russian submarine stationed near the U.S. east coast (or from Cuba?) to Washington DC is impressively short.
Then Ryabkov talked with TASS:
Russia is ready for a military response if NATO keeps ignoring Moscow’s security concerns, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov said on Monday.
"I said that we would find forms to respond, including by military and military-technical means [if NATO ignores Moscow’s concerns again]," the high-ranking Russian diplomat told TASS.
"I reaffirm this. We will have to balance the activities that are of concern to us, because they increase the risks, with our countermeasures," Ryabkov said.
Yesterday Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov gave a long interview to a number of RT correspondents. A transcript is not yet available but the English language video is here. During the first few minutes Lavrov rips NATO General Secretary Jens Stoltenberg a new one.
Also on December 21 President Vladimir Putin gave a speech at the annual expanded meeting of the Defense Ministry Board at the National Defense Control Centre. The part where he talks about defense modernization he mentions this:
We continued to actively develop cutting-edge weapons systems. Some of them, namely the Avangard and Kinzhal systems, have been put on combat duty.
Later on he demurs about U.S. weapons systems in Poland and Romania:
The Mk 41 launchers, which are located in Romania and are to be deployed in Poland, are adapted for launching the Tomahawk strike missiles. If this infrastructure continues to move forward, and if US and NATO missile systems are deployed in Ukraine, their flight time to Moscow will be only 7–10 minutes, or even five minutes for hypersonic systems. This is a huge challenge for us, for our security.
Putin explains how the draft treaties grew out of his virtual summit with Biden. He goes on:
[W]e need at least something, at least a legally binding agreement rather than just verbal assurances. We know the worth of such verbal assurances, fine words and promises. Take the recent past, in the late 1980s and early 1990s, when we were told that our concerns about NATO’s potential expansion eastwards were absolutely groundless. And then we saw five waves of the bloc’s eastward expansion. Do you remember how it happened? All of you are adults. It happened at a time when Russia’s relations with the United States and main member states of NATO were cloudless, if not completely allied.
I have already said this in public and will remind you of this again: American specialists were permanently present at the nuclear arms facilities of the Russian Federation. They went to their office there every day, had desks and an American flag. Wasn’t this enough? What else is required? US advisors worked in the Russian Government, career CIA officers gave their advice. What else did they want? What was the point of supporting separatism in the North Caucasus, with the help of even ISIS – well, if not ISIS, there were other terrorist groups. They obviously supported terrorists. What for? What was the point of expanding NATO and withdrawing from the ABM Treaty?
They are to blame for what is happening in Europe now, for the escalation of tensions there. …
As to how Russia will fix that:
Naturally, as I have already noted, if our Western colleagues continue their obviously aggressive line, we will take appropriate military-technical reciprocal measures and will have a tough response to their unfriendly steps. And, I would like to stress that we are fully entitled to these actions that are designed to ensure Russia’s security and independence.
He later adds:
Given the complicated international situation, it is necessary to develop military and military-technical cooperation with states that are members of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation and the Collective Security Treaty Organisation and to pay special attention to strengthening the defence capability of the Russia-Belarus Union State.
Putin's speech is followed by one by Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu. He explains the military situation from the Russian perspective. NATO and the U.S. are doing all they can encroach on Russia. Of the Ukraine he especially notes:
The military development of Ukraine’s territory by NATO countries is underway. The situation is being further aggravated by the deliveries of US and allied helicopters, unmanned combat aerial vehicles and guided anti-tank missiles. The presence of over 120 members of US private military companies in Avdeyevka and Priazovskoye, Donetsk Region, has been proved reliably.
They are setting up firing positions in residential houses and social facilities and are preparing the Ukrainian special operations forces and far-right armed groups for active hostilities. Unidentified chemical warfare agents have been delivered to Avdeyevka and Krasny Liman for the purpose of provocations. The Ukrainian military keep up the shelling of civilian neighbourhoods in Donbass and the positions of the people’s militias of the Lugansk and Donetsk republics to provoke a response.
Shoigu details the exceptional amount of modern weapons the armed forces have received and concludes:
Comrade Supreme Commander-in-Chief,
All the tasks assigned to the Armed Forces for 2021 have been accomplished. The Armed Forces’ combat capability has grown by 12.8 percent; the prescribed level of national defence capability has been ensured. The implementation of all signed contracts has ensured the delivery of over 5,000 main armament models. The rearmament of the Army and the Navy and regular servicing have made it possible to maintain military equipment in good condition at the level of 95 percent.
…
Russian society has a high regard for the Defence Ministry’s activities. Over 90 percent of Russian citizens are confident that the Armed Forces are capable of defending the country, and 88 percent are proud of the Army and Navy.
…
In accordance with your instruction, we will continue to ensure the sustainable development of the Armed Forces and to enhance their combat capabilities throughout 2022. We will discuss the results of our activities in great detail at our limited-attendance meeting.
Then Putin is back on with a more informal talk. He also rejects to call the draft treaty an 'ultimatum'. He bemoans the illegality of U.S. action:
As a reminder: everything that our partners – let us call them that – the United States has been doing in previous years, supposedly ensuring its interests and security thousands of kilometres away from their national territory – they have been doing these tough things, the boldest things, without UN Security Council authorisation.
He notes that sometime in the future the U.S. will also have hypersonic weapons like the ones Russia currently has or is fielding. It could station those in the Ukraine and directly threaten Moscow. Then comes the important part:
Armed conflicts and bloodshed are absolutely not our choice. We do not want to see events go that way. We want to use political and diplomatic means to resolve problems but we want to at least have clearly formulated legal guarantees. This is what our proposals are all about. We set them down on paper and sent them to Brussels and Washington, and we hope to receive a clear and comprehensive response to these proposals.
There are certain signals that our partners appear to be willing to work on that. However, there is also a danger that they will attempt to drown our proposals in words, or in a swamp, in order to take advantage of this pause and do whatever they want to do.
To make it clear to everyone: we are aware of this, and this turn of events, these developments, will not work for us. We look forward to constructive and meaningful talks with a visible outcome – and within a definite timeframe – that would ensure equal security for all.
This is what we will strive to achieve, but we can do so only if the Armed Forces are developing properly.
@2 Tom Collins
Here it is… UN General Assembly, Resolution A/RES/76/149
Here is the voting record: https://digitallibrary.un.org/record/3951466?ln=en
Here are the abstensions (pardon the capital letters, extracted from the previous link):
ALBANIA , ANDORRA , AUSTRALIA , AUSTRIA , BELGIUM , BULGARIA , CANADA , CROATIA , CYPRUS , CZECHIA , DENMARK , ESTONIA , FINLAND , FRANCE , GEORGIA , GERMANY , GREECE , HUNGARY , ICELAND , IRELAND , ITALY , JAPAN , LATVIA , LIECHTENSTEIN , LITHUANIA , LUXEMBOURG , MALTA , MONACO , MONTENEGRO , NETHERLANDS , NEW ZEALAND , NORTH MACEDONIA , NORWAY , POLAND , PORTUGAL , REPUBLIC OF KOREA, REPUBLIC OF MOLDOVA, ROMANIA , SAMOA , SAN MARINO , SLOVAKIA , SLOVENIA , SOLOMON ISLANDS , SPAIN , SWEDEN , SWITZERLAND , TONGA , TURKEY , UNITED KINGDOM
Posted by: ptb | Dec 22 2021 20:40 utc | 11
@ptb | Dec 22 2021 20:40 utc | 11
Here are the abstensions (pardon the capital letters, extracted from the previous link):
ALBANIA , ANDORRA , AUSTRALIA , AUSTRIA , BELGIUM , BULGARIA , CANADA , CROATIA , CYPRUS , CZECHIA , DENMARK , ESTONIA , FINLAND , FRANCE , GEORGIA , GERMANY , GREECE , HUNGARY , ICELAND , IRELAND , ITALY , JAPAN , LATVIA , LIECHTENSTEIN , LITHUANIA , LUXEMBOURG , MALTA , MONACO , MONTENEGRO , NETHERLANDS , NEW ZEALAND , NORTH MACEDONIA , NORWAY , POLAND , PORTUGAL , REPUBLIC OF KOREA, REPUBLIC OF MOLDOVA, ROMANIA , SAMOA , SAN MARINO , SLOVAKIA , SLOVENIA , SOLOMON ISLANDS , SPAIN , SWEDEN , SWITZERLAND , TONGA , TURKEY , UNITED KINGDOM
Thanks for the list, ptb. I notice Russia isn’t among the abstainers; Tom_Q_Collins is probably mistaken. Indeed, why would Russia, who has suffered so much from the Nazis, abstain from an anti-Nazi resolution in the UN?
Posted by: Cyril | Dec 22 2021 22:17 utc | 38
I spend my time, retreated from society, writing thinking and image-making. My perception is thus necessarily the long haul. But these last few days my first source of information, anti-system bloggers, was overtaken by much fantasy. Bernhard, was one of the lone voices who kept thinking straight. For that I’m grateful to him.
Since we are in this period of the Year I hereafter share a Geopolitical Christmas Tale that is rooted in the last episodes of actuality.
As a preamble…
Power in today’s world is far more complex than a matter of military dominance. Moscow, Beijing and Washington have furthermore an acute understanding that the present Geopolitical contradictions can’t be solved by a world war which would simply cut the escape of their societies and plunge their citizens in a Berezina. In that sense Geopolitics has now to be viewed as the systemic complexity of the interactions between the open societal fields (internal and external) of all nations on earth.
The present Geopolitical moment is a very special moment indeed.
1. Two trends have been solidifying over the centuries of Western Modernity :
1.1. On one side the center of gravity of the economy-world has been shifting, away from the West, toward East-Asia and more particularly toward China :
This is the 8th such a shift of the center of gravity of the economy-world over the entire span of Modernity… What is different this time is that the center of gravity is leaving the territorial area of the Western civilization which explains the madness that has overtaken Western capitals !
1.2. On the other side Western countries have been accumulating a multitude of side-effects over the last centuries of Modernity. The nature of these side-effects is double : – damages to the habitat of living species (nature) through different forms of pollution – damages to the societal organization of the human species through the pollution of ever more individualism that is concluding presently with the cancer that is societal atomization.
2. The present moment is more particularly characterized by “The Great Convergence of Late-Modernity” :
2.1. The convergence, within Western societies, of Neo-liberalism and Postmodernism has given a superficial globalization of Western Modernity to the 4 corners of the world while internally this convergence has forced Western societies into – societal inequality – pauperism – hyper-individualism – a complete loss of meaning – an individual feeling of isolation – etc… These are all aspects of societal atomization which means that such societies are no longer united entities and in that sense successful collective undertakings are no longer in their reach (no shared worldview left to glue the individuals in a unified societal whole).
2.2. The convergence, within nature, of a multitude of side-effects, that resulted from “the reason that is at work within the transformation of money into capital”, were called “externalities” because capital refused to pay for eliminating their life disrupting character. These side-effects have thus been left to freely disrupt the equilibrium that has ensured the abundance of flora and fauna and more particularly the stability that ensured an ever increasing complexity of human societal life over the last 10,000 years…
2.3. Lately the effects of these disruptions, within Western societies and within nature, have started to converge and are forcing humanity to face its predicament : “what now ?”. Most of us are oblivious to this predicament. But most scientists and some public decision-makers, a rarity in the West, are well aware of this situation… Those of us who listen carefully know for a fact that Beijing and Moscow are realist and are thus well aware of the extreme complexity of the present situation :
— An acute awareness has emerged in the minds of the realists that to face the predicament of humanity it is indispensable, first and foremost and also urgently, to solve 1.1. which basically calls for a new world order in which the West is forced to play by the new rules of the game that the community of nation decides upon.
— The United Nations’ effort to combat climate change has taught a few important lessons :
** the West will never contribute in an adequate manner for the bulk of externalities that it is directly responsible for
** climate change is merely a symptom of the larger problem which is that the side-effects of Modernity are destroying the habitat of living species
A Geopolitical Christmas Tale…
Moscow and Beijing are well aware of the disintegration of the cultural, social, and economic realities in the West that I sketched in 1.2. and in 2. and they have patiently been waiting for the most propitious moment to initiate a strategy to placate the West. It so happens that their forecasting services alerted them to an exceptional convergence of factors that would culminate with the Beijing Winter Olympics.
Whatever the Western propaganda might be trying to force in the minds, of the people of this earth, the fact of the matter is that Western countries, in 2020, have entered the greatest depression in the whole of Modernity and this depression is bound to last, at the least 10 years but most probably more, creating massive poverty and misery while disintegrating the sickest national societies.
Covid first deflated the Western financial bubble in 2020. The FED’s response was the shuffling uncounted trillions of dollars of paper around the economy in the hope of igniting the animal spirits on Wall Street. This was realized, among other, by :
— Cutting Federal funds rate to a range of 0% to 0.25%
— Purchasing massive amounts of debt securities with a questionable value
— Colossal amounts of low interest rate loans to the largest primary dealers
— Lending to banks against collateral in IOUs or commercial paper
— Funneling cash to overnight repo-markets
— Expansion of International swap lines
— Massive amounts of funding to foreign central banks without swap lines
— Cash to the banks against questionable paper collateral at the discount window
— Support of the flow of credit to U.S. corporations
— Lending to corporations through the Commercial Paper Funding Facility (CPFF)
— Lending to households, consumers, and small businesses against asset-backed securities
— Backstopping municipal and state borrowing
— Etc…
The result of this financial largesse became visible in the second part of 2021. An ever increasing inflation sows misery in the poorest families. People resist this inflation by claiming higher wages which results in the multiplication of social conflicts.
We recently discovered that all this would be topped this winter by a new wave of Covid infections. The forecasts indicate that the Omicron surge could push the number of infections to their highest level yet. The UT COVID-19 Modeling Consortium at the University of Texas at Austin projects that by the end of January, more than 500,000 people could catch the virus every day on average … with and estimated 3,876 deaths per day on average…
In sum the West is confronted with : societal disintegration + the greatest of all depressions + hyperinflation + social conflicts + a new Covid wave that could be worse than the earlier ones. The least we can say is that this fatally weakens the US and the same can be said of Europe.
And then, in such a very particular context, comes the following…
1. 2021-12-07 : Putin and Biden have a 2 hour video-talk about the Ukraine crisis.
2. 2021-12-07 : President Biden says that putting American troops on the ground in Ukraine to deter a potential Russian invasion is “not on the table” and that he hoped there would be an announcement by Friday 9th of high-level meetings with Russia and major NATO allies to discuss Moscow’s “concerns relative to NATO writ large” and the possibility of “bringing down the temperature along the eastern front.”
3. 2021-12-15 : Putin and Xi have a video call and discuss tensions in Europe and the “aggressive” U.S. and NATO rhetoric. Wang Wenbin, spokesperson for the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs, answered the following to a reporter who asked him what was the outcome of this video-call :
“The world is witnessing the combined forces of changes and a pandemic both unseen in a century against the backdrop of complex and profound changes in the international and regional landscape. We believe that China and Russia, two permanent members of the UN Security Council, take on an important mission in defending regional peace and stability and promoting development and the revitalization of all countries.
For some time, certain countries have been drawing ideological lines, building new military blocs and stoking regional tensions, which have all brought grave threats and challenges to regional peace and stability and global strategic stability. China and Russia firmly reject this.
We will continue to follow the two leaders’ consensus, take up responsibility, unite all forces that love peace and support peace, and make active contribution to realizing sustained, universal and common security in the region and the wider world.”
There was no way for China to assert more clearly that it is siding with Russia in its demands… but everyone seems to have missed the seriousness of the Chinese side …except for M. K. Bhadrakumar who is one of the most lucid observers out there.
Few people understand the meaning of the expression “the two leaders’ consensus”. This expression relates to the will of their countries to see these two leaders in place for the long haul during the stabilization of the post-Western world order. Both countries, not in their unanimity but certainly in their large majority, have sensed since some years already that they have someone unique in their present president. A person who outshines the other decision-makers around them in term of their stamina and their mental clarity. How it is possible, that the West does not get this, is beyond my understanding ?
4. 2021-12-17 : Moscow releases the texts of two documents in the form of two draft treaties that many interpreted as an ultimatum of Russia to the West.
5. 2021-12-17 : Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg asserts the alliance’s prerogative to intervene in Ukraine and bluntly rejects Moscow’s notions that it could have a say on the alliance’s future expansion plans.
6. 2021-12-19 : Christine Lambrecht, German Minister of Defense, Asserts that NATO was willing to discuss Moscow’s demands but would not allow Moscow to “dictate” to the alliance or its partners.
By the 20th of December Western media were littered with articles belittling the partnership between China and Russia as “still having an artificial flavor” and suggesting that China would never fight the US along Russia. Ultimately, they proclaim, Russia will join the West in defeating China. But this is the propaganda of a rear guard of Western ideologues who are bluffing their way trying to force their madness on all nations that refuse to submit to their unilateral order.
The Russian treaty/ultimatum has to be understood as a first act in a wider strategy that is being played out, in concert by Russia and China, in order to provoke the financial and economic fall of the US.
But why pushing the US to fall precisely now ?
Well the present context offers a unique opportunity. The Chinese sages never tired to repeat that if you are forced to fight you do it when your enemy is at its weakest ! And the present Geopolitical context announces the coming of the peak viral catalysis infesting Western societal wounds. This is why pushing the US to fall precisely now has the best chances to succeed.
Now about China. This is an a-religious country.
Its early-power society grew, as the outcome of the cultural unification of its tribes, sometimes between 6000 and 5000 years ago. And thereafter it constantly actualized animism with present changing trends by topping it with add-ons in the same way as open-source software integrates innovations from the community… Now animism was a highly pragmatic knowledge formation approach that is rooted in observation over the very long haul that led to the induction of abstract principles from this observation. Animism remains in application today in its appellation of “Chinese Traditional Culture” which is a form of animism+.
This means that China is — a-religious — highly pragmatic — and a reserved nation with reserved individuals.
What this means is that the Chinese thinking is not driven by ideology and is not experiencing the need to impose itself on others. Having said that the Chinese have been observing the vile racist aggression coming out of the West over the last few years. They have spoken little. They have observed and have been thinking hard. And now they are at the end of their strategic patience. Chinese leaders know darn well that they have not much of a history in diplomacy which means, if I may say so, that their practice has not had the time yet to grow into a perfectly polished whole. That is why China, in all humility, openly recognizes Russia’s ‘panache’ in the diplomatic field and now relies on it to position its own.
So it was only natural for China to let Russia publicly initiate the decisive movement forward in their common play for a new world order. China publicly sided with Russia when it announced its treaty-proposal/ultimatum and what is most important is that China detains the weapon of last resort which is the termination of US dollar payments for the delivery of its goods and services.
Fast forward…
Russian leaders have informed their Western counterparts that if they do not start to negotiate soon they will take the necessary technical measures to make them understand that they are deadly serious. It seems that Westerners have understood this part of Russia’s argument. Russian leaders even went further and informed very publicly that if the West was participating in negotiations in order to drag them down they would use their technical means to awake Western attention.
The latest news is now that negotiations will start in the beginning of January 2022. In the eyes of the Russians one month is amply sufficient to reach an agreement and if there is no agreement by the end of the month they say that they will act.
Coincidentally President Putin and President Xi will meet in Beijing to open the Winter Olympics on the 4th of February 2022 at Beijing National Stadium. The Russian timing of the conclusion of its negotiations with the US and Nato coincides thus with the very public and media relayed meeting of President Putin and President Xi ! Ho ho…
Now the fact is that the discourse of Russian leaders leaves no place for a 3rd alternative as a possible outcome of these talks. From what we hear it is — or “we have a deal” and the West accepts a retreat to its posture before the fall of the Soviet Union — or “we have no deal” and China and Russia, on the 4th of February, announce their further game-plan to the world.
Some Russian officials have already announced that one of the measures that they could take if there is no agreement is to refuse payment in dollars for any goods they export… And the fact is that China’s Digital Yuan is ready for use by the Chinese public at large. By October there were already 140 million people who had opened “wallets” and remember that this digital yuan has been designed, over the last 7 years, to act as a new technical payment system for international exchanges that will thus for the first time be free of Swift’s intervention and Washington’s judicial long arm… This Digital Yuan will also be connected to block-chains that will handle the currency exchange between Yuan and local currency, the final payment as well as tax matters, transportation matters,… all this promises to erase the hefty bank commissions and lengthy bureaucratic delays which should catch the attention of the buyers of Chinese goods while reducing the volume of exchanges in US dollars.
To get a sense of how the digital Yuan is going to impact the world watch these 2 interviews of Richard Turrin who is one of the most knowledgeable English speakers about the subject.
China’s Central Bank Digital Currency by Fat Tail Investment Research
Big Tech in China and the Digital Yuan by Oriol Caudevilla
The reader is encouraged to imagine the conclusion of this Christmas tale…
Posted by: laodan | Dec 23 2021 14:16 utc | 83
As various commentators have pointed out, if you are going to accept an offer from Russia, always accept the first offer. After that with each offer the stakes will get higher and higher.
I think Russia doesn’t want to pussy-foot around with negotiations with the US because they know the US will only try to play games, therefore they have deliberately set the conditions so high that the US cannot accept until it has been brutally softened up. I hope the US can keep track as the stakes go up higher and higher with each iteration!
First offensive will be Ukraine. An ultra-fast snap offensive using stand-off weapons and crack special forces. Russia will secure the whole of eastern and coastal Ukraine up to Odessa and the border with Transnistria (most of that using Donetsk/Lugansk forces supplemented with “volunteers”, enabled and facilitated by massive standoff weapons support), so that rump-Ukraine will not even have any coastline. US and NATO military assets in Ukraine will be destroyed along with all of Ukraine’s military capability, and all the recent US weapons handovers. Within less than 30 minutes all escape routes for war criminals will have been destroyed. Within less than 60 minutes special forces will be in Kiev hunting down key war criminals. All diplomatic buildings in Ukraine will be barricaded, supposedly for the “protection” of the occupants, and all communications cut or jammed – nobody will be allowed in or out of embassies. Right from the first minute Russian military media specialists will be recording “Shock and Awe” military porn so advanced and so blitzy and glitzy that the US “shock and awe” in Iraq will look stoneage by comparison, and this will be live-streamed to the West, using in-place assets to record both the launch and hit of hypersonic weapons, supplemented by live-updated maps showing key advances. Key war criminals will be secured, lesser war criminals gradually mopped up. Within 2 or 3 days Russia will force a handover of power to a Ukrainian interim regime. Any US/NATO war criminals taken captive in Ukraine will be secured in Russia, but no public word of war trials against US/NATO prisoners at this stage.
Next comes Russia’s second offer with raised stakes. The second offer will include surrender and dismantling of all biowarfare labs – especially those in countries close to Russia and China; Fort Dettrick and Porton Down will probably be reserved for later.
It will be a busy winter! Europe will be cold due to gas shortages and high prices. I would hypothecate that maybe even some equipment failures will cause unexpected power outages and oil/gas distribution problems in the US so that the US will also be very cold. Most US infrastructure is in such a bad state and so incompetently managed it will quickly fail when society is under pressure, simply through fear and trembling of officials, which lead to dangerous mistakes without any foreign intervention – but of course it will be blamed on Russia. The Russians will use cold to their advantage, so many key events will take place over the winter. Russia and China will publicly start a movement towards Nuremberg-style trials for major war criminals; initially it will be all rather hazy, implying just war criminals captured in Ukraine, but will gradually expand with each iteration of offers and offenses. The movement towards war crimes trials will tend to culture a blossoming of moral support and positive outlook amongst ordinary people in many Western countries fed up with Western impunity to accountability. Extensive efforts will be devoted to the investigation of crimes in Ukraine, which will be – selectively – well publicised (some investigations will be strategically kept quiet until later). Negotiations to bargain for release of any US/NATO war criminals captured in Ukraine will be stonewalled.
Second offensive will destroy US “anti-ballistic missile” launch sites in Romania and Bulgaria, with complete destruction of the sites in Romania, Bulgaria and Poland (Poland is probably under construction at the moment, I am not sure of the state of progress). At the same time key biowarfare labs in the vicinity of Russia and China will be neutralised – maybe using standoff weapons, if Russia has the means to do so without causing the release of dangerous biowarfare agents, otherwise using special forces. In any case special forces will be used for mopping up and the collection of evidence, if there is potentially any survivable evidence. Clearly Russia has for long regarded these labs as an existential threat, and has certainly devoted enormous resources to the development of means for neutralising them – this necessarily has to come at some stage. My guess is they have some special weapon that causes such extreme heat it will instantly destroy all samples of germ warfare in the labs. If not such standoff weapons, then special forces based, and any survivors will be taken prisoner for war crimes trials. Maybe some other key US foreign bases such as Diego Garcia will be “liberated” – and evidence of their past activities extensively investigated; many prisoners will be taken for war crimes investigation. The neutralisation of some key strategic US offshore military assets (other than potential war crimes sites) might be included at this stage. Maybe also the neutralisation of key US bases in Syria and Iraq, possibly with Iranian cooperation. US nuclear submarines? Maybe some covert neutralisation activities.
Third offer will include the handover of key Covid-19 criminals including Fauci, Gates, Drosten, CEOs of Pfizer and Moderna, other key Covid-19 patent holders, and a sprinkling of key politicians and bureaucrats. At this stage China will start to get more heavily involved in the process; this third offer may be a joint offer from Russia and China, possibly also Iran. This generous offer will include an offer for the handover to Russia and China for investigation and destruction of all Western biowarfare labs worldwide, including Fort Dettrick and Porton Down. The stick will be the threat of war crimes trials for the staff if they are neutralised by force. Russia and China might publicly release some key state secrets and key evidential documents concerning Western involvement in unnecessary increase in deaths and economic destruction from the Covid-19 operation, including evidence of critical Big Pharma activities.
By this point there will potentially be a large and rapidly accelerating groundswell of support from ordinary people in Western countries. This will be a rapidly swelling pressure on Western regimes, with increasingly frequent and increasingly large protests. Legal activities by Corona Ausschuss in Germany and a large network of related legal groupings around the world against different aspects of the Covid-19 operation will start to gain more and more successes in courts around the world (they have already won many many small but meaningful regional legal battles including verdicts against the reliability of PCR tests, restrictions on schools, vaccine mandates and others). More and more courts will swing in their favour, influenced by the groundswell of public pressure. State policies on Covid-19 will be forced to change in response to the pressure.
Third offensive … … …
At what point do the US and Europe surrender? Continental Europe are cowards. They will give up quickly. The Sword of Damocles of Russia-based war crimes tribunals and potential trials for paedophilia and corruption will lead many key European politicians to try to get under Russian wings to protect them from the Global Elite blackmail on which the entirety of Empire depends. Some will try to bargain with Russia for personal protection in return for their loyalty. In any case Europe’s real interests lie with Eurasia not North America, so they have huge potential incentives to switch sides. Critical will be (a) ever expanding Russian war crimes trials, with subtle hints of the potential threat of expansion to Covid-19 crimes trials, corruption trials, and paedophilia trials etc; and (b) an ever tightening clamp on the military potential and military plausibility of the Empire.
The core criminals of the US and the UK will be the last holdouts. They will get the worst offer from Putin before they have to accept. At some stage there will be mutiny in the US and UK militaries. There may be a military coup. … … …
Just one perspective.
Posted by: BM | Dec 23 2021 16:46 utc | 87
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