by Naresh Jotwani for the Saker blog As tensions rise between the West and Russia-China-Iran – core of the emerging multi-polar world – many historic possibilities and opportunities open up for people elsewhere. The cause and the nature of these possibilities and opportunities is briefly outlined here, for those who may sense and wonder about the tectonic shifts occurring. Honest disclosure: The author is most definitely not an expert in
by Naresh Jotwani for the Saker blog People often wrongly interpret the process of natural selection – which drives the evolution of living species – by the phrase ‘survival of the fittest’. However, the latter phrase can be highly misleading – for two reasons. One reason is that ‘survival’ may be wrongly understood as ‘survival of an individual’, whereas the correct understanding should be ‘survival and continuation of a species’.
by Naresh Jotwani for the Saker blog The Saker recently posted an article (here) on the important subject of the quality of leadership in the US. In a comment to that article, I asked him the following question: From what you have accurately pointed out, is it possible also to draw the following inescapable conclusions? 1. Money which was poured into the think-tanks came not from the Neocon minions themselves
by Naresh Jotwani for the Saker blog Alastair Crooke is a sage whose thoughtful writings pack vast breadth and depth of understanding of history and geopolitics. His analysis is free of the slightest hint of bias or narrow partisanship – a fact which seems almost incredible given that he worked for the UK Government for a couple of decades. In fact, the sage and his writings testify to a constant
By Naresh Jotwani for the Saker Blog From time to time, certain self-promoting “brainy” people come up with complicated theories about how the world should be organized and run. One imagines that such people dislike doing real work for a living – and grandiose theorizing proves to be an irresistibly tempting gig, with many perks. Such a theory gets labelled as “something-ism”, such as “liberalism”, “monetarism”, “capitalism”, “Marxism”, “socialism” and
By Naresh Jotwani for the Saker Blog [Important note: The following discussion is based only on the meaning of the two words “liberal” and “conservative”. The author has no relationship whatsoever with any political party, think tank, movement or publication anywhere in the world which may have one of these words in its names.] The word “liberal” seems to hypnotize many people, who seem to mistake it as a synonym
By Naresh Jotwani for the Saker Blog Recently, in a comment on this site, Amarynth wrote, “There is no deep understanding. What there is, is not sustainable.” Amarynth was referring to people who profess understanding of Russia’s cause in the ongoing conflict, but who do not have sound understanding of the basic issues at stake. Use of the word “sustainable” in conjunction with “understanding” got this author thinking. Do we
By Naresh Jotwani for the Saker Blog It is extremely difficult to relate general statements about human nature to very specific present-day situations. If one is close to the scene, he may miss the forest for the trees; from a distance, he may miss both. Fortunately, Saker does not object to forays into treacherous terrain! In that spirit, we start with a list of ten fairly simple words, referring to
by Naresh Jotwani for the Saker Blog Washington Post recently ran an article with headline which contained the two phrases “civilized nations” and “deter Beijing and Moscow” (see a review here). Use of the latter phrase in the headline shows clearly that the phrase “civilized nations” here has undisguised, in-your-face geopolitical motivation. But “civilized” and “deter” is in fact a very strange combination of words, tempting and encouraging us to
by Naresh Jotwani for the Saker Blog Almost every adult believes that he or she is rational, because he or she can easily cite many simple but important examples of personal rational behaviour in daily life. Selecting one from several packs of cereal in a store, for example, or making sure that a child is properly dressed and equipped to go to school. Any civilized society in the world rests
by Naresh Jotwani for the Saker Blog Fair warning: This is an indictment of so-called ‘economists’ of the modern world, many of whom often behave like a pestilence in human form. As we all know, the original Greek word for ‘economics’ meant ‘managing the home’ or, almost equivalently, ‘the skill of managing the home’. ‘Economists’ today presume to advise countries — and sometimes even the world at large! — about
by Naresh Jotwani for The Saker Blog On this amazingly beautiful planet, a certain prominent society has been exhibiting rather strange behaviour in recent decades. Surprisingly, it is the ‘high IQ’ people of this society – its presumed ‘thought-leaders’ – who show the strangest patterns of behaviour. The ‘high IQ’ strange patterns of behaviour may be categorized roughly as follows: (1) Many ‘high IQ’ people (HIQP, for short), have decided
by Naresh Jotwani for The Saker Blog Consider the hypothetical case of an economy with annual GDP of 5 trillion US dollars, the broad economic dynamics of which are the subject matter of this exploration. The hypothetical country whose economy we analyse here is named AB, because its internal economy is composed of two distinct components A and B. The total population of AB is 100 million, but only about
by Naresh Jotwani for The Saker Blog I have tried this simple “parlour game” a few times in India. Pass a blank slip of paper to every person present in a group. Request each person to answer the following question anonymously on the slip provided. An old, richly bejeweled lady is passing along a dimly-lit and lonely lane at night. A lone robber robbing all her jewellery would certainly not
by Naresh Jotwani for The Saker Blog What exactly does “the resistance” resist? What should “the resistance” resist? Clearly, the target of any resistance has to be some form of unethical behaviour. Only that can justify – and indeed call for! – resistance. So what is the underlying ethic? The following is an attempt to uncover a possible answer. *** Imagine a transaction between a farmer and a trader of
by Naresh Jotwani for The Saker Blog This post attempts to dig a little deeper into the dynamics of ‘the empire’ and ‘the resistance’. In particular, we examine the specific psychological drives at work. Surely the Saker community understands these issues very well, but another honest perspective can still add value. Then there is the somewhat distracting effect of naming specific individuals or groups, when our interest is in specific
by Dr. Naresh Jotwani for The Saker Blog The English word ‘gut’ is rich in its range of meanings. In Biology, ‘gut’ means ‘intestine’ – as in ‘gut bacteria’ or ‘gutting a fish’; this meaning extends to the racquet strings used in sports such as tennis and badminton. In common usage, ‘guts’ refers to ‘courage’, as in ‘having the guts to take on the huge challenge of _______’ (fill in
by Naresh Jotwani Not many will dispute that ‘freedom’ is one of the more popular words in English language today — in spite of the fact that, as we shall see, this word does not even have a well-defined meaning. Despite lacking a clear meaning, the idea of ‘freedom’ is much loved the world over. Would any human being ever choose ‘not being free’ over ‘being free’? That is unimaginable.
