Looting The 'Allies'
With regards to Trump attempting to land grab Canada, Greenland and the Panama Canal, Agit Papadakis offers some interesting observation:
The Bozo [Trump] Doctrine, the Bibi [Netanyahoo] Doctrine, and the Tayyip [Erdogan] Doctrine, are all converging on a new post-Westphalian world disorder of imperialism gone nuts.For the cucked vassals of the old order this means either grow a pair and resist or lose every shred of sovereignty, dignity, and material comfort you have left. Cucks like the EU, Australia, Japan, South Korea and wounded weak states like Syria, Lebanon, and Iraq are all suffering the torment of being raped and ravaged by powerful rogue states.
Bozo didn't lose a minute to join the melée. He looked at the economic train wreck he was inheriting and decided it was now or never to hoist the Jolly Roger over his big but old and rusty military machine and what's left of the once mighty dollar's hegemony.
His first victims would be the weak and cucked vassals who poured their sorry excuse for a military and their treasure into the Ukraine black hole. Bozo knows that his unfurling of the black banner will automatically dissolve those BS "alliances" with weak vassals that were never but a frilly negligée concealing America's naked imperialism, as revealed by the the lonely squeak of the French chihuahua protesting Bozo's Greenland grab and threatening to resist.
The cucked chihuahuas of the Rules Based Order are suddenly up against Judgement Day, naked and defenseless between two raging behemoths, Amerisrael and Russia, while an even bigger and scarier one, China, looms over everybody else.
It's the 19th century with nukes and hypersonics and space jets, which would normally be followed by the world wars of the 20th. But with 21st century speed, it shouldn't take longer than a decade if that.
Agit's rant refers to a 'based' thread 'On American expansionism' by Russians With Attitude:
The incoming administration seems to have a more realistic image of the state of American hegemonial decline and wants to take proactive steps to try to counteract and reverse it, breathing new life into the American Global Empire.
...
The world that existed in 1991-2022 does not exist anymore. It's not coming back. You can just invade your neighbor. You can just fire missiles at international shipping lanes. You can just threaten to annex members of your military alliance. “You can just do things”, as the techbros like to say. The mirage of a post-historical order that only has to be policed from time to time but is never seriously challenged has disappeared. What did you think canceling the End of History meant? Vibes? Papers? Essays?
...
America's vassals WILL have to confront this state of things and make hard decisions about their future. This means reckoning with their geopolitical impotence and either embracing dependency with open eyes or seeking pathways to autonomy that will inevitably involve risk, sacrifice, and a recalibration of their national priorities.The era of coasting on borrowed security and ideological rhetoric is over. What lies ahead is a world where historical agency must be reclaimed or forever relinquished, and for many, the question may not be whether they are ready to make that leap, but whether they even remember how. America has now understood this -- and is mentally preparing to switch back to the cold logic that comes with actual History. The times, they are a-changin'.
The unilateral moment has ended. Russia, India and China have become too rich and too powerful to be looted. U.S. vassals are now by far the easier target.
Trump's ideas of taking from the 'allies' is not knew. The U.S. plundering of its vassals has been ongoing for some time.
The instigation of the war in Ukraine can be interpreted as a large U.S. looting operation of its European 'allies'.
Biden was also quite successful when he blew up Nord Stream. (This was btw the second time the U.S. destroyed a Russia to Germany pipeline. An analytical book available on the first incident in 1982 had been written by Anthony Blinken!)
The weaklings in the German and EU government did not even dare protest. They instead condemned their people to pay horrendous prices for U.S. fracking gas. On top of that they were pressed to buy U.S. weapons to feed the war in Ukraine.
Things did not go as well as planned with the war in Ukraine but the U.S. is still winning from it.
Posted by b on January 10, 2025 at 15:49 UTC | Permalink
next page »The US Empire is eating its own tail (vassals) and its own homeland (the US) because it can no longer extract vast wealth from outside its imperial core with ease. Happening on a smaller level with respect to France with respect to its African ex-colonies. Its going to be a rough time from here for the populations of the West, en route to a Soylent Green world (perhaps it will be made of bugs not people).
Better to leave the West, or at least give it some distance. Georgia, Hungary, Slovakia, and now possibly Austria see the light. As do all of Asia, much of Latin America and most of Africa. Spain has also shown some independent orientation. Also, perhaps Romania.
The French, Germans, Italians, British, Canadians, Australians (their elites not the general population) will keep themselves in the bowl as they get made into broth.
Posted by: Roger Boyd | Jan 10 2025 16:00 utc | 1
The dotard and his populist pied pipers are in the process of normalizing hostile takeovers of low hanging sovereign countries. It's ugly and repulsive. The way I see Americans now is as the disobedient dog that roams around the world lifting it's leg on whoever will allow it.
Posted by: chunga | Jan 10 2025 16:06 utc | 2
capitalism has no where else to go, so it now wants to feed on it's own vassals... exploitation can't stop according to these folks..
i think the idea of the greenland grab is over energy and mineral resources.. trump is looking after the energy corporation.. as for panama, i guess he wants to cut costs.. with canada - just a basis resource rip off is in the cards..
the unipolar world has come and gone and left the usa trio ( banking, energy and military) in an awkward position..
Posted by: james | Jan 10 2025 16:13 utc | 3
Greetings. Trump's 'politics of distraction' is certainly the greatest show on earth at the moment. In one stroke/press conference he captures a new paradigm. I didn't think he was up to that. Meanwhile, I've been waiting to see the link made between Biden's Afghan volte face, and the NATO-inspired SMO, with just six months of separation. This is smoking-gun evidence of premeditation. And I'm waiting for Trump to create a sobriquet for the civil war in Ukraine - how about 'Biden's Folly.'
Posted by: Haciman | Jan 10 2025 16:21 utc | 4
The instigation of the war in Ukraine can be interpreted as a large U.S. looting operation of its European 'allies'.
Posted by b on January 10, 2025 at 15:49 UTC | Permalink
So the "ukraine aid" as a way to disarm it's former "allies"? I joked at a time that it was all theater and suddenly you'd have a huge RF/AFU army armed to the hilt and rushing through the whole disarmed western europe, but this is a much likelier scenario.
Reducing the uk to airstrip one status (explaining that canada, and even australia and new zeland , are beyond uk's ability to defend), and totally stripping any ability of continental europe from projecting force, or even defending itself.
The star and stripes could grow, but, for the 5 eyes absorption, they should add stripes, unlucky 17, 13+4, stripes
(I know, don't pick a fight on 13 being the original colonies)
as an added bonus, this could just being the west indies spin-off making an almost hostile takover of the original company
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From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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December 3, 1775; 249 years ago
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(current 50-star version)
Design Thirteen horizontal stripes alternating red and white; in the canton, one white star for each state (50 stars as of 1960) arranged in horizontal rows (of alternating numbers of six and five stars per row as of 1960) on a blue field
The national flag of the United States, often referred to as the American flag or the U.S. flag, consists of thirteen horizontal stripes, alternating red and white, with a blue rectangle in the canton bearing fifty small, white, five-pointed stars arranged in nine offset horizontal rows, where rows of six stars alternate with rows of five stars. The 50 stars on the flag represent the 50 U.S. states, and the 13 stripes represent the thirteen British colonies that won independence from Great Britain in the American Revolutionary War.[1]
The flag was created as an item of military equipment to identify US ships and forts. It evolved gradually during early American history, and was not designed by any one person. The flag was mostly unknown to the American public until 1861, when it exploded in popularity as a symbol of opposition to the Confederate attack on Fort Sumter. It came to symbolize the Union side of the American Civil War; Union victory solidified its status as a national flag. Because of the country's emergence as a superpower in the 20th century, the flag is now among the most widely recognized symbols in the world.
Nicknames for the flag include the Stars and Stripes, Old Glory, and the Star-Spangled Banner. The Pledge of Allegiance and the holiday Flag Day are dedicated to it. The number of stars on the flag is increased as new states join the United States. The last adjustment was made in 1960, following the admission of Hawaii.
History
For a chronological guide, see Timeline of the flag of the United States.
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The current design of the U.S. flag is its 27th; the design of the flag has been modified officially 26 times since 1777. The 48-star flag was in effect for 47 years until the 49-star version became official on July 4, 1959. The 50-star flag was ordered by then president Eisenhower on August 21, 1959, and was adopted in July 1960. It is the longest-used version of the U.S. flag and has been in use for over 64 years.[2]
First flag
Further information: Grand Union Flag and Prospect Hill Flag Debate
Continental Union Flag, also known as the Grand Union Flag, was used between 1775 and 1777
The first official flag resembling the "Stars and Stripes" was the Continental Navy ensign (often referred to as the Continental Union Flag, first American flag, Cambridge Flag, and Grand Union Flag) used between 1775 and 1777. It consisted of 13 red-and-white stripes, with the British Union Flag in the canton. It first appeared on December 3, 1775, when Continental Navy Lieutenant John Paul Jones flew it aboard Captain Esek Hopkins' flagship Alfred in the Delaware River.[3]
Prospect Hill was the location of George Washington's command post during the Siege of Boston in the American Revolution. On New Year's Day in 1776, Washington conducted a flag-raising ceremony to raise the morale of the men of the Continental Army. The standard account features the Continental Union Flag flying, although in 2006, Peter Ansoff advanced a theory that it was actually a British Union Flag instead.[4] Others, such as Byron DeLear, have argued in favour of the traditional version of events.[5] The Continental Union Flag remained the national flag until June 14, 1777.[6] At the time of the Declaration of Independence in July 1776, there were no flags with any stars on them; the Continental Congress did not adopt flags with "stars, white in a blue field" for another year. It has historically been referred to as the first national flag of the United States.[7]
Often referred to as the Cambridge Flag and Grand Union Flag; the terms domain did not come into use until the 19th century.[8] Although it has been claimed that the more recent moniker, Grand Union Flag, was first applied to the Continental Union Flag by G. Henry Preble in his Reconstruction era book Our Flag;[9] the first substantiated use of the name came from Philadelphia resident T. Westcott in 1852 when replying to an inquiry made in Notes and Queries, a London periodical, as to the origin of the U.S. flag.[10]
The flag of the East India Company, introduced in 1707 and flown at sea in the Indian Ocean
The flag very closely resembles the East India Company flag of the era. Sir Charles Fawcett argued in 1937 that the company flag inspired the design of the U.S. flag.[11] Both flags could easily have been constructed by adding white stripes to a red ensign, one of the three maritime flags used throughout the British Empire at the time. However, the East India Company flag could have from nine to 13 stripes and was not allowed to be flown outside the Indian Ocean.[12]
Benjamin Franklin once gave a speech endorsing the adoption of the East India Company flag by the United Colonies. He said to George Washington, "While the field of your flag must be new in the details of its design, it need not be entirely new in its elements. There is already in use a flag, I refer to the flag of the East India Company."[13] This was a way of symbolizing American loyalty to the Crown as well as the colonies' aspirations to be self-governing, as was the East India Company.[14] "
Posted by: Newbie | Jan 10 2025 16:23 utc | 5
Each news cycle lasts around 2-3 years. We seemlessly went from Russia to CV to Ukraine, and now on to Fortress America.
Posted by: MarkW | Jan 10 2025 16:27 utc | 6
Sorry, didn't notice it copy pasted side columns, meant to just post the part supporting the idea of the us as just a west-india gone independent company
Would explain a lot.
"The flag very closely resembles the East India Company flag of the era. Sir Charles Fawcett argued in 1937 that the company flag inspired the design of the U.S. flag.[11] Both flags could easily have been constructed by adding white stripes to a red ensign, one of the three maritime flags used throughout the British Empire at the time. However, the East India Company flag could have from nine to 13 stripes and was not allowed to be flown outside the Indian Ocean.[12]
Benjamin Franklin once gave a speech endorsing the adoption of the East India Company flag by the United Colonies. He said to George Washington, "While the field of your flag must be new in the details of its design, it need not be entirely new in its elements. There is already in use a flag, I refer to the flag of the East India Company."[13] This was a way of symbolizing American loyalty to the Crown as well as the colonies' aspirations to be self-governing, as was the East India Company.[14] ""
Posted by: Newbie | Jan 10 2025 16:28 utc | 7
meanwhile Brandon send billions to Ukraine as Los Angeles burns. Normal.
Posted by: Surferket | Jan 10 2025 16:29 utc | 8
I read this yesterday at Simplicius's site, a bleak prognostication, a Dickens Christmas future that does not have be if...
The west will rediscover and implement Christian teachings and practices. The neocolonialist administration of Bush/Hillary/Cheney/Obama/Biden[singular-intended] is not the only highway to perdition, just the fastest route. Let's pray that Trump's chest beating is just noise meant to drown out the sound of DC/London's vainglorious flying circus, crashing to the ground. Those English/Anglophile schoolboys fantasy of dismembering Russia has been rudely interrupted by a man of humble origins. There is a lesson in that, a message of hope and redemption.
The world does not have to take this route, there is still time for men of good faith to bolt the barn door and keep the four horsemen from mounting their steeds.
Posted by: S Brennan | Jan 10 2025 16:31 utc | 9
Article 5, anyone?
By the way, in a turn of events the Ansar Allah movement have hit the US aircraft carrier USS Harry S. Truman and its escort ships in the Red Sea with missiles and drones.
Posted by: intelpot | Jan 10 2025 16:32 utc | 10
That is exactly the dynamic in play this last 80 years. Despite loosing on every battlefield, the U.S. oligarchy still profits.
Posted by: Ralph Conner | Jan 10 2025 16:33 utc | 11
Posted by: Surferket | Jan 10 2025 16:29 utc | 8
############
I am quite sure that Javelins and 155mm shells aren't much use to a family whose home and vehicle have been burned to the ground.
Speaks to the misallocation of resources in the West, Westerners don't produce things that are life and civilization-preserving, instead they favor violence and destruction.
Rotten from head to tail. The West will end and nothing of value will have been lost, except the subsidized hormone blockers.
Posted by: LoveDonbass | Jan 10 2025 16:35 utc | 12
james | Jan 10 2025 16:13 utc | 3
"capitalism has no where else to go, so it now wants to feed on it's own vassals... exploitation can't stop according to these folks"
i think the idea of the greenland grab is over energy and mineral resources.. trump is looking after the energy corporation.
---
Some people like to use 'capitalism' as the Western identifier, while others (such as myself) prefer debt based financial system.
The debt based financial system requires constant, perpetual growth, as the money supply must expand if only to create additional funds to pay accrued interest on all prior tranches lent to date.
Without energy surplus to drive a real, growing productive economy - the theoritical essence of loand demand - then we are faced with the types of money printing exercises that lead to inflation.
Ukraine was all about securing Russia's vast natural resources - perhaps the last great energy stores outside of the Artic region.
Since we lost that gambit, we have to choice but to pivot back to the Americas, where we have a practically non zero chance of losing. It's all about saving the dollar, so any pretense as to decorum, precedent, good manners, you name it, go out the door when the shit gets real.
Posted by: MarkW | Jan 10 2025 16:36 utc | 13
What people continue to gloss over is that America is a hollowed out husk of its former self just like the EU countries.
Trump is the face of the cult of dying empire, not America. The Shock Doctrine applied to South America is now being applied to all Western countries by the God Of Mammon cult who expected to have infected China by now and taken over their core pieces of finance......that has not happened and so the God Of Mammon cult has nowhere to go except maybe the City of London or Rome....Hi Pope Frank, how is that usury hypocrisy going for you?
The question is whether the zombies of the West can understand what I wrote above and take back the levers of finance for more public focus.
Posted by: psychohistorian | Jan 10 2025 16:36 utc | 14
@ MarkW | Jan 10 2025 16:36 utc | 13
thanks... i didn't go down into the details, but i thank you for doing that for me in your post.. it remains to be seen that this is going to be an easy go of it.. i think it will be just the opposite.. it's over for the west, but it might take a while for the west to acknowledge this... i continue to wait for one big financial explosion.. this is the slow version at present..
Posted by: james | Jan 10 2025 16:41 utc | 15
Prof Michael Hudson
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H68xPQPz-Oc
"Trump on Greeland, Panama and Canada."
Posted by: John Gilberts | Jan 10 2025 16:44 utc | 16
Perhaps the Trumpeting Elephant in the room is exercising his bombastical rhetoric as an advanced iteration of his "art of the deal". He starts his rodomontade with a roar something like an elephantine mating call, getting his targets into a state of nerves and then he gradually encourages them to agree to some not quite so odious terms.
It is highly improbable, yet conceivable, that the Prexy in Waiting to actually resort to military adventurism. After all, however, the U$$A "Defense" department is but a shadow of it's puissance even some twenty years ago. Those 5,000 manned aircraft carriers have become somewhat of a laughing stock amongst geopolitical analysts. Note how the most recent incursion into the outer vicinity of Ansar Allah (Houthi) missilry has sent yet another carrier-group scooting out of Dodge and having to halt their aggressive bomber raids on Yemen.
Three days before the Inauguration Iran is likely to receive its protection contract with the R.U. Purport of the probable fact that Russian technicians have mostly finished their training missions aimed at familiarization of Iranian forces to achieve levels of mastery of S400 and even S500 game changing anti-aircraft missiles to the point where Izzy piratical assault aircraft pilots will be sweating in their jockstraps at the threat of being ejected from their F-15's and then becoming a form of trained seals as they confess on video their crimes against humanity.
An object lesson for the entire world.
Downed attack aircraft and confessions extracted from those previously untouchable pilots would send shivers and shockwaves throughout the Izzy Entity. The pro-Zionist administrative bureaucraps within the Deep $tate would scratch their heads and demand that the Rand Corporation re-write their aggression planning doctrines. Mass Media of misinformation and mind-control would do their damndest to keep those boobtoob noose addicts still believing in the unstoppable powers of Uncle $hmuel.
Meanwhile in Moscow, the exceedingly cautious coterie in the Kremlin will hold off on funning it up on video, while trying to keep those grins muted like Mona Lisa's subtle smilette. China will maintain their new policy of not allowing certain vital rare minerals out of the hands of the aggressors.
Imagine the looks on the sweaty countenances of Nuts n' Yahoos, Snot-Rich and Bennie the Grinch. We will never witness those moments as videos and even still shots would be strictly "verboten".
Posted by: aristodemos | Jan 10 2025 16:45 utc | 17
Posted by b on January 10, 2025 at 15:49 UTC
------------------------------------------------------------------
Thank you, B. I was stunned when I read your post: Reality is returning to MoA, and the world should take note; welcome to the 21st. Century Fascism. Trump has declared openly what Biden's neo-cons were hiding under the rug: "If we can't eat our peers and near peers, then we will eat our "allies," because we are hungry like a wolf.
The US proxy war was never about Ukrainian sovereignty; it was always about extracting wealth from European "allies" for the benefit of the MIC, who needed a big meal to prepare for future imperial fascist wars with peers like China, Russia, India, and Iran.
Posted by: Ed | Jan 10 2025 16:48 utc | 18
IMO, Bozo's imperialist declarations were trial balloons that have shaken up the vassal jar and the Empire's neighbors in what initially appear to be positive ways. EU/NATO that's always followed US diktat will further its dissolution if it does so now. The Anti-NATO/EU Romanian presidential candidate who won the election the EU overturned will now win by an even larger margin. Armenians will have an even better view of the folly Pashinyan is pushing regarding integrating with EU and spurning the economic growth EAEU membership has brought. How Germans will react given Musk's interference after what Team Biden did to German livelihood remains to be seen. IMO, Georgians will also see the folly of EU membership and return to the Russian fold. And more happenings are a certainty.
On the Ukraine thread, I linked the ideas within Crooke's essay with Trump's bluster as a psy op aimed at the Empire's public since the reality that the Empire was defeated by Russia is Ukraine will need to be faced. The clear reality of the Outlaw US Empire being in a state of decline has yet to be admitted by those "on high" yet has reached the point where that truth can no longer be kicked down the road. IMO, Trump's insistence on further Imperialism will only hasten the Empire's decline, and I'm not the only one having that POV.
Article 5, anyone?
By the way, in a turn of events the Ansar Allah movement have hit the US aircraft carrier USS Harry S. Truman and its escort ships in the Red Sea with missiles and drones.
Posted by: intelpot | Jan 10 2025 16:32 utc | 10
Yes, article 5 against nato's only serious military power... maybe the turks might help :D
Now seriously, western continental europe might have to choose (if choice is given) between RF and Turkey to avoid being overrun by anyone. That choice should have been to integrate RF back in the 1990's but that ship sailed long ago.
The hit on the USS Harry S. Truman and its escort ships belongs to the palistine thread and I posted it there almost an hour ago...
Posted by: Newbie | Jan 10 2025 16:54 utc | 20
Some have said - that Trump spoke of taking Greenland, the Panama Canal and Canada to take minds and hearts - of the fact that the war in Ukraine will end soon, with a Western/Nato defeat, and that Trump's outbursts - will head turn people away from the Wests dismal attack on Russia - via its proxy Ukraine.
In saying that - International Law is on its knees - and countries are still backing and funding a genocide in Gaza regardless of how it looks to the rest of the world - the UN and the ICC/ICJ are all but toothless - with the US doing what it wants - even threatening ICC staff which they've done previously.
Quite honestly - there's nothing to stop Trump seizing Greenland - Denmark has all but given its arsenal to Ukraine, and its virtually helpless - and I doubt any other nation - will take on the US over the annexation of Greenland, or Canada or the Panama Canal.
The USA has already ruined Europe, well most nations economies - for their own gain - anyone who thinks a US POTUS - gives a toss about Europe needs to think again. Nor does a POTUS give a monkey's about any genocide - all they care about is making a financial or political gain from them.
The USA needs to be confronted by a group of nations - beginning with deep and widespread sanctions on US products - yes this will also hurt these nations but it needs to be done.
Posted by: Republicofscotland | Jan 10 2025 16:59 utc | 21
Perhaps the Trumpeting Elephant in the room is exercising his bombastical rhetoric as an advanced iteration of his "art of the deal". He starts his rodomontade with a roar something like an elephantine mating call, getting his targets into a state of nerves and then he gradually encourages them to agree to some not quite so odious terms.
Three days before the Inauguration Iran is likely to receive its protection contract with the R.U. Purport of the probable fact that Russian technicians have mostly finished their training missions aimed at familiarization of Iranian forces to achieve levels of mastery of S400 and even S500 game changing anti-aircraft missiles to the point where Izzy piratical assault aircraft pilots will be sweating in their jockstraps at the threat of being ejected from their F-15's and then becoming a form of trained seals as they confess on video their crimes against humanity.
Posted by: aristodemos | Jan 10 2025 16:45 utc | 17
I'll start by the last, I think there is only one S500 battalion and its currently deployed in crimea.
Now let's take Trump as an herald, someone posted a video by Tainter a couple of weeks ago, he proposed that collapse is due to increasing cost of complexity. So what we might be seeing, applied to countries instead of companies, is the greed is good of hostile takeovers and company asset stripping.
A country has too little market value, you just take over and spin off parts for a bigger price than the whole.
Gordon Gekko meets Attila the Hun...
Now, don't ask what happens to the employees/citizens, that is not relevant, greed is good.
Posted by: Newbie | Jan 10 2025 17:04 utc | 22
the unipolar world has come and gone and left the usa trio ( banking, energy and military) in an awkward position..
Posted by: james | Jan 10 2025 16:13 utc | 3
--------------------------------------------------------------
And what really hurts is the US 30-plus trillion dollar debt that can never be paid. The US and other invested countries must resort to fascist imperialism to maintain the status of the dollar or drown in the debt of its own making. It is not a very bright future for America and its lapdogs in Europe.
Posted by: Ed | Jan 10 2025 17:06 utc | 23
What does this teach us? the Americans allow themselves everything and more, they arm, train, finance and direct the deadly attacks against Russia and against the Russians, as well as, of course, against the Houthis and other groups, see Syria,
And what is Russia doing? Russia stands by and does not want to offend those who piss in their faces every day, so they remain quiet and limit themselves to massacring poor Ukronazi conscripts, while in Kiev and in the cities of the North West the restaurants and nightclubs are full,
the least that Russia could do is deprive the West of hydrocarbons which without it would sink into the deepest misery, naturally putting Ukronazistan completely in the dark and without any more forms of transport, then it could help the Houthis to sink the aircraft carriers and cruisers escort,
instead nothing, perhaps Putin hopes that once the war is over they will welcome him in the West as if nothing had happened? pious illusion.
Posted by: Cagliostro | Jan 10 2025 17:06 utc | 24
Most countries live in a post Westphalian world since the unipolar moment of 1991. What about Groenland, Canada and Mexico?
Apart from Trump's trolling and rhetoric, it is about anchoring regional spheres of influence more than about formal annexation of countries. It is not a new doctrine.
In the early cold war the Americans already built a secret base in Groenland to test movable launch sites for nuclear missiles. It was called project Iceworm. It was later abandoned and covered by ice. The BBC made a docu about the remnants being found a few years ago.
Groenland belongs to a nominally independent country Denmark but was seventy years ago part of a US test shield! Bizar independence!
Denmark itself is nominally independent but is itself very much committed to the Anglosaxon Five Eyes electronic spy network. It is known that the Five Eyes spied on European leaders' phones through their Denmark station (e.g. Merkel). It is obvious that a country acting like that gives away its sovereignty to the empire. So what does the "independence" of Denmark still mean?
So it is with Canada. All independent foreign policy (e.g. towards Cuba, China, Nicaragua..) has been thrown out of the window for twenty years. Moreover technically Canada is still the "Monarchy of Canada" with the "sovereign" on a throne in... London. Bizar independence!
Mexico is a somewhat different story. Canada, Groenland (Denmark) are originally protestant countries which according to the anthropologist Emmanuel Todd are in a zero phase now. That means there is a rampant nihilism, woke fanaticism and a search for identities even if negative to cover up the void. Denmark, Canada have acted in extremely belligerent ways, fanatically supported the Ukrainian regime and threw at it a big part of their military reserves. That is completely different with Mexico.
Mexico belongs moreover to the catholic sphere of South America, where the religious decline is different and up to now more limited than in mainstream northern protestantism.
The Duran talks about the resurgence of(regional) "spheres of influence" and (regional) "spheres of interest" geopolitics. Canada and Groenland are part of the US "sphere of influence", they have the same zero mainstream protestant religion, Anglosaxon orientation. Mexico arguably belongs to the US "sphere of interest" in the economical fields but not to its "sphere of influence" in the civilisational sense. The driving ideological force in the US was always exceptionalism and suprematism, derived from the puritan settlers, the "shining city on the hill". The puritans loathed the South American catholics more than anything in the world. They saw idol worshipers in them.
So Mexico has a somewhat different status than Groenland or Canada.
All in all the resurgence of (regional) "spheres of influence" geopolitics as promoted by Trump in his recent press conference has good points. Other great powers in the world have implicity also a right to their (regional) sphere of influence like e.g. China and Taiwan.
Posted by: Teraspol | Jan 10 2025 17:07 utc | 25
All this is true in a general sense. In other words, a unipolar exit has occurred and a new geopolitics of imperial extraction is being accelerated by Trumperialism against its allies cum tributaries.
But let's add specificity based on material realities.
The US has a monstrous debt that must be repaid by some kind of export surpluses. In the new geopolitics, then, the US must re-industrialize and secure military supply chains. It needs a new resource base for all of that. It can't rely on Chinese exports of commodity inputs and rare earth metals. It must thus draw new lines on the grand chess board, new demarcations in which goods are sold and tech is unified under US monopolistic control.
One US specialization is oil and LNG production -- and so Europe must face manufacturing tariffs and buy US NRG and military goods.
Greenland has resources and abuts an emerging trade route. Greenland may also provide useful territory in terms of missile defense and even launches.
The Magnificent 7 tech companies must maintain their global monopolies. The global tech infrastructure must run on US software, not just for profits but also spying. No allies can use Huawei. AI data chips must be American only. Only the US can control AI data centers. Farewell to liberal doctrines of free trade and Globalization. Neo-imperial mercantilism is back, with US tech supremacy at its core.
All vassals must buy US military equipment and Boeing planes.
Disciplining Latin America will a key priority. Cuba, Venezuela, and Bolivia must all endure regime change. China must be chased out. Latin American resources and markets belong to the US. This is the Donroe Doctrine. In the new geopolitics, the US controls the western hemisphere.
Canada has fresh water, and oil and mining wealth, all of which the US needs for its disgusting consumption model and re-industrialization. The Canadian business class has long dreamed of deep integration with the US economy, well beyond NAFTA. Read the documents from the Business Council of Canada.
So, these are the particular drivers and interests of Trumperialism.
Posted by: Huh | Jan 10 2025 17:08 utc | 26
This is one of the major reasons there is so much fuss about Greenland:
"The Biden administration, meanwhile, successfully blocked Greenland’s Tanbreez Mining from selling rare earth minerals to China."
Susan Singer
The Ontario government (in Canada mining jurisdictions are provincial, not Federal) is doing a deal with the Pentagon to finally get a road into the Ring of Fire in Northern Ontario to supplant Chines REE. You'll hears of it in the new in the next few weeks
Trump wants domination in the American hemisphere -he's not going to take over any of these countries he's going to put them in a trade deal beneficial, of course, to the Hegemon..
And, with all this over the top topic takes the eyes off the disaster in Ukraine for the Empire.
Posted by: canuck | Jan 10 2025 15:15 utc | 124
Newbie@1623 Dec 10
Somehow in your flagological excursion of encyclopedic manifestation, you have managed to overlook one extremely particular U$$A flag.
Perhaps you have yet to enter a Murrikkkan courtroom; a theatrical realm where the judge's bench is emblematically indicated by the ADMIRALTY FLAG. That particular banner is not symbological of "Old Glory". Those yellow fringes on that subtle intrusion into juridicial theater signal that the proceedings of the court are NEITHER under common law NOR representing CONSTITUTIONAL LAW. All courts within the Oligarchy formerly known as these United States of America are the province of MARITIME "Law".
Defendants in criminal cases as they enter the Dock are transmuted into strawmen. While entering the dock, these accusees magically are transformed into vessels entering that dock. The black-robed dick-tater then asks the court's victim whether or not he understands the charges. If the answer is in the affirmative, he has then by means of lawfare legerdemain, already confessed to being UNDER the charges.
Literally, in Maritime courts, the victim of this lawfare has no rights left. If that victim happens to be financially secure, he will have engaged a high-priced attorney as his designated liar and deal-maker. The deal is made. Some of the legal fee changes hands. In most instances then, the charges are reduced in many cases and punishment is not condign. If the fee is quite significant, magical and mystical events occur within the privacy of the chambers, where prosecutorial "mistakes" have been discovered and all charges dropped.
That yellow-fringed flag is the teller of the existence of the United States of America corporation, duly established under the corporate laws of the state of Dupont (aka Delaware) in 1938. The corporate shareholders just happen to be the leading Oligarchal crime clans within these fruited plains.
...or as they are fond of whispering, lawfare in this ruptured republic is not about justice. It's the province of JU$T U$.
Posted by: aristodemos | Jan 10 2025 17:09 utc | 28
I think this is taking the whole thing a bit too seriously.
But Greenland does seem low hanging fruit.
Also I would suggest we should boot Latvia from NATO - in the event that we dont leave, ourselves.
Posted by: jared | Jan 10 2025 17:27 utc | 29
Posted by: LoveDonbass | Jan 10 2025 16:35 utc | 12
Surferket was probably referring to California sending firefighting equipment to 404.
Hand-me-downs. The article is from ABC news from 2022.
Javelins and 155mm shells may come in handy sometime soon here in LA with the way things are going.
Thanks everyone! Herr b especially!
Posted by: lex talionis | Jan 10 2025 17:30 utc | 30
The insatiable Wall Street bonfire needs resources to steal and exploit; Ukraine's are a dashed dream, so it's Greenland's now.
Posted by: Bedford | Jan 10 2025 17:32 utc | 31
MarkW@1636 Dec 10
Yes, you got it. Capitalism as described by Marx is no longer quite that which it once was. As you point out, the system is now based by debt-based finance...whether by central banks, major corporate banking institutions, or via the likes of Blackrock, Vanguard and State Street. Those latter entities are assiduous in masking their actual trillionaire shareholders. They are the same-old, same-old Oligarchs who happen to OWN all those primary banking institutions.
Easy credit and hyperventilating consumerism, engineered on behalf of shareholder owned corporations and spread copiously by those mass media meddlers they also own is the big ticket. The lessons provided by Eddy Bernays have honed advertising to a level which would be the envy of the late Josef Goebbels, the once #1 fanboy of Bernays and his mind-control schemes.
Consumerism is a calculated evil. It is ultimately wasteful of resources by means of engineered obsolescence, whether motor vehicles, or other large-ticket consumer wants, such as refrigerators. Perhaps the best precis' of this meme is constantly employed by the privately owned Menards empire. Their slogan is "Save big money at Menards". The underlying meaning is quite simple: "SPEND big money at Menards". Inversion of meaning achieves monumental blast-off trajectory when Spend is transmuted into SAVE.
Or as P.T. Barnum once nailed it: "There's a sucker born every minute". Females wishing to feather their nest are the primary designated victims. However, the biggest spenders are those males who spend big money on their toys, such as hundred thousand dollar pickemup trucks.
Signal a current employment growth industry...the REPO MAN.
Posted by: aristodemos | Jan 10 2025 17:32 utc | 32
10 year over 4.7%
That’s a financial crisis in Washington. Trump understands highly leveraged debt finance all too well……
Posted by: Exile | Jan 10 2025 17:36 utc | 33
Posted by: John Gilberts | Jan 10 2025 16:44 utc | 16
Great discussion
Posted by: Chris N | Jan 10 2025 17:40 utc | 34
"He starts his rodomontade with a roar something like an elephantine mating call, getting his targets into a state of nerves"
Posted by: aristodemos | Jan 10 2025 16:45 utc | 17
Lol there is some comedy gold in that post.
This was a way of symbolizing American loyalty to the Crown as well as the colonies' aspirations to be self-governing, as was the East India Company.[14] ""
Posted by: Newbie | Jan 10 2025 16:28 utc | 7
Interesting observation. This is why I continue to read MOA.
The Ansarallah military capabilities progression was hinted at (though not specifically stated) by Putin a number of times in the last years. Iran's indigenous missile program has been nurtured by Russia and China over three decades. Soleimani mirrored the West's tactic of proxy plausible deniability.
In regards to looting the allies, the ultimate expression is the issuance of currency and the fractional banking system. Resource grabs are so coarse and obvious. I know, preaching to the choir.
I remember reading The History of Money(?). Not quite sure I have the correct title, but the repeated pattern of money generation, speculation, bubble, collapse and a shift to a new financial center spanned the last 500 years of European history.
Wondering where the next financial hub may be located after the US, if anywhere. I think when is still up in the air, though it is getting critical. The small pebble rolling down the hill almost always just comes to rest, but once in a great while it starts an avalanche.
Ansarallah has that potential for outsized effect. There was a recent map of the US carrier fleet locations, only one was on active duty, which is unusual. I was thinking retrofit of additional defenses.
Posted by: jopalolive | Jan 10 2025 17:48 utc | 35
...or as they are fond of whispering, lawfare in this ruptured republic is not about justice. It's the province of JU$T U$.
Posted by: aristodemos | Jan 10 2025 17:09 utc | 28
Would fit nicely with what I mentioned, US = west india company spinoff from GB for "better management"
And now they should be able to make some nice hostile takeovers (or support some management buyouts) and spin off whatever they think is better off sold .
As for us "justice system" , least we talk about it the better. I usually presented it as the ""justice" for villains" part of the british system, but your comparison will do nicely as well.
I would be hard pressed to put the limit in 1938. a century before it was already well established in the eastern US (only some discussions about the model that got settled in 1861-65). The idea about the "free america" was only kept by the terraforming of the central and western parts (immigrants by the boatload to transform those new territories in exploitable rentier land, little more than cyanobacterias to disappear when they had done their part, sent into underground crevices as the new rules breathed , and stole, all the oxygen they created) and even that pretty picture if you forget the natives and spanish/mexican.
The us was, from day one, a lean mean munching machine. The other day I was contradicting karlof on the interest of africa, he said markets, I said resources. Markets give short term high profits, resources give bigger long term ones, east-india company vs west-india company as far as I see it.
And looting the allies is the perfect thread to discuss it.
On the one side it seems this cycle's "Scramble for Africa" is a "Scramble for the poles" ( I know, still no signs for antarctic but wait) , on the other I am curious about the thing I mentioned @22.
Can leveraged buyouts/hostile takeovers, and splitting, of countries, reverse Tainter's complexity problems?
Short term vs long term effects, mainly if it can avoid civilizational collapses.
Posted by: Newbie | Jan 10 2025 17:49 utc | 36
Cagliostro@1706 Dec 10
In MHO Ansar Allah has no interest in SINKING any U$$A aircraft carrier...with its crew of 5,000 breeding-age sailors and marines. Such a move would enrage the Murrikkkan people and would enable the Di$trict of Corruption to declare a casus belli, an enabler for war.
Such a war would almost axiomatically involve NUKES.
Those Houthis are not primitive tribal warriors. Many are well educated and quintessentially astute. Thus their assaults on those now two carriers are carefully directed to take out the flight decks, rendering that vessel basically helpless and hopeless...with perhaps a minimal number of casualties...not quite enough for Pandora's Box to be forced open.
Posted by: aristodemos | Jan 10 2025 17:51 utc | 37
I'll start by the last, I think there is only one S500 battalion and its currently deployed in crimea.
.
Posted by: Newbie | Jan 10 2025 17:04 utc | 22
.
.
.
That is the status from around 2020_2022.
There are probably more than twice as many now...
The export version is not included, and since around 2022 S500 S400S are no longer built in just one factory...
It should be known how effective the Russian complex is..
Posted by: ossi | Jan 10 2025 17:52 utc | 38
The clear reality of the Outlaw US Empire being in a state of decline has yet to be admitted by those "on high" yet has reached the point where that truth can no longer be kicked down the road. IMO, Trump's insistence on further Imperialism will only hasten the Empire's decline, and I'm not the only one having that POV.
Posted by: karlof1 | Jan 10 2025 16:53 utc | 19
---------------------------------------------------------------
Karl, you may be missing the point of "looting (eating) the allies." Most of the NATO servants of the Empire, like Germany, will not resist the sharp teeth of US imperialism and will fork over the capital and resources that the US needs to prolong its international hegemony, or at least that is what the neocons hoped for.
In this case, the neocons are the realists. They know the imperialist ship is listing, and they have known it for a long time. That was the point of Paul Wolfowitz's 1992 imperialist Doctrine and "The Project for the New American Century (PNAC)," a neocon think tank founded by William Kristol and Robert Kagan (Nuland's husband) in 1997.
It is true that after the fall of the USSR, the neocons were far more optimistic than they are today. Their goal was to promote American global hegemony far into the future through aggressive US/NATO-enforced foreign policies and wars. Russia's defeat of the US/NATO proxy war in Ukraine has put the fear of God into the hearts of many neocons, forcing plan b, which could not be discussed in public: Looting the Allies, because they have already been subdued. The system must be fed, and the servants of the Empire will suffice.
Posted by: Ed | Jan 10 2025 17:52 utc | 39
Ukraine Weekly Update, 10th Jan 2025: Discusses the Greenland Issue: https://robcampbell.substack.com/p/ukraine-weekly-update-9c1
Posted by: The Busker | Jan 10 2025 17:53 utc | 40
Nothing at all has changed.
The Central Bankers (West controlled) have owned most of most of the World for awhile now. All Nations, including Russia & China surrendered their sovereignty, and are peeling it away to restore it best they are able now.
So, it’s hardly just the EU and “allies”.
The Central Bankers… own it all, and that was the goal.
Goal met.
Everyone else can pound sand.
Sanctions are piled on Russia again today, more…until
Russia becomes Syria or Libya.
Only way the “Empire” ends is by destroying the banking system. BRICS is way too late the game.
Perhaps BRICS was always meant to be an “after” collapse post world order design of something when Humpty Dumpty falls.
Nevertheless, the only way the military machine will ever stop, regardless of how inept it is (it still can kill lots of civilians) is if it is made to stop. And I see zero will on the part of any Nation (just Ansarallah) to put down this rapid dog militarily.
So, it’s still decades away from any real demise. It has wealth and resources still to loot for years to come all over the World. Even Greenland is looking to “make a deal”…
Wearing MAGA hats & taking pics with Trump Jr. over there.
Yes, the facade is off, the face is ugly & cowboys shooting up the locals & taking their farms are here. But so what?
Who’s gonna do a thing about it?
No one.
Gaza made that clear.
Posted by: Trubind1 | Jan 10 2025 17:53 utc | 41
| Jan 10 2025 17:06 utc | 24
---------------------------------------------------------------- |
You are not only a liar, but you are a prognosticator as well: Get a life.
Posted by: Ed | Jan 10 2025 17:59 utc | 42
Some people like to use 'capitalism' as the Western identifier, while others (such as myself) prefer debt based financial system.
The debt based financial system requires constant, perpetual growth, as the money supply must expand if only to create additional funds to pay accrued interest on all prior tranches lent to date.
Posted by: MarkW | Jan 10 2025 16:36 utc | 13
To the best of my knowledge, in the entire world, there is not a single financial system anywhere that runs on something other than a debt based currency. Back in communist Russia, in USSR days, Russia used currency the way we do and even abused it more than we do. The population ended up with money they could not spend because the government issued "credits." Said credits caused money to be issued for which there were no available goods in non capitalist, price controlled Russia.
Posted by: Jmaas | Jan 10 2025 18:02 utc | 43
Wondering where the next financial hub may be located after the US, if anywhere. I think when is still up in the air, though it is getting critical. The small pebble rolling down the hill almost always just comes to rest, but once in a great while it starts an avalanche
Posted by: jopalolive | Jan 10 2025 17:48 utc | 35
I wouldn't be surprised if it stayed in the us for 500 years, and probably without serious competition for 300, china will be bigger but less appropriate for financial dealings (state trumps money). Europe is probably done, and russians were never good at that. Maybe india might be the competitor for financial hub during the next 300 years, but they're still a bit late to the party, and middle east after those 300...
Posted by: Newbie | Jan 10 2025 18:03 utc | 44
Well I enjoyed the heck out of the words and imagery of b and of the selected excerpts. But ‘Whoa, Nelly’. Just as I was about to plunge into shock and depression about this view of a nihilistic future of TrumpianAmerica victorious consuming all in its path, I remembered ravenous all-consuming imperialism is but one aspect of a complicated reality. Indeed, the U.S. has been consuming its allies right along forever, and despite the vision/nightmare presented here, US ability to consummate consumption of its allies is greatly reduced compared to the past. The Ukraine conflict has weakened those abilities, imo.
Another example:
Steal Greenland mineral wealth using what ships to pass through the ice? The US has but two icebreakers, and one sits in dry dock with no welders with the competency to complete the sophisticated repair necessary for its hull.
Wise observers of the imperialist beast have long shown that it consumes its allies/colonies. I give you again, from 2014, Richard Ford pointing out the EU’s colonial reality in a seven minute speech:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ySZL3g1A1uI
Posted by: mjh | Jan 10 2025 18:04 utc | 45
Teraspol | Jan 10 2025 17:07 utc | 25
---
You sound like some I meet who 'like their Mexicans poor'.
Since I actually split my time down there, it make come as a surprise that Mexicans are just like everyone else: they want a job to earn sufficient income to provide for a family, have some free time and generally live a nice, pleasant life.
I've been going down there for decades, so I remember a time when everyone walked or rode those old jalopy buses. Then, some began to drive beat up left overs, engines smoking their way down the highway.
Now? The country is filled with new cars, whether TJ, Monterrey, CDMX (creating monster traffic jams that are overwhelming the infrastructure) and the new super highways linking the cities together.
Basically, MX is awash in dollars, but to what do they owe this current largesse? Three things: remittances from family members in the states, offshoring and tourism/foreign expats.
In other words, MX is joined at the hip with the USA. I cannot imagine a single person wishing to back to their bucolic peasant days, scratching out a living while praying to Mary.
Nice fantasy, reads well, but believing it will keep you poor. Smart money knows integration is the future.
Posted by: MarkW | Jan 10 2025 18:07 utc | 46
That is exactly the dynamic in play this last 80 years. Despite loosing on every battlefield, the U.S. oligarchy still profits.
Posted by: Ralph Conner | Jan 10 2025 16:33 utc | 11
==========================================
Initially, imperial wars are for conquests… but at some point, they are merely to be fought to keep weapon manufacturers profitable and everyone else on their toes.
Posted by: Liberator | Jan 10 2025 18:08 utc | 47
I'll start by the last, I think there is only one S500 battalion and its currently deployed in crimea.
.
Posted by: Newbie | Jan 10 2025 17:04 utc | 22
.
.
.
That is the status from around 2020_2022.
There are probably more than twice as many now...
The export version is not included, and since around 2022 S500 S400S are no longer built in just one factory...
It should be known how effective the Russian complex is..
Posted by: ossi | Jan 10 2025 17:52 utc | 38
You might be right, I had seen this https://www.eurasiantimes.com/s-500-prometheus-russia-deploys/
But failed to see the source was ukraine, it was implied that the only S500 regiment (that previously protected moscow) was sent to crimea
Posted by: Newbie | Jan 10 2025 18:12 utc | 48
Posted by: Teraspol | Jan 10 2025 17:07 utc | 25
Mexico is far closer to the US working class due to migration and intermarrage than any other nation on earth. The US army war college has repeatedly concluded in their research that an invasion of Mexico would likely spark a civil war.
Posted by: Badjoke | Jan 10 2025 18:13 utc | 49
The Empire is in the final stadium of imperialism. It must expand in order to maintain current level of lifestyles. When it cannot expand, the west will face raising facism. We have already seen something from that menu. Covid, cancel culture, wokeism. The UK
Is a good example.
Posted by: Grey Cloud | Jan 10 2025 18:13 utc | 50
Huh | Jan 10 2025 17:08 utc | 26
---
Yep, nice summary. One observation and one suggestion:
On the debt, it's clear it has to be selectively defaulted, restructured and negotiated. I don't know the magic number, but let's say half.
Everyone cries, yet the dollar holds steady, and life goes on. All the natural resources you listed are the entire reason for the exercise, and with 550m people, an economy that will comfortably service a reduced debt load.
Point two, not sure why Trump needs to be excoriated. The American integration plan is a no brainer DS and popular option.
Trump is just the select spokesman introducing the realities of the new multipolar world, with 3 distinct spheres of influence.
Posted by: MarkW | Jan 10 2025 18:20 utc | 51
Let's take it a step further and consider the possibility that an implicit de facto pincer movement against Germany and the wider EU was envisaged by both the US and Russia, albeit naturally for opposing reasons and degrees of avidity or lack thereof. And furthermore that Germany understood foresaw the obvious peril, precipitated by its own impotence, though alas too late. In other words, they were encouraged by Obama's condescension in regards to their dependence on cheap Russian energy, but alas, like Iraq's invasion of Kuwait, it was a trap set by the good cop administration of Obama, to be pulled back by the bad cop administration of Trump and continued by Biden. However the signs were there from the beginning for all to see the moment the US began to imperially interfere in Ukraine.
Posted by: Ludovic | Jan 10 2025 18:21 utc | 52
Trubind1@1753 Dec 10
Once again, you appear to be overestimating the power of the alleged Hegemon. Currently the indebtedness of the U$$A corporation sits at $36 TRILLION, while adding yet another T to the soup on a quarterly basis. In essence, the U$$A, in any viable international court (non existent at present) would be obliged to declare BANKRUPTCY.
In its looming death-throes, the Talmudist empire is lashing out in virtually every direction...grossly overextended and lacking the industrial base to once again achieve military superiority...much less supremacy.
However, spent forces still retain considerable power to mess things up for most of the world. As you have pointed out, perhaps BRICS is developing with a "Post Fall" scenario, where the debt-based, consumerist, militarist, colonialist, imperialist system has gone kaput.
How long this clown-show can maintain, not integrity, rather showmanship of international terrorism, is much to be debated. In a matter of ten daze, the chief $howman will occupy the Oval Orfice. His role has been custom scripted. He will be there to put on a show via elephantine trumpeting of blowhard balderdash. Calculation may be that loud noises and constant theatrical antics will bedizen and bewilder the lumpenized general public...mostly here in this ruptured republic.
Entertainment valuations will achieve near escape-velocity as this clown show develops as an unusual soporific to ward off those pitchforks, scythes and bonfires exploding anytime soon.
Even the partially arson-based wildfires which are engendering more than a hundred thousands of Angelenos homeless are ramping up the anxiety levels. One factor we can assess as a near certainty, is when those insurance payments are handed over; the desertion of LaLaLand for more greenery in the scenery will go into a much higher gear.
Result is that property values in numerous alternative states will once again jump up another few notches. State and local governments will breathe sighs of relief via higher levels of taxability.
Add all of that to the faux GNP. Trumpensteiner braggadocio will expand accordingly.
Posted by: aristodemos | Jan 10 2025 18:23 utc | 53
But failed to see the source was ukraine, it was implied that the only S500 regiment (that previously protected moscow) was sent to crimea
Posted by: Newbie | Jan 10 2025 18:12 utc | 49
.
.
.
Even with a regiment, that would be 3 battalions.
My last information was:
Russia currently has an active S-500 regiment, which would normally mean three battalions with three air defense batteries each, so the country should have a total of nine S-500 batteries?
The actual current numbers can be much higher...since these systems have been manufactured in two other factories in the complex since 2022.
And now probably also in India, and according to internal information, a factory is planned in China.
The S400 S Triumph domestic version comes close to the performance of the S500, and Russia should have around 60 batteries of these, ergo 480 launch pads.
But these are also figures from around 3 years ago..S400 Triumph should now have around 80 to 90 batteries.
Posted by: ossi | Jan 10 2025 18:28 utc | 54
| 10 gennaio 2025 17:06 UTC | 24
------------------------------------------------- --------------- |
Non sei solo un bugiardo, sei anche un abile pronosticatore: fatti una vita.
Pubblicato da: Ed | 10 gennaio 2025 17:59 utc | 42
reading your insipid comment one understands, without a shadow of a doubt, how easily MSM insinuates itself into weak and manipulable minds,
If you still have a shred of brain, explain where I lied,
incredible the number of idiots who think they are intelligent when their IQ is slightly higher than the outside temperature in Siberia today.
Posted by: Cagliostro | Jan 10 2025 18:42 utc | 55
Posted by: ossi | Jan 10 2025 18:28 utc | 55
Thank you for the additional information.
Now back to looting allies.
You're ossi, you could maybe give a first person view of how it was.
DDR was the first leveraged buyout at a country level.
Care to share some comments?
(I'm seriously asking, it could provide valuable information)
Posted by: Newbie | Jan 10 2025 19:07 utc | 56
So true. The EU and the other US vassals are indeed being cucked big time.
One can only hope that Trump's antagonization of the vassals will pressure the Atlanticists headed by 5th columnists like Ursula "Lady Pfizer" Vdl to pursue a course that is no longer to detriment of the EU but that hope is likely in vain. I do believe that Trump didn't make a second 2020-2024 term because the vassals were "drifting away" from the US empire and that virtue signaling libruls were better in keeping them close... and in line.
Posted by: xor | Jan 10 2025 19:13 utc | 57
Reading through the comments it's all a bit dismal, let me break the gloom let's "look at the bright side of life"! Let's agree on something.
The pointless wars of the last thirty-five years, Iraq 1.0, Yugoslavia, AF-PAK, Iraq 2.0 Libya, Syria 1.0, Ukrainina, Syria 2.0?
They're solely the fault of the, as yet, uninstalled Trump 2.0
Wouldn't you agree?
Think about it logically,
the media narrative is there for all to see,
let us sing sweetly in synchronicity!
It's so much simpler to march in rhythm of our masters beat!
When we all sing as a choir to the 3LA's hymnal sheet.
Their honky-tonk Church Organ grinds away
the message simple, "do not give Trump a single day" !
Let us all sing together as one and wait...
until we can rejoice in Hillary & Liz's yet unannounced date,
The birth of their undead child being born and then?
Let us slouch our way to bombed out Bethlehem!
Have a good weekend
Posted by: S Brennan | Jan 10 2025 19:14 utc | 58
Badjoke | Jan 10 2025 18:13 utc | 50
Invasion of Mexico would likely spark a civil war
---
Who said anything about invasion? Why do certain people wish to engage in such hyperbole? Bored, angry, resentful at the world?
Look, the entire point of any N American integration plan would be to capture federal taxable transactions on what is currently 'foreign' trade, along with expanding/enhancing our defense posture.
Try to imagine a scenario where there's no border checkpoints, where there's free travel between 3 sovereign countries, where the $US dollar is the primary currency, where Mexicans can take out mortgages from US banks, where US interstates run from Panama to Barrow and where the US military has integrated military bases with the union states.
Posted by: MarkW | Jan 10 2025 19:17 utc | 59
Wondering where the next financial hub may be located after the US, if anywhere. I think when is still up in the air, though it is getting critical. The small pebble rolling down the hill almost always just comes to rest, but once in a great while it starts an avalanche
Posted by: jopalolive | Jan 10 2025 17:48 utc | 35
London used to be the big financial hub, and I think New York is first right now, followed by London. Under the BRICS system, the effort is to get other countries to use your currency. China would like to be the big one, with apparently Russia wanting it also. I am guessing China is going to end up like Japan, a period of rapid growth followed by stagnation and financial weakness. I wonder if a financially strong country that is not a military power could become a financial power. Like, say, one of the oil rich sheikdoms?
Posted by: Jmaas | Jan 10 2025 19:28 utc | 60
One can only hope that Trump's antagonization of the vassals will pressure the Atlanticists headed by 5th columnists like Ursula "Lady Pfizer" Vdl to pursue a course that is no longer to detriment of the EU...
Posted by: xor | Jan 10 2025 19:13 utc | 60
It looks to me like we are doing ourselves so little good in our effort to retain global domination that we might well be better off if we lose out. Hard on the pride but otherwise a good thing.
Posted by: Jmaas | Jan 10 2025 19:32 utc | 61
You are not only a liar, but you are a prognosticator as well...
Posted by: Ed | Jan 10 2025 17:59 utc | 42
You're playing the irony pipe organ stop there, if I'm not mistaken. Surely MoA is a prognostication shop -- seers welcome, regardless of diminished sight due to the lights being turned down low in corners of this bar, not to mention intoxication. Come one come all with your foresights and prophecies!
Who amongst us could be absolved of glancing into the crystal ball, as if our particular way of seeing into it is a subject upon which everyone else needs an urgent update? Certainly not me. Knowing better what's coming next is way too tempting a pose. This future-seeking pretension reminds me of a Jackson Browne lyric (Fountain of Sorrow):
Now, for you and me it may not be that hard to reach our dreams
But that magic feeling never seems to last
And while the future's there for anyone to change, still you know it seems
It would be easier sometimes to change the past
Posted by: Aleph_Null | Jan 10 2025 19:42 utc | 62
I am guessing China is going to end up like Japan, a period of rapid growth followed by stagnation and financial weakness.
Posted by: Jmaas | Jan 10 2025 19:28 utc | 63
The difference between China and Japan is that the latter, just like South Korea and Germany, has a subservient US shackled political and military class.
Once Japan was starting to surpass the US in the eighties, the US intervened. B explained it once some months ago.
So for me it's clear China will rule the 21th century and thus be the next financial power house and hub.
Posted by: xor | Jan 10 2025 20:03 utc | 63
The reason for Don Jr's one day trip to Greenland:
Busted! Trump’s Greenland Supporters Were Homeless and Socially Disadvantaged People Bribed With Hotel Dinners
Danish news reports on Trump’s scheme
J.D. Wolf
Jan 9, 2025
As it turns out, sources have told Danish news outlet DR News that the supporters wearing fresh MAGA hats during a visit from Trump’s representatives Don Jr and Charlie Kirk were homeless and socially disadvantaged people who were bribed with hotel dinners:
“Several sources now tell DR that a portion of the people who appear in the video from Trump's campaign people …are homeless and socially disadvantaged, who often find themselves outside the Brugsen in Nuuk …which is located directly opposite Hotel Hans Egede.”
Posted by: Menz | Jan 10 2025 20:03 utc | 64
Arnaud Bertrand
@RnaudBertrand
This is such a bad take.
First of all the US is not TikTok's largest market, it's Indonesia.
Second of all, it is absolutely a rational decision: it's a good old shakedown, the US is effectively trying to steal the only major social network it doesn't own. China isn't a meek vassal state, it will obviously fight this and protect its own companies.
Imagine if the shoe was on the other foot and China told say Tesla, which business is huge in China: "either you 'divest from US imperialism' and sell the company to us or we ban you". According to you the "rational" thing to do for Tesla would be to submit and sell itself to the Chinese? Do you realize how half-witted you sound?
Those lacking rationality in this whole story are the US government and people like you who believe this is all normal behavior. It's not, it's thuggish and will absolutely backfire.
https://x.com/RnaudBertrand/status/1877569979996057631
Posted by: Menz | Jan 10 2025 20:10 utc | 65
People forget that the US under Obama just grabbed 1/3 of Syria, where the oil and most arable land is located, and just stole Sryia's natural resources... so this really isn't new, except that now a Euro asset is the target
Posted by: ModestyBl | Jan 10 2025 20:13 utc | 66
Come one come all with your foresights and prophecies!
Who amongst us could be absolved of glancing into the crystal ball
Posted by: Aleph_Null | Jan 10 2025 19:42 utc | 66
I prefer a crystal balloon with whiskey and a side dish o excelomancy!
But let others choose their muse freely.
Posted by: Newbie | Jan 10 2025 20:30 utc | 67
@ Ed | Jan 10 2025 17:06 utc | 23
yes, and fascist imperialism continues.. until capitalism is replaced with something better, we are going to see a lot of fascist activity moving forward..
Posted by: james | Jan 10 2025 20:32 utc | 68
"Cucked", "based", the vocabulary here reeks of 2010s imageboard culture, which is evidently where a lot of posters in their late 20s and 30s were reared. The overall point is correct but I wish edgy "alt" media types stopped trying to sound like /pol/ posters from 2016, who themselves were only doing half ass Jim Goad imitations.
@ Posted by: Menz | Jan 10 2025 20:03 utc | 68
Conservative operatives bribe people a lot. They bribed Jane Roe to advance anti-abortion ideology, which she revealed on her deathbed. People will say whatever you want if you name the right price. US christians have their own version of taqqiya which makes it acceptable to lie to infidels.
Posted by: fnord | Jan 10 2025 20:35 utc | 69
The DJT-phenomenon does not need DJT.
Yes, he got the ball rolling.
Ann Coulter had the best comment about DJT:
"While the duopoly danced around that which should not be named, observing the proper decorum and keeping the other in check, it was Trump who picked up the ugly, smelly thing and paraded himself around holdinh it. And the people loved him for it."
And it has been unleashed. No cramming it back into the toothpaste tube.
You see, toxic-feminimity meant allowing the nation to get penetrated, and stuff like DEI came to fruition.
But now the pendulum swings back to ugly chauvinism, knocking down the scapegoats in its way like transgenderism or BLM stuff.
It could mean a change to reposition our strategic military objectives to our backyard in S. America or Greenland, or even absorbing Mexico and Canada forming the "Greenback-block."
But this assumes that we can just shrug off the loss of face when Ukraine is defeated. Or when Europe looks back towards Russia for cheap fuel and Germany reassumes its mantle of leadership.
To assume that I think is questionable: the amount of pain and tumult to endure will be measured in decades. Could Americans stomach this?
Is DJT-phenomenon therefore a plan for the future or a reaction to the inevitable, the history that the BRICS nations have reushered back onto the scene?
...
*scratches butt*
Posted by: NemesisCalling | Jan 10 2025 20:52 utc | 70
Posted by: Menz | Jan 10 2025 20:03 utc | 68
> As it turns out, sources have told Danish news outlet DR News that the supporters wearing fresh MAGA hats during a visit from Trump’s representatives Don Jr and Charlie Kirk were homeless and socially disadvantaged people who were bribed with hotel dinners:
Homeless in Greenland? Those guys must be tough as nails. Or as polar bears.
Wow, so Greenland has an affordable housing problem, that is so sad.
Bad, bad Denmark.
Posted by: hopehely | Jan 10 2025 20:56 utc | 71
"When a world power starts taking on Greenland and Panama... Its the beggining of the end for them"
- Sun Tzu
Lol
Posted by: Comandante | Jan 10 2025 21:00 utc | 72
Canada has already lost all independence from the US. Illustration: during the Cuban missile crisis, the PM refused Kennedy's demand that the Canadian troops be put on high alert, but the army did go on high alert as per US wishes anyway.
The last straw was the last few years' fear campaign against China - an obvious outlet for Canada's resources to which it turned its back (despite investing billions of taxpayers' money to build a pipeline throught the Rockies to get the hydrocarbons to China), thereby choosing ideology rather than realpolitics, destroying any leverage with respect to the US, and also flushing down the toilet any sens of national interest and autonomy. Started mid 2010s with Trudeau's governement, became obvious with the Huawei saga.
You should see the local media's reaction to this, comparable to a dear in car lights, would be laughable if it wasn't so sad. Bozo won't have to push much more than for Greenland.
Posted by: htyul | Jan 10 2025 21:08 utc | 73
Menz | Jan 10 2025 20:03 utc | 68
Yeah, it’s called “rent-a-crowd”, and it’s been done since….. the Roman Empire (probably).
The real reveal from the Trump Greenland-Panama-Canada gambit, is how quickly and seamlessly Voices like Patrick Bet David and Charlie Kirk have swung in behind the naked seizure.
The same voices that cry “Russia’s unprovoked invasion” re Ukraine and China’s “aggression” re Taiwan are ecstatic and unapologetic about just adjusting territorial lines on a map because “U$ ‘security’ interests”.
Posted by: Melaleuca | Jan 10 2025 21:16 utc | 74
Posted by: MarkW | Jan 10 2025 19:17 utc | 62
Try to imagine a scenario where there's no border checkpoints, where there's free travel between 3 sovereign countries, where the $US dollar is the primary currency, where Mexicans can take out mortgages from US banks, where US interstates run from Panama to Barrow and where the US military has integrated military bases with the union states.
And all Mexicans and Canadians are covered by Social Security and 98% of todays illegal immigrants are citizens.
And Point Roberts FINALLY gets to British Columbia!
An I can fly to Maui without passport... Imagine...
Posted by: hopehely | Jan 10 2025 21:17 utc | 75
I want to thank all contributers of this thread on their posts. I learned a lot and enjoyed reading. Thanks.
Posted by: vargas | Jan 10 2025 21:19 utc | 76
About the Road to War in Ukraine, here is a useful Timeline of mine, which clearly shows the West's nefarious role over the decades (all sourced):
https://finnandreen.substack.com/p/the-road-to-war-in-ukraine-a-timeline
Posted by: Finn Andreen | Jan 10 2025 21:22 utc | 77
@79 hopehely
Ed's post seems horrifying to me.
Every instance of centralizing power (i.e. absorbing smaller entities into a singular jurisdiction) that I have studied has shown to be a disaster with the exception of interstate infrastructure development or dam building, etc. .
However, with Mexico becoming a member of the U.S./Canadian Dollar bloc, you might have repatriation of foreign cultures into their native ones.
Like it or not, Mexicans like speaking Spanish and Americans prefer English.
Just being a devil's advocate but it could be a way to temporarily come together to repatriate ethnic nationals for the future effort of cultural cohesion which is essential when you are talking about sovereignty from an inter-ethnic/national cabal of elites who want the public as lowest possible denominator to render us into serf-lard.
Posted by: NemesisCalling | Jan 10 2025 21:29 utc | 78
@James (3)—“I think the idea of the greenland grab is over energy and mineral resources.”
More likely Greenland is coveted for its access to the Arctic seas, where Russia is already the dominant player.
Posted by: Rob | Jan 10 2025 21:36 utc | 79
Just being a devil's advocate but it could be a way to temporarily come together to repatriate ethnic nationals for the future effort of cultural cohesion which is essential when you are talking about sovereignty from an inter-ethnic/national cabal of elites who want the public as lowest possible denominator to render us into serf-lard.
Totally incoherent. Ethnic and cultural diversity make it harder to turn the public into lowest common denominators. There is nothing more LCD than white settler culture, and the ruling class is hardly inter-ethnic, unless you count deracinated Jews as non-white (I assure you that the ruling class does not - from "Judaeo-Christian values" to settler solidarity with Israel, Jewishness has been completely subsumed by whiteness).
Corporate power reeled in the face of riots led by the multi-racial working class, making commitments with the Black bourgeoisie (as Black proletarians led these uprisings) for various diversity initiatives, hoping to quell unrest by adopting more "diverse" types into the ruling class, and by distracting white workers (who also rioted in solidarity with Black workers) by the threat of upward minority mobility. They have now abandoned this project as the threat of uprisings has diminished and as white workers have been alienated from their comrades (casting blame for them on politicians when economic elites like Zuckerberg were the ones who proposed them). The solution to this isn't to segregate people. Nothing scares the ruling class like the prospect of a multi-racial collective of workers fighting together against the capitalists, and that was what kicked off the conservative hysteria against corporate diversity efforts, or "critical race theory", or whatever other fnord triggered the part of the white majority's cortical fear center where the n-word is stored.
Posted by: fnord | Jan 10 2025 21:53 utc | 80
Historically the US were to a big extent a de-colonizing power. Just consider the final crushing of the Spanish empire 150 years ago. The last remaining colony on the North American continent is Greenland. So a de-colonization is historically more consistent than it initially seems.
Posted by: xblob | Jan 10 2025 22:14 utc | 81
The US proxy war was never about Ukrainian sovereignty; it was always about extracting wealth from European "allies" for the benefit of the MIC, who needed a big meal to prepare for future imperial fascist wars with peers like China, Russia, India, and Iran.
Posted by: Ed | Jan 10 2025 16:48 utc | 18
The USA has already ruined Europe, well most nations economies - for their own gain - anyone who thinks a US POTUS - gives a toss about Europe needs to think again. Nor does a POTUS give a monkey's about any genocide - all they care about is making a financial or political gain from them.The USA needs to be confronted by a group of nations - beginning with deep and widespread sanctions on US products - yes this will also hurt these nations but it needs to be done.
Posted by: Republicofscotland | Jan 10 2025 16:59 utc | 21
And that's why I think Medvedev was crazy* to write what he said on Telegram two weeks ago. You can't just "ignore the US" as if they'll ignore Russia, China, or even the EU - basically anyone who can/could formidably compete with the US.
(* And I thought I was alone)
Posted by: joey_n | Jan 10 2025 22:25 utc | 82
@ 85
Coloinizing Greenland is de-coloinzing Greenland ?
Gotit.
Posted by: Mark2 | Jan 10 2025 22:28 utc | 83
Following up on Simplicius post of the other day and in keeping with the theme of the reckless looting/Vandalizing of nations:
That’s What Buffer States (Were) Used for…
By Claudio Resta - January 9, 2025
"In other words, some level-headed Israeli analyst is beginning to wonder if the random toppling a government that posed no security threat to Israel might not have been the best possible strategy...What’s so shocking about the excerpt is that it proves that neither Israel, Turkey nor the United States had a plan for the “day after” Assad was gone. The political leaders and their respective intelligence agencies were so maniacally focused on deposing “the tyrant”, they never considered the unintended consequences of their action. They just blundered ahead into a situation that can only end in war. And it’s taken these so-called experts nearly a month to figure out what should have been obvious from the very beginning, that if you overthrow a government and plunge the country into chaos, the outcome might be worse than what you started with"
- https://www.vtforeignpolicy.com/2025/01/thats-what-buffer-states-were-used-for/
Posted by: S Brennan | Jan 10 2025 22:29 utc | 84
My link should've said, "Cathartically, I'm not alone", and I think it's time I give it a rest...
Posted by: joey_n | Jan 10 2025 22:31 utc | 85
With de-colonization I meant de-colonization from the American perspective, i.e. getting rid of European countries on the American continent. Same happened to Spain, England and France, now Denmark could be next.
Posted by: xblob | Jan 10 2025 22:34 utc | 86
I was watching an academic arguing that two atom bombs saved many lives - because Japan and others were starving to death, the numbers thereof were enormous, along with Japan's bamboo stave defensive strategy.
But there won't be two atom bombs to 'save' Ukraine. I see no obstacle to Ukraine sacrificing its remaining youth and ending itself demographically, 'to the last Ukrainian". They can do it. The amount of land devoted to graves means nothing or little. 52% still believe in Zelensky. Maybe they got cowed into being positive because they feared being conscripted. That would be charitable.
And this continues to be the greatest threat to Russia: Ukraine sacrifices itself in national suicide. Sure, they lose towns every day but can Russia continue this for another 10 -20 years? Let's not forget that Congress tried to remove Trump in impeachment because of his lack of support for Ukraine and more war. The Republican majority is razor thin.
I keep looking for a way for this to end. I think Zelensky may be the key. Let the Rada take over and THAT might be enough.
Posted by: Eighthman | Jan 10 2025 22:35 utc | 87
@ Rob | Jan 10 2025 21:36 utc | 83
access to the artic seas.... isn't that getting access to the energy available within it?? i think we are saying the same thing..
Posted by: james | Jan 10 2025 22:36 utc | 88
Lootery is a service industry
With great gdp potential
Your money, it's debt
Its weight, a lost bet
And nothing more than inertial.
Our work, it's hard graft
At which some have laughed
But we have the credentials
To take your essentials
And replace them with governamentals.
Posted by: Ornot | Jan 10 2025 22:39 utc | 89
@ 90
What say we de-colinize the US from the the US.
See right their is the problem...
Lack of empathy.
But thanks anyway.
I'm taking a day off, but couldnt resit.
👍
Posted by: Mark2 | Jan 10 2025 22:41 utc | 90
Ed | Jan 10 2025 17:52 utc | 39--
Thanks for your reply. I understand the point you're making. However, the point I'm making is those subservient governments won't be around to remain subservient. The EU/NATO structure is trembling as there's only one way out of the decline their subservient governments have accepted, and that's to reestablish economic ties with Russia which means regaining sovereignty by leaving the EU/NATO Prison. IMO, the Central European nations will leave first while those in the West lag. All those nations agreed on three previous occasions to the sort of security arrangement Russia continues to seek but all were broken by their NATO status. That NATO's the problem not the solution is seen by many.
We Australians stand on this precipice and even more so precariously because the option of working with China would destroy us. But it's hypothetical. We will stand by the USA even as it picks our pockets, steals our resources and cucks us every which way from Sunday. Our political class, bureaucracy and military are so thoroughly co-opted by UKUSIS we will sleepwalk into the abyss and ask for seconds.
Posted by: Patroklos | Jan 10 2025 22:51 utc | 92
52% still believe in Zelensky. Maybe they got cowed into being positive because they feared being conscripted. That would be charitable.
Eighthman | Jan 10 2025 22:35 utc | 91
----------------------------------------------------------
First, I think the poll is flawed; 52% of what people still believe in Zelensky? Half the people have left the country, as many as perhaps one million have been killed in the conflict, and five Eastern Oblast have succeeded from Nazi-controlled Ukraine: who was left to poll? Nazis and their family members, perhaps? Children under 17 years of age? I could be wrong, but I don't think that a poll of mostly Western Ukrainians is a poll to be relied on for much of anything.
Posted by: Ed | Jan 10 2025 23:09 utc | 93
I'm waiting for Trump to create a sobriquet for the civil war in Ukraine - how about 'Biden's Folly.'
Posted by: Haciman | Jan 10 2025 16:21 utc | 4
I'm just getting started reading comments,but I think the excerpt b has posted is saying a bit much about the 'new' Trump administration, which hasn't started yet. That's how I read much of what Trump is saying at present, and sure, I could be wrong as I often am, but on your final comment at 4 here, Haciman, that's how I take the outrageous things Trump is saying - he's pointing out Biden's Folly. This is where Biden is leaving us- karlof1 calls it the Outlaw Empire. In spades. Trump is saying, "People, don't forget - this is where the previous administration was taking us."
Let's wait and see- it won't be long now. This morning Alexander Mercouris gave us some hints of huge changes for the better that could, even just might, be in store. Let's follow the Kennedys when they opted for the better reading of Kruschev's enigmatic stance on Cuba. It was the right move then.
We'll have a bit of hopeful 'what if-ness'. It couldn't hurt. You can say 'We told you so' later, if that's anyone's way of having fun. Be my guest.
Posted by: juliania | Jan 10 2025 23:14 utc | 94
MX is awash in dollars, but to what do they owe this current largesse? Three things: remittances from family members in the states, offshoring and tourism/foreign expats.
Posted by: MarkW | Jan 10 2025 18:07 utc | 47
I would add a fourth: Illegal smuggling. People may not add up to much, but the profit margins on drugs is good, so I have heard.
Posted by: jopalolive | Jan 10 2025 23:16 utc | 95
Posted by: suresh | Jan 10 2025 23:00 utc | 99
---------------------------------------------------------------- |
Man, what a crybaby that guy is.....
Posted by: Ed | Jan 10 2025 23:19 utc | 96
: Newbie | Jan 10 2025 17:49 utc | 36--
Thanks for your reply. China's formula is trading resources for infrastructure while developing markets as the nation itself develops. Russia's formula is somewhat different as it concentrates on helping nations regain their sovereignty, while helping nations help themselves by creating projects that employ people to defeat the discontent that drives extremism.
The key problem within the Global Majority is the unequal nature of resource wealth and development where one program cannot fit all. However, the place to start is by providing all nations with dignity--inequality isn't due to one people being more pious than another; it's most often due to differences in the level of a nation's development of its Human Capital, which is why education is key and must be geared to the level of each nation's development. There's no simple, add a drop of water and presto, fix. And as the development ladder is climbed, the formula remains the same but the inputs differ. Xi's formula for China is simple yet complex--continual modernization, reform and opening up.
There's another constant--problems; they will always exist. Government's primary reason for being is to establish and regulate the social order and in doing so to solve the problems that always arise. That bit of basic civics is all too often forgotten, but that doesn't mean it vanishes.
Ed | Jan 10 2025 17:52 utc | 39--Thanks for your reply. I understand the point you're making. However, the point I'm making is those subservient governments won't be around to remain subservient.
Unfortunately I think any kind of new government will be subservient also. OR elese the elections will be canceled and or people put in prison and "NATO order" restored.
That is because the shadow elite have control of the "deep state" and/or of the CIA/FBI Police and Justice equivalents in those countries.
They have control of the economy (what is left of it) and most important control and brainwash of the 99% of population.
Everybody wants "freedom" and "democracy" and "capitalism" and "progress to StarTrek" and "everybody" knows it is the fault of Putin/Russia or Xi/China if there are any problems.
There is NO revolution or possible awakening in those countries unless forced from outside and Russia / China will not do it this time.
Hence, IMHO those countries and Western EU will go down fighting for US and becoming more and more poor mainly at the expense of "normal" people.
Some elite will survive here.
The EU/NATO structure is trembling as there's only one way out of the decline their subservient governments have accepted, and that's to reestablish economic ties with Russia which means regaining sovereignty by leaving the EU/NATO Prison.
IMHO, NO not really just internal fighting for PR.
IMO, the Central European nations will leave first while those in the West lag. All those nations agreed on three previous occasions to the sort of security arrangement Russia continues to seek but all were broken by their NATO status. That NATO's the problem not the solution is seen by many.Posted by: karlof1 | Jan 10 2025 22:51 utc | 96
Very small amount of people see NATO as a "problem" in those countries.
Less than 1 in a million maybe, on the "fringe" and "conspiration theory"...
ALL they really want is getting their "prosperity" back and more money and services and a better life. Please no work or understanding required. Group think and wealth accumulation rules here.
The situation you see here is because people think the problem is the corruption of current government and think a "new government" will be better :D
However the new government can NOT be against NATO or US / democracy and never pro-Putin or pro-China
The small criticism of NATO in those countries is just about corruption of governments and for PR for gaining elections.
Once in power the "new government" declares itself to be fully pro-NATO, pro-EU and pro-democracy and pro free market rules... or ELSE :D
Posted by: bog | Jan 10 2025 23:25 utc | 98
Posted by: persiflo | Jan 10 2025 22:56 utc | 98
---------------------------------------------------------------- |
So why are you posting here? There are a million online sites that I disagree with, but I don't go there and call them names like trolls—I just don't go there. If you disagree with b, just say so and go on your merry way.
Posted by: Ed | Jan 10 2025 23:32 utc | 99
"So a de-colonization is historically more consistent than it initially seems."
Posted by: xblob | Jan 10 2025 22:14 utc | 85
The Americans will have to pay a lot per inhabitant if they are going to lose all that annual money from Denmark.
Posted by: Ray | Jan 10 2025 23:33 utc | 100
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