Buzzfeed recently had an article in which they reveal how Henry Kissinger has been lobbying Trump and Jared Kushner about cooperating with Russia to box in China.
The idea is to pull of the reverse of what Nixon accomplished in the 1970s, patching up relations with Red China to exert more pressure on the more powerful USSR.
Certainly a practical businessman such as Trump, who has no truck with ideologizing foreign policy, would be able to see the sense in this from the point of view of American national interests, and I suspect this may forms part of the calculus for his chummy relations with Putin. Ostensibly chummy, anyway. After all, this is what he had to say about Gorbachev in a 1990 interview with Playboy:
I predict he will be overthrown, because he has shown extraordinary weakness. Suddenly, for the first time ever, there are coal-miner strikes and brush fires everywhere–which will all ultimately lead to a violent revolution. Yet Gorbachev is getting credit for being a wonderful leader–and we should continue giving him credit, because he’s destroying the Soviet Union.
But although this is certainly a good approach from the American perspective, there are several intractable problems that make these dreams stillborn from the set-go.
First, the time to do that was in 1998, when Russians were still Americanophiles. Perhaps 2008 at the very latest. But Russians have had a deeply negative view of the US (and vice versa) since 2014. Public opinion might not count for much in Russia, especially as pertains foreign policy, but it’s not an entirely negligible consideration.
Second, it might have a chance if they were dealing with Russian liberals, who are slavishly pro-Western and willing to make unilateral concessions to improve relations, even (or especially) if it comes at Russia’s expense. It also helps that most Russian liberals are Sinophobes, which is a startling similarity they have with the siloviks. The siloviks, inured from business and technological trends, parochial, largely Internet illiterate, still live in the world of the 1970s where China is a Third World dump and unworthy of serious attention – as of 2013, there was a grand total of one analyst working on the Chinese military in the GRU – and quite a few of them are closet Westernists who resent Putin for banning from from foreign travel and making it more difficult for them to maintain villas and bank accounts in the West.
But Putin and the people around him at least don’t think in those terms – to their credit, they are at least “patriotic corruptionists,” not “comprador corruptionists.”
They realize that Russians would be stupid to hitch their wagons to the US, which is agreement-incapable and traditionally hostile to Russia, and is getting overtaken by China on metric after metric every single year anyway.
Almost all of the threats that China does pose to Russia are either complete myths or at least very much exaggerated, as I have often pointed out.
As I wrote back in 2009, China does not pose a demographic threat to the Russian Far East. The vast majority of Chinese in Russia are shuttle traders; virtually zero of them are going to be settling a foreign wilderness as part of some bizarre conspiracy redolent of late 19th century Yellow Peril propaganda to demographically steal Siberia from under the noses of the Russians. This is all the more true today, when urban Chinese salaries are now higher than Russian ones.
Nor is China going to try to militarily seize Siberian Lebensraum, least of all in the nuclear age. It is cute how so many alamists seem to forget about MAD when it comes to Russia-Chinese relations. I suppose the urge to see the two main threats to Western hegemony destroy each other is too much. In any case, China’s vector of advance is maritime and points to the south and east (Taiwan, the South China Sea, the Strait of Malacca). Russia is its strategic rear. This is America’s problem (even if mostly because it chooses to make this it’s problem), not Russia’s problem. I.e. something that the brighter and more cynical neocons realize, as I suppose John Bolton must have recently done.
China does economically overshadow Russia in Central Asia, but given geography and relative economic size, this has always been inevitable (hopefully it can also eventually start taking more Central Asian Gastarbeiters). As I have pointed out, Russia has little except access to its labor market and its weird Victory cult to offer the Central Asians, anyway – whereas the US has its cultural influence, Turkey has an ethnic draw, the Islamic ummah has a spiritual draw, and China has offer more economic incentives. Consequently, the diminution of Russian influence in Central Asia is in any case inevitable.
Otherwise, the draw of China to Russia itself has increased greatly, due to its increasing financial firepower (its nominal GDP is due to overtake the Eurozone this year) and rapidly increasing technological sophistication (even as Russia itself continues to stagnate). These are important considerations in the post-2014 reality in which relations with the West are strained, and the main hope of improvement lies either in Russia’s capitulation, or the coming of right-wing populist movements to power in the West.
In reality, it is quite possible a Russia that swallows Kissinger’s bait will be one that can be bullied by the United States with even more impunity.
Finally, it is on some level fortunate that the Blue Checkmark crazies and Russiagate truthers themselves in any case make any such gambit politically impossible for the United States (and so removing even the temptation of at least having to consider it). They genuinely believe that symbolic concessions such as inviting Putin back to the G8 or dropping some minor sanctions are a “giveaway” to Putin and adequate reward for Russia torpedoing its relations with China for the sake of American interests… hopefully they continue with their delusions.
Russia has spent years trying to get better relations with its “Western partners” and continues to do so. Though the idea that Russia would today throw China under the bus is extremely dubious.
What’s right on the money is that American domestic politics now make Russo-American cooperation impossible. It was already not very likely in light of the influence of the neocohens for whom it is always 1882 in the shetl, but now the entire Democratic Party is convinced that RUSSIA ASSAULTED OUR DEMOCRACY and that Kremlin-controlled conspiracies are behind all political setbacks in the West.
The mainstream position of American Democrats is now that even meeting with Russian officials is treason and should be prosecuted.
Congress probably wants to legislate for more crippling sanctions against Russia:
https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2018-08-08/ruble-tumbles-russian-cds-jump-after-full-text-crushing-sanctions-bill-leaks
It is too late, because America itself will be a third-world dump towards the middle of this century, they will have far bigger problems to worry about than the China cointainment…
There are also reasons for some healthy scepticism regarding the Chinese. It is a non-white society after all. In history only European people managed to create global empires. I think future China will be more like South Korea, than the 20th century USA. In other words, China will be big and prosperous Asian country, but not the world’s hegemon. When Japan’s economy was booming in 1980s, there was real fear among Americans (including Trump) that Japs will take over, and look how that turned out.
Curious. Supposing there was a detente with Russia and trade relations were normalized with even a free trade deal thrown in, what would that look like?
It seems like to me that there are no real synergies between the two countries. America does not need or want anything from Russia and vice versa. This is in stark contrast with Russia – China and Russia – EU where the synergies are self evident.
I’m sure there are some Russian brands that would do well here such as vodka, and there are lots of brands like Facebook and McDonalds that would do well in Russia. But even that is dubious as Russia is probably better off forsaking bad American influences or just make a Russian equivalent.
That is a short time period you are looking at.
For most of human history India and China had the strongest economies.
If you are talking about a global empire you might be right though. Only white people are motivated to try and control the world. I doubt China is interested in this.
It’s a dubious claim, and depends on your definition of “global.” The Mongol Empire seemed quite global at the time, for example. Even China during the Tang Dynasty.
And as I wrote, the US will be a very formidable power well into the 21st century, no matter what.
Hegemonic ambitions seem expensive and pointless.
China does have a hegemonic philosophy of sorts: tianxia. It was much slower than usual colonization efforts, though. Japan, of course, had a massive expansionary effort but the Co-Prosperity Sphere never really had a clear philosophy to it.
“crippling” should be in scare quotes. The fact is unless they find a way to block Russia’s exports of oil, our economy WILL shrug off whatever sanction package American government can throw at it.
That being said I do question Putin’s wisdom in agreeing to summit with Trump. It should have been obvious that such an event would produce major fireworks in USA.
Chinese people lack the dominance gene. I read in a history book that in late Medeval era they built a massive fleet…and then let it rot, allowing Europeans to explore the world.
Chinese could have settled the Far East, long before Russians got there, but did not for some reason.
Maybe it’s just 3D chess. He wants to prevent a detente, for which many in his entourage are pushing for, and which would be detrimental to Russian interests.
Well, that settles it then.
America is a paradise of high wages and not quite “third world dump” – as driving around there for a few days will show you. It’s a rolemodel of success for any country’s economic policy.
But improvement of relations with America, will not lessen their interference in internal relations, and desire to undermine and dominate countries they see as potential rivals, simply resulting in them becoming more subtle. But it will reduce defenses to these attempts.
China is currently pleasantly uninterested in other countries’ internal affairs, as it focuses on its own economic development, and succeeding an acceptable living standard for its population (which is, for the majority, still some decades away from leaving poverty).
Even if/when China becomes a superpower, their focus for domination will be in the direction East (to their cultural and racial cousins).
If alliances were reduced to such simple dynamics (choosing between America and China), then China is a far more preferable choice and well behaved partner.
A detente that will have USA abandon its plans to expand NATO, dial down anti-Russian rhetoric, pressure the Ukraine to implement Minsk agreement – such a detente will totally serve Russian interests.
You ever see Gattaca?
Peace.
I was startled and impressed by the number of young Russian women giving tours of the Hermitage to Chinese tourists in decent sounding Mandarin when I was there recently. There must be some sort of Sinological infrastructure in Russia.
Japan’s economy is in stagnation (at a high level) for the last 30 years. And their military power ended since 1945.
What’s interesting in recent years, is their cultural power continues to grow.
After end of Soviet Union, there was only one dominant cultural influence in the world – the American one.
The change for the latest generation (for people who are teenagers now) is that there are actually two dominant cultural influences – the American one, and also to lesser extent, the Japanese/South Korean one.
It is not anymore complete American unipolar domination – already there are now two important global cultural influences or fashions (American and Japanese).
This is pretty interesting, because you would imagine Japanese culture is too alien and language barrier is too much for (European language based nationalities), and yet Japanese still have growing cultural influence over a segment of the youth.
What we can predict for second half of the 20th century, is a rising cultural influence potential from China. But this will not come from China until there is a lot more economic development in China, and an internal cultural renaissance, which there is no sign of yet. Currently Chinese culture is vastly less developed and attractive than the Japanese or even South Korean one.
For a rise of Russian cultural domination, it should theoretically be easier, since language barrier is far less. Yet it is the same story as China currently – somehow not enough original new developments. The representatives of the creative class not producing an exportable culture, beyond to Russian speaking nationalities. The greatest success – Masha and Bear, only working on unimportant demographic of 5 year olds.
Both of us know it’s impossible, so why are you mentioning it here?
The risk is that Russia will capitulate. Even trying to capitulate could do incredible damage to Russia, because it could erode any trust the Chinese leadership could ever have had, in exchange for nothing. And China will be a very very strong country in the future. It’s already arguably the biggest economy in the world (this will soon be unquestionable), and its military will be built up within a decade to match this.
By creating “fireworks” (as you put it) in the US, Putin might reduce the risk of such an outcome.
One of the funniest conspiracies theories I read was that Japanese cultural output was a foreshadowing of a future of Japanese world domination, complete with non-Japanese looking people living by Japanese customs and using Japanese names.
Silliness like that is why places like abovetopsecret should never leave the Internet.
Well, that settles it then.
I’m not really into the scene, but some of those dragon ladies look pretty dominating.
Let alone that most dominant powers (like the Roman Empire) came about not because they had a master plan to conquer (like Hitler in the Mein Kampf and the Second Book), but because they kept facing security problems and solved them by annexing ever further territories. I think the British in India originally just wanted to monopolize trade (and make a lot of money), but eventually had to fight their rivals, and then this resulted in the East India Company becoming dominant over an ever increasing part of India. Then Britain had to take over after the Indian Rebellion. The British then felt the need to take over areas (like Suez, and the whole of Egypt) to secure trade routes to India, or to prevent European rivals from acquiring areas. Some of their conquests came about as a result of settlers simply settling largely uninhabited areas (like Australia). And some as a result of greed (like originally India, or Rhodesia). I don’t think any of it was a result of some inborn British desire to “dominate” the world or a large part of its surface area.
The American empire also came about as a result of reluctantly getting engaged in a couple of large European wars, and then trying to avert the risk of Europe (and East Asia) being conquered by the USSR or local communists.
I bet you the Chinese empire will evolve the same way, a military base here to secure a trade route, another military base there, then other military bases to protect the existing ones, allies to protect further allies, etc. Eventually it could easily encompass the whole world, without any need for any “dominance gene.”
It also works to some extent on my important 3-year-old daughter. At least I saw here watching it a few times.
Just because you dislike Central Asia and its ties to Russia, you should not downplay what Russia can offer CA.
https://twitter.com/AlexGabuev/status/948201660928724993
OT: Mr. Karlin – under “Glenn Greenwald”, there seems to be a stray bullet point. A bit odd.
AK: Thanks, but it’s intentional.
It’s supposedly like cocaine for 5 year olds, but hated by any children older. If they didn’t translate it into local languages, probably all 5 year olds around the world would be speaking Russian now.
That’s the point. We know Trump is not in a position to deliver, so why in the world Putin wanted to meet with this loser? All he got from this summit was a new bout of anti-Russian hysteria in the US and a possible new sanctions package. The summit looks like pretty dumb move in hindsight.
Do you know Chinese are bying Russian jet engines to power their fighter jets? They were able to copy Su-27 airframe in 1990s, but could not copy the plane’s engine. So they are bying hundreds of engines from Russia every year to power their fleet of cloned Su-27. Reportedly, China’s own “5th gen” J-20 also uses imported Russian engines.
Like I said with regards to China healthy scepticism is warranted.
Eastern Europe produces some excellent games: Witcher, Stalker, and Men of War to name a few. Of course, there’s Kingdom Come: Deliverance which apparently can no longer be made politically in the anglosphere.
Not sure why its not more Russian, per se, though.
http://www.unz.com/akarlin/russian-sinology/
That’s a very good point. I think people just respond to their immediate situation and exploit it to their advantage in a rather piecemeal fashion, and this can lead to unforeseen large scale effects down the road. The British are said to have acquired their empire in a fit of absent mindedness.
Beyond that, I think business and trade are close kin to the warlike instincts and derive from them – Ehud Barak, Israel’s most decorated soldier, went into business after his retirement from the army and said business was just like war, used the same part of the mind, and he enjoyed it just as much as his time in the army.
As someone who is reluctantly in business but whose dream is to live in a hut in the mountains like a Chinese scholar-recluse of old, I can attest there is little difference between business and war in terms of aggression and dominance.
I’m not one of those who believe the myth that the Chinese are especially pacifist – rather, I think early Chinese history was especially full of strife and bloodshed, and that the Chinese realized they would have destroyed themselves if they didn’t learn to channel their aggressive, dominant instincts into business and money making.
Its the same misunderstanding generations of Europeans made when they thought Jews were not an aggressive people because they devoted themselves to making money and avoided bloodshed.
Money making is one of the most aggressive and dominant activities known to man, and any people with a reputation for money making should be regarded as essentially having the instincts of Vikings.
Pacifist Chinese with no instinct for domination would not have dominated the economies of every SEA country they settled in.
As always, one must look past the outward form to the essential kernel as a true metaphysician must, and bear in mind that forms may change according to circumstance while the underlying reality remains the same.
I did – great movie!
Chinese languages are going to be an option in some schools now – but only starting from this year if I recall.
They wasted a few years just to approve the exam and syllabus.
The language barrier is still quite significant with Russian, many times more so than for Romance/German languages for English speakers (and I imagine for other non-slavic speaking Europeans).
For instance, my school offered (as well as French) Spanish, German and Russian as modern language options. In the final year, there were about 30 people studying Spanish, 12 studying German and 2 studying Russian and I believe that the main reason was because Russian was the most difficult.
On the other hand they managed to build an AESA radar earlier than Russia, they are obviously much better at electronics.
And I wouldn’t bet on them never being able to build a decent jet engine.
You are quite the wishful thinker!
Median family income for American Hispanics is about $47,000 per year. Poor compared to white American family income (median about $62,000 per year) but higher than in many European countries.
Mexico itself is a second-world country (its per capita GDP PPP is about the same as that of Belarus, although this income is much less evenly distributed).
America will not be another Mexico any time soon – a hybrid of America (first world country, one of the wealthiest in the world) with Mexico (middle-income country) will not equal a third world country.
Additonally, Mexican flow into the USA has decreased a lot, and Mexican fertiliy within the USA is declining. USA is projected to be about 47% white, 29% Hispanic, 3% black, and 9% Asian by 2050. Some percentage of those 29% Hispanics are themselves also white (many Cubans, some South Americans and Mexicans).
They’ll figure it out eventually I’m sure.
China has much less advanced metallurgy than Russia, Japan, South Korea, and the West. A situation not helped with all the massively unproductive zombie steel mills and aluminum smelters kept open by party-controlled zombie banks.
I’m not as much of a China bear as Polish Perspective, but their economy does have a lot of real structural problems which are easy for HBDers like us to overlook.
For a number of years Chinese has already been an option in the local grade school in my village.
By the way, to hell with exams. It’s not like anyone in the history of the world ever learned to speak a language from a class in school. They should just give Russian five years old unlimited access to Masha and Medved in Mandarin.
It started before that with the Spanish-American war, and there were many US interventions in Latin America in the early 20th century that had no connection to anything the European powers were doing. And in some ways it may go back even farther (e.g. the opening of Japan to foreign trade by Commodore Perry’s squadron; there was also an American military intervention in Korea as far back as 1871). I don’t think it can be said that the US just became an imperial power because Europeans dragged her into that role.
I wouldn’t be so sanguine.
After Trump there’s the possibility of mass immigration from Central America, Venezuela, the Caribbean, or even Africa. And really, the average manufacturing wage in Mexico is $2.80/hour. I don’t see why Mexican immigration won’t pick back up as US wages and employment continue to climb.
The Somalis already have a foothold here for instance. If we let them, what’s to stop half of Somalia from moving here? I mean why not? Better to live in Minnesota, even if it’s cold, than your shithole homeland.
If we don’t elect President Kobach in 2024 (or better yet, President Thorfinnsson) Felix Keverich could end up correct.
I also wouldn’t rule out disunion or civil war in America’s future.
IF America stays united and Trump-Miller win on immigration, then the USA is likely to remain a powerful and prosperous country for the rest of the century.
Not crazy during the 80s.
Japan looked unstoppable and if they did not make a lot of mistakes during that time by sticking to mercantilism and pegging their currency to the dollar, Japan could have pulled it off.
That is a simplification. Nowadays they don’t simply have Su-27 “clones,” but improved variants as well, probably most notably the J-16, with an AESA-radar.
Also, AFAIK, these most recent Flanker variants are actually equipped with Chinese engines, so in reality China already has hundreds of such fighters.
It’s the single-engine J-10 and 5th gen J-20 that the Chinese seem to have most issues with. That said, they have tested domestic engines on both, and I’d estimate that they’ll catch up in a decade, more or less.
Yes, as a result of a combination of the Monroe Doctrine (which were probably ultimately rooted in security concerns) and greed (i.e. trying to make money off Latin America), not some dominance instinct. Commodore Perry’s expedition was probably driven by a desire to trade with Japan, basically, to make money. I don’t think it was driven by some desire to dominate.
Russia can’t afford to throw China under the bus, but China can afford to throw Russia under the bus.
China screwed Russia in ’98 when it stole the Sukhoi design after only partially paying for the full value of the contract. That’s how the Chinese roll — heads I win, tails you lose. The rapacious informalism of China is such that abiding by an agreement is considered foolish. I’m sure Russia is cautious.
Japan’s growth of corporate debt in the 1960s and 1970s was twice that in the US, and its personal debt took off in the 1980s. Japan is a high-trust, high-IQ society, and its debt overhang has resulted in 30 years (and counting) of economic stagnation. China’s IQ is lower than Japan’s and China is an extremely inefficient and low-trust society — how long will its stagnation last once its debt ponzi collapses?
https://abload.de/img/perfidiousamericansnrjtr.png
China doesn’t even have MAD capability re: Russia.
Given Russia’s nearly 6-1 advantage in deployed strategic warheads, probably the only way a Sino-Russian nuclear exchange ends with >10 million Russian dead, is if China decides to commit national suicide and launches a (countervalue) first strike at Russian cities.
Whereas a Russian (counterforce) first strike would wipe out at least 80% of China’s estimated 260 strategic warheads, including 100% of those aboard its noisy submarines. Thus, increasing Russia’s strategic warhead advantage to more than 20-1. China might still have the capability to overwhelm Moscow’s ABM defenses, provided their nuked command and control system was still functioning, or could be repaired within the week or two it would take for Russia to evacuate the city. But this would accomplish nothing except to guarantee the destruction of Beijing in response. So realistically, China would have no choice but to negotiate a conditional surrender.
The value of nuclear superpower status tends to be greatly underestimated, because of the widespread perception that nuclear war= the Hollywood version where both sides immediately throw everything they have at the other’s cities.* During the Cuban Missile Crisis, the USA was able to force the USSR into a humiliating capitulation (and was quite willing to kill thousands of Soviet troops in conventional military strikes on Cuba, vs. the extreme care the USA has taken to avoid killing Russian troops in Syria today), due to its possession of overwhelming nuclear superiority. I think a good case can be made that, despite its conventional military inferiority, Russia is presently more powerful relative to the USA (measured by the ability to deter a conventional or nuclear attack), then the USSR was during the entire period of 1945- early 1970s, before it attained nuclear parity.
*Possibly the most realistic depiction of a nuclear war in popular fiction, is the 1984 novel Warday, in which the the Soviets launch a limited, primarily counterforce strike at the USA, to pre-empt the deployment of an SDI system: The only US cities that are hit are DC, New York, and San Antonio (the latter only because one of the book’s authors lived there).
If it’s not an option (until around this year if I recall, it is being trialled) permitted for final exams, it doesn’t help get you to university. At the moment (until Chinese is fully introduced) it is only English, French, German and Spanish.
All those options you can learn by yourself when you are older (because of their similarity), whereas Chinese is non-European language, so classroom instruction could be a helpful foundation.
Language teaching in the schools is generally poor – but for languages like Chinese it could matter less anyway (I imagine beginning stages is just memorizing characters).
If we’re educating kids for practical future, options should be updated as English, Spanish, German, Chinese and (maybe?) Japanese.
There was also growing anger in many Western countries at Tokugawa Japan at that time owing to Japan’s isolationist policy being so extreme that they refused to assist victims of shipwrecks or to sell provisions to foreign ships.
In the Morrison Incident of 1837 the Japanese bombarded an American ship which was attempting to return shipwrecked Japanese to Japan.
Japanese GDP did grow over the past three decades, though. Especially taking into account that their working age population has constantly been shrinking, which probably won’t be the case with the Chinese.
There might be more initial barrier, but at a higher level the languages are still really similar (because of the grammar and lots of inflections though, it’s unusual for English people not to do a lot of grammatical mistakes).
The main European languages are really similar though, particularly sharing so much vocabulary, and above all, the higher vocabulary (academic vocabulary) is mostly shared. So even a person who is far from perfect can still communicate at a sophisticated level.
I like to learn languages in a lazy way (just watching some videos, reading articles, and writing on places like here), without studying too much. For English and Spanish, this is not a problem.
I could learn to understand Spanish last year, without much effort (just watching some videos and reading text – and checking the words on the translator).
But I was trying seriously to learn a non-European language recently – and it’s a major shock (when you can learn the words, understand the sense of sentences, speech and even texts, but the order of the words still makes no sense, so that expressing yourself is almost impossible).
With non-European languages, the level of difficulty is so much higher and language barrier suddenly seems like a high wall.
There will probably be a recession in China sometime in the near future. They haven’t had a recession for decades, so it might really happen soon. But it won’t be the end of the world, and growth will resume shortly afterwards. There’s no reason to think otherwise, unless you think there’ll be a civil war or something, which is unlikely.
We don’t need China swapped in for Russia as public enemy #1. Just more of the same outmoded thinking. What would truly serve us best in the 21st century would be a triple alliance among the three great powers to maintain a common front in containing militant Sunni Islam, dealing with the African population bomb, and responding to any other destabilizing disasters in the Third World that could lead to further waves of mass migration.
Post Deng China has actually had 4 recessions usually one a decade. The same dishonest sorts of people will contradictorily claim that Chinese economic data is both false and that China will face a recession that they have never faced before and it will doom them. Chinese GDP growth rates have always been subject to a line of best fit where the lows are not registered as lows and the highs are not registered as highs. China had an economic recession in 1989, 1997, 2008, and one 2016. In the first 3 instances, there was a substantial nominal contraction, but countered by something like ridiculous 16% growth rate recoveries the subsequent year that were smoothed over.
I’m not an expert on this issue, I just know that they keep bying Russian engines. Hundreds of them in fact. Chinese wouldn’t be doing this if they could produce a reliable domestic engine.
Chinese submarine force is vastly inferior to Russia’s, and this is something they won’t be able to rectify through copy-cat engineering, because we won’t sell them a nuclear submarine. There are other issues with the Chinese military that cannot be fixed within a 10 year timeline. As a Russian, I see no reason to fear them yet.
Japan’s low per capita GDP (relative to 1990) is partly a policy choice. Japan has chosen to keep more of its workforce in agriculture and also to protect inefficient sole proprietorships in the service sector.
Likewise the lower per capita GDP in Western Europe (other than Norway and Switzerland) compared to the USA reflects a choice to work fewer hours in the year.
The 80s economy, even ignoring the cartoonish bubble (Tokyo Stock Exchange was 60% of global market cap, and the imperial palace was valued more than California), simply wasn’t going to last forever. Even without the Plaza Accord it was inevitable that America and European firms would implement Japanese managerial techniques.
If Shintaro Ishihara had succeeded in becoming the LDP leader (and thus, inevitably, Prime Minister), then things would’ve gotten really interesting. Ishihara was a proponent of renegotiating or even withdrawing outright from the Bilateral Treaty and developing Japan into an independent great power.
Here’s an interesting book that Ishihara cowrote with Akio Morita (the founder of Sony) in 1989 titled The Japan that can Say No: http://nihongo.monash.edu/japanno.txt
Note how Ishihara suggests purchasing jet engines from France or even the Soviet Union for the FSX fighter program.
The Nakasone government ultimately bowed to American pressure and “evolved” the FSX program into a modified, domestically produced F-16 which was inferior to the FSX design. Around the same time Boeing developed its strategy of signing up Japanese manufacturers as tier one suppliers.
Thus America eliminated the nascent threat of Japan developing a complete aerospace industry.
Both Russia and China need each other. China needs Russian resources and access to Eurasia through OBOR, while Russia needs Chinese money and manufactured products.
If either country screws over the other, and they become antagonistic to each other, both China and Russia would be vulnerable to the West toppling them. It would basically be a neocons wet dream which is why I don’t think it will happen. Too much to lose.
If China and Russia maintain friendly ties, there is nothing the west could do to topple either country.
While EE video games are a great niche product, Russia itself seems to be underrepresented in that sphere.
Stalker and Metro 2033 are both made by a Ukrainian (now based in Cyprus) company, though both are originally Russian cultural products – even if Glukhovsky is a svidomy.
KCD is Czech.
So is the company that made Operation Flashpoint, and then messed up DayZ.
World of Tanks is Belorussian.
Underrail is made by a single dedicated Serb.
Poland is ofc a powerhouse with The Witcher, and soon Cyberpunk 2077.
Only Russian games that come up in my mind are the old Il-2 Sturmovik simulator, Pathologic (extremely niche), and Escape from Tarkov (I don’t know how that’s doing). Oh and War Thunder, of course.
But none of those combined add up to the cultural impact of just Stalker, The Witcher, or even World of Tanks.
I agree with you: Japanese people are racially superior to the Chinese. But how exactly Russia or China could throw each other under the bus? This is not an actual alliance, both the Russians and the Chinese understand that. However, it is not in China’s interest to have the Putin regime in Russia replaced with something pro-Western.
Japan is far less dynamic than China, actually, with much of its structure organized in a fashion that is extremely difficult to change since it has both formal and informal elements. It has its upsides, but its one of the reasons why once stuck in a rut, its very difficult for them to emerge from it.
Lifetime employment, for example, is still considered a serious prospect in Japan, often with jobs reliant on setting up connections from even as far back as high school clubs; such a thing is laughable in China(or the US, for that matter). You last as long as you are useful.
Its not the most pleasant for the employees, but it does mean that everything moves fast and can respond much quicker.
Worst case scenario – America becomes half America, half Latin America. There will be 180 million people of European origins, 180 million or so Latinos, 40 million blacks. This doesn’t add up to a third world country, given most of Latin America itself is middle income and the Latinos here already are no poorer than, say, Portuguese.
More likely scenario – if our lower class whites mix with the Latinos, you’ll still have about 120 million European people, and a similar number of English-speaking castizos, and maybe 100 million mestizos. Black numbers are the same, and will remain an underclass, probably pushed even further under by the newcomers. Also doesn’t add up to a third world country. Overall would no longer be richer capita than the UK, France or Germany (assuming these somehow stay the same as they are now) but still be richer than southern Europe.
Somalia has 14 million people so even half of Somalia came to the USA it would not be game-changing.
But Europe is closer to Africa and there are more Somalis in Europe than there are in the USA. There are about 340,000 Somalis in the EU + UK, vs. 135,000 in the USA.
“You last as long as you are useful?”
Like those black holes commonly referred to as “SOEs”?
As someone who occasionally plays Disciples 2 and HOMM 5 to this day, I humbly disagree.
Here’s something good from the dvach /v/:
http://arhivach.cf/storage/d/ed/ded332165bfb2d4ecd778ca2fcf0850e.jpg
Most of these games are Russian.
More generally: Is Xi’s consolidation of power a tacit admission that the wheels are about to come off the cart and that a strong hand will be needed once this happens?
I actually mentioned them in my post but removed it during editing, as they’re kind of a special case. SOEs are indeed black holes of dysfunction, but they’re recognized as such and thus can be seen as social welfare. They’re also targeted if needed and no easy way to shield themselves from Party interest.
Japanese zombies, on the other hand, are so mixed and linked with nonzombies that its much harder to fix things.
No. Lack of centralization had its upsides, but also led to retarded things like provincial governments wasting huge of amounts of money competing against each other or powerful cities ignoring Beijing and doing whatever they wanted.
At least in theory, centralization improves function.
The worst case scenario is a lot worse than you think. There are six billion people in the world poorer than Mexicans.
Opinion polls show that there are 700 million people who want to move to the United States.
http://www.pewglobal.org/2018/03/22/at-least-a-million-sub-saharan-africans-moved-to-europe-since-2010/
One quarter of Nigerians say they plan to emigrate in the next five years.
And now it’s an increasingly mainstream position in the Democratic Party that all immigration controls should be abolished. Lots of Republican officeholders are also still open borders cucks.
The worst case isn’t that America becomes half America, half Latin America. The worst case is that America becomes South Africa.
I grew up playing NES, Gameboy, SNES and then Playstation. Japan has a lot of cultural influence through that. Japan doesn’t have the population China does, China is a colussus, on every metric dominant already.
Japan just went through the economic pains of transitioning to an older society with a stagnant population, much the same process is happening in Europe, where strong economic growth will remain elusive. GDP per capita Japan has done well, and their TFR has picked up.
Healthy xenophobia.
Trade and war go together.
This is the kind of Talmudic “have you stopped beating your wife” rhetorical attack posing as a question that I really despise.
Probably China knows that a war, economic or military, is coming and they wanted to maintain the same leadership structure.
More worldly founding fathers like Thomas Jefferson knew that America was destined to be a super power. Masonic lodges and various gentlemen clubs where the think tanks of those days. People talked about things including expansion and domination. It was taken for granted even before the declaration of independence was signed that Spanish colonies like Cuba or Puerto Rico would become a part of the US. Then the idea of dominating Souther American all the way to Tierra del Fuego became quite popular among the Southerners before the Civil War.
I don’t expect Trump will change things long term, 2024 will be a Dem or Paul Ryan Republican, the US is done. Debt to GDP is terrible and will blow out next recession. The political dysfunction in the US leads me to believe civil war to be the best option, but the US lacks the blood and soil nationalism Europe has.
Uhhh dude. Look at companies like Theranos and Tesla. Might as well throw all of Walstreet in with that as well in America.
Japanese is much easier because phonetically it’s similar to European languages.
I’ve picked up a lot of Japanese simply by watching anime.
Korean is more alien, but less so than Chinese, and has the best writing system among the East Asian languages.
Chinese is truly alien to the European ear. Vietnamese also seems pretty impossible for me.
Japan was stopped because it looked unstoppable and not because it made mistakes. I hope that somebody in China is studying this very seriously. Intuitively Chinese know that keeping a head low and not making too much noise is the best approach but after the loudmouth Trump call on them and start vilify China more than camouflage and dissimulation is needed.
Can you link? I remember only wild speculation but I doubt there was any confidence. England was, after all, both very powerful and quite hostile to the newly formed US and the first priority was survival.
Huh.
https://twitter.com/CarlZha/status/1026646616181071872
Japan’s economic rise was peaking in the 1980s, and their geopolitical and industrial prestige was probably highest in 1990s – yet their popular cultural influence is continuing to grow in the 2000s and 2010s.
Japan’s popular culture influence is also more strong among people who are teenagers now, than among people who are in their 20s now. It’s significantly increasing since the 2000s, and perhaps there is a constantly growing international audience of hikikomori to consume it.
Even if you think about Playstation – we used to play these without really being aware they were Japanese. Whereas now groups of teenagers are doing anime festivals in many cities.
In China’s case, cultural exportation is far less currently, despite far larger population. Japan (and to a lesser extent South Korea) is appearing to be many times more culturally productive than China, not just in per capita terms, but even in absolute terms.
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With the language barrier though, Japanese cultural influence much more visual, while American influence is more verbal. Visually already there was an influence of men like Hokusai on European art of the late 19th century. But it was for many years only an elite culture.
Not Trump, it is the GOP that is the problem.
https://nationalinterest.org/blog/the-skeptics/how-the-gop-stopped-loving-china-17088?page=2%2C
I know. Losers don’t learn Chinese. They go to university.
My theory on the underwhelming Chinese pop culture is that the censorship represses creativity.
Japan has true freedom of speech (to the point where cartoon pedophilia is allowed) which is why they go crazy with originality, and they do.
Korea as far as I understand has a much bigger local SJW equivalent problem and the laws aren’t as permissive, which is why they have some cool movies for example but they are significantly behind Japan even after accounting for the population difference.
I don’t buy the theory that the differences are genetic – Chinese, Koreans and Japanese are the same race and equal between each other as far as I’m concerned. IQ studies seem to confirm this.
Anyway Hollywood soft power is on the wane. In America itself people are getting more and more sick of what is being shoved down their throats.
In the last couple of years I’ve watched more Russian movies than Hollywood ones lol – 3 vs 2 (The Duelist, Attraction and Kolovrat from the Russian side and “Blade Runner 2049” and “Death Wish” on the other).
And interestingly enough, all my normie friends that I used to go to the cinema with tell me the same thing – that they have stopped going and almost stopped watching hollywood movies. They certainly don’t do it for political reasons/disgust of jews as I do, but eventually political conformity undermines creativity, whether in Beijing or LA.
Japan has a really, really high artistic output. I recall a study found that as a small country, it produces as much free, unpaid volunteer art on gelbroo as the entire continent of North America on deviantart; vast franchises have started based on the hobby work of butchers working full time.
There’s no sane way to compete with that.
Whose quote is that about Burmese, I don’t get it.
I don’t think there was really much hostility by Britain towards the early US, there had been not inconsiderable sympathy for the colonists in sectors of the British population (non-conformists especially) during the war of independence; and iirc the economic links didn’t suffer permanent damage, with things going on after US independence much as before.
Thomas Jefferson was president when the US acquired the huge Louisiana territory, he must have known that the US would likely turn into a continental power.
No doubt a continental power, but if I recall correctly, England went for awhile believing that the US would collapse on its own, impressed US sailors into their fleets, and feared American intervention in Canada. The latter two would result in the War of 1812, and indeed led to American invasions of Canada.
OBOR and the string of pearls are China’s move to establish hegemony over the Eurasian landmass, similar moves have been made in Africa. The military secures trade routes. Chinese are inward looking with a focus on commerce, they will establish a benign hegemony.
Maybe the relative economic security the Japanese enjoy allows them to devote much more time to art.
His ideology is Israel, which also means he needs thralls like the USA to be its bodyguard. China being too strong is ultimately a threat to this setup, and thus he will support any measure to make sure this does not happen. If China could be the protector of Israel, he would dump the USA in a second.
Maybe if they had more entrepreneurship, their economy would be less stagnant.
That said, I do wish that I had more time to devote to art. I miss my NEET days, when I could still hear the voices of the muses.
Granted.
Everything is a trade off. One has only so much energy.
I’m not actually criticizing the Chinese – focusing on the economy is the right choice for them now. Let them grow powerful. For now.
But I hope and believe that eventually, China may make Japan’s choice.
Maybe the decline of American military and economic might might lead to an artistic and cultural efflorescence.
Maybe one day they can really be edgy and ban the use of Soyuz, then use the world’s largest trampoline to get astronauts to the ISS.
These sanctions are basically just a few short steps from declaring war. Cutting off travel and trade and further reducing diplomatic relations is quite a bit after the previous rounds have already cut these to low levels.
And all that without any evidence regarding the poisoning at all.
I don’t quite understand what the endgame of this could or should be. Maybe I’m just prone to worrying too much, but this reminds me of how Saddam was treated between 1991 and 2003. All this is just building up momentum (especially psychologically) for a war against Russia.
Attacking Aeroflot is serious. Kremlin must immediately ban all US airlines from using Russian airspace – this will cost them billions.
It was a 2 way street with Japan.
They were stopped by the west, but the Japanese elite accepted this.
Especially since Russia doesn’t really need the money it gets from western airlines.
Western Europe is still much easier to get to and its politicians much more amenable to migration. While your worst case isn’t absolutely impossible for the USA, it’s something that is well outside a realistic likelihood, in my opinion. Among likely possibilities, best case is European-Americans down to 48% plurality, worst case 1/3 European-Americans plus Asians , 1/3 Anglicized half-Euros/half Mestizos , 1/3 unassimilated Latinos and Africans. A more European and far wealthier version of Brazil, built on an an Anglo rather than Portuguese platform and with Mestizos rather than Mulattos, still a military, nuclear, space, technological superpower and magnet for cognitive elites. More crowded and less free, requiring more gated communities and such things. Still not close to being a third world country.
Not sure why the rest of the tweet was not shown.
https://twitter.com/CarlZha/status/1026646616181071872
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Dj9hp3yUUAMZjT_.jpg
I agree that your scenario is the likeliest. But we should be mindful of what the worst case possibility is.
And then of course there’s the best case possibility–Karlin’s Kommenter Kommandos (KKK for short) come to power in America and initiate Operation Mr. Clean.
http://gaia.adage.com/images/bin/image/x-large/Mr_Clean_3x2.jpg
Trade sanctions last time ended up with the eventual overthrow of the Tsar, more likely they end in the isolation of the US and a premature end to dollar hegemony.
The US just isn’t very relevant to the Russian economy anyway.
White is an incredibly broad category in the US, and Europeans are dispropotionately concentrated in the baby boomer cohort that is shuffling off in to old age irrelevance.
I don’t see how USA could retain its technological edge with these demographics (how is South African science doing?). The Anglo institutions definitely will not survive brownification. The military will be gutted to fund ballooning welfare state.
The concept of a third-world country will evolve by 2050. Expect the US to simply converge with the rest of Latin America.
Well, they will do that once SpaceX and Boeing are ready next year.
This is a different set of sanctions, independent of the Skripal-related ones reported above:
Russia needs the money, but it will simply come from the non-American airlines. The air traffic over Siberia is BUSY.
Brazil is still building passenger airplanes. In fact, more of them than Russia. The Brazilian civilian aerospace industry is more competitive than the Russian (or even Canadian) one.
A triple Brazil with a stronger cognitive elite and thousands of nukes etc. will still be a formidable power.
Many Latin American countries have no welfare state to speak of. Meanwhile, they usually spend enough on their militaries.
You have enough from the oil, you cannot spend it anyway.
Latin militaries are a joke, even the Argentine junta’s well funded military got badly beaten by a British expeditionary force operating far from home. Those USN ships that crashed were captained by Latinos if I recall correctly.
Brazil is still a shithole, even if the predominantly European south has very nice areas and can function.
Our sanctions must be carefully calibrated to only hurt Americans, and not Russians.
US is doing a really stupid thing by banning its oil companies from working with Russians in international projects. It means that wherever Russians have even a small presence, American companies will be forced to divest.
America will lose its position only when the smart and creative 1% (of the world) no longer live in the US. The question is where will it be attractive for the 1% to live?
Europe?
Japan?
China?
Russia?
India?
Only in the US do I see smart Germans, Chineses, Russians, Poles, Indians, Koreans, Vietnameses, etc… working side by side. Is there somewhere else where they can relocate to?
Who’s the potential new leader to replace the US?
Your prediction about the US is more about wishful thinking than actual factual analysis.
I just did a little bit of googling. Mostly wiki. I think books by Francis Jennings should be consulted.
Benjamin Franklin’s writing that “the Prince that acquires new Territory … removes the Natives to give his own People Room … may be properly called [Father] of [his] Nation”
George Washington’s description of the early United States as an “infant empire”
Thomas Jefferson in the 1790s, awaited the fall of the Spanish Empire “until our population can be sufficiently advanced to gain it from them piece by piece”
Thomas Jefferson’s statement that the United States “must be viewed as the nest from which all America, North & South is to be peopled”
Thomas Jefferson (1790): “We shall divert through our own Country a branch of commerce which the European States have thought worthy of the most important struggles and sacrifices, and in the event of peace [ending the American Revolution]…we shall form to the American union a barrier against the dangerous extension of the British Province of Canada and add to the Empire of Liberty an extensive and fertile Country thereby converting dangerous Enemies into valuable friends.”
Thomas Jefferson (1809) “we should then have only to include the North [Canada] in our confederacy…and we should have such an empire for liberty as she has never surveyed since the creation: & I am persuaded no constitution was ever before so well calculated as ours for extensive empire & self government.”
Thomas Jefferson (1823) wrote to President James Monroe from his home at Monticello, under date of October 24, 1823: “I have ever looked upon Cuba as the most interesting addition which could ever be made to our system of States
FWIW I think that’s the likeliest version.
How could I have forgotten about Cossacks.
Another excellent Ukrainian-made game. Better than Age of Empires IMO. (I’m talking about the old ones, which I played in the early 2000s).
Who says that we need a “leader”? For the record, USA is not the only place in the world that conducts science. And conditions in USA will grow shittier over time, so a greater share of such smart people will simply stay home.
My predictions about USA are perfectly plausible, but you may be suffering from a certain inertia of your mind like a lot of people here.
So the reason for Russia’s sell-off of Treasury bonds becomes clear.
The Monroe Doctrine sounds more and more like a measure to isolate America’s future victims in the western hemisphere from European support.
Kind of like the Taiwan policy of the PRC.
That was an honest question.
Another: Is the Chinese government more concerned with internal stability or external threats?
Anatoly, do you think that Russia should ask China to help it commercialize IQ-enhancing technology inside of Russia?
I’m thinking of having Russia give China a discount on natural resources or something along those lines in exchange for having China do this.
Also, would China actually agree to do this or would a smarter Russia with a lot of potential for additional population growth (due to its massive amount of available living space) be considered to be a potential security risk for China?
You know, I wonder if a larger percentage of the African population in the U.S. is going to be made up of higher-IQ African immigrants and thus be more capable of assimilation. After all, the U.S. already appears to filter immigrants from places such as India based on their IQs (which is why U.S. Indians appear to be super-smart on average); thus, why not also do this for Sub-Saharan Africa?
If there will be 4 billion Black Africans, this would mean something like 500 million Black Africans with an IQ in the triple digits. True, there will be some regression towards the mean, but a ~95 IQ Black African population is still superior to an 85 IQ Black African population.
The Black population is still increasing in the United States. Due to Africa’s population explosion, there is a lot of potential for a significant increase in the U.S. Black population even if one selects for IQ; after all, out of 4 billion Sub-Saharan Africans (these are the projections for 2100), there should be about 500 million people with IQs in the triple digits.
I think that you mean 13% Black. 3% Black would require massive Black emigration from the U.S.
There are two ways of seeing the migration debate. On the surface, countries like Australia or Canada and to an extent the US (most of its Asian & African migration tend to be elites, whereas only Latinos are not) are importing an elite. This is essentially IQ nationalism. Europe is not getting elites from Africa or MENA.
So a race-blind IQ nationalist would conclude that Europe is doing badly. But an ethnic nationalist would draw the opposite conclusion. If the goal is to create a homeland for white peoples, would you rather fight a large amount of highly intelligent people who, even if they might be drawn from a wide range of backgrounds, could be united in an anti-white front (as the left in the West has discovered) or would you fight a much more dull group of people who largely do not have access/influence over your institutions? Then the fight becomes primarily one within your in-group, which is preferable in the long run since if you can’t win your in-group then nothing else won’t matter anyway.
On top of that, non-European migration into the EU is running at around 500,000-750,000 on an annual basis right now, after the surge of 2015-6, and this is into a bloc of 500 million people. This is around half the (legal) level into the US, which has 335 million people. So the non-white migration into Europe, despite the geographical proximity to Africa/MENA is still lower not just per capita but even in absolute terms. And this is with, as AP points out, an elite more amendable to migration.
This is in the process of changing. My own country (Sweden) will elect a new parliament in the next month. I don’t have much nice things to say about SD since they’ve cucked badly compared to their positions even four years ago, but it isn’t really about them. Even the mainstream center-right parties are adopting a harder line. There is a slow but steady change in the population. AfD is now increasingly getting closer to 20% and CSU/CDU are forced to become harsher as well. This will continue. We all know about Italy’s evolution.
Not only does Europe has much lower non-European migration per capita, but it also has a much higher base of white people on top of the fact that the people we get are on average much less capable in the event of a serious conflict. The US has a lot of things going for it, but as it comes to being a homeland for white people, I’d rank its chances next to the bottom of the list.
China has ten times more people than Japan, though. Thus, China probably has the potential to pack a punch about ten times the size of Japan’s punches.
What’s your and AP’s vision for Western Europe?
What about later U.S. politicians? After all, your quotes only extend to 1823.
What use is there in importing low-IQ immigrants as opposed to not importing anyone, though?
For economic, geopolitical and military reasons China can not afford to throw Russia under the bus in an increasingly unpredictable global environment: trade wars, sanctions, threats of war in the Persian Gulf, climate extremes etc.
At the very least it needs the stability and security of Russian pipelines pouring oil and gas into China, and the planned Silk Road pouring Chinese products across Eurasia.
Putin’s dream of an European/Eurasian zone from Lisbon to Vladivostok has been replaced by Xi’s Chinese/Eurasian vision.
Only around 12% of the American population is African-American. Sometimes you wonder why America is so obsessed with such a small minority. All blacks in America are only the same as the population of California.
African Americans on average are over 25% European genetically.
Larger population in Americans is Latinos, who are more numerous than blacks. Latinos in America are themselves of majority European genetics and ancestry (on average Latinos in America are genetically over 65% European) – a problem for assimilation I guess, they are descended from Europeans of Spain and Portugal, which is already a culture clash for anglosaxons.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4289685/
Yes, Kissinger did too good a job. Without timely Russian military pressure on China diverting resources from the lift off stage it is still in, China overtaking America economically and technologically is inevitable.
The business class will just wait till Trump is gone and get back to providing consumers with lower prices. The West probably overestimates Putin’s interest in what the West thinks, Russia is loving its freedom of action, while it lasts.
Look, no offense, but these questions are kind of nonsensical.
It’s not like Russia needs Chinese $$$ or even technology for this (technologies while are only in their embryonic stages, anyway). While Russian gov’t support would be great, I’d settle for it not trying to restrict it.
Assuming no disruptive singularities/biosingularities:
Éric Zemmour observed that the French proletariat cannot compete with the “ostentatious virility of their black and Arab competitors seducing numerous young white women.”
Three scenarios for Western Europe (does not include Poland, Hungary, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Baltics):
Most likely, I think – demographics will eventually stabilize at a level where 30% to 40% of the general population and majority of urban population will be Islamic and African. This will to a large extent paralyze society, because these people are not as docile or assimilatory as are Latinos in America. The majority will have to watch itself, terror attacks by extremists will be an occasional part of life, much more so than now (obviously most Muslims are not terrorists, but inevitably with such a population there will be attacks). Euro foreign and domestic policy will be geared towards keeping the Muslims from being riled up. Some secularization among wealthier/more educated Muslims too.
Euro extreme backlash/ethnic cleansing, perhaps prompted by a series of very bad attacks, reversal of demographic changes. Very unlikely.
Africa and Middle East become uninhabitable (due to climate change?), massive unstoppable flood of hundreds of millions, Euros don’t have the heart to nuke the desperate masses, total demographic change. Very unlikely, but more likely than USA becoming another South Africa.
An African autonomous state in America (even with all African Americans living there – which is unrealistic), would be 40 million people. A single state like Kansas, would be more than large enough for such a projec.
It’s surprising how few the total black population is in America, compared to how much attention there is on this topic. Maybe because they’re currently concentrated in the famous cities?
Monroe Doctrine was directed at England and France. They did not worry about Spain anymore. The US wanted to be the sole gravedigger of Spanish Empire in America (and Asia as it turned out).
History. Until fairly recently they were the only large minority, unlike other groups they have not really assimilated over time, they have been a part of the USA since practically the beginning, and have accordingly had a deep influence on American culture.
The wars usually get their names after they end. American invasions of Canada was first before it got buried in American historiography as War of 1812. British occupation of Washington DC was reactive.
Anyway it does not seem that British ever wanted to destroy the regime of “slave drivers yelping for liberty.”
There’s no sign of that happening so far, in fact many senior figures in the CDU actually seem to be doubling down on the open borders programme. It seems to me they reckon the right will be stuck at 15-20% anyway, and they can permanently govern against that.
If Italy indicates anything, it’s that the old parties need to be crushed and replaced, there’s no point to hoping that they’ll come to their senses and reform.
I think you are underestimating the dysfunction that the political culture of Latin Americans bring to the US.
Even with the current numbers, the last election was a very Latin affair, the Caudillo vs Evita.
I think political culture will gradually shift to a more Latin American format.
I think political gridlock will increase. And unlike many South American countries where a European-Middle Eastern elite rule, the US race relations mandate more power-sharing. And since racial divisions will most likely become even stronger, more disagreements and disunity within the government will arise.
Populist dissenters who support short-termist policies will also become more common.
This doesn’t mean that America won’t be a liveable place, but it makes me believe that America’s great power status and relative world domination will disappear and America will be demoted to a second-rate power.
That could be a good thing, US influence in Europe needs to end anyway.
I believe the ideological and cultural influences that emanate from America are the most pernicious ones, but unfortunately they are also not the ones that can be eviscerated by one great big battle.
Yeah, this is right. I’ve been hoping against hope that Trump could sort this out but America is too far gone. I wouldn’t totally dismiss the demographic risks of Chinese flooding Siberia and the far east, simply due to the great numbers of Chinamen, but indeed the draw is minimal, especially when there are so many warmer places with established Hua-Qiao communities. Chinese demographic invasion is a bigger risk to America where they have burrowed their way deep into the economic trunk of the country (go to any office of a big company). Russia is better off staying with China, and waiting for Populist-Nationlists to take power in Europe and for the USA to become overwhelmed by the scope of Chinese infiltration and soft power. Heaven forbid Apple lose access to the Chinese market! Better hand them Taiwan or even Hawaii! Time is on Russia’s side, as long as the government stays reasonably competent, even if it will be a mostly Chinese century.
Latin America itself has evolved politically though – it’s not only Castro and Chavez.
See the story of Pinochet in Chile, who has in quite a heavy way turned it into a successful country.
Nowadays in Chile, government is supporting business, even trying to develop startup ecosystem:
https://www.theguardian.com/small-business-network/2016/dec/22/chile-accelerator-startup-grants
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Current Argentina president, Mauricio Macri – is quite capitalist.
The new president in Colombia, Ivan Duque, is also capitalist and a graduate of Harvard Business School.
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Also actually meeting Latin American people is interesting – in my experience, they definitely do not seem to be the retard losers they are portrayed by American media.
By the way, I was trying to learn Spanish last year by watching videos – I was surprised by how many intellectual television shows they have (uploaded on YouTube) from Latin America. They produce more of these kind of television shows it seems than from North America. There’s endless hours of television programs where they are just discussing literature, or even documentaries about Nietzsche or Dostoevsky.
Thanks – I can see that. They’re definitely overrepresented as actors and television hosts in media, for only 12% of the population. And in terms of attention given to African-American topics in political discourse, you would think they were more like 1/4 of the population.
So this means that the average Western European country will become 80% white, with the capitals being 50% white. As the pendulum inevitably swings to the right, but removing them from the premises seems out of the picture unless desperate poverty kicks in, do you think the dynamics will be like today’s France/UK with the nonwhites running around wild, or a softer Apartheid system will take place?
Lebanon right now is 55% Muslim. This doesn’t seem likely imo for most of Europe. I’d say that France, UK, and Netherlands will end up stabilizing around 60-65% white, Germany maybe 75%, and most of the rest of Western Europe end up 80-85% white like today’s France and Netherlands.
Economically, due to these shitty demographics for the economic engines of Europe, I predict Eastern and Western Europe to meet in the middle in terms of GDP per capita, which means everyone from Poland to Germany having more or less current Italy/Spain economic standards.
Kansas currently has less than three million people. Does it actually have enough resources to sustain 40 million people?
There is a phrase – Brazil is the land of the future, and always will be.
Latin America may be an enjoyable place to live if one likes Southern personalities.
But there are certain structural problems (somewhat similar to the ones in Southern Europe) that inhibit them.
They may or may not be able to overcome them, but the way it looks like now America is converging to Latin American standards.
This convergence is a step-down that may not be disasterous in terms of living standards, but I am sceptical of the ability of a Latinised America to retain its current geopolitical power.
This doesn’t mean that the USA won’t be a threatening force for years, especially regionally, but unless other countries decay faster than the US, gradually it will become a second-rate power.
As an aside note, the cultural power that America exerts is immense, and I notice it the most when the US indirectly exports other cultural products.
As America has become more Latinised in recent years, I’ve noticed that US Latin American culture has become more popular in other countries.
Spanish-language songs and music style, vocabulary, films etc.
Eastern Europe could eventually overtake Western Europe in terms of GDP per capita if its average IQ will become higher than that of Western Europe.
I have some Puerto Rican and Cuban colleagues whom I’ve known for years. They are all well read in Russian literature (seems to be required reading). Their culture seems rather similar to Slavic culture – people are more open, emotional, laugh louder, generous with those close to them but less fair to outsiders, etc. They treat rum like Slavs treat vodka. However, the Latino culture is more sexualized (i.e, it is not uncommon for wealthy fathers to buy an expensive prostitute for their 16 year old son’s birthday, so that in the future he will know how things of that nature are done).
When we have parties, I notice that Slavs tends to mix with Latinos, and Anglos are apart.
Agreed that scenario #1 is the likeliest. That said, though, in such a scenario, couldn’t Muslim, Africans, and White European liberals ally to bring in even more Muslims and Africans to Western Europe so that they would form a majority of the total population there?
Also, is Western Europe going to remain as progressive on social issues such as women’s rights and same-sex marriage with so many Muslims and Africans there?
In your opinion, are Slavs also more socially compatible with Mediterranean Europeans?
I mean, I would think so since Latinos have a lot of Mediterranean ancestry and since Slavs are socially compatible with them.
I certainly wouldn’t be surprised if they are 1/4ths of the Democratic Party in the United States. As far as I can tell, it’s primarily the Democrats who talk about African-American issues. Republicans don’t appear to talk much about African-American issues unless they’re shaming “welfare addicts” or whatever.
Yeah, African-Americans often have more of a claim on the American identity than American Whites do due to having lived here longer. Most (maybe 80%) of African-Americans are descended from African slaves who were imported to the U.S. before the mid-19th century whereas a significant part of American Whites appears to be descended from post-1840 European immigrants to the U.S. (with Southern Whites appearing to be an exception to this rule, since the Southern U.S. had few immigrants before the 1960s).
Also, as a side note, African-Americans did produce some positive cultural achievements for the U.S.–there’s sports (basketball, football, track-and-field, et cetera), jazz music, rap music, soul food, Kwanzaa, Ebonics, et cetera.
Would Germans with breeder genes be willing to have a lot of children in the western, more overcrowded part of Germany, though?
I mean, France certainly has a lot of living space, but the Benelux countries and western Germany don’t.
Also, as a side note, if one steers clear of dangerous areas, living in a U.S. state which is 25+% African-American might not be too bad. For instance, I’ve heard that the Atlanta suburbs in Georgia are pretty vibrant.
This is mostly true. I don’t see Chinese immigrating in large numbers to Russia, at least in the sense of lebrensraum. The only non-Asian country susceptible to the “yellow peril” is Australia and perhaps parts of Canada, more specifically Vancouver.
Demographically I see Australia specifically stabilizing around 50% white, 35% Chinese, and 15% other. Canada will on the other hand have similar demographics, but substitute Chinese for South Asian, with higher weight to “other” since Greater Vancouver is set to have a Chinese plurality if not majority.
Russia will be largely spared of mass Chinese immigration. However, if Russia continues to stagnate, China continues to grow in power albeit even if more slowly, and US sanctions against Russia amount to a full embargo (all 3 situations looking highly, highly likely at this point), then the Belt and Road will eventually give Russia a quasi, more subtle Golden Horde 2.0 type situation.
Chinese won’t be living in masses in Russia, but the economy will largely be Chinese oriented with strategic Chinese investments Chinese-ran and Chinese-staffed, and to protect trade, even a permanent PLA military base or 2 on Russian soil. A multi-vectored independent Russia as desired by the Russian elite will probably not happen, with Russia relegated to being a junior partner/vassal state of China. China won’t be actually controlling Russia politically, but a Chinese economic stranglehold on Russia will mean less freedom in Russian geopolitical maneuvering. Relations will be similar to current US-Japan relation or where China-Pakistan relations are clearly headed.
I predict around and no more than 1 million Chinese to live in Russia in such a situation with maybe 1/2 in European Russia, 1/3 in the Far East and the rest in Siberia, along with 10,000-50,000 PLA soldiers. On the ground, I expect not too much to happen: The SWPL-oriented places that won’t survive the upcoming embargo will probably eventually re-open years later as Chinese oriented/operated establishments, whether for tourists or businessmen/workers, but a majority of SWPL places will probably survive and continue to cater towards upper middle class Russians. Chinese language signs will probably be ubiquitous not just in Sheremetyevo Airport, but in the entire city as a whole, with translations for all street signs and informational signs.
Once Russia ends up as a quasi Chinese tributary state in such a situation, Poland will probably really take off. It will still be 99% white, and as the first stop in Europe for the new Silk Route, it will profit immensely with Warsaw being a massive trade and logistics hub, on top of even becoming a tech hub.
I very much agree. The trouble with high IQ immigrants is that they assimilate, and that is the worst case scenario. Richard Spencer has said the same.
Doubtful claim. I don’t know any Russian who would’t be aware that China is a powerful and advanced nation extremely important to Russia.
Heh – it certainly looks that way. The similarity may merely be a coincidence; there have been populist movements in the USA before there were many Latinos in the USA (Huey Long), such movements with Great Leaders have existed in European countries with no Latinos, and Trump’s voters are white and don’t seem to be Latinized in any other way.
Or, the elite will continue as before but have pseudo-minorities for presentation. Like Obama, half-white and raised largely by his white grandparents, whose father was was from a different part of Africa than African-Americans came from, being an “African-American.” Miami Cubans or someone like Jeb Bush’s half-Mexican son might be Latinos.
Possible. OTOH Latinos might have been the solution to the black-white racial problems. If 1/3 of the US population is white plus Asian, and another 1/3 is Anglicized half-Mexican/half white, the latter would probably just be white people who are a little darker and who have family salsa or burrito recipes.* Then you’d have the resentful descendants of slaves still at the bottom but only 10% of less of the population as their share of the pie shrinks, and the rest being recent immigrants busy working cheaply.
It might be eclipsed by China, but China has no history of global power projection. So who would replace America, which would still have about 200 million Europeans*, would still host much of the world’s cognitive elite, and would still have what it had built up. The African and Islamic worlds won’t do so in the next century. Brazil, India, or Latin America itself – very doubtful. Europe will be hobbled with its own problems. Russia has too few people, is in China’s shadow, and has its own potential Islam problem. If Intermarium happens it will have too few people. So most likely, America remains the main global power by default.
*Mexicans-Americans are about 45% European, so even an evenly mixed population would be over 70% European, thus generally European. When you googleimage half white half Mexican you get images like this:
https://i.pinimg.com/originals/1b/c6/be/1bc6be58c51cc6cf4a384655455e3115.jpg
http://www.latina.com/sites/default/files/460650126.jpg
https://i.ytimg.com/vi/mk3hiZL6KWE/maxresdefault.jpg
If they introduced themselves as Italian or Spanish most people wouldn’t question it.
(for some reason Jeb Bush’s kids are the least European-looking of such people)
Here is an interesting list:
http://www.latina.com/entertainment/celebrity/half-latino-celebrities-stars
Greeks- certainly. As for Italians, or Portuguese, I would assume so, but for whatever reasons there aren’t any of such people in my social group so I haven’t seen it.
Possible but unlikely. We already have European opinions turning against more immigration. Also, immigrants once established won’t all want to see the country eroded and their own living standards drop or stagnate. There will be probably be enough of those, plus natives, to prevent this.
I suspect it will for Europeans, but the Europeans will provide broad leeway for the newcomers to do what they want in their own communities, for the sake of peace, and may even surrender in public places (gays may not dare kiss each other on Paris streets anymore; women may “choose” to cover themselves on such streets also). I suspect France won’t be so brave with a Burka ban if the % of Muslims is twice what it is now and if such a ban makes them angry.
China didn’t have military bases or ports even in actual tributary states. You only need them if bombing random people around the world is of central importance to your world plans, which I highly doubt will ever be China’s. Its really quite senseless.
I suppose this depends on whether the coloured masses will tolerate it. It might work, but I expect they will at least need some quotas, whether formal or informal.
I don’t know enough to make a prediction about future US demographics, but I expect it to depend on whether it is simply white Americans marrying out or an all-round ethnic mixing.
Relative was perhaps the wrong word to use. We might simply face a situation where few countries are able to exert much pressure beyond a regional theatre. It depends on who declines faster. But the US needs to maintain parity on a lot more fronts than her competitors.
Atlanta’s black problem isn’t just concentrated in one area. Blacks are around 45% of Greater Atlanta and consequently many of them are in the suburbs. Many suburbs are even black majority like Henry County for example, with even Cobb County managing to become 30% black.
“White” suburbs in Atlanta are not that common, mostly towards the North. White exurbs are far more common though. Blacks really dominate the culture and politics in Greater Atlanta, and even mid-level managers and below in the Fortune 500 companies there have significant amounts of blacks, if not dominated by them.
Value for money is low, with high crime rates that sometimes spills over to “white” areas, potholed roads covered with steel plates, and horrendous traffic jams. Black rap culture is ubiquitous. The high end mall, Lenox Square, has a 75% black clientele, and this is the mall with stores like Louis Vuitton, Salvatore Ferragamo, Fendi etc. with Nieman Marcus as an anchor. Majority of nightclubs even the “high end” ones play hard rap too.
It’s amusing to read American MSM – loyal Party cadre like Tom Perez get to claim honorary non-white status, but Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio, despite the best efforts of the GOP, are portrayed as just ‘plain white dudes’.
Well, China already has a military base in Djibouti. While I doubt it will ever approach the US level, I wonder if there might not develop a sense of mission creep eventually.
Makes sense.
Also, do you think that IQ-enhancing technology in the farther future would be widely used by the newcomers in Europe?
So, you don’t think that there would be a large shift in attitudes on these topics among Western European Muslims and Africans?
For what it’s worth, the last time that I checked, 51% of the U.S. Black population was in favor of same-sex marriage. If a majority of U.S. Blacks are able to come around on this issue, why can’t Western European Muslims and Africans? After all, their average IQs are probably comparable to those of U.S. Blacks.
Very interesting! Thanks.
Anyway, is Georgia rapidly growing exclusively due to Blacks, Hispanics, and Asians? Or are a lot of White people also moving to Georgia?
Russia and the Intermarium could theoretically team up and become a formidable rival to the United States. After all, combined, they would probably have a similar number of Whites to those in the United States. Of course, such an Intermarium could be hurt by the lack of Jewish and Asian cognitive elites–something which could prevent them from innovating as much as the U.S. does.
Of course, the distrust among Russia and the Intermarium should be enormous due to memories of Communist rule. Still, they do seem to agree on some things–such as keeping their countries White and European (the Eurasian Economic Union appears to be mostly for show; indeed, as far as I can tell, Central Asian gastarbeiters in Russia don’t bring their girlfriends/spouses with them and thus don’t have many children in Russia).
Black societies are built around social-sexual permissiveness. The only reason that blacks oppose homosexuality at all is because black women tend to be religious and black men more macho and don’t like fags. Arab Muslims are extremely unlikely to adopt such attitudes, particularly the ones in Europe who desire to maintain their cultures and separateness are doubling down on obstinate religion.
Can they afford it?
Saracen proles are rather reactionary when it comes to gender roles, the more educated and liberal ones are from anecdotal evidence more likely to be indifferent or in favour.
Non-Saracen Africans may actually be easier to convert, due to faster acculturation.
On the other hand, less subversives.
Interesting point about Black societies.
What is interesting, though, is that in spite of Muslim opposition to homosexuality, some Muslims do engage in homosexual acts even in heavily homophobic Muslim countries. For instance, take a look at the dancing boys (bacha bazi) in Afghanistan.
If European governments are going to subsidize it for them, then Yes, very possibly.
Why do Blacks experience faster acculturation?
So, you think that Eastern European countries–such as Tsarist Russia in the past–were smart in encouraging their Jews to emigrate?
Also, out of curiosity–to AP: Do you think that a surviving but reformed Soviet Union (perhaps existing as a confederation) would have looked similar to what Western Europe looks like today or will look like in the future?
Indeed, what would have been the Muslim percentage of the total population in a surviving but reformed Soviet Union in, say, 2050 or 2100? 25%? More than that?
The religious barrier is weaker.
In Tsarist Russia’s case it seems like Jews simply carried on their subversion from the US. But in general, yes.
It is also noteworthy that more Jews would have meant that the middle and professional classes would be more tilted towards Jews, and given their cliquish manners, Gentiles would have found it harder to break into Jewish-dominated sections of society.
Blacks are hugely dysfunctional, almost all policy issues revolve around mitigating that. Sorry your comment sounds like you just don’t have enough experience with blacks or societies that have to manage the issue.
Look at some cold hard data of Weighted Fractional Count (WFC) of scientific research output from NatureIndex.com, an off-shoot of the Nature Journal. USA does not look like able to pull out from its decline.
http://i65.tinypic.com/2re1e9w.jpg
There was a question about the ethnic distribution for the proportion of USA WFC score. Well to look at that from a different angle,
Country Dif WFC12 WFC17
USA -2937.73 18729.5 15791.8
China +2938.43 4511.28 7449.71
It is intriguing that between 2012 and 2017 USA lost -2937.73 points while China gained +2938.43 points, numerical magnitude difference of 0.7 out of about 3000 points. While it is unlikely US’s lost was the direct effect of China’s gain, China’s returnee scientist program has attracted significant researchers internationally to return that there could be a global reverse musical chairs going on with increasing unfilled vacancies.
Various other countries are attempting to repatriate their own national researchers back to their home countries, e.g.
https://www.axios.com/canada-has-pulled-off-a-brain-heist-1aba7430-82d5-4316-8008-e039d3964b36.html
https://www.theglobalist.com/brexit-is-britain-facing-a-mass-academic-exodus/
The rest of the world do not have to get better in scientific research, USA will just drop by. EU with UK will overtake the lead from USA in three years. With Brexit the EU research grants and researchers will leave UK and EU(exUK)’s performance will be better than that indicated.
EventYr Defender Challenger
2021.30 USA, EU
2028.78 USA, EU(exUk)
2022.38 USA, BRICS
2024.06 USA, China
2037.21 USA, Germany
2037.08 USA, UK
All 5 BRICS countries had positive increaments, the same cannot be said about the western countries but at these rates it might take India and Russia a long time to overtake EU.
EventYr Defender Challenger
2019.14 EU(exUk), BRICS
2021.49 EU(exUk), China
2147.66 EU(exUk), Japan
2055.45 EU(exUk), India
2059.96 EU(exUk), Russia
The WFC index does not take into consideration of the research outputs of Engineering and Computer Science. USNew already considered China has the top Engineering and Computer Science courses, and three out of top 10 courses in each category,
https://www.usnews.com/education/best-global-universities/computer-science
https://www.usnews.com/education/best-global-universities/engineering
Various ranking systems tend to favour the home universities. Taking the more neutral ranking from CWUR which is based in UAE, even though most of the elites there tended to be graduates from UK or USA universities,
http://cwur.org/2017/subjects.php#Computer%20Science,%20Artificial%20Intelligence
COMPUTER SCIENCE, ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE
World Rank Institution Score
1 [Singapore] Nanyang Technological University 100.00
2 [Hong Kong] Hong Kong Polytechnic University 99.23
3 [Hong Kong] City University of Hong Kong 96.74
4 [China] Tsinghua University 95.65
5 [Singapore] National University of Singapore 93.76
6 [Taiwan] National Taiwan University of Science and Technology 92.10
7 [Taiwan] National Cheng Kung University 91.20
8 [China] Shanghai Jiao Tong University 89.92
9 [Taiwan] National Chiao Tung University 89.44
10 [China] Harbin Institute of Technology 89.31
COMPUTER SCIENCE, HARDWARE & ARCHITECTURE
World Rank Institution Score
1 [China] Tsinghua University 100.00
2 [Singapore] Nanyang Technological University 96.66
3 [USA] Purdue University 93.44
4 [Canada] University of Waterloo 93.34
5 [USA] Georgia Institute of Technology 91.95
6 [USA] Massachusetts Institute of Technology 89.14
7 [Taiwan] National Chiao Tung University 88.65
8 [South Korea] KAIST 88.01
9 [Hong Kong] Hong Kong University of Science and Technology 87.75
10 [USA] Princeton University 87.22
COMPUTER SCIENCE, SOFTWARE ENGINEERING
World Rank Institution Score
1 [USA] Stanford University 100.00
2 [USA] Massachusetts Institute of Technology 99.85
3 [China] Tsinghua University 99.59
4 [Switzerland] Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich 99.02
5 [China] Zhejiang University 98.86
6 [USA] Carnegie Mellon University 97.05
7 [Singapore] Nanyang Technological University 95.89
8 [USA] Georgia Institute of Technology 95.56
9 [USA] University of California, Berkeley 94.56
10 [Canada] University of British Columbia 92.98
The alliance between foreign migrants and ‘white liberals’, as XYZ mentions, is what it’s all about. Call it population replacement or bioleninism or whatever, this is exactly how it was designed. They don’t really have to like muslims, or Africans or have any desire to live with them, but they need them to have their policies and preference imposed on the white mass they seek to crush and repress.
And the same dynamic is true in the US. Also your models are a bit too rough imo because you should look at the age tranches: what is the racial composition for people under 18? For people between 18-40 that are typically supposed to drive economic growth as they start families and have a high need for mortgages and consumption.
I suppose as a teenager living in a country where you no longer comprise a majority (white youths in the US from now on) you may already feel displaced and have an identitarian/tribal reaction. But maybe high segregation, poz and propaganda offset that. It does seem to me though some of the right-wing youth that emerged and became famous these last few years are the product of precisely this.
Later ones did not talk about it.
They realized it.
Actually both minorities and whites are growing in Georgia, but a disproportionately large amount of growth is due to blacks moving in from the failed ghettos of the North specifically. Blacks are attracted to Georgia like a magnet ever since the rap/hip hop industry wholesale moved to Atlanta; this, along with the stranglehold they have on city politics and Fulton and DeKalb county politics, and the presence of an existing black old money elite, gives blacks an outsized cultural and economic influence here. The film industry is rapidly growing too, and that attracts some blacks. This is the “black mecca” of the United States after all; Atlanta to Black America is like what Moscow is to Russia.
The whites that move here are mostly liberal white collar professionals from the North to chase the vast amount of bugmen jobs here, which have proliferated in the last 10 or so years. For example, Atlanta has the second highest concentration of lawyers in the US after Chicago. Not to mention global headquarters for Coca Cola, NCR, Delta Air Lines, and fake news CNN as some examples. Likewise, these jobs also attract the Asian, majority Indian in the case of Atlanta, cognitive elite.
The election of Stacey Abrams, a liberal black woman, as the Democrat governor candidate of Georgia shows you where the demographics of Georgia is tipping towards. Whites are growing quite a bit slower than minorities and hence are becoming a minority in Georgia as a whole and hover right around the 40% mark in Greater Atlanta, slightly less than the black population. To be precise as of 2017 according to the US gov, Georgia is 52.8% white and 32.2% black.
Overall, Atlanta is still a whiter city than Los Angeles, Houston, but that’s really not saying much. Economically its going gangbusters right now (the amount of cranes and brand new skyscrapers and condos in Midtown and Buckhead can prove this), but the structural infrastructure and demographic problems render this city unsustainable in the long run.
CDU relies on German baby boomer voters who will keep voting for them.
Not much improvement until these citizens die out.
https://twitter.com/EuropeElects/status/1022523896547954690
https://farm5.staticflickr.com/4606/26277498808_95d10f8519_o.jpg
How would Russia’s stagnation cause the country to become a “tributary state”?
Why would Russia need Chinese bases on its territory?
How is Poland supposed to benefit from China’s Silk Route when Russia is under a full Western embargo? The sad truth is that conflict between Russia and West transforms Poland (and much of the rest of Eastern Europe) into a permanent dead end.
You are a good Russophobic troll, but your views do not make a whole lot of sense.
Is there any actual evidence to support this theory? You genes may influence your ideal, desirable number of children, but your still have control over your reproductive decisions. Those are heavily influenced by the prevailing culture.
Anyway, the French may not have enough time for this selection process to complete. Their native TFR is allegedly 1.4, which is on the low end of modern societies.
https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2017/sep/26/muslim-majority-in-france-projected-in-40-years/
Here is another demographic black pill for you:
https://twitter.com/Cicerone973/status/1026956574156304384
Did they move to South Dakota?
https://farm2.staticflickr.com/1819/43195378384_2958a8d804_o.png
No contradiction here; religion is supposed to help keep certain deviations in check in a society otherwise you get stuff like this:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=WZ8ni5sRJkY
Peace.
The Muslim TFR in Europe as a whole is alleged to be 2.1.
Do you know any Russian siloviki? We’re talking about cops, soldiers, officers, intelligence agents, etc. These are people you really have to live in Russia to know. This is not even to mention the liberasts, for whom the sun always rises and sets in the US, and don’t take China seriously at all.
They still import Chinese engines, that is correct. However, as I said, their heavier 4th gen fighters are already equipped with domestic engines, so they aren’t that far behind.
Regarding submarines, that’s not entirely true either. In fact, quite far from it. Their diesel sub tech is probably comparable to that of Russia and they already have around 40 modern SSKs (compared to Russia’s 20, at most).
The biggest gap is probably in nuclear subs, but it seems to be exaggerated as well. AFAIK, the reports that the Chinese SSNs are noisy are seemingly still based on reports from the 90s. Nowadays they have several improved variants of the Type 093 in service and those should already be quite decent. The upcoming Type 096s might already be largely competitive.
Looking at Russia’s shipbuilding industry and its building speeds, I really don’t think it’s too far-fetched to think that China could more or less catch up within a decade. 10 years from now on, Russia’s (or even US’) fleet will still mostly consist of upgraded Cold War-era boats (which will of course still be capable, but anyway).
Check out where China’s surface fleet was 10 years ago and look at it now (or rather, in 2020-22). The Type 052C/D turned out to be the first destroyers that the Chinese were satisfied with and they started churning them out in large numbers. Those Type 096s could be the same for nuclear subs.
Look I’m not a Russophobe. I actually visited Moscow and love it, especially the center; I fully intend on returning as long as geopolitical and/or economic circumstances don’t spiral to the point of ruling it out. Its the last white-dominated megacity and the new reconstructions make it look very first world. I’m definitely highly opposed to poor Russian-Western ties. I’m just hypothesizing what a more aggressive expansionist China needing/wanting strong ties to Europe would do to an embargoed Russia.
The current lively atmosphere in the areas surrounding Red Square would become much more somber once an embargo kicks in. Last thing I want is for Moscow to resemble the street-level vibe of the Soviet era all over again, which without China is the likely outcome of embargo. If Russia gets plunged into austerity, Ukraine getting forever bogged down by rampant svidomy, and Western Europe approaching 25% nonwhite as a whole, all of Europe will suffer.
Now with China in the picture, China isn’t getting embargoed by the West, and they want a non-maritime trade route to Europe. Large scale investments in Russia, and a stable pro-China Russia is THE anchor for this to actually happen. With Russia stagnating and cut off from Western FDI, Russia will easily approve of and rely on Chinese FDI or else austerity isolationism Mao-style is the only other option. There will also be significant Japanese/Korean FDI too, but this will generally follow and take a back seat to Chinese FDI.
But most of Chinese FDI will be conditional. Once China invests hardcore in Russia, it might want to fully secure its trade route via military bases, and to oversee its investments by its own people for purposes of quality control and to prevent espionage. Once China gets powerful enough, and Russia-West relations get even more toxic and Russia falls further behind, a Chinese military base might not be an awful idea to protect against NATO which is right on its border, the same way countries like Japan and South Korea accept US bases.
Of course, once your country’s FDI is largely Chinese and most of your exports (oil/gas and some military tech) is to China, of course you gotta become their tributary. And this applies if we replace China by America. If the neoliberal plan of having American firms employ most of Russians, and Russia hosting a US air force base, and most Russian gas gets exported to America, I’d call Russia an American vassal state too.
Likewise, I’m also against toxic China-Russia relations as places like Vladivostok will have to revert to being a backwater military town, plus Russia won’t have the firepower to overcome China, and being shut off from the Chinese market is a horrible idea.
Poland will profit from good China-Europe ties as a whole because they’re the first European stop on the Silk Road, as an important east-west trade/transit hub. Bad Russia-Western relations is irrelevant for China-Europe trade, and only they’ll maybe lose some profit in the lost Russian-Western trade. But European Russia IS Europe, so no need to have transit/distributor hubs like Poland. China is too far from Europe and a centralized hub in the middle is needed. On top of that, Poland and China historically enjoy strong relations and the ports in Trojmiasto was highly important for China-Europe trade during the Communist days.
P.S. the Chinese tourists in Russia low quality and massive in numbers, mostly busloads of 60 year old aunties on budget tours with Sovok sights as the staples. Russia needs to replace at least half of these Chinese tour guide-led buses with Koreans and high end, small group Chinese tourists.
I heard in Europe it’s considered racist and against the law to even talk about Muslim TFR. Doubtful, that they have reliable statistics on the subject, but it has to be substantially above the native European fertility.
Relative to China, all countries are going to stagnate. The only country that is going to become less dependent on other countries is China.
You continue to make zero sense: how is Poland a ” first European stop on the Silk Road” with a big, beautiful Iron Curtain on its Eastern border? 🙂
In the scenario you describe Chinese would have no choice, but to end their Silk Road in Russia. They could try routing it via Turkey, bypassing conflict-ridden Eastern Europe altogether, but then Iran’s isolation will present another major problem for the Chinese.
But why in the world would they build it in Poland? Did you look at the map? Poland is not “in the middle” of Europe, it is right on the fringes of it and virtually land-locked.
Is it possible to steer the SJWs into attacking the IQ fetishists like Steve Sailer et al instead of the WNs at least in the meantime? My thoughts are that IQ fetishists, transhumanists, MRAs, and alt righters are not really WNs or even pro-white per se, but they are still despised by SJWs and liberals just the same, so it will be very useful to manipulate the anger of SJWs and liberals towards them instead, and to take some of the heat off the WNs, and I remember in a survey about how something like 40 or 35 percent of Stormfronts’ is female, i can safely say that that is multiple times higher than the female percentage among Unz review commenters. Like if Germany hates both France and Russia, can France make Germany go after Russia first while france uses that chance to fortify its border and buy time?
The other options is to reduce capital flight into the West and invest more in the country.
Russia’s debt is low and the balance of trade is positive.
JP and SK acccept American bases because they were occupied by America after the Pacific War and later wanted deterrence against USSR, PRC and DPRK. Russia’s deterrence is the Russian nuclear arsenal.
And the rest of the Russian security forces can secure trade routes without any Chinese bases.
Russian exports to EUrope are still more than four times as large as Russian exports to China.
“CEO of TechnoNICOL, a Russian maker of construction materials, which is trying to launch production in the Russian Far East,says it is still much easier to export to EU than to China due to lower tariffs and better cross-border transport infrastructure.”
https://twitter.com/ArtyomLukin/status/1021687354673836032
I mean it can be very useful if the liberals can be made to go doxx and go after Daniel Chieh and Twinkle and Wizard of Oz instead of true pro-whites and WNs.
“Stagnation” is a trope, frequently applied to Putin’s Russia. In reality it’s closer to 2% annual GDP growth. Against the backdrop of a declining population, it means that living standards will actually improve.
There will no public pressure on the government to radically change its foreign or domestic policies. There will be certainly no popular or elite support for selling the country to the Chinese. It’s just another Russophobic trope.
The Chinese seem to be able to mass produce anything quickly (and even training large number of troops is something not beyond their abilities), the difficulty is getting the ability to design and build the prototypes of high tech weapons systems. Once they are there (and they are getting there fast), they will quickly mass produce a huge arsenal of it and train the troops to operate them. And they are already very close. They will have a fully operational modern carrier by the mid-20s (and two others, one with a Soviet built hull and another based on that, albeit both probably more modern than the Kuznetsov – maybe the Kuznetsov will be close to them after its current refit? I doubt it could be better than the Chinese ones) and probably a large carrier fleet sometime in the 2030s. I don’t know if they are planning to build up their nuclear forces (they certainly have the plutonium for a much larger arsenal, and they could easily produce more plutonium either), but otherwise probably their military will be fully competitive with the American one by then. The Russian military will be a distinct third in that race.
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Dj0zMW8WwAAHGDn.jpg
http://www.imf.org/en/Publications/CR/Issues/2018/07/25/Peoples-Republic-of-China-2018-Article-IV-Consultation-Press-Release-Staff-Report-Staff-46121
Such a friendly attitude. But that’s not how purges tend to work. The Enemy makes few distinctions, you’ll get purged right along with everyone else.
Like how the Imperium of Man sucessfully diverted the Tyrannids into going after the Orks?
The PRC’s ability to build up their nuclear forces is smaller than you think.
http://fissilematerials.org/blog/2018/01/chinas_fissile_material_p.html
Race mixees whatever their political persuasion deserve to be hit hard.
Focus on getting power first.
First of all, the iron curtain between Russia and the EU (if it will even exist as anything more than a glorified free trade area as all of this fully kicks into gear) will be a lot more porous than the US-Russian iron curtain over the Atlantic, as the Iran relations have shown.
Second of all, this iron curtain will be for EU-Russia trade, not EU-China trade. Since China will have good relations with both Russia and Poland, this iron curtain will be meaningless for China, as such a Silk Route will likely be China owned and thus almost seen as quasi-Chinese territory, even if it blatantly technically crosses the “iron curtain”.
The hub is for a place that’s BETWEEN the heart of Europe and China, and if Russia gets embargoed, Poland will take this place. Poland will have the advantage of being in the EU while being closer to China than pretty much everyone else in the EU that’s relevant. Granted, I’m not 100% sure whether the EU has an entity will survive in the long run, but the business-friendly institutions will likely be there in Poland.
I’d rather want Russia to be in this role of course. Moscow is truly one of the flagship cities of this world, which Warsaw will never be able to replicate. If anything with London (and perhaps Paris too) hovering at 50% white, it might already be the flagship European megacity by now, just extremely underrated. All of this will be moot if the embargo gets a green light of course especially by the EU; this is why I’m vehemently opposed to Russophobic hysteria. Likewise, St. Petersburg is already on par with cities like Barcelona, just criminally underrated and will actually be equal in recognition and popularity if its able to successfully compete for the same European tourists that’s already going in masses to Budapest/Prague.
Do you have a real-life historical example?
Call me a white supremascist, but I’m counting on racially inferior Mongoloids not being able to develop their own advanced military technology without a Soviet/American example for them to copy. Let’s not forget that everything Chinese achieved thus far was only made possible by copying stuff white people made.
Our naval expert Martyanov says that Chinese surface vessels lack serious firepower. Not really suitable for anything, but patrolling China’s shores.
Zimmerman telegram, sort of? Or the October Revolution? Or how 9/11 made the US lose its focus on countering China in the Pacific and go after Arabs and Muslims instead? In fact the entire IQ fetishism my be an attempt by white asian race mixers to divert the issue and take the heat off them and shift the ire to blacks, mexicans, and muslims instead.
So which country are you hoping to be?
https://twitter.com/ArtyomLukin/status/1021332058709405696
Maybe the WNs could start a false flag incident?
Sure. People underestimate the productivity of modern agriculture. The US can feed well more than a billion people just by turning over the areas currently used for growing livestock feed and crops for ethanol/biodiesel to crops grown for human consumption.
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DkHEXwKWwAEuWhR.jpg
I can guarantee you that Russians won’t allow the Chinese own any territory within Russia’s borders. Goods entering Russia from the EU will have to pass Russian customs control. Chinese government will have no way of monitoring goods while they traverse the Russian territory. There will be nothing to stop the sanctioned Russian entities from buying Western goods via Chinese intermediaries or shell companies.
And that means Russia won’t actually be embargoed. So WTF are you even talking about? How does a country like Russia, the world’s number no.1 exporter of energy, a major transit hub between China and Europe becomes “isolated”, “falls behind” the West, grows heavily dependent on China’s FDI and eventually ends up in China’s servitude?
Are you from Poland by any chance? That would explain anti-Russian bullshit.
For what aim? Trying to get the ”IQ fetishists” purged simply means that the range of acceptable opinions moves away from your side.
Will a 98 percent Slavic Russia that retrenches to the teritory of the Kievan Rus be able to survive economically?
I don’t think this matters much. Look at the ghettos where Haredi Jews live in Israel.
What is the IQ needed in order to make a pleasant place to live in? I mean the media IQ of Sweden in 1935 cannot be too much 100 right? Philosophically speaking, i am against trnshumanism or cyborgism since it will ruin the sanctity of the human body, and i take Musk’s view against fully autonomous AI, so i favor some hard limit with respect to machine intelligence.
In that fictional example, it created superorks and tyranids.
The hope is that the non-WN right and the liberals will end up killing each other and the WNs can just BTFO and hunker down and pick up the pieces after both sides are weakened enough from bleeding each other white, like what happened with the Byzantines and Sasanids. Or how the Western Allies was fighting only the fag ends of the Wehrmacht on the Western front.
To be a pleasant place I actually believe culture matters the most. To be a powerful country is a different matter, and in that case I believe it is difficult if average IQ level is too low.
But the point is that the people who would purge IQ fetishists would also purge racialists.
I’m from an undisclosed territory in Asia, so no not Polish lol. But I do have relatives with deep Polish experience.
I’m anti-svidomy and anti-Russophobic hysteria. As I said, I’m just hypothesizing what if Russia-Western relations plunges to Iran-Western relation levels with the backdrop of a growing China that wants to strengthen its ties with Europe via a stable land-based trade route.
I personally want to see a Russia that has strong, equally good partnerships with everyone except for the hysterical Russophobes and svidomists, with Deng-era China as a template, and act as an important swing/mediator state in the 21st century, with a non-oil dependent diversified, globally integrated first world economy.
An economy that specializes and globally leading in at least half of, if not all of the following: heavy industries, manufacturing, software IT, electronics, tourism, Europe-Asia logistics, and finance instead of just oil/gas and military tech. And of course, one without Central Asian gasterbeiters and that can bring Moscow’s reconstruction to Vladivostok and most of the oblast capitals in between. The highly successful world cup was a great step in this direction.
And btw, Iran for all intents and purposes, is embargoed by the West. There is still bits and pieces of trade going on. That’s the situation I’m talking about, not North Korea, regarding the endgame of neoliberalism.txt and svidomy unholy alliance of crusade against Russia. Hot war is definitely out of the picture, but such an Iran situation is likely.
Lynn and the Finnish gentleman reckoned 90 is required for a modern state, smart fractions can mitigate the effects of a low IQ populace but you really want a homogenous country with a high IQ, like Japan. South Africa is a real mess, as is Brazil.
Muslims don’t place much stigma on “tops” and don’t consider that to be homosexuality. I heard a credible account from a gay “bottom” who had a very enjoyable sexual holiday in rural Turkey, with people who didn’t speak much English.
Belarus might be willing to acquire the infrastructure to handle the China side of things, but not very likely to have the ability to handle the European side. It has only 10 million people, and its not integrated enough with other European states to be such a hub, nor does it have the necessary institutions and infrastructure to support such an important role. With Belarus’s hardcore Sovokism and apparently also some early signs of svidomy, Minsk is the last place I’d imagine as a “port” city.
I may be wrong though, as I have zero knowledge of Belarus.
It looks like USA is backtracking on sanctions already. Aeroflot will not be banned from flights to USA.
https://www.reuters.com/article/usa-russia-sanctions/u-s-says-russia-sanctions-to-target-security-related-goods-idUSS8N1TG018
Agree. Also –
Russia’s post-Communist behavior has also been cause for much mistrust. By the time any rapprochement would be possible, Russia would probably be deeply integrated into the Chinese system.
Muslim percentage would have been higher than in the EU, but also generally less troublesome, unless the Americans managed to successfully stir them up.
And those frontier inhabitants were not wrong, though exaggerated. The British were indeed arming Native American tribes.
And as you noted, the US was quite confident, almost mystically, that Canada would shortly be added to the country. Either to “free them from oppression” or to due to much more mercenary concerns of urbanized cities to add to the US, the devotees of Manifest Destiny felt that it was an inevitability that Canada would be added to the US, giving up mostly only after the War of 1812. Its surprising if the British were not hostile, given that they were basically being actively threatened with invasion on their remaining NA holdings.
Thanks for the reference to Francis Jennings! I will check out some of his books this weekend.
Talking about South Africa, it seems that South Africa will eventually stabilize as a 5% white country way down the road assuming genocide or race war doesn’t happen. Wonder how “developed” it will be by then.
Again, when some alt-righters talk about race war, I use South Africa as the bellwether. There will be no race riots anywhere in the world unless South Africa goes down in flames Yugoslavia-style. Whats going on in Italy isn’t a race war, but just a pushback against illegal immigration and crime.
South Africa may very well be the next Syria, and will probably mark the first time a relevant country with a globally connected economy plunges into hot civil war in a while (with the last being Yugoslavia). Never underestimate 5 million Dutch, French, and English descended whites vs 60 million pure Bantu blacks, even if they armed similarly.
I think Brazil’s “Venezuela moment” will come more or less around the time South Africa plunges into civil war. Both scenarios I predict to happen circa 2030 or so.
Well the Deripaska sanctions blew up in their faces and meaningful sanctions have been seen as a failure since. I am not sure what to make of these new sanctions, those ones proposed by the Israel lobby in Congress won’t happen, Europe won’t tolerate.
But is it not enough for maybe a thousand warheads or so? Okay, they’d need tritium, too. Anyway, they could easily build new plants to produce more plutonium. I’m sure it’s more a question of a political decision than anything else.
For other nuclear powers (the UK, France, India, Pakistan, Israel, North Korea) it might be a question of budgetary constraints, but I don’t think it plays a role in China. Don’t forget that their military buildup in general was quite muted until recently.
Correct.
One historical example is the 1930s USSR. While nationalists of all sorts (including Eurasianists) were killed, as admittedly were the geneticists, the psychometrists were merely banned from publishing their work from 1936.
In this analogy, while Steve and I get banned from the Internet, the likes of Nznz will be getting dragged down to the basement.
PS. The caliber of the people who tell me to go back to America is, as usual, noted.
So you are a mixed-race half-Polish person in Asia? That would be unusual.
You may be not very familiar with Russia as a country. It is not the kind of country that trades its sovereignty for security and a bit of FDI. Russia is in fact exporting security to other countries. Has no shortage of money either, being the world’s largest exporter of hydrocarbons. We haven’t been a “tributary state” since the Mongol era – not a time we want to relive.
The argument he’s making is that if Russia’s relations with the West (inc. the EU) start resembling Iran’s relations with the United States, then that is likely what will happen.
I seems plausible, though of course I don’t see it going as far as he projects – certainly having PLA bases seems implausible. (Considering the controversy over the minor non-military logistics hub in Ulyanovsk to support NATO in Afghanistan).
What would be the end goal for Russia in pursuing a rapproachment with “Intermarium”?
Subordinating and partially cannibalising “Intermarium” would seem like a more promising approach. Especially once US is out of the picture and Western system is no more.
What is the IQ of native Austrians or Lombardians or Italian Swiss?
Has Iran become a “tribute country” to China, or did I miss something? His argument is bunk.
I don’t see how China’s belt and road initiative could even function under such conditions.
I wouldn’t say that Russia behaved too awfully to Eastern Europe.
Russia did make some key strategic mistakes. First of all, relying on a guy as corrupt as Yanukovich to run Ukraine was stupid. If anything, an economic-oriented, pragmatic partnership with Tymoshenko’s Ukraine would’ve worked out better, where relations while not good more like relations with Georgia now, than the svidomy quagmire today.
Second of all, Russia has been unable to convert its military tech to being a civilian industry powerhouse. Even Embraer managed to left Sukhoi in the dust. A civilian economy based on energy AND manufacturing, the latter of which is clearly doable given the amount of high quality military tech its producing post-Yeltsin, is much better than a civilian economy based on just energy. And having its own competitive brands, or simply manufacturing for foreign companies like what China has been doing, makes it less susceptible to sanctions, and much more difficult to even lobby for sanctions and broken relations in the West and Ukraine in the first place.
Third of all, the complete failure in soft power. For example, Serebro’s Russian songs could’ve been the spearhead of a global Russian pop culture wave; they’re hot and have a unique sound that’s not a blatant copy of America (looking at Timati and Egor Krid here). Or Red October candies and chocolates. And also the failure to develop a tourism industry (no busloads of cheap Chinese tourists that don’t contribute to the Russian economy at all don’t count). Russia’s European culture/history, girls, and Soviet past should’ve translated to a very robust entertainment and tourism industry by now.
Doing all of that would’ve made Russia much more attractive to not just Eastern Europeans but the rest of the West, and Russia would’ve gained so much more leverage on Eastern Europe too. In essence, Russia should’ve followed the Chinese economic model while leveraging far more its European culture and recent Soviet history.
Very nice, I like that New York-Moscow direct flight.
Yugoslavia-esque may happen in South Africa, but it won’t be a “race war.” I’m actually somewhat familiar with people from that place, any actual effort to overthrow the government through violence will involve alliances with Africans. The wildest idea I heard was to encourage an invasion from a neighboring country, and then assist the invaders, leveraging themselves so the Afrikaaners will be placed in a better position. This also makes it much harder for the UN or other agency to simply North Korea them.
There’s a certain level of amorality to this, and it should not be forgotten: Afrikaaners have become Africans. Different kind of African than the blacks, of course. But Africans. You become who you fight eventually.
Iran is much less strategically important for China than Russia. Russia is China’s strategic rear and a really important 2-way gate for land-based European trade while Iran is some smaller far away land that’s not really on the urgent list for China.
Friendly relations between neighbors generally preferable to hostile ones, assuming decent behavior by each. For both Russia and Intermarium.
Based on the fantasy that parts of Intermarium love Russia and want to be liberated by it, which is not the case.
Intermarium will have about 70% of Russia’s population or 90% of Russia’s Slavic population. Not so easy to subvert and destroy.
Based on the fantasy that USA will collapse and disappear.
No official figures by race are collected in France. There is appreciable emigration from France (and Britain) by the attainment–orientated indigenous. Emigration of the most valuable indigenous families is a thing that is too rarely brought up when future demographics are discussed in relation to economic and political forecasts. The Rivers Of Blood speech concerned indigenous emigration:
A common theme by those articulating the business point of view for the future of the West is that the best elements from all over the world will come and be assimilated (with the unspoken strategy that the resultant population will not vote for Right wing parties). However, the traditional support of proletarian parties is disproportionately affected by emigration. Frank Field noted in a BBC documentary that whole families of staunch indigenous Labour supporters were leaving Britain because their areas were being transformed, as leaving takes money those are the people the country can ill afford to lose (Guardian:Why is Frank Field still an MP for the Labour party?).
An analysis of Nazi planning documents from Architects of Annihilation: Auschwitz and the Logic of DestructionBy Gotz Aly, Susanne Heim.
The ‘racial’ criteria boiled down in practice to whether people were economically valuable . And I suppose some of the opposition to closing borders against economic migrants is motivated by a desire to get the most economically valuable people (who are the ones best able to leave their country) to legally come to the West. But they forget they’ll lose a lot of the indigenous people who keep society and politics running smoothly. That is economists’ projections for you: depend on certain assumptions, and not at all robust.
I think this is Rope-a-dope of the West (seen as overheating, and crisis-bound). There is support in Putin’s own writing for this view.
If Russia is looking for great power allies in the medium tern India might be ideal; they could complement each other strategically and economically. Ultimately, China is going to frighten a lot of countries into banding together.
Why are streets in the US worse than Mogadishu, and why are there people shooting up heroin by the traffic light? (And I am not talking about Chicago, Cleveland, Detroit, Baltimore, or some other shithole town. This is in a city considered really dynamic – not San Francisco where you have to step carefully around the human waste and needles.) And why can’t Juan and Bufanaquishria read above a fourth grade level? All forms at the hospital are being rewritten at a lower level because aren’t accommodative enough. Priorities in America are FUCKED. I hope Russia bans the US from the International Space Station so maybe the blue checkmarked subhumans will pause when they realize the only way up is to ride Rachel Maddow’s dirty strapon. NASA realizes that it’s finished if it relies on Musk’s or Bezos’s pieces of shit and the sky rains down barbecued astronaut limbs.
I love Masha and the Bear! Probably more than my child.
Talking about flights, my wish list would be a 3x weekly Aeroflot A330 flight to Taipei, and a daily Cathay Pacific A350 to Domodedovo. Also for both Korean Air and Japan Airlines to upgauge to 777-300ER on their Moscow flights (and still fill them up).
And of course, a resumption of Russia-Ukraine flights, hopefully to 2013 levels.
Most Eastern Europeans would disagree, and this is what matters.
Agreed. But keep in mind that such a Ukraine would have drifted into the EU and possibly (but less likely) NATO. It would have been a relatively Russia-friendly country, such as Bulgaria or Greece*, within these organizations, but it still would have been lost to Russia. Russia gambled on Yanukovich because he was the only one who would have bound Ukraine to Russia and cut it off from the EU.
It was a failed gamble.
In terms of geopolitical orientation and attitude, Russia tried to turn Ukraine into another Belarus rather than allowing it to become another Bulgaria, and instead ended up with another Poland. But got Crimea as a consolation prize.
*Ukraine really wasn’t that hostile to Russia prior to 2014. Even something like 60% of western Ukrainians had a friendly attitude towards Russia. It is a reasonable possibility that if not for 2014 Ukraine and the rest of eastern Europe would have had an Orban-style attitude towards Russia and the West.
Aeroflot didn’t have limits for layovers. So I used to pay for a ticket from New York to Kiev, with a one week “layover” in Moscow. Flew to two countries for the price of one.
Personally, I’m more of an advocate for strong Russia-South Korea and Russia-Japan relations. These should be the countries that Russia should be buying high tech equipment that it can’t manufacture from. IMO Japan and Russia complement each other much better than India, if the Kurils issue can be solved.
Hopefully Japan can spend 2-3% of the GDP on defense and actually defend itself on its own. Japan can become a great power, and the perfect partner for Russia, if this can be pulled off
The East Indies also had people of European and Eurasian descent, who formed a separate society, but their descendants either left for Europe or assimilated into local cultures.
But why? Its not due to lack of coders, obviously.
My theory is some form of brain drain, which for some reason, isn’t hitting the other EE countries. I once knew a really good Russian coder who developed an entire reworked mod for Rimworld, basically writing it alone. He was working in Germany as some sort of airport security guard, probably because of the pay differential(staggering underemployment, really). When I last spoke with him, he was writing his own game, but I imagine if anything comes from it, it’ll be published as German, not a Russian game.
Russia doesn’t do much trade with the USA and could weather a full US embargo (still unlikely) without much difficulty. A full Western embargo would be a big problem, but that isn’t going to happen.
I’m going to put this gently.
You are an idiot.
The difference between the Dutch in the East Indies is that they moved there when the East Indies was a Dutch colony and left when the Dutch government retreated. They were solely there because it was Dutch territory
The Afrikaners on the other hand, have severed all their ties with the Netherlands, and established nationhood and even a language in South Africa. They have no familial or spiritual ties to Europe at all, and South Africa is their only place that they can call their homeland, which they have done so since 1652. I doubt even the majority of them will emigrate.
I wouldn’t know, but for those who stay, as Chieh says, the difference between the Boers and the black Africans will continue to lessen until they go completely native.
Pretty much everyone who can leave is trying to do so, or exploring options to do so. Many of those with money/elite already had setup some sort of bolthole arrangement for emigration. As is typical, the elite have abandoned the proles to their fate.
But yes, the other option(mainly for the non-elite) is to “assimilate” into the increasing dysfunctional mess that is South Africa. Khoi King Khoebaha III declared independence from South Africa(just happened a few days ago). The Coloured were doing some sort of exclusion policy not too long ago, and I imagine some of the whites might back them up. Of course, Zuma had some whites supporting him hoping that he was going to come out at top as the Big Man. Overall, its pretty much balkanization held back briefly by kleptocracy.
No real unity, ethnic or otherwise. Everyone for himself.
Perfect Africa.
No, Japan wouldn’t even consider that because it would be percieved as encirclement by China. Although the thought of exploiting Siberia makes Japan’s mouth water, they want in on the Chinese market above all else.
Pretty easy once you recognise that “Intermarium” is far from a coherent entity. As a matter of fact, “Intermarium” is not even a thing, hence the scare quotes.
As a superpower with both capability and willingness to protect “Intermarium” from Russia, it certainly will.
You just explained how China needs Russia a lot more than it needs Iran. But doesn’t that give Russia leverage with China? Shouldn’t China pay a tribute to have Russia on its side?
I still don’t see why Russia would want to accept limitations on its sovereignty and host Chinese military bases. It makes no sense, because Russia values its independence.
We are discussing the future, not today. Today Russia is realistically incapable of doing much beyond Donbas.
Again, fantasy. Capability to send large amounts of arms and instigate sanctions will continue. This would be enough, for an entity of over 100 million eastern Europeans to keep Russia at bay. And by that time Russia will be bound tighter to China, and the Chinese might disapprove of such destabilizing adventures.
You are correct on this point. I can’t imagine Russia ever acquiescing to Chinese bases on its soil.
Budget or not, it takes time to build new plants and (re-)start production.
I usually like Karlin’s stuff, but this post misses a lot of things, such as potential benefits of a closer relationship with the US, of which there are several, despite what Karlin might think or say. This whole thing strikes me as a little emotional and perhaps even reactionary on his part.
The author also makes the mistake of assuming that issues are settled just because he wrote about them. If I were Russian, I’d definitely be concerned with a growing Chinese superpower below my vast and sparsely populated, resource-rich east, and I definitely wouldn’t just take some internet poster’s word that everything will be A-okay once China has a blue water navy and about 100 military bases world-wide + a conventional military dwarfing Russia’s in every possible metric.
“First, the time to do that was in 1998, when Russians were still Americanophiles.”
True, but it’s definitely not too late on that front. The Americans could still turn things around with their cultural reach. Not terribly likely only because it’s not likely they’ll make the effort, not because the Russians are intractable on the subject.
“They realize that Russians would be stupid to hitch their wagons to the US, which is agreement-incapable and traditionally hostile to Russia, and is getting overtaken by China on metric after metric every single year anyway.”
That’s not really a good way to look at things. Even if China were twice as powerful as the US, the US would still be enormously more powerful than Russia; and the US military controls key resource choke points the Chinese can’t contest for decades.
And what sense does it make for Russia to foolishly trust that China will be better in the future than the US is now? With great power comes great temptation. I think it makes more sense for Russia to keep all sides at arms length and not put all their eggs in a single basket. Further, the US is hitched with lots of other countries like Japan and the EU, so it’s not like Russia would be putting their future into one country’s hands.
The radical left in the United States has badly mistreated the Russians, but it’s still possible (although unlikely) the right can seize power and make amends.
“They genuinely believe that symbolic concessions such as inviting Putin back to the G8 or dropping some minor sanctions are a “giveaway” to Putin”
Is slapping away a friendly hand, one extended when there is no appreciable benefit to the extender, a Russian cultural thing? The US doesn’t desperately need Russia for anything, which is the assumption I think you have incorrectly drawn here. I think you have misinterpreted a friendly gesture as an opportunity to air grievances. The G8 thing was all Trump, not some American deep state master plan. You should take the gesture for what it is – an opportunity.
“and adequate reward for Russia torpedoing its relations with China for the sake of American interests… hopefully they continue with their delusions.”
That’s delusional on your part – a derivation of the Western trope of waiting for a messiah to arrive and save the day. China isn’t your salvation. You’re using that country as a shield to cover your wounded pride.
“John Bolton.”
…has always been anti-everything. It was Putin who requested that meeting, not Bolton or Trump. That should tell you who wants what.
Should be even more true for East Europeans (Poles, Czechs, now even Ukrainians) who have access to Western labor markets.
But it’s not a big deal for IT anyway.
There’s plenty of IT jobs where you can earn Western salaries doing various projects remotely while enjoying EE living costs. I know a few such people in Moscow alone.
One possible reason is that Russia may have more domestic demand for coding services, e.g. various financial, oil & gas, and even defense companies, so video games are relatively less lucrative and riskier. At any rate, that would seem to be the case wrt the Ukraine, anyway.
Since Russia’s information ecosystem is partially separate from the West, there may also be more money to be made making Russian analogues of various American apps and platforms.
When Afrikaaners came to Africa the Africans did not eve know they lived in Africa. What is this semantic fetish about continent names, especially Africa? Should Hungarians be kicked out from Europe because they came kind of late from another continent?
I love it.
Ideally I think White South Africans should have formed a rump Cape State after the end of Apartheid.
Given that the land they settled was originally sparsely populated I don’t see why they should be forced out.
I don’t really take any joy in the fate of White South Africa, I am simply being describing what I believe will happen.
Even if they didn’t have European origins I would still be sad over the degradation of a once advanced nation into savagery.
As if relations with Yanuk’s Ukraine were not “economic-oriented, pragmatic”and Timoshenko is not corrupt.
Why shouldn’t it? They have far more experience in the civ.-aircraft business.
It is better to compare Sukhoi with other newbies.
Russia is not going anywhere. They want to be with America not with China.
Its not like its even Bantu land.
Typical hohol delusion. It’s classic!
This doesn’t have the same deterrent effect as maintaining hundreds of thousands of troops in Europe like US did at the height of the Cold War. American sanctions will lose their potency as the coutnry transforms into a typical Latin American state.
Chinese might disapprove, but they will have no veto powers over Russia’s foreign policy and will have to go along with it.
What does the Russian Far East have that would be so tempting to annex?
Oil & Gas: Not much of it. The Power of Siberia pipeline running across the Far East is opening in 2019 and will traverse 2,000 miles because the major gas fields are far away.
Minerals: It has some minerals, but minerals aren’t too valuable relative to oil and gas. Some gold mines are not worth annexing territory.
Land: China is overpopulated and the Far East is underpopulated. However, if you compare the northernmost Chinese prefecture with the Amur Oblast across from it, the difference in density isn’t orders of magnitude as you might expect. There are 10 people per square km in Daxing’anling Prefecture and 2 people per square km in the Amur Oblast. China can’t put too many people in its own land without much rainfall and it wouldn’t have much settlement either in Russian land without much rainfall.
Without much in the way of temptation and against a nuclear armed Russia in which it needs to cooperate to achieve its own security in Eurasia, the possibility is low that China would want hostilities with Russia even if it became a hyperpower. The argument for “definitely concerned” is weak.
There are at least two problems with Poland as western Chinese hub.
Poland (and the rest of the EU) is less invested in strong ties with China than Belarus (and the rest of the EAEU). As a consequence, it takes less time to transport something via train from China to Brest than from Brest to Duisburg in Germany despite the latter being much shorter route.
The other issue is that Poland is subordinated to Brüssel’s rules and Brüssel is pushing back against unwelcome Chinese influence.
Not to mention that Poland is one of the most pro-American countries.
Who would’ve thought that income and cost of living affect fertility more than magic pants.
I think you missed the “agreement-incapable” part, which is 100% objective truth with nothing emotional about it, and makes talk of any potential benefits pointless.
And if you were American, which you most probably are, you will definitely try to foment suspicion between Russians and Chinese, based on nothing real.
Also as other commenters and AK himself have pointed out, MAD is very much in play in Russian-Sino relations too. And the Chinese, being much smarter and more rational than Americans, will never try something as stupid as militarily antagonizing Russia.
That “cultural reach” seems to be getting less and less appealing every day.
Russians simply build partnerships with people who are capable and willing to be their partners. No foolish trust anywhere, and Russian diplomacy is multi-vector and world-class, something that American analysts themselves would admit.
Is expecting gratitude from having the high honor of talking to you an American cultural thing?
Russia is the one who doesn’t benefit from your “extended hand” while you continue to place more and more sanctions on them at the same time. Why don’t you consider shoving that hand in your ass, in the spirit of Atlantic values.
The opposite is also true.
If I were Russian, I would be acting like an American, who has no concept of Russia’s national interest, no desire to understand Russia’s actual movitations, aspirations and grievances…hey, why won’t you let me use your country as a tool against the Chinese? 🙂
Independence is sadly probably not the luxury an isolated country in a period of relative decline can afford. Hitching its wagons to a more powerful country might be necessary. This is what smaller countries ask from bigger countries when other bigger countries is threatening said smaller country.
On the other hand, dependency on China isn’t Russia’s sealed fate, but just the best way to crawl out of a very possible but definitely blackpilled situation if relations with the entire West spiral down to Iran levels, as in long term enemy status and trade embargo with little to no chance of budging.
Russia needs China more than China needs Russia. Without Russia, China’s land-based OBOR won’t work, but there’s still the numerous maritime routes, or even a land route through Central Asia and Iran. Without China, an international pariah Russia will end up with a permanently tattered economy and gonna have to impose some level of austerity on society, exactly like how Iran is doing like nowadays. China will just lose some economic opportunities that can be quickly made up elsewhere, and devote more military resources towards the Northeast and Xinjiang, and perhaps this time really needing military bases in Central Asia.
Regarding China and Iran, think of it like this: Both Russia and Iran have troubles with the West, and obviously both want China to step in, but China at the end of the day is the one lending support. China will ask: What benefits do I get if I support Russia (Iran)? Clearly, China has probably asked both questions and decided that giving Russia an x amount of support will reap greater benefits for itself than doing the same for Iran, and stronger Russia-China than Iran-China relations it is. However, China does help Iran a lot, just not to the level of Russia.
Likewise, if the West goes full hysterical on Russia, which as I said, is a distinct and not unlikely possibility but not 100%, Russia will have to ask itself: I lost my biggest import/export market, I’m facing extreme hostility on my western border, I’m locked out of the Western-oriented economy, I need someone to sell gas to, who can help me get out of this quagmire? If China (or anyone else for that matter) is the answer, then lobbying for Chinese investments it is. And for China to agree to pour FDI into Russia, especially since it has the option of doing so in 100+ other countries, it will want to extract as much benefits as it can. In such a scenario, its not far fetched to see China demand some concessions from Russia too. A lot of geopolitics is the art of negotiation.
China is not Russia’s only trade partner in the East, you know?
Russia is not Pakistan.
I should add that a Russian military threat to China shouldn’t be downplayed should Sino-Russian ties break down, as 1969 showed, but its still easier for a rising China to deal with an unfriendly Russia, than an embargoed Russia on the west dealing with an unfriendly China to the east.
The idea that the Chinese will move to seize Siberia is a ridiculous fantasy.
China and Russia already in the 1990s peacefully resolved all of their outstanding border issues.
China suffers from below replacement fertility and solved its food security issues in the 1980s, so the era of “Yellow Peril” population pressure belongs to the distant past. And in any case the Russian Far East is useless for agricultural purposes.
There are indeed some minerals in Siberia, but let’s review some economic facts about China:
#1 exporter
#1 forex reserve holder
#2 creditor nation
#6 gold reserve holder
China can buy all the resources it needs. The main threat to China’s economic security are the naval and air forces of the United States and Japan, and to a lesser extent the US Treasury and Commerce Departments. Expanding into Siberia does exactly zero to counter any of these threats, unless you think the Port of Vladivostok somehow enables the PLA-N to break out into the open Pacific.
Instead it multiplies these threats by pointlessly adding Russia to its enemies and eliminating the possibility of overland trade substituting for seaborne trade.
China is a security threat to Siberia only once the following are true:
1 – USA abandons Western Pacific in favor of hemispheric security
2 – China secures dominance over Second Island Chain
3 – China replaces USA as lynch pin of global financial (as opposed to just economic) system
And given China’s cautious attitude, that might not be enough. For instance, a USA focused on hemispheric security would still be viewed as potentially dangerous by China owing to its blue water navy and dominance of the “Third Island Chain”.
This is why I’m an extremely big proponent of strong strategic partnerships that Russia should pursue with Japan and South Korea, plus Japan and South Korea can offer much more in terms of high quality high tech equipment right now today than China. Made in China 2025 is still some ways off.
The situations I illustrated are precisely the ones I do NOT want to see happen, but what WILL happen if all of this hysteria and svidomy spirals down the drain further without any rapprochements or even talks; the endgame of my predictions applies more to years if not a decade or 2 down the road. Essentially I’m saying that the worst case and most blackpilled but possible if not somewhat likely scenario for Russia in the long term is a more well-off European version of Pakistan.
Enough is enough.
https://twitter.com/MSuchkov_ALM/status/1027595783032504326
You’re right about Chinese and jet engines.
But I recommend visit Japan for your next holiday if you think they’re behind us, or would be incapable of catching up in jet engines.
They have engineering skills in the areas they want – the problem is not their engineering, but the fact they apply it in some bizarre and useless ways which probably only are logical for an oriental mind.
Outside Tokyo there is an autonomous train, which is driving on raised platforms over the sea. When we use it – the train was completely empty. The sensation of being on the train, is of hovering over the sea. At the end of the train there are on a floating island, some convention centers and a shopping mall (almost empty). In other words, the project is almost useless – but seems to be just a crazy demonstration of their skills. It’s the kind of thing we might have in the 22nd century, but would never be crazy enough to try.
Also have to understand how bad the earthquake situation. And yet the fact all their skyscrapers are not collapsing, but are designed to sway from side to side. (Can you imagine what a disaster this would be in a country with less competent engineers?)
A bit more on this–let’s say not only are conditions 1-3 fulfilled, but some more conditions:
4 – USA breaks up and with it global power projection capabilities
5 – China gains dominance over Japan, Korea, and the “Third Island Chain”
6 – India collapses or something because of too much Open Defecation
7 – The Duke of Qin successfully turns all Mongols and Manchus into fish pellets
In short, China is as dominant in its backyard as Uncle Sam today is in the Western Hemisphere.
What does this make Russia? It makes it Canada with nuclear weapons, but without cultural and racial compatibility.
My antipathy for the hideous Canuckist Entity aside, what’s the likelihood of China invading a friendly resource colony with thousands of nuclear weapons? Does the annihilation of 100 million Chinese in a sea of atomic fire for the acquisition of arctic wastelands strike you as a good trade?
And in the event the Chinese were truly determined to gain Lebensraum with Chinese Characteristics, frankly selling them Sakhalin Island and all Russian land south of the Amur River would not be unreasonable. Russia isn’t a Pacific power and won’t be one this century.
lolwut? This is why I think you’re a Polish troll. You realise that Russia is one of the biggest and most powerful countries in the world, right? It’s literally too big to be isolated. You’re talking like we’re Bulgaria or something.
Iran is doing fine. Its GDP per capita is in line with regional average. Honestly, as a Russian, I’d rather be Iran, than take the lousy deal you are offering.
Aquarius, I think you’re overestimating OBOR’s importance for the future, especially with regard to Russia. OBOR is already being scaled down due to the massive overleverage issues. SASAC, the holding company that the Chinese state uses for its SOEs is already mandated to drastically cut down leverage by 2020. This includes their foreign adventures, of which OBOR is a key component. In addition, OBOR’s benevolence has been questionable and there is already a brewing backlash. You see this in Pakistan. Just today, they announced a loan from a Saudi bank in the tune of 4 billion. They need 12 billion USD to cover their gross financing needs over the next 12 months.
After the US protested that the IMF “should not bail out sour Chinese loans”, many assumed that the Chinese would step in, once more, but this has not happened thus far. Partly because the Chinese themselves are wary of sending money into a black vortex like Pakistan but surely partly because the Pakistanis themselves are seeing the writing on the wall, as they become ever more reliant on Chinese loans with exorbitant interest rates and insane guaranteed investment returns of 30% on an annual basis (in dollar terms!).
There is a backlash in Malaysia with the new PM installed. Montenegro isn’t happy. Laos isn’t happy. Cambodia is grinding its teeth. Sri Lanka has been turned into a debt colony, and had to give away their ports. Myanmar has cancelled several deals and is looking to re-negotiate others. The momentum is slowing.
On top of that, even the Chinese firms themselves which are involved in OBOR are overleveraged, far above the global median indebtedness for construction firms. That’s why the Chinese are insisting on using Chinese labour, machinery etc in a manic bid to cut cost; in part to help these firms (and their subconstractors):
https://i.imgur.com/hTBk7Lt.jpg
As for Russia, it is in a fiscally far more advantageous position than China is. China is of course technologically more sophisticated and far demographically larger, but this doesn’t mean automatic domination, especially as other powers (read: India) will grow in importance on China’s borders and the US isn’t going to give up it’s strategic vantage point in the ECS and SCS any time soon. China’s strategic depth into the Russian hinterlands will remain anemic. It is very hard for me to see how Russia will assume any submissive position, given its strong fundamentals. In this sense, I depart from AK’s pessimism when he dismisses his own country’s future as destined to be a mere ‘resource appendage’ to China.
The key is really Russian-European relations. That’s the natural export market for Russia – and I’m not talking about hydrocarbons now. I’m not a seer and I do not doubt its difficulty to to pull off thoroughly, in terms of much greater integration. Nevertheless, it is noteworthy that European sanctions on Russia are maintained but they are not increased in intensity whereas the yanks are continually upping theirs. This leads to a yawning and ever-growing discrepancy and is exposing the increasingly at-odds attitudes that the US and the EU has towards Russia, so perhaps things are not so gloomy after all. Hell, even our own PM’s father recently conducted an interview with one of the Russian media outlets and openly called for closer co-operation. This is not some loony-tune guy. He is known to be close to Morawiecki. If Kaczyński falls off his chair one day, and with him his obsession about Russia and the endless conspiracy theories, I wouldn’t be surprised if Poland’s position will moderate, thus granting even less cover for neocons and further diverging the paths.
Only one delusional is you.
Let’s walk through what would happen.
Russia can militarily invade and conquer Ukraine. It will not be a cakewalk as it would have been in 2014, probably cost a few thousands of casualties, it will be expensive, and there will be a very expensive partisan war in Ukraine and terrorism in Russia’s own cities. In a worst-case scenario, unlikely but not beyond the realm of possibility, Ukraine could even blow up its massive nuclear reactor in Zaporizhia, largest in Europe, upwind of much of southern Russia, rendering it uninhabitable. Russia will be subject to massive, North Korea-level sanctions.
So not realistic.
Life is not a video game, you know.
Likelihood of Russia choosing to go to war against territories with 70% of its population, armed to the teeth by friendly Americans, is very unlikely, despite your dreams. Your fantasy of America becoming a Latin American state is not realistic either, as everyone else here has noted.
First, the time to do that was in 1998, when Russians were still Americanophiles. Perhaps 2008 at the very latest. But Russians have had a deeply negative view of the US (and vice versa) since 2014.
The gulf owes to just one thing. Jewish factor.
Since then, the US has become more servile to Jewish power with each passing year.
Since then, Russia has become less servile to Jewish power with each passing year.
So, it’s not really about US vs Russia. It’s about Servility to Jewish Globo-Homo Supremacism vs Independence(relatively speaking) from Jewish Globo-Homo Supremacism.
IF not for the Jewish ethno-supremacist hatred for Russia, I don’t think US-Russian relations would be so bad. It wouldn’t be close but it would be cordial and respectful. It is Jewish Hysteria that is so afraid that white gentiles make takes cues from Russia and throw off the Jewish Globo-Homo yoke. That’s about it.
Blame Japan.
https://twitter.com/chinahand/status/940084677787844611
It is also a ‘religious’ war. In the past, the US was a mostly Christian nation. So, the Cold War was about Christian America vs Godless Russia(whose real religion was Marx and Lenin). But ever since Jews took power in the US, they’ve done everything to weaken and destroy Christianity. Jewish Bolsheviks in Soviet Union destroyed 50,000 churches. In the US, Jews attacked Christianity in subtler ways. While covering up Jewish corruption and Rabbi sexual scandals, Jewish media exposed Christian corruptions, especially in the Catholic Church. Also, Jews promoted hedonism that made Americans addicted to sensual pleasure above all else. Gambling, Porn, and other vice industries are all controlled by Jews. Also, Jews not only pushed for ‘gay rights’ but Gay Rites, a near-worship of homos(and even trannies) as holy angels.
So, a whole new generation of Americans grew up worshiping Homos. In the US, you don’t lose your job by badmouthing God, Jesus, or Christianity. But if there’s the slightest whiff of ‘homophobic’ sentiments, you are a heretic and you are out. So, Homo-Worship or Homomania is virtually the new religion of the US. As Joe Biden said, Jews spread it and made converts of Americans addicted to TV. Alex Jones was shut down on account that he said unkind things about Trannies corrupting children. The media and platforms are mostly owned by Jewish oligarchs.
So, it was easy for Jews to manipulate Americans into hating Russia. Russia is no longer communist but nationalist and Christian. In contrast, Jewish-controlled US is globo-imperialist and filled with missionary zeal of spreading Homomania as the rainbow-faith all over the world. So, when Russia said NO to ‘gay pride’ parades on Red Square(used annually to commemorate the 20 million dead in WWII), so many Americans seethed with moral and quasi-spiritual outrage. How dare those ‘heathens’ not accept the sacraments of Holy Homomania!
I just had an interesting thought. During the Cuban Missile Crisis, it was the generals who wanted to attack outright, while the politicians (like JFK himself, however much of a buffoon he was otherwise) wanted to avoid war if possible. Whereas in 2018 there were reports that Trump wanted to hit the Russian military assets, too, and it was the generals (Mattis and Dunford) who talked him out of it.
I think a good case could be made that soldiers are both more and less terrified of nukes than politicians. Generali think a kind of worst case, where the enemy will lob all it has at us, destroying all our forces and cities with the nukes it has. On the other hand, generals will accept some friendly losses, which means they will accept that the enemy might destroy a few of your cities. So what? They could be rebuilt later. That’s what civilians are for, to rebuild cities. However, politicians (some politicians, at least) will be less accepting of losing millions of civilians. But since they are amateurs, they won’t necessarily think that the enemy will use its nukes.
Therefore, a general’s support of fighting a shooting war with a nuclear power will depend on their assessment of the ratio of overall military strength, where nuclear weapons play an enormous role. Even the Russian anti-ship missiles are more capable with nuclear warheads, so even at the tactical or operational level the ratio of forces will be more balanced, once you take Russian nukes into the equation. Therefore, whereas American generals must’ve thought in 1962 that they could easily and clearly win a (nuclear) war against Russia, their assessment in 2018 (as you wrote) was probably way less clear. At a minimum, the US would be totally destroyed and finished as a superpower after such a war.
In the case of the politicians, they might have viewed nukes as principally tools for destroying cities, and they didn’t want to accept losses of their own cities. However, probably Trump just didn’t believe Putin would escalate to a nuclear war because of Syria. (Though the story about Trump supporting a strike on Russian military assets might be fake news.)
The main issue with OBOR is that other than Power of Siberia it lacks economic rationale.
Sea freight is cheaper and not much slower, and there aren’t many major markets in Eurasia distant from seaports. Most of them are in the former Soviet Union, which already has adequate rail infrastructure and decent if not great roads.
To be economically viable China would need to tax maritime shipping or subsidize overland shipping.
Unsurprisingly, the local “beneficiaries” of OBOR also have their own schemes in mind unconnected to Chinese strategic imperatives. Hence why Lahore now has a subway system.
China’s private corporations are mostly not even involved in OBOR are shifting their overseas investments to Europe, the USA, and Japan. They’re more concerned with acquiring technology than in playing geopolitics.
And why did they name it OBOR instead of New Silk Road? Soft power fail.
That’s because the Blacks are the only ethnicity that is native the the USA. Strange but true.
(Native American Indians belong to their tribe, not the USA, and whites are a motley crew of ethnics from Europe.)
Chongqing (China) – Duisburg (Germany)
Sea transport: 2k Euro* / five weeks
Rail transport: 7k Euro* / two weeks
Air transport: 50k Euro* / <one week
*per 15 tons of freight
Source: duisport
That is exactly what they are doing.
And our government is now concerned with limiting this practice.
https://twitter.com/dw_business/status/1024616546990256130
I don’t know how they came up with the idea, but it’s obviously a kind of military strategy to overcome the weakness of the Chinese fleet and their lack of overseas bases. But I’m not sure if it makes any sense at all.
There are tons of Scots-Irish in the South who identify as ethnic Americans.
It sort of does make sense.
The US is perfectly capable of interdicting Chinese shipping in the event of a major war, but it can’t stop railway or road shipments into China.
It also explains why OBOR has multiple branches to Europe, presumably to diversify supply routes.
We’re talking about China becoming a true superpower within a decade or two. The (relative) nuclear weakness is going to be the only area where they will still be significantly weaker than either Russia or the USA. They certainly have the means to build hundreds of new warheads right now, and I’d guess they’ll do that sometime over the next few decades. I think they are waiting for something, I’m not sure what it is, but probably either some technological breakthrough, or some milestone with their conventional (or economic?) strength.
In the event of a major war, wouldn’t the US satellites be barred from trading with China? So it only works if there’s someone to trade with.
Two weeks is quite slow.
I wonder if it’s feasible to make this run much faster.
Containers are generally much lighter than bulk freight, so would be it practical to run a container train at, say, 120 km/hr continuously?
Transit time would then be under four days, which is a game changer.
It makes sense militarily, but I suspect corporate welfare for China’s SOEs and zombie heavy industries is a big part of the reason as well.
Someone (I think Mitleser himself) wrote that it’s mostly due to the time that they have to spend at the borders (especially the EU external border) doing paperwork. The problem is not the train speed, if it’s correct.
Paperwork and rail gauge changes.
Great plan, dude! Let’s blow up a nuclear power station. And it’s not like you’ll have live through the consequences of it, hiding safely somewhere in North America. On the other hand, those who actually live in the Ukraine, they might have other ideas…
If this is the best you can do, it makes me more confident, that reconquista of the Ukraine will be a cakewalk.
hohol can wish 😉
Interestingly, if this goes on long enough, the despicable compradors Karlin hates so much (like the fat guy complaining that he was no longer allowed to ski in Aspen or something) might become the true anti-American Russian nationalists. Unrequited love often results in hatred, and this might be a case of it.
The way I see it, becoming a true superpower implies having allies. The main difference between modern Russia and USSR is that Soviet Union lead a Warsaw pact of socialist countries in Eastern Europe as well as a network of client regimes in the third world.
What countries will be allies of China? Myanmar? Pakistan? China is very much isolated even within its own region.
Put EU customs in Chungking and China customs in Duisburg.
Problem solved.
As for gauge I believe there are some plans to build broad gauge tracks into Slovakia and East Turkestan.
The USSR didn’t really have true allies, only satellites forced into its orbit at the point of a gun. Maybe China until the early 1960s could be described as an ally.
Did the US have any true allies before the Second World War?
China in talks for sale of jet engine technology to Germany
https://www.scmp.com/news/china/society/article/2127796/china-talks-sale-jet-engine-technology-germany
Beijing is now able to make strong jet engines.
https://nationalinterest.org/blog/the-buzz/chinas-may-have-solved-the-one-thing-was-poised-stop-its-24149
If China can demonstrate capability, I think that all of the Confucian nations at least could flip their allegiances. That and SEA Asia makes for quite a few. It can happen pretty fast – witness President Durete, for example.
Why don’t you write something about South Africa? You know more about it than about China, right?
Russia is already part of the SCO. Yes, Pakistan will be an ally, probably Iran. Korea will be in the Chinese orbit, and I don’t think countries like Myanmar or the Philippines could resist it, whether they like it or not. Even Vietnam, though they truly hate the Chinese.
America’s neighbors also have negative opinions of it (Latin Americans don’t like gringos, and Canadians don’t like them much either). But it ruled Latin America for a century or so without problems.
I don’t think lack of allies will be a big problem, once China becomes the undisputed strongest country on Earth in terms of economy, technology and military strength.
Well, allies do imply shared values, and I do think that’s something China lacks, and its something that it will have to seriously work on. For example, people often go to Japan and come back thinking, “I wish my country was more like Japan” or “Japan is such an amazing place.” And it really helps Japan, which previously was widely hated in Asia for its atrocities, to really recover in esteem.
You rarely hear that about China, though its rising a little bit, but really very few people go back home thinking “Man, I wish my internet blocked from watching cat videos on YouTube” though ReallyCoolTech like high speed trains and cashless payment does impress some visitors. Overall, though, as a society, China is still very much a mess despite many advances. It pretty much torpedoed its own culture, so its kind of a zombie of itself, trying to find a new existence and meaning.
I hope it does.
Thanks, I have had so many discussions already a decade ago about the many things that the Chinese were not supposed to be able to figure out for several decades. Like microprocessors or aircraft carriers. It all proved bullshit. Just like the jet engines.
@289 Polish Perspective
A lot of jumping to premature conclusions and analysis without thorough commercial knowledge. Your influenced a lot by misinformation from Western media, which lies with above average intensity to counter the Belt Road Initiative (it got renamed).
There is a slowdown this year and next year but over the next 10 years I can easily see $1.5-2 trillion in Chinese lending, investment, other financing in Eurasia. There was already about $100 billion in Chinese state lending to Eurasia annually in 2015-17. The Chinese economy will grow a lot during the period so there will be a greater capacity to lend and invest abroad.
SASAC manages the central SOEs, but not the financial institutions. It’s the state owned banks and investment funds that will be the main driver for the Belt Road Initiative. I think SOE management is a somewhat separate issue to the outlook of the BRI. But it’s good for stability to bring down the ratio of debt and scale down immediate growth. Maybe then there will be no big bank implosion on the horizon like what happened to South Korea in 1997. (South Korea was able in any case to climb out in 1999.) It does point to decent national economic management that will enable the BRI.
There is no serious backlash in Pakistan. The results are too tangible in Pakistan’s case. About half of the $50-something billion allocated to the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor goes to power infrastructure. There is a huge electricity shortfall in Pakistan. China is solving the most basic problem.
“The entire energy portfolio will be executed in the IPP mode —as applied to all private power producers in the country. Foreign investors’ financing comes under foreign direct investment; they are guaranteed a 17pc rate of return in dollar terms on their equity (only the equity portion, and not the entire project cost). The loans would be taken by Chinese companies, mainly from the China Development Bank and China Exim Bank, against their own balance sheets. They would service the debt from their own earnings without any obligation on the part of the Pakistani government.” https://www.dawn.com/news/1313992
The interest rates are also not exorbitant. Chinese state lending is often priced slightly lower than other available forms of financing.
Naming several projects in a huge landscape of many major projects in over 50 countries gives a distorted picture. In particular the assertion Hambantota in Sri Lanka was just given away is relaying outright propaganda. The Western and Indian media have chosen that particular transaction to go full throttle on propaganda against BRI. What actually happened is a controlling stake in the port was purchased for over $1 billion and other investments were promised.
That is the bargain expected in export financing. National export bank advances loan in exchange for promoting exports. There is likely a Polish export bank that lends with similar strings attached.
China is 5x larger economically than India which isn’t growing robustly considering it is still low income and has a workforce age population expanding at almost 2% annually. China will probably grow to be 8x larger by 2050 so India won’t be a powerful rival.
Not sure what this means. Strategic depth is rooted in mutual need. For the next generation Russia faces a hostile US and Europe, it needs a strong neighbor. So does China as TF outlines. The Maidan alone created robust strategic depth for 20 years.
It also has the glue of trade. As Karlin points out, by the 2030s with permanently low oil prices, Russia needs agricultural exports. Who is going to buy Russian pork? The Power of Siberia in 2019 is looking more promising. Retaliatory tariffs by China against US LNG can spur demand for Russian gas.
Doesn’t seem like a realistic scenario. A Europe with a firm independent foreign policy that is amicable to Russia and massively expands trade with Russia. I think another factor affecting your analysis is wistful thinking for this to happen.
You misunderstand the nature of these relationships. These are friendships, not alliances. SCO is just a discussion club.
Iran will never be China’s ally, unless Chinese are prepared to join its jihad against Israel. Allying with Pakistan will surely antagonise India. This is the problem with having allies: you need to embrace their enemies as your own.
The fact is China finds itself in pretty much the same situation as Russia: it doesn’t have any real allies, and cannot rely on them to project power and share military burden. This won’t change.
USA on the other hand still has NATO for what it’s worth, and EU reliably participates in sanction campaigns (economic warfare) against America’s enemies.
Hungary was willing to send its boys to die for Soviets in WW3. It’s what matters.
Zaporizhia is on the eastern edge of Ukraine and the wind blows to the east. So fallout would hit Donbas and Russia and largely avoid the rest of Ukraine. Tens of millions of Russians, but relatively few Ukrainians, would be affected.
I forget where I read someone proposing to engage in such assymetrical “warfare”, but there is a not zero chance of it happening if Ukraine were faced with a truly existential threat from Russia.
Anyways, at this point an invasion and occupation of Ukraine simply isn’t realistic, contrary to your feverish wishes.
Suspect it’s BS, the most extreme, credible version of this story was that trump wanted to attack the Syrian airforce rather than some empty warehouses. Even his tweet tantrum never mentioned directly targeting russian forces.
I have seen many chain mails in Hungary about how China became an economic powerhouse while Hungary didn’t develop much, supposedly due to a combination of our stupidity and laziness. There was also a very good meme in 2010, a picture showing a swampy river with the title “Shanghai 1990” and a picture next to it showing ostensibly the same place, but now full of skyscrapers, with the title “Shanghai 2010,” and the text below read something like “during this time period, we almost built the 4th Budapest metro line.” (Basically the only major project in Budapest during those two decades, executed in the usual corrupt and incompetent manner.)
I also know a few people (exactly three) who have already visited China, one of them several times over the past few decades. They all were in awe of the place, and all three told me a decade ago that there’s no way Europe or even the US will compete with the giant growing there.
I think many people in Hungary admire China the way people admired America a century ago. I can’t recall talking to Western Europeans or other people about China, but I don’t think this is totally unique to Hungary.
Of course, even Hungary has its West-worshipping cargo cultists who denigrate China, but there’s a lot of admiration.
It warned Russia that the missiles were coming.
I wish somebody would write about what really was behind British insistence on respecting treaties with Indians. Was it sincere? Was it just a formalism?
The greed for land of American colonist was one of the main causes of American Revolution that is not talked about. George Washington was a very greedy man and he like many others wanted to expand West but British treaties with Indians did not let him.
So what was behind American Revolution? Freedom, liberty? To be free from moral obligations that monarchy was still willing to respect. What is behind socialism? The same thing. But it is always being sold to people as freedom and/or equality.
American democracy strength was in the ability of denial and hiding behind spontaneous action of the people driven by natural forces. It is worthwhile to read some history of Alaska and how lives of natives have changed after it was sold by Russian and when the gold diggers and settlers begin to come. The power of democracy is in its immorality. Vox populi vox dei. BTW, I traveled there and had opportunity to see how American Inuits compared with Russian Chukchi. Clearly America was much more devastating to native culture and community than Russian and Soviet systems.
Blowing up the nuclear plant would probably not save Ukraine, but it would give a huge propaganda tool for Russia. It would also not sit well with Eastern Ukrainians, who would feel that they were sacrificed for the rest of Ukraine.
I also don’t think it’d kill that many Russian civilians (Chernobyl made a very small area uninhabitable), so it’d just create bad propaganda.
Except if you are truly powerful, then you’ll be able to force both to curry favors with you: they will both fear to alienate you, because then you’ll side with their enemies. For example Hitler could ally both Hungary and Romania. (He wasn’t truly powerful, so neither sent its full army to the front, but still.) Now the US does the same.
This will only make them stronger.
This positive, well-meaning contribution to Russian and Donbass life expectancy will be appreciated.
http://www.unz.com/akarlin/healthy-atomic-glow/
PS. But I agree with reiner Tor, anyway. Which is why the Ukraine wouldn’t do it. It’s a surefire way to sully one’s own cause. The people in Azov might want to do that, but they’d have to seize the NPP, plus I doubt they’d have the competence to initiate a meltdown, anyway. The technicians working there would almost certainly refuse, unless forced to do so at the point of a gun. I doubt even the Azov people are that hardcore. Ultimately, even Islamic State didn’t end up blowing up that dam it controlled – are Ukrainians more radical that ISIS?
France from 1778 – 1793.
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/4a/Franco_American_treaty_1778.jpg
The debt owed to France was repaid by the American Expeditionary Force.
-Colonel Charles E. Stanon
Unless it was presented as an accident or some sort of consequence of the invasion.
It wouldn’t hit them much either, but blow directly into Donbas and Rostov
It’s a terrible thing but a possibility if we are talking about the end of the Ukrainian state through an invasion.
Scale would dwarf Chernobyl’s and would be a humanitarian nightmare. This the largest plant in Europe and fifth largest in the world.
There was a scare there in 2014:
https://www.opednews.com/articles/Zaporozhye-Nuclear-Problem-by-George-Eliason-Chernobyl_Nuclear-Containment_Nuclear-Cover-up_Nuclear-Meltdown-150102-762.html
Can’t vouch for the accuracy of the source above, but it claims that this plant’s security is controlled by Right Sector.
Fortunately odds of it being done are very low, but above zero if we are looking at full-on state-ending invasion. Desperate times may result in desperate measures.
Preparations may already have been made, who knows?
Any credibility to this claim? Source is some pro-Donbas American writing from Donetsk:
https://www.opednews.com/articles/2/Zaporozhye-Nuclear-Problem-by-George-Eliason-Chernobyl_Nuclear-Containment_Nuclear-Cover-up_Nuclear-Meltdown-150102-762.html
In the spring Pravy Sektor tried unsuccessfully to storm nuclear power plants three times. Later the government of Ukraine ordered that they guard nuclear material, nuclear facilities, and even nuclear waste using, meaning that the Poroshenko government put the terrorists that tried to take nuclear plants by force in charge.
They would immediately blame Russia, and that would be picked up and breathlessly repeated in Western MSM, like other times when the motive made no fucking sense (MH17, Skripals, etc). The Ukraine is a nationalist regime. Not a single nationalist regime in history has had qualms about slaughtering innocents, and the people who modern Ukrainians point to as heroes barbarically murdered innocent Russians, Poles, and Jews.
USA nuked Japan to spare lots of its own troops and Japan didn’t invade the USA and threaten its existence.
USSR was anti-nationalist state and it killed more people than all nationalist regimes combined.
Mess with the eagle and get the talons.
Sweden was a nationalist state from the rebellion of Gustav Wasa until Olof Palme became Prime Minister in 1969.
For the first two centuries the Swedes did indeed kill a lot of people, though mostly enemy soldiers.
For the final century and a half of Swedish nationalism the Swedes didn’t kill anyone.
Chernobyl only killed a few thousand people at most. Area is now perfectly habitable and has seen a massive resurgence in flora and fauna.
Economic damage was unnecessarily exacerbated by rampant atomophobia.
Reactor disasters are just not that big of a deal.
If true, there are a lot of really cheap real estate around existing nuclear power plants and disaster area like Fukushima. Time to make lots of money using this fact.
… they might become Martha Vineyard in the future.
Pripyat Property Mindset
From Forbes, new logistic hub on border of China, Horgos (China) / Khorgos (Kazakhstan)
https://www.forbes.com/sites/wadeshepard/2016/09/20/7-new-cities-that-are-rising-along-the-new-silk-road/#5a0c1ba81300
The end point hub into Europe before the more traditional European logistic routes, Terespol municipality, Poland.
This is precisely the reason why Russia should fling its doors wide open to European tourism. With the US engulfed in hysteria and Ukraine engulfed in svidomy, once European tourism to Russia reaches levels of say, Chinese tourism to Japan, Russia can recover a lot of its soft power at least in Europe. Tourism to Japan has been highly responsible for improvement of ties such as China-Japan and SK-Japan. As I said, Moscow and St. Petersburg are very, very underrated and if we can get several million, if not 10 million Europeans visiting these cities every year, this would’ve forced EU-Russia relations to get back on strategic partnership level.
That’s why Russia should reduce visas for EU citizens (and also Chinese, Japanese, and Koreans) to simply an e-visa for tourism purposes, if not abolish tourist visas for the EU and East Asia altogether, and also give more landing rights to Ryanair and Wizzair.
The world cup was a great first step in this direction, but not enough: Should’ve been a permanent step.
IQ is irrelevant. Muslims have a strong alternative belief system that gives them cultural self-confidence. They actually believe in something. And they actually believe (quite correctly) that liberalism is evil.
The U.S. black population doesn’t have any alternative belief system. They have nothing with which to oppose the Poz.
Btw, glad to see a Black Star TV music video shot in Hong Kong, especially one that captures the essence of the city really well. Hopefully this can be the beginning of a Russian soft power push in first world Asia.
Likewise, Hong Kong should definitely be very high on Russians’ radars, if not replace New York if Russophobic hysteria in the US continues to get worse, and on another note I’m starting to see vatnik tourists in Taipei of all places
Citing, err, “LaRouche”, http://peace.rolf-witzsche.com/landbridge/land-bridge-intro.html
An idea that link Germany with Russia and China, US and UK seems not happy about that. In the resulting associated AIIB 4 doc-knight management, the British knight is in charge of governance and legal affairs and the German doc on strategy. Helga LaRouche is regularly interviewed by the Chinese press. There were multi-part articles in the People Daily in English which now seems not able to be located via Google.
You dont understand the Chinese mindset. In ancient China more than 2 thousand years ago Qin was a backward remote state with no allies while the hegemon state at the time Wei together with 5 other strong allies isolated and contained Qin on the outside. Qin employed the “zigzag” diplomacy that broke the alliance and conquered them one by one to form the Qin dynasty (by the “terra cotta” emperor). The Chinese does not place high emphasis with ally. You want an ally? Get a dog.
I was searching for sign if the Chinese uses the “zigzag” diplomacy to no avail. Instead Kim Chong On seems to be master of that, diverting South Korea away from US, forcing US to take a stand that upset Japan. But the king of “zigzag” seems to be Trump shooting himself on the foot, just look at what happen with Turkey, Germany and Canada, and the trade tariff with allies.
The infrastructure has crumbled in the meantime, so it’s economically not feasible to repopulate it. (It’ll probably happen slowly, unless they prevent it by creating a wildlife reserve.)
The issue radioactive dust. Your body is not adapted to handling these radioactive metals, and once they get into your body, they will stay there forever. And eventually their constant neverending radiation will be too much. A small piece of dust gets to your lungs and stays there for the rest of your life. Which could be cut short.
Reasons mentioned in a recent SPIEGEL article were bureaucracy, operational obstacles and long waiting time(s) at the distribution centres.
There are many times more Chinese boys in this world than Warsaw Pact boys combined. And China will be an economic and technological powerhouse, quite unlike the USSR. So countries all over the world will try to curry favors with it.
Well, FWIW, this is what Kissinger wrote in the Washington Post in 2014, during the start of the Ukraine crisis.
Not enough though for the blood and soil nationalism, see the Know Nothings, that it would take to rectify the US immigration problem.
Looks like the Kremlin has once again been out manoeuvred on their own turf.
http://www.atimes.com/article/color-revolution-in-the-caucasus-rattles-russian-leaders/amp/?__twitter_impression=true#comments
Well, they’re “American” only insofar as they are “not Scots” and “not Irish”.
When people say that “America lacks culture” or that “(American) whites don’t have culture” they are in a way correct. “Americanness” is a negative thing, a lack of European roots.
Which is why, incidentally, Americans are so enamored of the idea of the well-functioning Negro.
Blacks are the only native USAian ethnicity, and it really stings the national pride to know that the only ethnics USA managed to spawn are a textbook example of failure. Kinda subconsciously drives home the idea that America can only subvert and pervert, not create.
Rail gauge changes is a solved problem, it takes a couple hours tops.
Here’s a video:
But within Ukraine it would be excellent anti-nationalist propaganda and might make it easier for the Russians to find locals loyal to them, especially in the eastern part of the country (which would be most affected), but probably also elsewhere, wherever people would be at least slightly susceptible to pro-Russian ideas.
This sort of confirms my point, isn’t it? Silk Road project relies on cooperation with Russia, which would be a key transit state. Should relations between Russia and West completely break down, with Iran style embargoes and such, Silk Road will end in Belarus. And Poland with all its infrastructure will become a European dead end.
So you’re saying China doesn’t need allies?
Yeah, you guys sure didn’t want to fuck with Hitler! Russia needs a leader, who is less like Putin, and more like Hitler.
It’s hillarious! New Armenian government is assembled entirely from people, made careers in Western-funded NGOs. Every single one of them used to be employed by Soros, European Comission or the US department of state.
Armenia sent its soldiers to US-led military exercises in Georgia, training to repel “Russian aggression” in the region, while Russia is defending it from Azeris and Turks.
Armenia is pressuring Russian businesses and demanding cheaper gas.
It’s positively bizarre, and it is easy to blame the Kremlin, but you also have to question the wisdom of Armenian people, who seem to think that Kremlin has infinite capacity to absorb humiliations. There is already talk of suspending weapons deals with Armenia, and I’m pretty sure this behavior will end badly for Armenia and its people.
This is complete gibberish.
There have been whites in America longer than there have been blacks.
And half of white Americans had ancestors here before the Revolution.
USAian? Are you a fucking spic?
The people who say that tend to be so surrounded by American culture that it fades to their unconsciousness, like fishes in water.
I haven’t been keeping up with Armenia since the Revolution there. Still, I think the general points I made back there stand. It’s their problem, not Russia’s.
https://pp.userapi.com/c627929/v627929894/85e9/qqqTpviGlD8.jpg
Well, there are a couple of caveats. First, he needed to conquer France. Before that, no one wanted to be his ally. Second, and it’s the most crucial point, you need to remember what happened to Hitler.
But I agree Russia’s options are limited, like those of Hitler, and not like the US (or China will be soon).
I agree. But the new Armenian leader is arguably “outperforming” Saakashvili at the same point in his career.
Fucking Bantustans filled with monkeys…
Speaking of monkeys, what do you think of AP‘s plan to blow up a nuclear power station? I say, once a hohol, always a hohol!
The Ukraine will be our France. You guys are probably under the impression that Russia “can’t do much beyond Donbass”. We need to put some real fear into you. Weak people respond well to intimidation, and Eastern Europe, ex-USSR are very weak.
One out of three people not exposed to radiation get cancer as it is.
And radiation doesn’t have a linear effect on humans. Moderate amounts are in fact good for your health.
Not a big deal.
Dispense with your disgraceful atomophobia.
That sounds really stupid, you think Hungary and other European countries will become Russian allies if you threaten them with military invasion???
I don’t think it will work to Russia’s benefit if Russia will be seen as an aggresively revanchist power that wants to recreate the Soviet empire and achieve hegemony over Europe.
Arguably Wei/Chu put quite a high value on allies, but Qin in Alexander-the-Great style demonstrated the uselessness of it by simply defeating everyone with well-organized armies. Doubt that’s as useful these days, but it does make allies seem kind of pointless when they just show up to lose.
To a degree, that approximates the Arab revolt against the Ottomans and them subsequently having their backsides handed to them by Israel multiple times.
Peace.
Depends on just how aggressive they can be.
The danger is when your bark doesn’t match your bite.
If Russia could plausibly reach the Channel in a week then the aggressive attitude would work.
You’re German. Look at how the H-man was able to create a constellation of German satellites in just a few years owing to rapid rearmament and extreme belligerence.
Of course today Russia doesn’t have such power beyond simply nuking people.
There was also a common ideological bond with those satellites in anti-Bolshevism, and many of them also pursued territorial objectives of their own through the German alliance. Even so, there were considerable tensions.
Felix Keverich’s brand of Russian chauvinism has zero attraction to anybody outside the Russian world.
I don’t think this was a threat to launch missiles at Khmeimim, and it wasn’t generally interpreted that way. The reporting was that Bolton, and initially Trump, favored a large-scale attack on Syrian forces, which stood a significant risk of also killing Russian advisors, etc. in the vicinity, and that Mattis talked him out of it. I didn’t see any reports that there was ever any consideration of deliberately targeting Russian personnel.
Hitler only had to conquer Western Europe, because in our back was the USSR, under your Georgian master. And no one wanted to deal with the USSR, it was seen as something worse than ISIS.
So if you had a better master at the time, Hungary would’ve become your ally, instead of that of Hitler. We even wanted to attack Romania (it was mostly a bluff, but due to the presence of the USSR plausible enough to force Hitler to give us Northern Transylvania, and the Romanians to accept it), which at the time was already aligned with Germany (and had a territorial dispute with Soviet Russia), so a non-Soviet Russia would’ve been a more natural ally than Hitler. You should’ve chosen your BDSM master better. Maybe there’s another lesson about whether your new master should resemble Hitler or not.
Now if you’d occupy Ukraine, we’d have options: the Americans and the Germans behind us, or the Russians who are aggressive and are trying to put some real fear in us. I bet you we won’t choose the Russians.
The problem is that Russia is not strong enough for that kind of pull, and Hitler’s Germany was strong enough only because the alternative (the USSR) was totally unacceptable. (He had just incorporated the Baltic countries into the USSR.)
At the time (1939-41) we had an Anglophile prime minister who hated the Germans. (He wanted to deport ethnic Germans from Hungary.) He could still find a common denominator with Hitler, because he hated the Jews even more, so he could chat with Hitler (who he hated) about that topic. He also hated Bolshevism so much that he didn’t even consider aligning Hungary with the USSR. Although the USSR was seen as a giant with feet of clay, especially after the Winter War. It certainly couldn’t help Yugoslavia in spring 1941.
Russia could always secure the facility with paratroops in the opening hours of hostilities. And Ukraine wouldn’t immediately know it was a full-on state-ending invasion unless Russia announced it.
The context where I read the proposal was in the case of a massive Russian invasion; this would be a weak version of Israel’s “Samson option.” Ukraine goes down, but radiates a huge territory with 10-20 million Russians as it does so. This would be something like ten times the scale of the Chernobyl disaster. It would be much worse than small “dirty bombs” launched in cities (another terrible possibility, if Ukraine were actually being destroyed as a state).
A nuclear state has never been completely invaded and destroyed before, as Felix claims Russia can “realistically” do to Ukraine. What Ukrainians would be willing to do if faced with loss of statehood (and ethnogenocide) is unknown, and I suspect the odds of them engaging in such acts are pretty low. But they are not zero, and there is certainly capacity for horrific reprisals.
Ukraine has fairly strong air defenses; Russia of course has the capability of destroying those from afar but it would take some time. This wouldn’t be like a surprise jump into some part of ISIS-controlled Syria. The facility seems to be strongly guarded now, also. It could be blown up as Russians attempt to take it, and the “accident” blamed on the Russian actions.
If there were a nation-wide bombing campaign taking out air defenses and troop concentrations, and 100,000s of thousands of Russians soldiers were pouring it, it would be obvious even without a formal announcement.
I would expect that Russia’s neighbours, that are not in NATO already, will ally with Russia outright. Lukashenka will drop his “multi-vector” idiocy and become a fully-fledged vassal, hosting Russian bases in Belarus. Finland that has been flirting with NATO in recent years will revert to the policy of Finlandization.
And Eastern members of NATO may well start hedging their bets, because when you’re a country like Hungary, you don’t want to be in the position, where you must rely on Article 5 as your only hope and sole guarantee.
By the way I wanted to send you an email. Could you maybe send an email address (best would be a “burner” address just for this purpose? Mr. Karlin could tell you mine.
There are already semi-permanent American troops presence in Hungary. You cannot attack Hungary without taking out those. Then you will have directly attacked the Americans and they usually react angrily to being attacked. That’s a good enough insurance.
Of course, if the US just decided to pack and leave, that’d be a different kind of situation. But they are currently in the process of provoking war with you, so I don’t think that will happen soon.
It doesn’t matter whether Russia is able to reach the Atlantic. America’s leaders, delusional and arrogant as they are, would never believe it, until it actually happened. At which point they would be launching nukes, unwilling to live with this humiliation.
Impessing America should not be Russia’s goal anyway. I believe this problem will take care of itself in due time.
If you really want to, AK can send your email address to the address I’m using for comments here. I’ll set another one up for replying or use an old one I’m not using for anything important.
I’m not sure why you’d want to send me an email though, I’m fairly unlikely to attend any meetup (because I kind of value my anonymity; I think I also mentioned once that I’m a seriously unsuccesful academic in humanities, so I would be very much out of place among all you successful business/tech people).
How many American troops have you got in Hungary? A couple of hundreds? It seems there is a thousand of them in the Baltic statelets, on a semi-permanent basis. 30.000 in Germany. If you think this is good enough insurance for Hungary, you’re clearly not frightened enough.
100,000s of thousands of Russians soldiers would also be used in a limited campaign to take parts or all of Eastern Ukraine. It wouldn’t necessarily be obvious for days that Russia intended to take Kiev or the entire country, if Russia didn’t want it to be.
They’re tripwire forces, to ensure the US will respond in the case of external aggression by Russia. The same is of course true even more of the forces in the Baltic states which NATO probably couldn’t successfully defend against a Russian invasion.
Most people in the US probably don’t care much about Hungary or the Baltic states, but once American soldiers have been killed, wounded or paraded around as prisoners in a humiliating manner, they’ll regard it as an attack against America and respond accordingly (which means in the jingoistic psycho manner typical of Americans when they feel wronged).
Anyway, I really doubt the approach you seem to favour would do Russia much good, it would drive even many Europeans with great misgivings about NATO into the arms of the Americans.
German_reader just explained. I would add that the Russian peacekeeping forces in South Ossetia had a similar function: they never were adequate to protect the place, but Georgia couldn’t avoid killing many of them if they attacked. Thereby guaranteeing the Russian response.
You seem to be very smart, like Saakashvili.
Keep in mind, even a “limited” invasion of Kharkiv would be a massive invasion of a country, without even a flimsy pretext as in Crimea or Donbas. There is no rebellion there, nor possibility of one, to support. Given that Crimea was followed by Donbas, was followed Kharkiv, there would also be a high chance that further invasion would be assumed at that point. Russia made plenty of false claims of no Russian troops fanning out in Crimea, no Russian troops ever in Donbas, etc. so claims by Russia that the invasion would be limited to Kharkiv would simply not be taken seriously.
Moroever, even if it were a limited invasion, reserves forces (and air defenses) would be bombed in Kiev and Dnipropetrovsk regions, as would be military facilities. This would further erode credibility for claims of a limited invasion.
Germany was “allowed” Austria, Sudetenland, and the rest of Czechoslovakia was the last straw.
So small but not zero likelihood of “Samson option” if Russian troops close in on Zaporizhia (totally spun and blamed on Russia if it happens), also small but not zero chance of “Samson option” on Moscow, St. Petersburg, other major Russian cities if Ukraine itself is fully occupied. Even the West probably wouldn’t defend the latter crimes, but at that point the fanatics doing it wouldn’t give a damn.
Even that fits in my interpretation, that generals will always assume that the nukes will be used. But unlike politicians, they might accept serious civilian casualties among their own populations.
Hispanics earn more because they benefit from the larger white driven economy. Hell, blacks even earn relatively well compared to, lets say people in eastern europe. Which does not mean that blacks are smarter than eastern europeans, but simply that they benefit from the larger white driven economy.
Average IQ of hispanics in the US is 90 (see SAT scores)
Quality of latino migrants coming to the US will decrease with time as the percentage of whites in Latin America is declining.
IQ of the US population in 2050 will be around 95. It will continue to decline after that, as most of the available (younger) migrants at that point will be non-white. This means not a first world country, and coming closer to a second world country. Debt levels are projected to reach astronomical levels, while the US share of the world economy to decline, and the US to lose the first and second positions in the world economy to China and India.
Nothing happened after Germany took Czechoslovakia, so there were many straws after that. Germany did not stop at the ethnic German areas, so this is very different from the Crimea scenario. However, the Germans were correct in accusing the Czechs of abusing their German minority. The Ukrainians started the war by killing their own people so if the war flares up again, Russia has the R2P the Donbass.
The next thing it did, invade Poland, resulted in World War II.
Crimea ids mostly Russian, and Donbas is about 45% Russian. So nothing happened.
Other parts of Ukraine are a different story.
Questionable claim to say the least. Even if true – Yeltsin bombed the parliamant – open season on Russian territory?
Unless Europe is suicidal, Europe needs Russian gas and waries about US’s LNG. Gas from ME needs to go thru Syria or Turkey. Beside BRI still has a northern terminal hub in Finland and southern hub in Ajerbaijan. Arctic sea route will be opening any time soon.
You are also pretty ignorant about the UN law on international transit right. The west can ban Russian goods but they cannot ban the goods of other nations transiting through Russia and that is at risk of triggering a world war.
The Transit of Goods in Public International Law, Page 223
https://books.google.com.au/books?id=HtkuBgAAQBAJ&pg=PA223&lpg=PA223&dq=ethiopia+%27transit+right%27&source=bl&ots=S-6dweMrF8&sig=ehk6rwf1a33VAoXfE8jbgbN-T7o&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjDrOnUhOTcAhVWAogKHbeqDvA4ChDoATACegQICBAB#v=onepage&q=ethiopia%20%27transit%20right%27&f=false
The goods from China, Korea and Japan should have the freedom to transit to Europe.
Chu was notorious for annexing the land of allies, that was how they grew large. Once their army was invited in to expel the invaders it was very hard to persuade them to leave. There are plenty of modern examples, especially the ally that is harbouring your political rival that intended to overthrow you.
Example of “zigzag diplomacy” at work,
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zhang_Yi_(Warring_States_period)
NKorea consulted with Russia and China and negotiated with SKorea and US, leaving Japan hopping mad at the fringe about the issue of US army leaving SKorea was even being discussed (but unlikely to be implemented). And a new benchmark was set yesterday with one ally asking its citizens to dump the other ally’s currency.
I just had another thought, that for politicians the perceived craziness of the opponent probably matters a great deal. Putin is not perceived to be nearly as crazy as the Soviets were.
LMAO Since when international law mattered for US, its allies and clients? The sanctions against Russia are a violation of international law.
Done.
Thanks!
Important enough for Kissinger to write an article about that. If it is trivia why that bothered him?
https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/2001-07-01/pitfalls-universal-jurisdiction
“The Pitfalls of Universal Jurisdiction” By Henry A. Kissinger
Being seen as crazy can be a definite asset. Especially if you’re weak. Brezhnev didn’t need to act crazy. The Soviet Union at that time was strong. Now Russia is weak they need to be seen as seriously crazy. Putin is perceived as being both reasonable and weak. A fatal combination.
Putin isn’t Hitler. He’s Neville Chamberlain.
You seem to be naive about how the world (and collective West) works. Make no mistake about it, a breakdown in relations between Russia and the West means it’s bye-bye to China’s dream of “Silk Road”. Could be one of the reasons US is stoking tensions with Russia.
Did the Nazi capture of the Memelland come before or after the Nazi occupation of Prague?
Poland and especially Hungary were Hitler’s allies in the dismemberment of Czechoslovakia in 1938-1939–when France was still a Great Power.
No. Hungary specifically denied Hitler’s request to attack Czechoslovakia in September 1938, and then was peacefully given the ethnically majority Hungarian area anyway. In March 1939 we militarily grabbed present-day Transcarpathia, too, but it was already against the freshly independent Slovak state, which was aligned with Hitler. Then, more crucially, in 1939 Hungary denied requests by Hitler to participate in the invasion of Poland or, at least, to allow German troops passage through its territory. Hungary also gave refuge to at least a hundred thousand Poles, and allowed the passage of Polish soldiers to the West.
If that’s an ally, then China already has plenty of such allies.
It did, but it happened immediately afterwards, and peacefully. It’s a question what would’ve happened if the Lithuanians resisted.
We don’t speak of Kissinger. Trump had one brief meeting with him as is cusomary.He is a NWO war and death monger holdover. We are moving on toward a partnership with Russia for the good of the planet.
Do not underestimate Trump’s ability to negotiate. The resolutions of the first meeting with Putin were modern: working together for mutual benefit, negotiating with other countries toward denuclearization, cultural exchanges and so on.
Then Trump was inundated by the criminal Russiagate hoax financed by NWO henchmen Clinton and Soros, implemented by scum of the earth NWO stooges left over from decades of NWO dominance. Understandably Trump, who genuinely wants peace, had to postpone his invitation to Putin. Recently he sent a personal letter via a pro Russia convoy.
In the meantime more sanctions were imposed on Russia. Most likely that was given the go ahead to ameliorate the tremendous pressure here with rising accusation of Russian collusion, for example, George Webb’s revelations of the collusion of Paul Manaforte and Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska in million dollar arms deals.
The first meeting of Trump and Putin would not have concluded with so much positive enthusiasm if Trump intended to continue painful sanctions. Maybe Putin should sanction the U.S. for harboring armed forces and weapons on Russian borders.Maybe there needs to be a give and take but not until we have completed the 2018 elections and recovered from the deeply entrenched corruption in D.C.
Peace and goodwill toward Russia. God bless our alliance with Russia. After the next meeting or the next after that, whatever it takes, we will deal with China and do not underestimate the power these two dynamic leaders in partnership will have!
With allies like this, who needs enemies?
it doesn’t take a bismark to see the logic inherent in bear x eagle in the context of a rising sun, moon or dragon
http://delong.typepad.com/sdj/2012/10/stalingrad-at-70.html
six years ago?