By Dmitry Orlov and posted with permission
The hardest part of living through a time of wrenching change is that nobody particularly bothers to inform you that the times have changed and that nothing will be the same again. Certainly not the talking heads on TV, who are often the last to know. You have to figure it out for yourself if you can. But I am here to help.
It all has to do with energy. Not with technology—that’s incidental; not with military superiority—that’s fleeting and largely imaginary; certainly not with any sort of political or cultural self-righteousness—that’s delusional. There is no substitute for energy. If you run low, you can’t switch to running your industrial economy on fiddlesticks. It just shuts down. What’s worse, energy sources are not even particularly substitutable for each other. If you run low on gas, you can’t just switch to coal or to dried dung, even if you are up to your neck in it. Modern industry runs on oil, natural gas, and coal, in that order, and they can be substituted for each other in very limited ways.
Furthermore, energy has to be very cheap. Oil has to be about the cheapest liquid you can buy—cheaper than milk; cheaper even than bottled water. If energy isn’t cheap enough, then all the energy-hungry industry that runs on it becomes unprofitable and shuts down. That’s the stage at which we are now in much of the world. So, what happened?
Once upon a time the US produced most of the oil in the world. But then the prolific wells in West Texas ran out and Saudi Arabia took over as the biggest oil producer. But the US wasn’t about to take that sitting down and hatched an ingenuous plan: Saudi Arabia will sell its oil for printed US dollars, then take most of those dollars and give them back to the US by “investing” it in US “debt”. Everybody else who needed oil had to figure out a way to earn US dollars to buy it, and any US dollars they had left over after buying oil also had to be used to buy up US debt just because: “Nice economy you have there! Now we wouldn’t want anything bad to happen to it, would we?”
Indeed, a few people didn’t get the message (Saddam of Iraq, Qaddafi of Libya) and got their countries bombed. And a whole lot of other defenseless countries got bombed just to keep the others scared. But then Syria, which refused to get the message too, asked the Russians for help. The Russians helped Syria, and now nobody is afraid of the US any more. Meanwhile, the US became spoiled by all this free money, grew fat, lazy, degenerate and weak and amassed the hugest pile of “debt” (in quotes because there is no question of ever repaying it) in all of human history.
In the meantime Russia, being the largest energy-producing country in the world, decided that it has had enough. Under the old scheme, Russia exported its resources cheaply, spend 1/3 of the revenue on imports and allowed 2/3 to leak out of the country, quite a lot of it also used to buy US “debt”. It couldn’t do anything about this right away, and so it spent the last decade developing its military to a point where now the US/NATO are afraid to go near it and its economy to a point where it doesn’t need much of the imports, at least not for a few years. And then a silly thing happened: the US confiscated Russia’s holdings of US “debt,” making everyone in the world take notice and start dumping it—even the Japanese!—sending the entire financial scheme into a tailspin.
Meanwhile, Russia has started to switch from selling its energy exports for dollars and euros, which then leave the country, where they can be confiscated, to selling them for rubles, which stay inside the country. Do you want to buy some Russian energy? Well, figure out how to earn some rubles! And if your own anti-Russian sanctions prevent you from doing so—well, la-di-da, whose fault is that? Also, given that there is now a worldwide energy shortage, the Russians asked themselves: Why sell lots of oil and gas for a little money when you can sell less of them for more money?
These are not projected developments; they are happening now and in real-time. “Hostile nations” (which is all of the West) now need rubles to buy Russian natural gas and there is a plan to extend this scheme to oil exports. And just a couple of days ago Russia’s finance minister, Anton Siluanov, announced that there isn’t much point for Russia to export anything for dollars or euros since Russia doesn’t need them for anything and advised exporters to start using barter arrangements instead. Barter is rather inconvenient, but if offering dollars (or euros) just gets you punched in the teeth, then that’s all there is left.
What sorts of barter arrangements? Well, for instance, there is a very nice gigantic chemical plant in Germany, the Ludwigshafen Chemical Complex in Germany, owned by BASF, that is about to shut down due to a shortage of its main feedstock, which is Russian natural gas. That equipment could be crated up and shipped off to Russia in exchange for some energy products, fertilizer and other key supplies that the Germans will need to keep body and soul together over this coming winter. Are anti-Russian sanctions in the way? Well, la-de-da again! They are not Russia’s problem; somebody else has to find a way around them.
Meanwhile, lots of dead ideas, systems and institutions are piling up in the West. Dead is the Green New Deal (a scheme concocted by people who know neither physics nor even arithmetic) and the Great Reset, and Build Back Better (whatever that was), and the rules-based international order, and Mutual Assured Destruction (if you ask for it, Russia will destroy it, but how mutual is that?). And we are all standing by, waiting for a shout of “Timber!” when the dollar/euro/yen debt pyramid begins to topple.
The world is also waiting with bated breath for a whole lot of pompous but useless busybodies to disappear from public view. Dumping that pompous blowhard Boris Johnson was a good start, but what about Scholz, Macron, Duda, von der Lyin’, Zelensky and a whole host others? Biden is in a category of his own, since it clearly doesn’t matter who is the US president or even if there is one.
The world has changed, but social reality hasn’t yet caught up with political and physical reality. This is the summer of anticipation. The winter of discontent is next. Come next spring, we will all be living on a strange and different planet.
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Germany called the Winter of 1947 its ‘Stunde Null’, describing one of the hardest winters of the 20th century just two years after six years of warfare had brought the nation to its knees.
I wonder what they will call the winter of 2023?
@Rhys Jaggar – I can just remember the winter of 1947 in rural England, where my father was recovering from near fatal injuries caused by said Germans. Unexpected power cuts, that I thought were rather fun, plus food rationing. And weeks and weeks of snow and freezing weather.
I remember being given an egg, about that time, by the visiting nurse and dropping on the gravel. My mother rushed and fetched a spoon and we ate it.
I hope our wonderful politicians aren’t taking us back there.
in 1947 my mum as child lived in Derbyshire on a hill….snow up to level of first floor windows….we have the photos …had to tunnel put via front door.
@Rhys.
If Germans could survive the winter of 1947 then surely they can survive this coming winter. I was told by a German lady at that time how they got through the winter: “Simple, you put on all your clothes including the overcoat and creep into bed to keep warm.”
Many Germans did not survive though.
Especially the Germans in Ike the Kike’s open air concentration camps!
Germans — and Europeans at alrge for that matter — today do not know HOW or simply cannot DO what has to be done to survive a very harsh winter such as 1947´s. Urban density is 10 times if not higher. Social unrest and massive internal migrations will be the answer. Imagine the situation of millions of Angela Merkel´s MENA immigrants. Just saying´…
Germany is over 60% vaccinated….they are not healthy enough to survive cold and hardship.
Unfortunately they will call it “The winter we are fighting against Putin and for democracy and freedom”
And the population will agree with this.
All economical and political errors of the West will be blamed on Putin also. All the “green” agenda and depopulation agenda will be blamed on Putin.
It is useful to have somebody to blame for every error or bad thing you do …
They say the population must make huge sacrifices (not the elite of course) but it is “worthy” to do so… because of Putin and eventually China.
Not this time ‘Delta House’, you’ve gone too far, overstepped the mark – Dean Wormer, Animal House.
Who cares what 15% of population who are bankrupt think?
Not completely correct from my ancestor’s view. The winter in Denmar 1944 was very, very harsh, you could walk to Sweden, if you dared, the Germans shot anybody on the ice, without warning. it was very cold as Dad recalled many years later.
Now me and Søs (sister) are the last of the connection backwards, the rest are dead (God have mercy on them) and my daughters are the only family left. I will be gone before they realize, they truly are alone, with only their mother left for as long as she can.
Ah well, me worry :)
Yes you are correct. 1944 was indeed very, very harsh. I lived through the Dutch “Honger Winter” when people from Holland (the West), walked over the frozen IJsselmeer, desperately looking for food in agricultural Friesland. The Germans had commandeered all the food they could lay their hands on for their Heimat. They richly deserve that what is coming to them. BV
Great, straightforward piece.
(Ingenious, not ingenuous.)
Correct! But I wish my Russian were anything like as good as Mr Orlov’s English…
I am studying Russian using Duolingo.
No, ingenuous. There was nothing intelligent about it. Just brutal thuggery delivered in a guileless, shameless manner.
You nailed it. Many thanks. Although it is simple and straight forward, many people and perhaps governments didn’t understand it until Mr. Putin spelled it out for them. Or they knew it but didn’t have the courage until Mr. Putin came forward. No wonder he is an evil man. Since 911, I have been saying that, but in a crass manner. The entire world was working very hard and gasping for air like a dog to earn the dollar and still very happy about it.
On top of that (I opologize if I missed it in your great article) as nations build up their dollar reserve to buy and trade, they (usa) simply depreciate the dollar. While people have it in their pockets or banks, their ppp become less and less. You have to work harder and harder baby. Simply stealing with smile from both, the robber and the robbed. This is medern day slavery. This is done to everyone on the planet. Their own people are used like everyone else. And now many if not all people and countries who followed the empire will go broke and don’t know what hit them.
Another point I want to make. Imho, if Russia and Iran would sell their hydrocarbons in the dollar and recycle it back to the US, the US will demand the price will go up and up. This for two reasons. One the US is_ no longer a manufacturing state. Most factories relocated to China and other countries for cheep labor, but they planned to offset it with higher energy cost. The higher the price the more dollars are printed. They miscalculated. They thought Russia will always be controlled. And they thought China will be controlled through minerals and oil. The wind doesn’t always blow as the ships desire.
That doesn’t sound ingenuous to me.
ingenuous = “of a person or action) innocent and unsuspecting”
disingenuous = “not candid or sincere, typically by pretending that one knows less about something than one really does”
“Biden is in a category of his own, since it clearly doesn’t matter who is the US president or even if there is one.”
Biden believes, agrees with many who say that to be an American is just to have an “idea” and espouse it. Other politicians say the same, scholars too. They miss the slur, how this notion dehumanizes people. Maybe it applies only to this quote, where you don’t need a person but just an idea held in common by some. It does matter, though. Trump sounds like Biden, Republicans like Democrats, on the issue of this awful war. We don’t know if Trump as President would be the same as Biden on this issue. They might have been calling him “Russian” again.
Let’s ALL pray that the “winter of discontent” does not become something much darker. Reality is about to come knocking on the doors of those that have a vested interest in maintaining their illusions.
yep, I hear ya. I know many sheeple busily planning their next holiday, totally and utterly clueless to the changes happening.
Bourgeoisie is a special kind of delusion.
I enjoyed that. I’ll take the hit if it will help everyone in the world. I’ll judge Russia in 2 years time by it’s deeds, not it’s words.
Very well articulated. Nice journalism, and 50 year snapshot, so rare these days! Thx for posting !
I can understand people committing suicide in certain circumstances, however wrong that is. Despair, terminal illness, unbearable bereavement, and so on.
But entire countries throwing themselves off a cliff like lemmings? Countries that have enjoyed relative peace and unparalleled prosperity for generations? How does that happen? Of course there is still a lot of poverty, and western countries have exported violence and mayhem all over the world, immiserating hundreds of millions of people in the process. But most people in western countries have enjoyed a standard of living and prospects that their grandparents could only dream of.
All that has been squandered and thrown away. It is now history. Europe will become an impoverished, deindustrialised, irrelevant backwater, its industries hopelessly uncompetitive through rocketing energy costs. Astronomical inflation. Whole industries closing down. Mass unemployment, poverty and destitution. Food shortages. A collapse of the public services like health and education and welfare provision, which rely upon a successful economy to make them possible. People are going to be very poor. They will be cold and hungry, and experience conditions which have not been seen for decades. And with it, endemic political instability and a breakdown of the social order. Like the Soviet Union of the 1990s. Or maybe Germany in the 1930s.
And all of this totally unnecessary and self inflicted. Because a small, arrogant, irredeemably corrupt ignorant, and ideologically deluded elite chose to inflict policies of unbridled, reckless aggressive militarism on the planet, together with babyish obscenities like Wokeism and the Great Global Warming Cult.
The consequences of this are incalculable and will take many years to play out.
“But entire countries throwing themselves off a cliff like lemmings? Countries that have enjoyed relative peace and unparalleled prosperity for generations? How does that happen?”
Strong men make good times; good times make weak, lazy men. (Weak men make horrible times, and horrible times leave only strong, unvaccinated men alive, and the cycle of life hopefully still continues).
My mother suffers and complains from constant muscle pains, weakness and headaches. From a life of lying on the sofa watching TV and eating garbage. As far as I know, she never really even had to have a real job. Anyway, I once gave her some magnesium oil, and it immediately relieved her muscle pains and headache, and she was amazed. I gave her the oil and left it on her kitchen counter. Three years later it’s standing on her kitchen counter in plain sight and she never used it, even after I reminded her.
I understand the convoluted, tormented psychology behind this behaviour, but I cannot accept it on a spiritual level.
Jusses: Brilliant archetype analogy here. Well said and experienced. Perhaps it is “non-acceptance on the spiritual level” that is in fact separating us from these “leaders”??… Anyways… great post!
I think, Jusses, you’ve just written a perfect metaphor for the present times. A few decades ago, in psychology trade, this kind of crazy behaviour used to be called “learned helplessness,” but I’ve always thought that pathological laziness was a more accurate explanation. Sadly, this kind of behaviour and thinking is now becoming acceptable. “People refuse to work now,” blaming – or being inspired by – the evil Covid.
Mr. Orlov’s calling these insanely destructive people “lemmings” is very fitting, too, …and scary.
Even the War Criminal Kissinger apparently expects the US to be in a nuclear war with Russia by August.
Very frightening times. George Orwell himself would be shocked, I think.
In the west they have vaccinated most people already…elitist problem solved.
Those vaccines are surely poisoned and in a couple of years will kill off/physically and mentally incapacitate most of the ordinary people in the west
‘I understand the convoluted, tormented psychology behind this behaviour, but I cannot accept it on a spiritual level.’
Just another instance of mass formation psychosis? Why would anyone not believe their TV instructors and food purveyors?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IqPJiM5Ir3A&t=731s
and money spent on Ukraine not on EU peoples…hundreds billions on the beggars who have hoodwinked EU and the world “fighting for democracy”….. one of the most undemocratic and corrupt countries in the world….and really nasty nay horrific with it and their military too….understatement.
Well, no one actually has a crystal ball, and knows how it will play out. Most of the time, things never go exactly as you anticipate, and often enough, go in completely unexpected directions. But one thing is sure: it is Western VOTERS who have brought about the current conditions. It’s very tempting to say it’s the elites, etc. but ultimately the PEOPLE THEMSELVES chose this path. If the West disintegrates, the people have only themselves to blame.
Will, I true that.
The ultimate blame for all of what is coming lies on regular everyday people not willing to abandon their zone of political and economic / financial comfort – knowingly allowing their leaders to betray their best interests without getting their feet wet in any way. Cordially Jorge
Dear Jorge,
If only it were that simple.
But it is not.
Look at the USA (can’t speak for any other country). Look at Obama.
So many hopes were placed in him.
It looked like the ship was finally righting itself after the long decades listing and low in the water following the Kennedy murder.
And then Obama turned out to be a fake.
I knew it as soon as I saw his first cabinet picks.
Well, you know the rest of the story.
Given the level of corruption in Congress, the White House, the State Department , the CIA, the media, the deliberate obfuscations that “regular” citizens are subjected to, not to mention the onslaught of drugs of varioius sorts and the hollowing out of our industrial economic base— honestly I don’t think it is really on to “blame” American citizens for the state of the country.
Quite simply, the citizenry is not in charge.
Hi Jorge,
unfortunately the information war in the west has been a complete and total success.
Here in the Netherlands there is absolutely no notion of people knowing anything about their best interests being betrayed. Raising the real background as to NATO being instrumental in causing the SMO in Ukraine will ensure permanent damage to the relationship you have with collegues and friends. All the crap about western superiority and righteousness is bought here without questioning by the population at large. I was and still am rather shocked by the total brainwashing (and whitewashing of Ukraine) by pretty much all media outlets. I would have thought is was better than e.g. in the US but I was wrong.
That is the impression they give in the MSN. But there is a minority ( 10-30% depending on the subject) that sees through their lies. And it’s growing. The more stupid policy they push the more people will learn to see through their lies. Covid and now the NO2 policy screwing the farmers accelerates this.
Just look at the results of two referendums that were organized in Nederland
(I propose we change the stupid plural ‘the Netherlands’ into the singular Netherland or just Nederland in dutch. We are the ‘Kingdom of the Netherlands’ aka Netherland/Nederland).
The referendum on a EU constitution, which we voted against. And the referendum on the special relation between the EU and Ukraine, which we also voted against.
And since the results of the two referendums weren’t in line with the agenda set by power elite pulling the strings the results were ignored and the option to organize a referendum was removed completely.
It’s easy and safe to have contempt for and blame the powerless. Given the unusual and very odd activities in the swing states in the last election (and others), given the surprise exposure of what has been going on in our schools and the threatening attempts to suppress any objections (domestic terrorists!), given the sudden changes in establishment language (after elections), given the public outrage as the establishment program becomes clear:
Who exactly do you think voted for who and who do you think actually voted for the current insanity? Is it right or moral to buy into what even Warren Buffet admits is a class war? Everything is the fault of the little guy/gal?
No. If voting could change anything they would revoke the privilege. Voters get to pick from a selection of puppets controlled by our masters as long as the owners choose to maintain an illusion of freedom.
Hardly, both parties in the USA have a pathological hatred of Russia, and the Deep State is anti – Russia in any case. So it doesn’t matter which party gets in. However, the common person is to blame as he is all of talk talk talk. Full of guns, “proud boys” and whatever ,but never able or willing to take over the government to change things.
If the average American can see its leaders and elite driving them off a cliff ,why have they not rebelled and done something about it? France in late 1700s ,US in 1860s , Hungarians in 1956 , Czechs did in 1968, Loyalist Ukrainians (Russian -speaking and/or Nato-cautious “Ukrainians”) in 2014 and since. Don’t expect things to change ,us going off to WWIII, when little Euro countries rebel, if ever. They are too small and powerless. What makes the Americans think that they deserve more understanding when other people were willing to stick their necks out? Although I feel for the individual right -seeing American ,including those on here, collectively the Americans have been apathetic “victims” partial to learned helplessness . Americans! Get out there and stop this nonsense!
Taking over the government is not going to happen in USA. Since all communication is monitored, and the voiceprints of all citizens are on record, and most public places have listening devices, then about the time your “rebellion” has ten members one of them will be a government agent.
The trick is not to try to overthrow the government. The trick is to just refuse to participate anymore. I observed something very interesting going on in the streets of the Soviet Union in then Leningrad and Moscow 1984 while visiting. The citizens had so many rules to follow. They just gave up and were openly breaking the rules all of the time. Blackmarket was HUGE then and pretty much everyone I saw there had just given up on a system that was really really bad. They just shrugged their shoulders and did what they wanted or needed to do. The Soviet system ended because the people didn’t want to live in it anymore.
“ Washington and London have drawn ´useful European idiots´ into an economic war against Russia ” – said former Russian president Dmitry Medvedev – adding that “the onset of a systemic crisis in the Eurozone is beginning to come true.” He added that Anglo-Saxons both sides of the Atlantic conned EU members “like a couple of shell-game tricksters” by drawing them into an unwarranted economic war against Moscow which is actually an Anglo-Saxon project, not theirs-
https://www.rt.com/russia/558846-us-uk-eu-sanctions/
And to all of that misery add the death and destruction of the clot shot. Which will exponentially rise each year….
The chickens are coming home to roost. Ever seen a pissed off rooster? Ask the hawk that tried to get into the chicken coop. Moral of the story, don’t piss off the rooster.
Just brilliant sir. Nothing else to add.
Great article, putting the blame where it belongs.
Any resemblance to reality is pure coincidence.
More thoroughly delusional words have never been spoken! A true specimen! Bravo!
“since it clearly doesn’t matter who is the US president or even if there is one”
For all practical purposes correct. The fight between the two wings of the political oligarchy (“left” and “right”) is theater performed for the masses, intended to divide them against each other (mission accomplished!) for easier control.
Exactly. I’m weary of hearing people discuss the Democrats vs. Republicans … like it really matters. Two sides of the same dirty coin … divide and conquer.
Not to mention, that voting gives the illusion that people have a choice when most of the time there is no difference whether Democrat vs Republican, Labour vs Conservative, Socialist vs Fascist, etc.
Brilliant, have to make some popcorn and enjoy the show…
What do Nazi Germany and the current civilizational leader – the “west” have in common? Both suffer(ed) from superiority complex in relation to Russia. The Germans were more straightforward – they claimed that their “superiority” was based on genetics – which, of course, implied racism.
The west of today – tricksters that they are – are pretending that it’s their beloved system – “democracy” that makes them “superior” to the Russians. Clever, clever, they are attempting to outsource their superiority to their system, thus rendering themselves as non-racist. Nice try.
I still remember one buffoon from BBC, during the Sochi Olympics, when there was an issue of whether the LGBT deviants deserve equal rights, with the normal people in Russia. The above mentioned buffoon from BBC claimed that the protection which the LGBT weirdos enjoy in the west is clearly a sign of “advanced thinking” – of which, Russia is incapable – of course.
So, degeneracy is a sign of “advanced thinking”, and traditional values are backward. In other words, degeneracy is what makes the west superior to Russia, not some racist genes. It’s a twisted logic, which doesn’t cover up anything. It implies again, that you need to have superior genetics in order to create a superior system. It still stinks of racism. As long as they are happy with their advanced thinking – it’s all good, I suppose.
“The Germans were more straightforward – they claimed that their “superiority” was based on genetics – which, of course, implied racism.”
Hitler believed it with respect to Russians but no so much by the end of the war. According to his personal assistant, Linge, in the end he believed ‘Judaism’ was a “sad triumph of the human spirit” (paraphrase if not quote), but not racially determined. Most Nazis didn’t think about the rest, only of themselves. If you see the literature, it’s all about Germans being the greatest but without directly putting down other nations with the exception of the Jews, and also with the exception of Russia but mainly in Hitler’s case. They wrote about the “messianic” spirit of Russians and referred to Dostoevsky’s writings, saying that communism had taken advantage of this messianic spirit (interesting theory). In the end, Hitler was saying that the Russians were proving to be racially superior to the Germans. Hitler could use “communism” to justify and disguise his “room to live” (lebensraum) policy, and maybe even racist arguments just for that purpose. He made clear in his book that Russia was where “room to live” would be gained, so he would have invaded Russia even if only angels lived there. Hitler treated Asian, Arab, South American and I guess other leaders with respect (seen in youtube too).
«justify and disguise his “room to live” (lebensraum) policy»
His policy arose from the experience of Germany at the end of WW1, which was famine, as imports of cereals were blockaded by the UK (and the USA). At the time Germany was self sufficient in fuel, as it has plenty of coal, and use of oil was not yet that common. The idea was that in order to be independent Germany needed to be self-sufficient in cereals and that could only be achieved by conquering eastern Europe and in particular Ukraine.
«In the end, Hitler was saying that the Russians were proving to be racially superior to the Germans.»
That is problem with racialist cranks: they see everything as determined by something as vague as “race” , where there are hundreds of races, at least, and “the russians” belong to dozens of races.
Actually the USSR had been comprehensively and quickly defeated by Germany, to the point that the latter did not bother to conquer Moscow thinking it would have fallen anyhow, and the USSR could only continue the war thanks to USA supplies (the USSR could still produce some supplies of their own but not enough to continue the war, never mind to counter-attack). It was USA logistics, not the superiority of the “russian race”, or the inferiority of the “german race”, that defeated the nazis.
That’s why most EU/European oligarchies are not entirely happy with being USA vassals, but put up with it: they don’t want their states to be the targets of USA “sanctions” or “regime changes”, in particular as to fuel supplies. And given the choice of russian or usian-controlled fuel supplies, they have to choose the latter.
What most “Western pound of view” regarding American lend lease during the WW2 forget is that equipment doesn’t win wars. The equipment supplied helped, but were certainly not the deciding factor in Soviet victory.
« equipment doesn’t win wars. The equipment supplied helped, but were certainly not the deciding factor in Soviet victory.»
Indeed: the USSR (and the UK) could have been defeated even having all those supplies. But the USA supplies were a deciding factor in avoiding Soviet defeat. USSR Marshal Zhukov added:
«From as early as August 1941 – just two months after the Nazi invasion of the USSR – American convoy ships supplied the Soviets with what would eventually amount to more than 14,000 airplanes, 44,000 jeeps, 375,000 trucks, 8,000 tractors and 12,000 tanks. Not to mention 1.5 million blankets, 15 million pairs of army boots, 2.6 million tons of petroleum products and 4.4 million tons of food supplies.
“The Americans gave us so many goods without which we wouldn’t have been able to form our reserves and continue the war”, admitted Georgy Zhukov, one of the Soviet Union’s most famous WWII generals.»
This something that many people just don’t get, as they are fixed on personalities and battles: in a few years in WW2 the USA outproduced by a very large margins all their allies and enemies. The numbers that have stuck in my mind was the USA built a total of 151 aircraft carriers (of which “only” 60 were large carriers) over a few years, and built 300,000 fighters *per year*, and thanks to a large population could also provide crews and pilots to all of them.
80 years later the USA elites are scared of that the chinese could outproduce them.
That’s a strong quote from General Georgy Zhukov, but you give no source or link for it. That’s good if it’s a newspaper quote, but not for this General. I don’t think he said that for obvious reasons (military pride, patriotism foremost).
Of course, some Germans made the same basic argument after the war. Because they had 190 million people and a lot of rich land and all the incentive needed, I believe they would have won without Lend-Lease. It’s not because of Lend-Lease that the Germans were stopped on the outskirts of Moscow, and also not because of it that the Germans acknowledged that the Russians learned and improved every year of the war until finally they were “as good” as the German soldiers. That quote says “14,000 airplanes.” The German pilots feared the ground flak more than Russian planes. The war record of pilots Hans-Ulrich Rudel and Erich Hartman (350 downings when an ‘ace’ was someone with 5 downings) tell the planes story too.
This is toxic disinfo. I am amazed that it got through moderation.
Disinfo is not technically banned here and we don’t vet each comment for accuracy.
However, the tone of his comments is rude.
I will ban him/her if he/she continues with the same attitude.
Kind regards
Andrei
“the USSR could still produce some supplies of their own but not enough to continue the war, never mind to counter-attack”
I don’t know what Russia says about its own WWII production. I imagine that they say it was very successful, but I know the Germans thought so in WWII. You see it in their memoirs. General von Manstein wrote that the Soviet Union had an enormous “superiority” (he was proud that he avoided being cauldroned), and he didn’t say “Lend-Lease.” They had help with trucks (wasn’t it mostly that?), some planes…but most of the weapons were their own and that was what they were replacing by many factors to one for every weapon destroyed by Germany. Their planes were bad (said Hans-Ulrich Rudel), their tank was the best in the world, great machine guns – they had many Russian-made weapons. It happened so and there is a good economics explanation for it. “Incentive” appears in any economic system when you have war and are fighting to survive.
I think Hitler was flip-flopping between inferiority and superiority complex in relation to the Russians. Or, as Ziggy Freud put it – people with inferiority complex tend to have gigantic egos – to overcompensate for their sense of low self-worth.
Hitler just transposed this magic formula on all Germans – as a nation. Germans definitely had reasons to feel inferior to other European powers. Many think that the Germans are honest and trustworthy. The most defining trait that they poses is actually selfishness – I think.
How else would you explain that they were not able to unite Germany until 1871? They started the WW1 in order to force a redistribution of colonies between the European powers – like it was someone else’s fault that they joined the colonization race so late. By 1939, they were almost the most powerful European country – militarily – and still no colonies, for which you actually need a navy, so you can scout the far corners of the world, in order to find basket cases whom you would colonize.
But no, the Germans had even brighter idea – why not create a colony right there in Europe – accompanied with a genocide and exploitation – like you would do to a normal colony. And while you are at it, why not pick one of the greatest military powers in history to subject it to your colonization plans? Then they acted surprised, when Russia gave them a thorough colonoscopy just to show them who they were messing with.
I think that the moronization process of the western civilization started with the Germans – thanks to whom, the center of western civilization moved out of Europe for the first time – to a place where it doesn’t belong. It’s all coming to an end soon, though. Former colonies themselves – make lousy civilization leaders – as it’s plain for all to see.
Arguably “racism” before the Khazarians distorted it, referred to love of one’s own nation and culture, not denigration of others. The unstated Askenazi joke of course was that they were not Semites whereas Germans were.
I’ve been pondering the LGBT (or whatever) issue for quite some time now. It seems that these proclivities, for lack of a better word, have always been around, but not openly promoted and used for manipulation (especially towards children who don’t even have a fully formed brain yet). I’m totally confused when someone says there are multiple genders … in my mind there are male and female and those who are chemically or surgically altered, but are still male or female – one gender can emulate, but can’t be transformed into another. Pure science and common sense.
I’ve heard that the younger generation is tired of it – tired of the promotion and discussion about it, so I’m pretty certain that: This too shall pass. Where I finally landed, as a spiritual individual although not dogmatically religious, is that we’re told “not to judge”. That makes sense to me. So, while I have a natural reaction and at times revolution to overt “acting out” as I would from heterosexual’s acting out to vulgar or predatory extremes, there is the absolute need for compassion for those who ended up in this situation – whether it be a natural condition (not proved yet as far as I know), a health condition (hormone imbalance), mental or social conditioning, abuse or whatever – I’ve seen variety of causes. When I look at people from afar, it’s more easy to judge. But, up close, people are people some nice, talented, brilliant, loving and kind and some not so much – people are people. So, I’m not certain that name calling is a good idea (weirdos, etc.). That said, it doesn’t mean you should support the continued manipulation of the minds of our children. It doesn’t mean you have to support it at all.
Eventually, this will sort itself out. I don’t understand it or know what to do about it, except to say: Let compassion rule the day. We have much bigger fish to fry during the coming months and years.
Very interesting and deep comment. I also tend to think, it will sort itself out. But only providing the western hegemony of ‘values’ disintegrates. I mean the virtue signalling and the ethics of those actually who don’t have ethics. Of course we need to be compassionate, knowing full well that we ourselves, are in need of all the compassion we can get for our own faults, errors and delusions…
I think whatever corruption the West has experienced will end as well. First, I think people will put an end to the open manipulation – where that leaves those who have labeled themselves LGBT+ who knows? Underground? Therapy? Anyone’s guess, but it probably won’t be pretty. Second, it may not happen in the next few years but everything cycles, so this time period must come to a conclusion. Taking a higher spiritual viewpoint, life is not meant to be perfect – what would be the point and what benefit would it serve the development of humanity? Choosing compassion and non-judgement is a way of showing faith in whatever/however you define God, it doesn’t mean not have opinions or non-action. Not an easy topic.
I’m looking forward to the day when Klaus Schwab and Friends retire from service of de-humanity.
If something appears relentlessly in all western media and all dissent is oppressed, one can be sure that it is part of the mafia agenda. My belief is that gaslighting people into being confused about whether a man is a woman and vice versa has the same purpose as all gaslighting – to weaken and confuse people and make them easier to manipulate in every way.
Absolutely. I don’t know about the mafia as I consider them one of the soldiers of those promoting global slavery. Gaslighting, confusion, manipulation, propaganda et. al works on weak minds, those who don’t know themselves and hence what they believe or stand for, and children or specifically children with weak parents who don’t know what’s happening and don’t know how to protect them.
By the mafia, I don’t mean the traditional mafia, I mean the psychopaths that actually run “The West”. I think “Mafia” is the best way to understand their mentality and methods.
Dear Mythic:
I dont agree 100% when you say that this LGTBetc will finish too.
That will depend on how much the youngest minds have been infected.
In my country, Spain, I see it everyday.
Kids are brainwashed from 6 old and ahead.
Texts books, which are mandatory according to Ministry of Manipulation titulation, are fed up with that LGTBetc stuff and kids must go through. Teachers must give those lesson under penalty of expulsion.
At the same time, the goverment is trying to shut down catholic schools that do no share that view.
A teenager over 16 can abort without parental permission.
Recently a court house declared that it was allright for a 8 year kid to “transform” into a woman at that age.
Parents were sued by a teacher. The kid will undergo chemical hormonae therapy and will be ruined for life.
I am not that optimistic.
Minds are already infected.
We will see very soon the looming disaster on this country.
Thanks for reading
I’ve watched a few of Tucker Carlson’s comments on Biden, Russia and Ukraine. This one from last night is the most remarkable (and longest) one. It starts at 4:57:
Tucker Carlson Tonight, 7/13/22
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_S5AW4TW3WY
Yeah, Tucker is good, but I’ve lost any appetite to follow that circus. One has to have a stomach plastered with one inch titanium plates to digest piles of BS coming for its media (Khazar) fantasies. Even Osho, figured it out back then, saying the world must “put the monster America in its place” and that “Either America must be hushed up or America will be the end of the world.”
Now, I am petty sure he actually said to make a parking lot out of it, but Wikipedia changed his words (by the decision of The Ministry of Truth).
This segment from Carlson is unique, unprecedented – something never before seen (other than maybe in some other segment from him too). You never saw an American on TV rejecting accusations against Russia like Tucker Carlson does here (above link). His news program is the most watched on TV not just FOX. I think he made history with this, he opened this door for the first time.
It reminds me of a great Bolivian TV personality named Carlos Valverde, who one day looked at the camera and showed what true freedom is all about. He exclaimed, “What a shitty country we live in!”
I agree with Caitlin Johnstone on Tucker :
https://caitlinjohnstone.com/2022/07/02/tucker-carlson-is-as-much-a-propagandist-as-anyone-else-in-media/
He is sheparding the sheeple to a China War. Cute?
I am not sure I agree completely I see some disturbing things about China. I agree the Anglo/Zio/banksters are targeting China, and Tucker is promoting this, but that does not make China good guys.
Removed. Not a suitable site. Anti-Chinese. Mod.
as long as the power stays on and your pantry is full you can believe whatever you like.
in the west peace for too long and too many desk jobs have the population soft and weak.
reality has come to call and like gravity are best experienced not taught.
Genial, informativo e, acima de tudo, hilário. Não me canso de rir com esta parte: “…suprimentos essenciais que os alemães precisarão para manter corpo e alma juntos no próximo inverno.”
I will never understand how a political leader (say Scholz) would accept orders from a foreign nation (in this case Washington) to commit economic / political suicide and actually enforce it.(no gas, no oil, no anything from Russia)
This goes beyond high treason.
What do you think the secret service are doing all the time?
Seeking dirty secrets of people in power or people who might get to a position of power
to hold them in their hand.
Scholz has criminal activities around the cum ex scandal where banks used a loophole
in a law to get multiple tax-cashbacks by seeling comodities back and forth.
He was instrumental in delaying the investigation.
Same happened with the so wire card scandal where fraud was commited and again
investigations delayed.
The US seeks criminals and helps them get into positions of power or just seek greedy
people who will do anything for money.
Thats their businessmodel.
The only question is why russia or china never expose this while the west throws everything at russia and uses every corruption scandal and if there is none they make it up.
«how a political leader (say Scholz) would accept orders from a foreign nation (in this case Washington) to commit economic / political suicide and actually enforce it.(no gas, no oil, no anything from Russia)»
What should they choose, given a choice between USA “sanctions” and an end of supplies from the RF, and knowing that the USA can easily engineer “regime change” in Germany, but the RF cannot, and that german exports to the USA and to USA controlled markets (via USA controlled shipping routes) are much bigger than those to the RF?
Scholz chose the lesser damage. So did all other western european oligarchies.
Some east european oligarchies are fundamentally “prometheist”, so anti-russian, whatever it takes, so they chose very willingly USA vassalage.
Independence is overrated: otherwise why would New Mexico or Idaho or Arkansas not become indepedent, or conversely Florida, Texas, California?
The calculation of the oligarchies of New Mexico or Idaho or Arkansas is that even if their states have zero influence on USA policy, and are in effect USA protectorates, it is better for their states to belong to a vast and rich market and a powerful empire.
The calculation of the oligarchies of Florida, Texas, California is that even if their states could well afford to be indepedent, having much power an big markets on their own, their influence on USA policy is very strong, so they might as well belong to it.
A loud round of applause for Dmitry Orlov for one more of his truly enjoyable and illuminating articles!
It’s precisely those who know their physics who are screaming we need some way to switch from hydrocarbons otherwise we’re all doomed. (Yes, I know I’m justifiably banned, but this message has to be heard: it is a logical fallacy -” the West is dumb as *^&” therefore climate science is wrong”.)
It’s not the $$ collapse… it’s the “debt” collapse that’s the problem. The orchestrated 1929 & 1989 by Fed were great, as US still best dirty shirt in town. But now, —- lots of other dirty shirts in town, with “stuff” not just digits—will it be gone?? Like tomorrow? No… but apart from West… will be just one more currency in a basket of baskets for the East. The dollar isn’t “done” but the petro dollar is. Some see a one world global digital currency—- maybe another 100-200 years on that if ever. But I think the one world reserve currency crap played out its hand, and many nations will never again take that stupid bait… although for 70 years… nation after nation got rich, rich, rich too!! But alas, the piper must be paid!
Bulgarian Gov’t coalition collapses
Italian gov’t coalition collapses
Regimist media calling for Biden to step down in 2024
Dutch society in turmoil
Japanes Senior Party leader murdered
Maybe Orlov has been on to something all these years
Italian Prime Minister Mario Draghi announced on Thursday that he would resign. Draghi survived a confidence vote despite his coalition partners in the Five Star Movement abstaining, but said he would step down after meeting with President Sergio Mattarella.
The former European Central Bank chief had led a coalition government since last February, but as of late faced persistent criticism from Five Star Movement leader Giuseppe Conte over the rising cost of living.
via rt and Estonian PM gone
oh …President Italy refused it.
Oops – Estonian PM resigns
only to form a new government, a technical move…
Geez forgot the big kahuna –
English Gov‘t falls with BoJo resignation
Actually the USA controls, in the sense that it can shut it down selectively, most of the world trade not just in fuels, but in cereals too. The strategic importance of cereals I have learned from Michael Hudson’s articles and from Zhao Ziyang’s memories.
It was the need to for loans to buy cereals abroad that triggered the collapse of the USSR (for a good argument see Y. Gaidar “Oil and Grain”, AEI (2007-04-19). Both fuels and cereals are the basic commodities on which every person depends.
So countries that depend on imports of fuel and cereals, or even just one of them, so far have had the alternatives of being very poor or being USA vassals. Most of the european and far east asian countries (from the UK to Japan) have chosen vassalage, because full independence is overrated. Nobody in those countries wants their country to be “sanctioned” or “regime changed” by the USA government.
The only countries that can be truly independent, at least potentially, are countries that are mostly self-sufficient in *both* fuels and cereals and for which “sanctions” means only a modest reduction in their living standards.
The USA oligarchs regard states that are self-sufficient in fuels or cereals, and even more so those those few that have both (even worse if they have good air defense systems), as a strategic threat, and seek to “regime change” into weak dictatorships (e.g. Saudi Arabia, Ukraine) run by “our bastards”, which is “realpolitik”.
Your information is out of date. You are talking about the Old Way. And, of course, digging up smelly old Gaidar is always a bad move.
«Your information is out of date. You are talking about the Old Way.»
The Old Way is still “The Way or the Highway” for states not directly connected to the eurasian core (RF and PRC) and anyhow overland routes tend to be 10 times more expensive than overseas routes, and the USA Navy still controls them. The PRC which is mostly but not fully self-sufficient in fuels and cereals is stockpiling as much as they can.
«And, of course, digging up smelly old Gaidar is always a bad move»
I despise him too but his arguments can still be valid. It is the conclusions that can be wrong. I personally don’t think that Gaidar at the beginning was a corrupt sellout, but I suspect this:
* The lesson that Gaidar and other neoliberal “5th columnists” took from the collapse of the USSR triggered by the collapse in cereals imports was that therefore the RF should be a vassal of the USA to ensure that cereals imports would always be available in exchange for exports of fuels, just like the gulf arabs did.
* The lesson that Putin and other “nationalists” took from the same situation was that therefore the RF should become self-sufficient in cereals instead of remaining a cereals importer and thus becoming an USA vassal, with the precedent of the tsarist empire that was also a cereals exporter.
I don’t think that given his neoliberal Economist mindset Gaidar even considered that state strategy could or should ever be directed at improving and expanding the production of cereals in the RF, but Putin did it.
«The lesson that Putin and other “nationalists” took from the same situation was that therefore the RF should become self-sufficient in cereals instead of remaining a cereals importer and thus becoming an USA vassal»
In Zhao Ziyang’s memories there is the description of a debate among the very top of the CCP about opening up to global trade, with Ziyang arguing that it was much more profitable for the PRC to cultivate “cash crops” and devote land to industrial production and buy cereals from abroad, than self-sufficiency, at least in the short term, while other who had read chinese strategy classics were more cautious.
In a sense Ziyang was right: cereals self-sufficiency would have prevented a good chunk of the PRC’s growth, but short termism meant that the PRC implemented Ziyang’s line with some grave mistakes:
* They turned too much good agricultural land in the country (e.g. Shenzhen and much of the Shanghai area) into urban and industrial areas, simply because it was near already developed areas, instead of directing urban and industrial expansion onto less fertile land.
* The allowed too much pollution from rapidly developing urban and industrial areas to spread to fertile areas.
* They paid some attention to improving agricultural productivity, but not sufficiently, as the greatest focus was on pushing urbanization and light industry.
Now that the supplies of imported cereals (and much else) have been threatened by USA hostility, Xi Jinping has directed the CCP and the PRC to stop relying on globalization, in a truly historic (even more important than anything Vladimir Putin ever said or sideshows like the Ukraine proxy war) document here:
http://en.qstheory.cn/2021-07/08/c_641137.htm
Pretty impressive plan, and challenging to integrate it all.
@Blissex
You’re delusional to think that the US Navy could effectively block all the grain supplies among the Global South. They couldn’t even block Iran from supplying fuel to Venezuela. What makes you think that they could be able to block grain shipments? And don’t talk about the USN trying to capture Russians ships in the high seas cause it’d automatically mean a declaration of war.
Besides, you forget the fact that blocking a fundamental human right would be viewed as a human rights violation and the huge PR blown it’d deal to the US/NATO camp.
Time to get out of your hegemonic delusions.
A whole lot of useless busybodies disappear from Public view? How about Supermario Draghi? Heard he resigned today. Did expect him to go next after bojo, did you?
I would prefer to be the robbed and I pity the robber.
You see, if Russia hadn’t been robbed, the sideline nations would still be grudgingly saluting American power. But seeing how Russia was robbed in broad daylight, and that it is doing remarkably well without bowing the knee, these nations (with most of the earth’s population in them) realize they don’t have to kowtow after all. They know they can pursue trade relationships with Russia and economically like-minded nations in ways that actually benefit their own people.
And the value of that, for Russia, far outweighs the ticket value of the stolen goods.
The bank robber who crashes during his getaway and loses the cash AND the car AND his freedom, is not to be envied, but to be pitied.
«But seeing how Russia was robbed in broad daylight, and that it is doing remarkably well without bowing the knee, these nations (with most of the earth’s population in them) realize they don’t have to kowtow after all.»
Only as long as they are self-sufficient in both fuels or cereals, or can get full supplies of both from the RF or the PRC (and have plenty of anti-aircraft assets, and are resistant to “regime change”) and even then they may worry about becoming dependent on the RF rather than the USA. Countries that depend on their suppliers have to kow-tow to *someone*. Independence is not a matter of loud declamations, it is matter of material power.
Or of self-sacrifice: with the “juche” autarky of Korea-north, they are still very poor and depend on PRC subsidy and supplies, and Cuba and Iran are much poorer and hungrier than they would otherwise be if they could trade within the USA empire. Iran may now become dependent on trade with the RF, and the businesses in the RF are not longer afraid of being hit by indirect USA “sanctions” if they trade with Iran, as they are sanctioned themselves. But PRC businesses, many of which depend very much on exports to the USA, are a lot more cautious.
«They know they can pursue trade relationships with Russia and economically like-minded nations in ways that actually benefit their own people.»
They can do that as long as the trade is entirely overland through routes that don’t pass through any USA protectorate. The USA Navy has full control of the oceans and most seas, and on the high seas “sanctions” is an euphemism for “piracy”.
For example:
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2022/7/7/uk-warship-seized-advanced-iranian-missiles-bound-for-yemen
«A British Royal Navy vessel seized a sophisticated shipment of Iranian missiles in the Gulf of Oman earlier this year, officials have claimed, presenting it as proof of Tehran’s support for Yemen’s Houthi rebels in the war-torn country. […] The HMS Montrose’s helicopter had been scanning for illicit goods in the Gulf of Oman on January 28 and February 25 when it spotted small vessels speeding away from the Iranian coast with “suspicious cargo on deck.” A team of Royal Marines then halted and searched the boats, confiscating the weapons in international waters south of Iran. A US Navy guided-missile destroyer supported the British warship’s February operation. Fifth Fleet Vice Admiral Brad Cooper said the seizure reflected the Navy’s “strong commitment to regional security and stability”.»
If the USA and their vassals can confiscate dozens to hundreds of billions of other people’s banks accounts, they can also confiscate any cargo they want.
When the RF and PRC navies start stopping random ships in international waters to inspect and confiscate their cargoes I guess is then USA hegemony will really start to wane.
“If the USA and their vassals can confiscate dozens to hundreds of billions of other people’s banks accounts, they can also confiscate any cargo they want.”
Your posts are seemingly slanted to show uSA as a winner instead of being labelled as a terrorist. Also took note of your earlier comments seemingly saying that without the uSA Russia would have lost WW2. Well I’ve seen a lot of Hollywood movies over the years & the uSA was always the winner. I know better now – – the uSA is a criminal actor on the World stage & must be dismantled. Perhaps another forum far away would be better suited for your patriotism.?
O, Batiushka, what a neat reply to that silly would-be hoodlum.
“The cheaper the hood, the gaudier the patter” — Humphrey Bogart.
Boris Johnson, Mario Draghi, who’s next?
Dmitry,
Great article! However, one can still go one layer deeper. You implied that the United States has exhausted its fossil fuel resources and switched to Saudi Arabia… that is certainly the prevailing view. However, I just want to point out the following:
In 1973 the United States went off the Gold Standard and used petroleum as the replacement (Petrodollar). The United States demanded that all petroleum contracts world wide be settled in United States dollars, thus creating another use for the dollar in lieu of gold.
Now this is only possible if the United States buys and imports a large amount of the product. Should the United States become “energy independent” it would lose that leverage. Likewise, if the United States goes to positive trade balances (exporting more than it imports), it would starve the world of US dollars and contracts would be written in other currencies, losing its reserve currency status.
And so you get a weirdness in US foreign (and domestic) policy. It is common sense that a country would want to be energy independent and run a positive trade balance, however should a politician suggest or try that in the United States they will be met with a wall of resistance from the US financial sector for some of the reason’s I mentioned above.
What I cited above is just the tip of the iceberg as to how the United States runs the world through debt (printed US dollars) and is covered by authors like Michael Hudson and John Perkins. It is a paradoxical world I never knew existed until things just we not making sense in the world to me.
Anyway, just more food for thought…
Sure, the US was FORCED to rob the world instead of living within its means just to make the USD work for everyone’s benefit as a reserve currency. LOL!
Amazingly majority of Europeans seem to like to be vassals of USA. This has been biggest surprise for me. Honestly – 40 years ago e. g Germans were much critical to US than now. So what the heck happened to European self respect? Or is this just offspring of endless America The Beauty propaganda, pro democracy nonsense. These fools don’t want to remember spring 2003, Libya bombing etc.
Yes, an amazing fact about an imaginary universe where the Europeans are happy to be US vassals. And not at all striking or rebelling or feeling powerless. Amazing!
The €U Reich Circus ‘tribe’ dominates a wasteland, with an unconscious, atomized and nihilistic ’demos‘ that is only to pay the ’mortgages‘ of the ’tribe’ and that is enclosed in a Huxley and Orwell bubble.
Cheers
Sig: An European view
«Amazingly majority of Europeans seem to like to be vassals of USA»
It is in part resignation, in part appreciation:
* Small states cannot usually be fully independent, they have to choose to be part of some empire or “sphere of influence”, and some european states cannot even choose (WW2 losers).
* USA suzerainty for developed and resource poor countries is not that heavy: the USA just want to control military and foreign policy, and take a chunk of the local markets, and ensure nobody challenges that situation. There is also compensation: the USA allow their vassals to export to them (because the USA elites want to export jobs) and to participate in a vast trade area they control. In particular the upper and upper-middle classes like USA “protection” because it reassures them that socialism won’t happen, and that neoliberalism will be enforced.
«Or is this just offspring of endless America The Beauty propaganda, pro democracy nonsense.»
My guess from knowing many, most europeans don’t have any illusions about the USA, they are quite familiar with realpolitik.
As an extreme example here are two quotes about the UK:
“Winston Churchill in the Twenty First Century” edited by David Cannadine, Roland Quinault:
«The irony was, of course, that one of the war aims of the Roosevelt administration was the liquidation of the British Empire, and the expansion of American power and influence at the expense of Britain.
By the end of 1943 it was clear to Churchill that he could no longer rely on American co-operation. As he explained to Violet Bonham Carter: “When I was at Teheran I realized for the first time what a very small country this is. On the one hand the big Russian bear with its paws outstretched — on the other the great American Elephant — and between them the poor little British Donkey — who is the the only one that knows the right way home”.»
http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/commons/1986/jun/18/foreign-affairs-2#S6CV0099P0_19860618_HOC_479
«When NATO was set up in 1948, the commander of the United States air force who arrived in Britain with the advance guard of the American forces to be stationed here said: “Never before in history has one first-class power gone into another first-class power’s country without any agreement. We were just told to come over and ‘We shall be pleased to have you’.”»
Andrew Marr, “A history of modern Britain”, 2007
«Britain’s dilemma from 1945 until today has been easy to state, impossible to resolve. How do you maintain independence and dignity when you are a junior partner, locked into defence systems, intelligence gathering and treaties with the world’s great military giant? At times Britain has had real influence in Washington, above all in the talks with the Labour government which produced the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, NATO, and in the first Gulf war when Margaret Thatcher urged George Bush senior not to wobble. At other times her dependence has been embarrassing, in big ways such as the Suez fiasco; and small ways, such as the American refusal to share intelligence assessments in Iraq, even when the raw intelligence was gathered originally by British agents and passed on.
Yet when one country, the United States, is both leader of a large alliance of other countries, and has strong national interests which may conflict with those of her allies, there is bound to be friction. Periodic bouts of anti-Americanism inside the Foreign Office and in Whitehall generally have been the result. Anti-American feeling has been the Establishment’s secret vice. In public, successive foreign secretaries and mandarins spoke reassuringly of the British ‘punching above our weight’ and the vital importance of the Churchill-hallowed ‘special relationship’. In practice this meant sharing intelligence with the Pentagon and CIA, the intertwining of nuclear strategy, large US bases on British soil, the leasing of British bases to America, and a posture towards American presidents that is nearer that of salaried adviser than independent ally.»
«Amazingly majority of Europeans seem to like to be vassals of USA.»
There are another two factors:
* Nobody in Europe would like to be targeted by USA “sanctions” blocking supplies of oil and grain, and no european oligarchy would like to be targeted by USA “regime change” operations.
* Most european states if not USA vassals would be russian or german vassals. Most of their oligarchies would like that less than being USA vassals, and some of those oligarchies have delusions that the USA government would allow them to have “regional power”, despite the Suez 1956 lesson.
As to the latter another quote:
http://www.dispatch.com/content/stories/editorials/2009/10/23/geye23.ART_ART_10-23-09_A17_DVFEUK6.html
«Documents released by the British Foreign Office in September, for instance, show the surprising depth of the antipathy British leader Margaret Thatcher and French leader Francois Mitterrand held toward the changes in Germany. […] At one point, the prime minister even went so far as to warn Mitterrand that a restored Germany would “dominate” Poland, Czechoslovakia and Hungary, leaving “only Romania and Bulgaria for the rest of us.”»
Of course eventually they did not get to dominate Romania and Bulgaria either, the USA is firmly in control there.
A Chinese observer, Qiao Liang, author of Unrestricted Warfare (1999):
“This financial economy (using money to make money) is much easier than the real (industry-based) economy. Why will it bother with manufacturing industries that have only low value-adding capabilities? Since August 15, 1971, the U.S. has gradually stopped its real economy and moved into a virtual economy. It has become an ‘empty’ economy state. Today’s (2015) U.S. Gross Domestic Product (GDP) has reached US$18 trillion, but only $5 trillion is from the real economy.”
So even 7 years ago just around 27% of U.S GDP was based on real economy and 73% based on fake virtual economy. In UK we will easily get at least as high share of virtual economy. Most likely the share mighg be near 80%.
I do not think that The Great Reset is dead. The “covid phase” of The Great Reset was very successful in everyway. The food shortage phase is coming and will be even more successful.
The powers behind the The Great Reset are much greater than the USA. The stupid public has no chance.
Imagine a boot stamping on a human face forever.
Frankie, yes indeed.
Michael Hudson many times has proven what you correctly point out with plenty of evidence.
Printing money specially and uniquely for the F.I.R.E. sector access has tremendosly increased Western GDP but did not increase its economy. The GDP formula terms by themselves are clear evidence of such.
Today, here in “The Saker” web site, our Andrei Martyanov maintains that BRICS have a FAR larger economy than what (“false”) GDP figures may indicate. Andrei also maintains that GDP figures are not effective economic indicators. Western countries disguise their failing economies under “false” GDP indicators which do not reflect their economic reality.
/andrei-martyanov-sas-and-brics/
It starts at 09:00 and deepens analysis as from 17:00
Cordially Jorge
We (america) fudge everything to make it look like we’re in great shape. “Inflation” (the CPI) doesn’t count food or fuel. In America, if steak is too expensive you’ll switch to hamburger and like magic there is no inflation. Inflation in the US is only counted for things people don’t need for survival. We’re a failed state in an expensive suit still selling used cars and ripping people off while the wife is worried about our gambling habit and the oldest kid is addicted to pain pills. She doesn’t know we’re about to lose the house.
Im Westen
nichtsNeuesOstro wrote on MoA
On the energy war, the cauldron operative works good! NS1 is cut for maintenance. But it’s not a so big for all of EU country, some have moving capacities
One
army Corpcountry is now in an “energy cauldron” : Germany!“Hasard ou nécessité ?
You know what? Most of EU country are still refurbishing reserves for the winter.
But since 11th of July Germany is on red and now burning gas from underground storage. Yes, in July!
Real time data
https://gas.kyos.com/gas/de
Solidarity will be this winter for dummies.
That’s the problem with Gnostic crystal-ball gazing – ideas are supposed to be powerless.
As Ukrainian scientist Vernadsky showed – noetic far subsumes biospheric. Ideas have real power!
And what an idea – a New Bretton Woods, Glass-Steagall, massive credit for industrial/agricultural development!
Missing in various Delphic prognostications here and elsewhere, is the real power of creative Reason, that Kant the omnipulverizer thought he had buried!
So, first move the Kant Statue from Kaliningrad to some museum of genocide. Give the Lithuanians and German SPD a bad case of Sodbrennen – Alka-Seltzer needed in spades!
Thanks Dmitry. You really never come short of creative ways of showing an Emperors new clothes.
My personal favourite metaphor of yours is, when a cheating gambler (USA), being caught in an act of cheating (western democracy), kicks the table upside down (great reset) and pulls his guns out… Brilliant!
Dmitry, anyone that has read even a few paragraphs of any of my many “The Saker” articles (and others) would know perfectly well that I agree with you 101%. My only “difference” if any (haha) is that to your …”… people who know neither physics nor even arithmetic…”… I would hasten to add and ” high school chemistry, hugh school geology, and 1st. year college logistics”. The rest, I wouldn´t change a word. So my sincere CONGRATULATIONS for an excellent, short & sweet article Dmitry !
Cordially Jorge
Yeah, Ursula van der Something should end up being charged for criminal incompetence. One doesn’t appoint an aging German housewife to run the European Commission without serious economic consequences.
Polish President Duda, on the other hand, is a classic deluded Polish russophobe. But he is just one of millions of deluded Polish russophobes, and Poland would not have a reason to function well as a state if it was not powered by russophobia. Poles simply cannot think of another equally important reason to exist as a state. The main purpose of catholic Poles in Poland is to hate Russians, not to love Poland. (I don’t claim to be the first to offer this clue to Poland’s perennial problems. The idea was formulated by a Polish historian Jedrzej Giertych several decades ago. He was recently quoted in an editorial published in the oldest Polish magazine “Myśl Polska” (Polish Thought).
The coming winter should be really, really interesting. Kudos to Mr. Orlov for yet another insightful analysis.
However I’ll stay optimistic. EU abandon its rhetoric full of rusophobia, in autumn Republicans will take power in the USA, NS2 will be reactivated… People en masse are not suicidals.
Sorry, too late. The gas for NS2 is going to be used in Russia. Miller said so.
Mmitry, could you expand on that or, better yet, share a link with us ? Cordially Jorge
In my view, we can start with the 2 biggest problems with energy.
First – not accepting the new. We are programmed to believe that this is the best we can do with our energy.The thermo dynamic laws say so and we definitely have to obey the man-made law!!
Second – not knowing enough about electricity, we made all our electric machinery to be totally inefficient.
I put it in this order because we solved the second problem, which took us many years, but it looks like the first is going to take us a little bit longer.
In the late 90’s, the GM electric volt, was very popular. However the government scrapped it quickly and tried to promise us that hydrogen was the future. In our view, if we stayed with electricity too long, we could find more secrets about it and move in the direction that is not desirable for them.
Now the answers are here. The problem we face is that the big corporations make huge amounts of money and will not change so readily. I do not wish to go too far and come across like a commercial. There is not too much writings about technology on this site, which in my view, will need to change. Solutions for our energy are much simpler then we think and participation from many will be required. The timing for it is quite critical.
My grandfather, a German Farmer from Russia, whose family was offered a homestead in North Dakota heated their SOD HOUSE with Cow Patties.
My Grandfathers’ family was invited by Catherine the Great to farm in Russia near Odessa.
They moved from Alsace-Lorraine to Russia. Were there for quite some time until the winds changed and the government began persecuting farmers, especially German farmers.
I dont know.
The map looks the same as it did three days into the conflict.
Meanwhile more Russian soldiers die.
And the tiniest of dumbest little countries pee all over Russia without as much as a swat in return: Lithuania, Sweden, Finland.
America outright targets for the Ukranians and sends them weapons. They have soldiers and mercenaries embedded all over the place.
Russia doesn’t even say a mean word.
How much longer can Putin maintain credibility as he is pee’d on from every angle and as the number of families losing their sons mount?
It seems to me like maybe the western armies know exactly how to beat Russia.
They are, after all, led by the oldest and most worldly wise general of them all, Satan himself.
The USA does not produce more oil and gas because the “owners” do not permit it. The vast offshore fields (Alaska, Pacific, Gulf and Atlantic) are refused further exploration, drilling and production. USA would still be a major oil exporter if there were free markets there and major oil corps were not owned by the banksters.
The owners also issue the USA currency as debt to them rather than allowing the US Treasury to issue its own currency.
Will reality cause the US dollar to collapse, without the consent of the owners? They are certainly taking little effort to prop it up, so I am not sure they care, but things will get very “interesting” if/when it does collapse.
I hope you are correct about the imminent departure of the pompous busybodies.
La-di-da. I love it 😄
Yes, funny; in French, we have almost the same phrase : “tire-la-di-da”.
Dmitry Orlov summarises the inevitable day of reckoning:
“And we are all standing by, waiting for a shout of “Timber!” when the dollar/euro/yen debt pyramid begins to topple.”
The biggest shoe to fall is the derivatives market designed to suppress true market price discovery of gold, to hide the fact of inflation. This will fall before 2023. Guaranteed. Why? Read on.
As a price of gold per ounce of 50,000 USD would indicate that the currency is worthless, as all fiat currencies, then the rush out of paper currencies would be a stampede. Inflation of the currency is now at a point of hyperinflation into every day essentials like food and gasoline. The money supply growth has been soaked up into stocks, bonds, and real estate. Now those bubbles are deflating, money leaking into the prices of everyday necessities has the CPI officially at 9.1% when it should be 20% if measured in prices of goods and included housing and rents as it was in 1980.
Inflation is being hidden to mislead and deceive everyone, because to undermine the faith in the dollar or any other currency would create instant panic, and a rush out of the currency.
As Peter Ambro says, “since 2018 the Financial Stability Desks at the world’s central banks have followed the Bank for International Settlements’ (BIS) instruction to hide the perception of inflation by rigging the gold market.”
Buy gold sell the dollar; sell gold buy the dollar. The FX crosses are long dollar, short gold. But it’s all paper gold. As Ambro says, “this was the simple derivative. If you thought the price would go down, you could sell us gold you didn’t have and margin the trade in the same way. Then along came a raft of options and other products and the derivative market – for that is what this chimera was called – started to spiral like a tornado.”
And according to industry experts like wholesale metals dealer Andrew Maguire the total gold derivatives “chimera” is over 300 trillion USD. Russia has destroyed the ability of the LME in London and COMEX in New York for the West to continue price rigging because Russia is buying and trading in physical gold through various settlement mechanisms like the Shanghai Gold Exchange ( SGE ).
When the whole Western financial false edifice of fiat currencies and paper gold topple, the emperor’s clothes will be seen for what they really are.
Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping already know the golden rule: “Whoever has the gold makes the rules.”
They have the gold, insiders estimate to be 37,000 metric tonnes, but probably double that, and they are already making the rules.
https://reaction.life/dont-forget-the-golden-rule-whoever-has-the-gold-makes-the-rules/
“Gold to central bankers is like the sun to vampires.”
https://www.bullionstar.com/blogs/ronan-manly/peter-hambro-bis-central-banks-are-rigging-gold-market-using-bullion-banks-paper-gold/#comments
“Who is John Galt?”
Mr Orlov, such a clear thinker. A great mind of our time. Much respect
I’m curious about the statement ;”. . . Mutual Assured Destruction (if you ask for it, Russia will destroy it, but how mutual is that?).”
I’m assuming that means the Russian air defense systems (S-500, S-550, and S-600??) can negate the “Mutual” aspect of Assured Destruction by intercepting and destroying incoming nuclear warheads delivered byUS ICBMs, SLBMs, and nuclear-tipped cruise missiles. Or does the statement imply that a “disarming” Russian first-strike can wipe out US land and sea-based nuclear forces, precluding nuclear retaliation?
Seems important.
Funny yet reasonable synopsis of what has happened. I was piqued by the author saying that the US’ most supine vassal in the Pacific- Japan- also started to get rid of its US “debt “ once it saw Russia have its US dollar reserves overseas confiscated.
Given Abe was already unpopular with the Americans for laughing outright at suggestions that Iran bombed its Japanese tankers, does the author believe that the US had Abe assassinated for two strikes . Ie doubting the Iran bombing story and presiding over Japan cashing out of the US dollar?
Good write-up of the situation.
Does the US have a president? I thought it was a paper cut-out? A presidnt that falls all the time and stammers and make no sense is hardly a president…
The US have fallen deep since Reagan, well actually since Roosevelt, but how low can you go!
Thank heavens I live in Scandinavia (not the first time I say that), we have plenty of imbeciles here sure, but we manage them, we elect them as prime ministers, then we know where they are.
European NATO members lamenting
(6 weeks from now) :
_”The harvest is past, the summer is ended, and we are not saved.”_
To have an idea of the development of the crisis it would be necessary to know how many German households are heated with Russian gas. Then how many jobs will be affected by the lack of the same Russian gas and the impact on the GDP.
For months in many German cities, small and large, the population has been demonstrating against the management of the COVID crisis.
Will the two crises add up? Or will the hatred of the Russians and the need for a united front bring the nation together?
It seems to me that the two crises should add up and develop over more than one winter for the Germans to unite a minimum to drive out the American occupiers, to get out of the euro, to restore the mark and a leadership concerned with reality and the interests of the nation.
Mr. Orlow is brilliant and very pleasant to read. But sometimes he goes too fast. Is the dismantling of the chemical industry to Russia inevitable? For it to be, the Russians must have cut off their supplies forever. And that the Russians accept to have a black hole on their western border.
The mess of Yeltsin year was terrible, but Russia is a big country, largely under populated with 150 million inhabitants. If such a mess develops on the scale of Ukraine and Germany 50 + 80 million inhabitants with inevitable spillover to the rest of Europe and its 380 million inhabitants, it will trigger a crisis of global magnitude, also in the USA. Thus the collective West with its 800 million inhabitants will sink. If this happens, the whole planet will be weakened, even plunged into an unmanageable crisis.
Does Russia have a plan to get out of the crisis already established, with solid contacts within the deep elites in the USA or in Europe? Without this, the crisis is much more serious than we think. The situation might even be desperate already.
Eliminating the crazy gang that dominates the West from power seems to me to be the only feasible way out. And it is likely that much of the work has already been done. A secret war of insane intensity, with an outcome as predictable as the war in the Donbass, must be about to end. If not, then enjoy the last moments of good life and pray to the Lord.
It is a normal growth/death function of organisms. The US has started the biological death portion of the curve.
Can slow it down some, but can’t stop it. It will procede faster than in the past due to near instant com and the computer.
Not sure. Maintaining a global civilization that is productive enough to maintain and decommission the 500 civilian nuclear power plants scattered over much of the planet is a necessity. This is an unprecedented constraint, a game changer to the ongoing collapse of the American empire.
Once Upon A Time In Amurika.
If Putin had to be an American crime cartoon character it would be Dick Dastardly (and Muttley ).
That said, Putin’s schemes are working gooder.
Unfortunatley, most people across the planet are ignoring the geo engineering of the skies by the American / NATO governments. This program controls the weather. This is causing the extreme weather and destroying the ozone layer. Please go to geoenineeringwatch.org to learn about the damage to the crops, forrest and weather caused by this weather control / population reduction program. The western US is experiencing unbelievable droughts and heat. We are in a fight for our survival. The American CIA / military’s geo engineering project must be stopped. This is the most serious event facing our survival. Everything else is secondary. Who is John Galt?