I was watching Russian TV yesterday, and here is (roughly) the exchange which took place between the host and one guest.  Here is what they both seemed to agree on:

——-begin nonsense——-

Russia has a major problem.  She cannot really deter the USA.  Why?  For two reasons:

  • Russia has truly retreated as far as she can, while the USA have an almost limitless room for maneuver.  The USA is under no time pressure but Russia is.  If this standoff is not resolved or otherwise frozen, the USA won’t suffer, but Russia will.
  • Russian strategic deterrence weapons are useless.  If, say, the Brits build a military base in the Ukraine, what will Russia do?  Attack the UK and start WWIII which will destroy mankind?  So even tiny (and very weak) Britain has nothing to fear from Russia.  The USA even less so.

——-end nonsense——-

Yes, there are PLENTY of Atlantic Integrationists in the Russian media, plenty…

Okay, I will answer those two idiocies:

  • The USA and the EU are in such a total mess that they are literally fighting both internally and each other.  The West’s economy is unsustainable and will collapse soon.  The Western society and culture is committing suicide.  Putin’s popularity is much better than the one of any Western leader and the Russian society is united around the idea that “enough is enough, now we fight back”.  The West holds NO cards at all, not militarily not economically.  Hence the total freakout mode of western politicians! They also all have been contradicting each other and even themselves (Psaki) since the Russian ultimatum.  Compare that with the Russian “cat with cream” grin of Russian officials since they issued their ultimatum.
  • Okay, classroom, please repeat after me: Russia has both nuclear and non-nuclear strategic deterrence capabilities (repeat three times and write it down!).  That’s for starters.  Next, in our hypothetical above, what Russia can do is simple: use her conventional missiles to destroy the UK base in the Ukraine and then dare the Brits to retaliate.  There is no need at all for Russia to nuke London, all they need to do is humiliate the Brits and maybe draw some blood, not in the UK, but in the Ukraine.  The exact same goes for the USA, of course.

By the way, the same will happen to any Bayraktar factory built in the Ukraine: in case of war any such factory will be vaporized in minutes and neither the Ukraine nor Turkey won’t be able to do anything about it (the Turks, by the way, will simply offer to rebuild the factory, thereby making even more money, including for Erdogan’s close relatives and friends).

Okay, enough for today from me.

Why don’t I leave you with one of my favorite songs: Peter Bradley Adams’ “So are you to me“.  This song is what REAL US culture is, this is the USA I love, and this is the USA which, I strongly believe, most people worldwide appreciate and even love.  The harmonies of this tune are super simple, a few basic cord progression and a nice bass punctuation, the melody is primitive in the extreme (basic major scale, Ionian mode if you prefer) and the lyrics as simple as it gets.  Yet in terms of “emotional payload” this is a lyrical nuclear detonation, at least for me.  That ability to use very simple musical tools to elicit a very emotionally powerful response in the listener is true musical genius (reminds me of Roger Waters, albeit in a different style).  Peter Bradley Adams is truly one of the best US composers and interpreters.  I will toss in two more names, but you have to look them up yourselves: John Moreland and Walter Parks.  Listen to their music and you will see that there is still a beautiful soul beating in the Appalachians, the Great Plains, the Pacific Northwest and in many other parts of this beautiful country.

Rap is not the real USA at all.  Guys like these three are.

Enjoy the song!

Andrei