Am in London again (that that I particularly want to be), will probably visit Aarhus, Denmark in mid-May (conference). Thinking of going to Denmark by train through the Netherlands, finances permitting. I have yet to visit the Dutch.
I have finally picked up my copy of Heiner Rindermann’s Cognitive Capital here. Will hopefully soon add to James Thompson’s and Emil Kirkegaard’s reviews.
Assuming there is no international crisis, I’ll get the Portugal post up very soon.
Novak Draskovic has translated my large Ukraine article into Serbian: Украјина још није умрла, а кад ће не знамо
Featured
* Cathedral Chronicles:
- Steve Sailer: Higher IQ Newspapers Tend to be Written by Higher IQ Reporters
- Wai, Jonathan & Perine (2018) – Expertise in Journalism: Factors Shaping a Cognitive and Culturally Elite Profession. The paper it’s based upon.
- SJWs force Ulster University to deprive Richard Lynn of his emeritus status.
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The Bajau people are uniquely adapted for long, deep-sea diving (larger spleens, better eyesight underwater). But we all know human evolution stopped 50,000 years ago!?
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Bryan Caplan: The Wonder of International Adoption: Adult IQ in Sweden
International adoption doesn’t make international IQ gaps vanish, but it plausibly cuts them in half. And remember – unlike classic childhood interventions like Head Start, the gains last into adulthood instead of fading away. What other viable, lasting treatment for low IQ is even remotely as effective?
Seems to confirm intuitive deductions that global B/W gap is 50/50 environment and genetics.
- UK government says Russia spreads fake news via Twitter bots, the only Twitter “bots” it cited were actually two real people, one of them the famous @PartisanGirl.
UK government falsely accuses two Twitter users of being Kremlin bots and the Guardian reprints without fact checking. Both users say they are now considering suing. One, @Partisangirl is a very well known Syrian Youtuber in Australia. https://t.co/ePYZY5D6Zl
— WikiLeaks (@wikileaks) April 20, 2018
- Syria Strike 2018 aftermath:
- Patrick Lang: Are the Russians Correct?. His argument is yes. I had agreed.
- Hmm… No clear version of what happened: John Bolton wanted a massive bombing raid in Syria. Trump said no.
Powerful wh40k vibes.
- Russian military history blogger writes about Russian MoD-sponsored trip to Khmeimim Airbase, Syria. You don’t need Russian to appreciate the photos.
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Emil Kirkegaard: Corvus Intelligence
Within this parvorder, the genus Corvus (ravens and crows) is an outlier at over eight standard deviations above the avian mean, by far the highest of all genera.
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Andres Gomez Emilsson & Mike Johnson: Reflections on The Science of Consciousness 2018
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NBF: Laser are getting ten times more powerful every 3 years, soon Exawatt lasers will unlock fusion and more. Interesting and important trend I was not previously aware of.
Russia
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Outline of Russian budgetary policy for next few years: Less military spending; more infrastructure, healthcare, education spending.
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Incompetent Roskomnadzor assault on Telegram continues.
- Close to 20 million IPs continuously blocked [usher2.club]
- Affecting cloud services used by enterprises
- Knowledge of VPN spreading from political freaks who read marginal liberal and nationalist webzines to normies
- Failure to block Telegram itself
- Hilariously, many of the aforementioned liberal and nationalist webzines are now no longer blocked [ping-admin]
I suspect if anything does the Putin regime in, it will be this sort of stupidity and institutional degradation. Note that Roskomnadzor’s annual budget is more than 10% of that of the Russian Academy of Sciences.
- Paul Robinson reviews Timothy Snyder’s propaganda book about Russia (Putin, Dugin, Glazyev (!), Prokhanov (!)) as fascist.
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Prime Minister Sargsyan has resigned in Armenia following the protests. Whether this is a routine power shift or a color revolution will be seen soon (my bet is still on the former).
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Russia might open a military base in Somaliland. If true, this will have some fascinating historical precedents.
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Mark Feygin has been disbarred. Since he is a political activist masquerading as a lawyer, moreover one who exploits his clients to advance his political objectives, this comes 5 years too late.
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Large collection of maps and infographics about the Russian 2018 Presidential elections [in Russian].
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Kommersant: Israeli Repats [in Russia], via Dmitry.
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Even relatively good Russia watchers often don’t know the most elementary things:
https://twitter.com/akarlin88/status/987785823046205440
World
- Polish Perspective comment on dwindling EU subsidies to Poland and why it could help Poland play a more independent role.
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Steve Sailer:
- “White Privilege” vs. “Jewish Privilege”
- The Southern Poverty Law Center, a Fundraising Organization, Raised a Lot of Funds During the First Year of Trump Derangement Syndrome
- SPLC Executive Suite: 47 Years of “Whites Only”
- You thought it was bad in the US? Check out Affirmative Action in Brazil
- Audacious Epigone: The Rainbow Nation goes dark
- Audacious Epigone: Nobody does Russophobia like Jews do. Some statistical support for Charles Bausman’s controversial thesis.
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Sinotriumph:
- NBF: Missiles and planes make China’s South China Sea Island bases an effective update of the Maginot Line
- NBF: China could sell half of the world’s electric cars in 2018
- NBF: China is deploying metamaterials and railguns using SR-71 like development speed and flexibility
- Valdai Club: The West’s ‘Unilateral War’ Against Russia and China Makes the World a More Dangerous Place
- Leonid Bershidsky: Hungary’s Orban Isn’t Another Putin
Science & Culture
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Gwern’s March newsletter.
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Richard Lynn, Fuest, & Kirkegaard (2018) – Regional differences in intelligence in 22 countries and their economic, social and demographic correlates: A review. It’s up on Sci-Hub.
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James Thompson to begin doing videos on state of IQ research. First one here.
- Age of world’s oldest person steadily creeping up.
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Technology Review: Researchers are keeping pig brains alive outside the body. Dreadnought sarcophagi here we come.
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Picus News here we come:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cQ54GDm1eL0
Powerful Takes
- As Thorfinnson said, this man married well.
- Peak /r/politics?
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Georgian svidomism:
https://twitter.com/akarlin88/status/988605525834321925
I was really lazy to find out the real score behind Orbán’s recent veto of the agreement between the EU and the Africans, does anyone have an idea? The agreement was supposed to reduce migrant flows from Africa.
Which man?
Daniel Chieh (not only does his wife allow him to play video games…she apparently plays them herself…nerd dream come true!).
Oh, I thought it referred to the following section about strangling Russia…
I really wonder if that Reddit comment is genuine…are there really members of the general public who are that anti-Russia?
That sounds really interesting, obviously I don’t understand the technical details, but anything about nuclear fusion is exciting.
Similar thoughts were being paraded around in the ww3 comments.
Avg American hates any country that doesn’t allow blacks to cuck them wholesale.
I trust Bryan Caplan not at all, but, taking everything for granted, there is a certain point at which the term “environmental” becomes quite absurd. If for instance, you need to utterly surround blacks with whites, even in the home, and it is non-duplicable in any other form (school instruction) – well, then, it may technically be environmental, but that is not very useful for society. In fact, it may be worse than if the gap were 100% genetic, because egalitarians will want to close that gap, by forcing blacks and whites together.
The Bajau people are really quite interesting. They were selected by their waters. Can you imagine people around the North Sea developing natural adaptations for skin-diving? No it is too damn cold. How about the Dead Sea? Nothing that qualifies as food is living in it.
If different waters can change our DNA, it should be quite obvious that different soils can also. And yet so many still think people are interchangeable. And they want to stake civilization on it.
Reading Bershidsky’s article on Orban is a painful reminder of how terrible coverage of CEE is in the general Western press – not because Leonid’s article is bad, but precisely the opposite. Even for someone who disagrees with Orban, he manages to do so intelligently while also acknowledging the real issues underpinning Orban’s success. That feat is almost impossible to find in the mainstream Western press these days.
I also don’t think the fact that Bershidsky being Eastern European is unrelated to this capability, a capability which so many of his colleagues apparently lack.
It’s not even just EE. It also dovetails with my previous lament about so much of Western coverage of China being atrocious and shallow. Most reporters on elite newspapers are not even ethnic Chinese, fewer still are fluent in Mandarin. This for the world’s biggest (by PPP) economy. If even a much more important country like China is treated in such a careless and ignorant manner, what hope does Hungary have? Western so-called ‘experts’ of Russia sometimes don’t even feel like they need to know Russian either.
I am not old enough to know how it was in the earlier days but I find it hard to believe that standards were this sloppy before. It seems your actual domain expertise matters less and less and what truly matters is your ideological conformity and little else. Even as someone who ideologically disagrees with Bershidsky, he is a pleasure to read nonetheless. That’s as high a compliment I can give a journalist, especially in the hysterical climate we live in today.
One of my themes I’ve been running with is Chinese elites vs Indian elites. The former being much more independent-minded. We got another example just this week.
Alibaba’s Jack Ma says nations need own semiconductor technology to sidestep US control
Some background: ZTE phones were banned from the US just last week. ZTE’s phones are also-rans. It is their networking equipment which is bringing in the big bucks. They are also tight with the Chinese security establishment – just as Amazon is working for the CIA and other SV firms have enmeshed themselves with various USG entities.
There’s now rumors of an impending investigation into Huawei, which would accelerate this process even faster.
But truth to be told, the Chinese push started way before the recent controversy. China has committed $150 billion USD to build up their domestic semi-conductor industry. What Ma is referring to is actually the chips themselves, such as those sold by Qualcomm or ARM technology (technically owned by Japan’s Softbank now, but Japan itself is a Western colony). So we have a multi-layered approach here. On the one hand, the actual industrial capacity to manufacture chips. Today three countries basically dominate. It’s the US(Intel and GloFo), Taiwan(TSMC) and Korea (Samsung). They may have small manufacturing factories scattered across the globe, but the core R&D is done in those three countries. Everyone else is basically unimportant. China will now try to be the fourth major player.
On top of that, it is also trying to break into the chips business. I’ve noted befor e that they are working to catch-up fast in the CPU sphere, with loose talk about GPUs also being developed. Doing small chips is obviously crucial as we head into the 5G era.
Now what does India do? Flipkart, one of the few ‘domestic’ e-commerce firms which has the scale to push domestic innovation is now locked in an internal squabble over to which American firm to sell out to. There was talk about doing a protective policy, á la China, but this fell flat. Indian elites are far too Westernised for that to happen.
Unz published a few articles on Indian-Americans. The common theme was a lamentation over their leftism. I’m not American, so I wouldn’t know. But it is clear that the Indian-American diaspora has a huge impact on the Indian domestic elites. And their integration into the Western echelons, subservient mandarins who work for companies that they do not own (Nadella and Pichai being the two clearest examples) re-inforces this service mindset. Realistically, only very big countries will be able to create a panoply of tech companies that can compete on a global scale. This is also partly why Europe has failed. Intra-European goods trade (German strength) is very liberalised. Intra-European services trade (German weakness) isn’t. As long as European trade remains a patchwork in this manner, and as long as we have a ‘single market’ full of bureaucratic exemptions, this will not change. Therefore, only 3 countries have a realistic chance to create numerous global tech behemoths, and India is the third of them. Hence why I care about this topic.
Finally, isn’t it ironic – and telling – that the most famous Chinese tech people are owner-entrepreneurs like Jack Ma or Pony Ma(Tencent)? The most famous Indian tech people are CEOs of US firms that they themselves do not own. The biggest domestic Indian tech firm, Flipkart, will now sell out to either Walmart or Amazon. It’s depressing. I’d certainly want even more non-Western rivals, which would mean even more competition and options for those of us who want a pluralistic tech landscape where the whims of the USG and the SJW culture of America is the dominant trendline. I had hoped for India but it seems its elites are far too compliant and oriented to being supplicants. China it is.
The future might be pig-brain drones hunting down Islamic terrorists all over the West.
It’d be truly funny if it weren’t quickly becoming reality.
I’m just interested in what coverage Hungary gets abroad. My guess is zero.
The former (1993-2016) president of the Hungarian Swimming Federation, still active vice president of FINA, also an influential leftist media mogul (until 2009, he lost most media influence before Orbán came to power), was last week arrested (he’s been released, but has to wear a GPS device 24/7 and regularly report to police) in connection to the 1998 contract killing of another leftist media mogul. It has long been rumored that he ordered the murder (they were business rivals and personally hated each other, and of the many influential rivals of the victim, he was long rumored to have had underworld connections), so of course I’m sure he did it (the actual murderer has already been convicted a few years ago, but it was yet unknown who was behind it.
It’s interesting because the case reached the highest political levels (obviously the then liberal minister of the interior and possibly the late socialist prime minister), and shows how shallow accusations of corruption against Orbán sound to many voters. I mean, our previous leftist elites had been literally connected to contract killing gangsters.
The interesting thing is that due to his position in FINA, this guy, Tamás Gyárfás, is a kinda sorta international personality, but I haven’t seen much reporting on the case in the international media.
America suddenly moving quite decisively to protect its high technology industry from China makes the overall failure to protect America’s industrial base over the past half century very depressing. Within my lifetime the USA was the world’s largest producer of machine tools, but now it’s only number six. Many other examples. As Admiral Martyanov likes to remind us, there is more to technology than semiconductors and software.
There’s more to technological independence an indigenous semiconductor design and fabrication industry. The capital equipment and materials needed for semiconductor manufacturing all originate in the United States and Japan (sole exception being the Dutch firm ASML). Semiconductor silicon, for instance, is only available from Shin Etsu Chemical (Monsanto and Wacker Chemie exited the market in the 90s).
India has more of a nationalistic mindset than you think. The Indian government launched the Make in India campaign in 2014 to encourage indigenous manufacturing and innovation after India’s electronics imports exceeded its oil imports for the first time.
http://www.makeinindia.com/home
India has historically had little success attempt to match foreign technology. In the defense sector where it has tried the hardest there’s an unending list of debacles like the Tejas light fighter and the Arjun tank.
But yes, allowing Flipkart to be sold to Americans and take a perverse pride in acting as indentured coolies for Silizog Valley oligarchs is not helping.
Prichai and Nadella are also incompetent to boot. Microsoft’s revenue is now stagnant, and at Google the lunatics are taking over the asylum while Pichai’s bosses fritter away the stockholders’ money on an endless series of childish boondoggles. While not Indian, Apple’s homo-sexual CEO Tim Cook is another mediocrity who deserves no praise. Apple’s revenues are also stagnant, and before long it will be surpassed in annual net earnings by Berkshire Hathaway–a non-tech company which actually pays substantial corporate income taxes whose largest single operating unit is…a railroad.
Microsoft needs to accept that it is now an enterprise software company whether it likes it or not. Obvious moves would be to look into acquisitions in that space such as Salesforce.com, Intuit, SAP, Oracle, etc. Alternatively it could give up on growth and massively increase its buybacks and dividend while cutting costs. There’s nothing wrong with such a business model–3G Capital makes it work quite nicely.
Google benefits from the fact that digital advertising spending continues to grow faster than the economy as a whole, but this will stop in the next decade. It needs to admit that it’s just a fucking advertising platform, get rid of the nerd space camp shit, fire all the SJWs, then start looking at mass layoffs. Its enterprise products like G Suite are good and should not be abandoned, however. Google is also arguably in greater danger than Microsoft in the next decade, as the growing use of personal assistants for search provides no obvious way to sell ads (are they going to hire aging radio DJs to pitch used cars on Alexa?).
Incidentally, what’s the business plan for Waymo? Google isn’t a carmaker and is unlikely to enter such a capital-intensive and competitive business. I doubt the fruitcakes, pencil necks, and sensitive souls at Google could handle an industry with competition and demanding customers to begin. Are they planning to lease the technology to traditional carmakers?
Since I brought them up, Apple has three paths forward:
1 – Accept that it’s a luxury consumer electronics brand and start acquiring assets like Sony’s consumer electronics division, Bang & Olufsen, etc. You could argue that acquiring Beats headphones showed they accept this, though the world’s richest corporation getting scammed by a rapper who markets headphones to people who rob actual Apple customers is not a good sign.
2 – Reanimate Steve Jobs so they can create new products again. And please, keep Zombie Steve Jobs away from the fruit!
3 – The shareholder love model as suggested for Microsoft. Blow up the Hall of Doom vanity headquarters and write it off, then relocate the workers actually needed to run the company to a series of non-descript steel buildings on the outskirts of Reno. Fire Tim Cook and replace him Vince McMahon–a guy who really knows how to put on a good show. Make immediate plans to start returning the $300 billion cash hoard to shareholders.
Bottom line is that America’s largest tech companies are generally not that impressive:
IBM – A patent troll and consulting agency masquerading as a tech company whose main product is its stock
HP – A criminal enterprise who hates and fears its customers whose products are afterthroughts
Amazon – A retailer and web hosting company that dabbles in media which absolutely despises profits
Facebook – Dislike
The real tech is at Intel and Qualcomm.
The thing about lasers is it opens up the possibility of laser based missile defense.
But don’t get too excited, the Pentagon is saying not to expect deployed laser defense against mid range rockets/missiles until 2070.
The greatest thing about bullet proof missile defense is it would neutralize nuclear weapons so for the first time since WWII it would be possible for large states to have conventional conflicts. We have all this cool military tech but we never get to see it used so maybe in the future we finally will.
edit: SyrianGirl or whatever she calls herself now is quite the piece of ass
There are plenty of Chinese that now cover the country for the elite Western press, at least if twitter press feeds is anything to go by. They just all happen to be Chinese women in relationships with Western men or outright homosexuals; also likely in relationships with Western men.
So what you get is pure traitorous bio-leninist drivel written by foreign trained fifth columnists.
As Steve Sailer noted, the media, due to it’s surfeit of women who gravitate towards the industry is much more prone towards sexual abuse than traditionally male dominated sectors. Counterintuively, the more women there are working there, the more likely men in a position of power are going to take advange of it.
The English language press in China and really the entire Far East bureaus of Western media depends on a stable of local compradors and fixers due to lack of language facility. These overwhelmingly happen to be pretty ambitious young women who speak English and like the hordes of talented young girls flocking to New York or LA to make it into the big leagues, working for the prestige Western Press is a huge status bump for them. The editors in charge are your average clueless middle aged guys transported to the Far East and their hiring decisions are driven primarily by their penises. Accomodating sexy young things who pander to their ideologies get hired, men don’t. This is how the Western media works in Asia.
What exactly do you have against a fruitarian, zombie Steve Jobs?
Better fruit than people’s brains. Besides, they could reunite the two Steves.
None of that really matters in the end. When you have population replacement (with third worlders like you) you have foreigners producing the goods or services in a foreign land or foreigners producing in what was once your own land, its the same thing.
Only a cuckservative can be dumb enough to convince himself that an Indian/Chinese person producing machine tools in America is patriotism, and them producing it outside the US is a threat to “national security” (you cannot have national security when you don’t have a nation).
but I haven’t seen much reporting on the case in the international media.
A google news search suggests that “much” could safely be replaced by “virtually any”, and the “virtually” could be omitted if restricted to media that one has heard of. Are you sure you haven’t misspelled his name?
What are your thoughts on the age of the earth and the age of the universe?
Do you feel like the level of veneration that Mary gets in the Catholic Church crosses the line into outright worship?
Do you accept Biblical innerancy?
Are you suffering from some crisis of faith (considering conversion to Christianity?) or why are you asking this?
Not a crisis of faith but I was raised Christian so I have always maintained an interest in Christian theology.
Last week when I became interested in Fatima I started reading more Christian materials so I’d like to hear the opinions of what a believer thinks.
Needless to say, Russia was quite lucky never to have established any African colonies. Meanwhile Germany was lucky to have lost its colonies during WWI, but its ruling class squandered the one outcome of WWI which could be considered positive for Germany.
That genuinely surprises me.
Not sure you’ll find many believers among AK’s commentariat, but maybe someone will answer your questions, could be interesting.
Lasers:
if the graph in the article is right, they got to 1PW back in approx 1995 and are hoping to get to 10PW in 2018.
That isn’t a factor of 10 in 3 years, it is a factor of 10 in 23 years (a hoped for factor).
Yet they talk about a further factor of 100 imminently.
Pity. 30PW (and much higher frequencies) are what they reckon might achieve fusion – but I see no comment on whether there exists the electricity power generation capacity to start that off.
graph:
https://www.nextbigfuture.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/lasersscaling1000every10-2.png?x71037
Yes.
Here’s perhaps the ur-example: https://np.reddit.com/r/Enough_Sanders_Spam/comments/5mttx2/fuck_russia/
Wow, disturbingly deranged comments.
Definitely not rational, hard to understand these people.
3) This is a Protestant idea, and a relatively recent idea at that (19th century). It is certainly not part of historical, liturgical Christianity. The idea of biblical inerrancy rests on the fundamental Protestant principle of sola scriptura, or the idea that the Bible is the pillar and foundation of Christian truth. Which is silly, because the Bible itself says, “the Church is the pillar and bulwark of truth.” (1 Timothy 3:15, RSV). And of course, the Church existed prior to the canon of scripture and it was the Church who determined, infallibly, what books would be included in the biblical canon (Deuterocanonical books, e.g., Sirach, et al.) and which would excluded (Pseudepigraphal works, e.g., Gospel of Peter). All Catholic doctrine is derived from the Bible, to include the Assumption of Mary. And the Catholic Church has no less love for the Bible than Protestants, after all, it is the Catholic Church’s book.
2) Why does the Catholic Church exalt Mary so? Because God did. Because God’s angel did. And why does she deserve the angel’s title, “full of grace”? Because Mary is as full of grace as a creature can be. She is triply united to the triune God. The Father’s perfect daughter, the Son’s perfect mother, and the Spirit’s perfect spouse. Mary is the most beautiful mere creature that God ever made. To exalt her is to exalt her divine Creator, Whose spiritual daughter she was, and to exalt her divine Son Whose human mother she was and Whose humanity she procreated, and to exalt her divine Spouse the Holy Spirit Who conceived Him in her womb. The Catholic Church looks at her as the supreme merely human handmaid of the Trinitarian God.
1) I think modern cosmology has the Big Bang occurring 10^9 years ago. And it was a Belgian Catholic priest and theoretical physicist, Fr. Georges Lemaître, who is created as the progenitor of the Big Bang theory. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georges_Lemaître
Here’s a talk that met interest you Greasy:
https://youtu.be/8F7eIrh80V8
thanks.
I did not realize the Catholic Church rejected Biblical innerancy.
No, I didn’t address the Catholic position on inerrancy. Just critiqued the Protestant position on sola scriptura. The Catholic position holds the Bible to be inerrant and it contains truth without error. But inerrancy does not preclude the use of allegory or parable or metaphor or poetry or any number of expressions of thought which are not intended to be understood as literal truth.
See reply #30
Most of the bureau chiefs for Greater China are still white men with minimal to no knowledge of Mandarin, though. I agree with you re: hiring patterns and how we end up with a lot of Chinese women with self-hatred (also reflected in their marriage patterns) as lower-tier reporters to their white male chiefs.
All of this means that quality of Chinese coverage is horrendous. For the English language, I do prefer reading SCMP now that it is in Chinese hands again. Hilariously enough, the NYT wrote a whining article about this and how reflects in their coverage.
A Hong Kong Newspaper on a Mission to Promote China’s Soft Power
I think a fair criticism of China since the reform era is that it has been too overly focused on ‘hard’ convergence (industrial, economic, military) and too negligent of ‘soft’ convergence, primarily on cultural influence etc. To their credit, the Chinese leadership seem to understand this (hence the promotion of Confucius institutes, among other things). Though they are still somewhat inept at this. Confucius institutes are now being targeted in the Western press for being dens of spies and subversion with very weak pushback. The Chinese also don’t seem to understand, or at least up until now, that the media is a far greater vector of influence than formal institutes.
Nevertheless, they seem to be gradually learning. Buying newspapers would go a long way; let’s hope SCMP is not the last one. So far that’s a fairly ‘defensive’ buy since it is located in Greater China and focuses on Chinese affairs. I’m sure there would be huge amount of whining if China made more offensive buys deeper in Western territory, but I would certainly want to see it happening. It would also mean that China would be on the offensive for once with regards to soft influence. Something that is long overdue.
Filthy papist.
No, I didn’t misspell his name. Tamás Gyárfás.
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-swimming-hungary-gyarfas/hungarian-swimming-executive-denies-murder-of-business-rival-idUSKBN1HP2Z3
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/europe/ex-head-of-hungary-swim-federation-denies-murder-case-link/2018/04/18/66a32a8e-4310-11e8-b2dc-b0a403e4720a_story.html?noredirect=on&utm_term=.d299b13b56af
https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/hungary-ex-chief-of-swim-federation-held-in-1998-slaying/2018/04/17/2f1924de-4283-11e8-b2dc-b0a403e4720a_story.html?utm_term=.62588e67b2b6
http://www.xinhuanet.com/english/2018-04/21/c_137125959.htm
https://www.insidethegames.biz/articles/1064352/fina-executive-member-gyarfas-denies-ordering-murder-of-rival-in-1998
Okay, that last one is a totally obscure source no one has ever heard of. The guy he had murdered, János Fenyő, was Jewish. I’m unsure about Gyárfás himself.
No, they plan to give it out at a loss and then recoup the costs by spying on your driving patterns. (The same criminal scheme that successfully made Android dominant.)
Nothing is stopping us from having conventional conflicts even today, with today’s technology. Two points:
a) Mass wholesale slaughter by nuclear bombs makes no military sense.
b) Tactical nukes are less powerful than huge conventional bombs.
The arms race for huge nukes is a historical artifact — in the 60’s and 70’s precision-guided missiles didn’t exist, so a lack of precision had to be compensated with raw destructive power.
Today huge nuclear bombs make no sense when you can delver a small tactical nuke directly to the target.
(Nukes were always a means to destroy the enemy’s command centers, not a way to kill huge numbers of civilians.)
Last week when I became interested in Fatima I started reading more Christian materials so I’d like to hear the opinions of what a believer thinks.
Then wherefore asketh thou me?
When did I ever say I was a “believer”, because I’m not, at least in the conventional sense. What I tend to believe is that we’re the result of a laboratory experiment carried out in another universe (or dimension), with competing teams trying to influence the outcome.
Not a crisis of faith but I was raised Christian so I have always maintained an interest in Christian theology.
So what made you convert to the religion whose adherents willingly, and openly, accepted responsibility for shedding the blood of your former mentor (Matthew 27:24-25)?
No, I didn’t misspell his name. Tamás Gyárfás.
I know that, it was said in jest to emphasise the scarcity of the results the google search turned up!!! Probably should have used an emoticon, I guess, but I’m too old for that.
that Epigone graph…
they aren’t wrong if you assume all of the intl stuff is zero sum. maybe instead of the revenge for pale of settlement theory research joos’ agreeableness and propensity for manichaeism.
If they didn’t kill large numbers of civilians, then nuclear war wouldn’t be thought any scarier than a regular world war.
Precision is sometimes difficult, because the target itself is very well protected, but it’s not so easy to protect a circle around the target several kilometers in diameter. I’m unsure how close a nuclear warhead has to hit to destroy an aircraft carrier, but I’m sure it’s at least a few kilometers away.
(Bryan Caplan is poison.)
So, basically, if society is at most 1% black, then the blacks will do comparatively well, unless they congregate. Well, perhaps that could be used as policy guidance.
Okay. My daughter is ill and I needed roughly double the sleep I got. As you can see from the very early time of the comment. (Should be converted to CET.)
Seems like you forgot to include links
https://ecoross1.livejournal.com/716218.html
https://ecoross1.livejournal.com/716347.html
You really do need to get some more sleep, this comment should be addressed to Anonymous Coward, not to me.
Is your daughter all right?
She looks better now.
Meanwhile in Poland
https://i.imgur.com/MgwfE2W.jpg
Wololo!
It’s only thought of as scary due to historical accident and Soviet shills during the Cold War. Nukes are not inherently scarier than what the USA dropped on Vietnam and Iraq.
Watch this space, I bet we’ll eventually see tactical nukes used within the next 25 years and it will be no big deal.
Ja ne rozume, proshe Pana? Cso za ‘Wololo’ i jaki to ksiadz? Dziekuje!
You’re hoping for a major conventional war so we can see cool weapons used??
Carriers are basically white elephants in any conflict between real powers (US, China, Russia). One big problem is that they can be tracked in real time now. That is not something that was true in WW2.
The other relevant point is the pricetag. Is it cheaper to sink them than to build them? Yes and double yes. And the US is no longer an unchallenged economic power. I don’t know what the price of seasteading an island in the South China sea is, but I bet it is a heck of a lot cheaper than a carrier.
No.
No.
It’s a book written by fallible men who had their own prejudices, ulterior motives, and flaws. It contains philosophical insights, useful observations about human nature and behavior, and excellent advice about how to treat each other that tends to lead towards a more harmonious, kinder society and world.
But it also contains, in the Old Testament, some boring and irrelevant ancient genealogies, vicious Jewish-supremacist celebration of cruelty in the course of military victory (joyous to knash the heads of your enemies’ infants against the rocks), and repetitive conclusory flowery language that amounts to little.
The Bible: some of the most beautiful ideas and workable rules developed, drowning in nonsense and things that don’t matter at all.
Put some of the OT together with most of the NT, and we have a good starting point for organizing our lives and societies. But there are other sources with useful insights, observations, and advice, and we should consider and debate them as well, using whatever works that is not inconsistent with our moral values.
The OT is specifically the Catholic church’s book? Dubious.
What in the OT was even written after jesus’s birth?
Good luck to your daughter. We have little girls ourselves.
Is it inerrant word of God that homosexuals shall be put to death, per Leviticus 20? All translations seem to contain that element clearly. Does that mean that God will put them to death (HIV?) or that other men should kill them?
Is it the inerrant word of God to smash the heads of enemies’ babies against rocks in revenge, per psalm 137:9?
Okay.
Sick of both your shit, irrational rude Catholic zealots and irrational rude antiCatholic zealots. So let me be rude in return. What do normal people not like about both your camps of zealot fools?
Pretending to be sure of things we can’t be sure of, and questioning the faith or good will or intelligence or “biblical ‘’knowledge’” of people who point out that you don’t and can’t really know much of what you’re claiming to know with certainty.
Acting like people in other christian denominations en masse aren’t real Christians or even good people.
The Protestant crap about RCs worshipping Mary. But also the creepy RC rhetoric about Mary as a spouse of the Holy Spirit, clergy being married to the church, etc.
Arguing about things that don’t practically matter and that the church itself has changed its position on, such as reincarnation.
Expecting other people to accept whatever you’re arguing —or merely asserting or guessing — because you cite The Holy Bible in capital letters with “chapter and verse.”
Believing that people who live by the golden rule and live faithfully, honestly, industriously, peacefully, kindly, reasonably will still be damned after death if they didn’t believe that Jesus was god or the son of god, or even if they believed that but belonged to the “wrong” denomination.
The jargon. The damn jargon. RCs and Baptists, the denominations with which we are both familiar, have so much odd, offputting jargon, that often doesn’t serve to illuminate. It’s probably used to make things sound more dramatic, important, impressive, authoritative, but it just obfuscates and sounds ridiculous. Jargon is also used to make believers feel like they’re part of a special elite club that the non-members can’t understand.
If his point is that sub-Saharan blacks have an IQ much closer to American blacks when they move to America, then I don’t understand how that is supposed to be a sales pitch. That Caplan seems to think he is making one makes him a very odd man.
I think Thorfinsson was just trolling and pretending to be some latter-day Know-nothing.
At least I hope so…
That’s kind of the point of Christianity though imo.
I know it sounds harsh to most modern people (because it contradicts basic notions of justice), but for the overwhelmingly dominant tradition of the Western church(es) at least there has never been any question that those who don’t believe in Christ indeed won’t be saved, regardless of their personal behaviour in other matters.
Were the Eastern churches any different? I highly doubt it.
As he wrote, he’s exaggerating for effect.
I know little of these matters, but if you look here
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universal_reconciliation
you’ll see at least a few figures from Eastern churches (e.g. Isaac of Nineveh) mentioned who supposedly believed in universal reconciliation.
But yeah, it probably was a fringe doctrine, always and everywhere. Christianity is a lot harsher and more exclusive than many moderns imagine.
Anyway, all the best to your daughter, I hope she gets well soon.
yeah, get well soon to your daughter, reiner
I though this passage comparing levels of corruption in Hungary and Russia was interesting:
Even on this, though, there are important differences between Russia and Hungary. Toth estimates that 15 to 24 percent of government procurement is corrupt. In Russia in the first half of 2017, the Finance Ministry found that 42.5 percent of the total amount of government-owned companies’ procurement contracts was distributed without a competitive procedure at all — a clear indication that these are corrupt deals. According to Martin, the overall share of corrupt and cronyist business in the Hungarian economy is between 5 and 10 percent; in Russia, according to a 2015 estimate by Justice Minister Alexander Konovalov, corruption causes an annual loss of 10 to 20 percent of official economic output.
Russia, in other words, is far more deeply corrupt than Hungary. One reason for this is that, as all the NGO experts I’ve talked to in Budapest have told me, Hungarian courts are still independent and not afraid to rub the government the wrong way. Another is that low-level corruption visible to citizens is virtually non-existent compared to post-Soviet countries. Finally, politics are still competitive, and that places a natural limit on how bold stealing can be.
According to Bershidsky, an independent judiciary, competitive politics, and little social tolerance for blatant corrupt practices are why Hungary is so much less corrupt than Russia.
Both nations are outside the semi-mythical Hajnal line, but if anything this probably plays against national stereotypes, with the crafty, conniving Magyar usually deemed less trustworthy than the thick but earnest Slav.
According to the CPI index, Hungary is the 57th least corrupt country out of 176 measured, while Russia is 131st.
Hungary clusters with its neighbors Croatia, Romania and Slovakia in the rankings, while Russia clusters with nearby Kazakhstan, Ukraine and Moldova.
So the post-communist world is basically divided between countries with “Visegrad” or “Three Seas” levels of corruption, and those with “Eurasian” levels.
It seems obvious that the standards imposed by membership in NATO and the EU have helped clean up Hungary and other similar countries, compared to no such change in Russia et al.
How can Russia maintain its geopolitical dominance in the region when the inherent corruption of Putinism is compared with the relative transparency of a competing ideology, Orbanism? Who would choose the former over the latter, and why?
Russia’s transnational bloc (the Eurasian Union) will have a hard enough time keeping its few members in the fold, much less attracting new ones, when the relatively law-abiding and prosperous Visegrad/Three Seas bloc beckons.
The Russian leadership offers no compelling reason why the rest of Eastern Europe shouldn’t join NATO and the EU. One day the Russian people might even rise up and demand it, against the wishes of the “Russian” elite.
Orban will be remembered as a (or the) visionary statesman of his age, a prophet of the nationalist-populist revolution sweeping the West. Putin will be remembered for presiding over a fin-de-siècle era of corruption and stagnation, like a latter-day Brezhnev or Louis XVI.
Adding the settler colony Süd-West-Afrika to Germany would be nice and deserved after German soldiers fought and died where.
http://abload.de/img/2015-11-0813.45.37lnu58.jpg
Faith isn’t “belief in Christ”.
You believe that there is one God. Good! Even the demons believe that–and shudder. (James 2:19)
False questions.
Neither ideology exist.
Orbanism is a German award, though.
https://www.buchreport.de/2017/08/15/orbanism-award-loest-virenschleuderpreis-ab/
There is the most compelling reason: neither of them would let them join.
Apostles’ creed:
Hmm, looks like belief in Christ is kind of an important part of Christianity!
I left out the other persons of the Trinity, and the part about Christ being the son of God, his resurrection etc…but unless you’re into completely pointless nitpicking, it should have been clear what I meant.
I think his point was something like it’s not enough to believe in him as a description of how the world works, but to actually follow him. But maybe I misunderstood him.
Some part of the World Wars may have been due to population pressure. A great pity that instead of so many men dying, they were not simply sent to South Africa with women as settlers. Esp. during WW2, as tractors and mechanized equipment were really taking off.
A Russian, a Ukrainian, a Georgian, and a Tatar walk onto a stage:
Thanks guys. She’s much better. Normally it’s nothing serious, I can sleep back easily even if she wakes me up, but today I couldn’t. It’s nothing serious.
You’re not used to his shtick yet? 😉
Wrong on all counts.
Largest non-nuclear bomb is the recent Russian Father Of All Bombs (44 tons of TNT equivalent); second largest is the American Mother Of All Bombs (11 tons of TNT).
The smallest tactical nuclear weapon system ever built packed 10-20 tons of TNT, the M-388 warhead fired by the Davy Crockett recoilless gun. It was retired in the late 1960s. Modern tactical nukes typically pack 1-100 kilotons, that is, from 1,000-100,000 tons of TNT. Many orders of magnitude more powerful than MOAB/FOAB..
Quoting James is not much “proof”, the book is a real outlier and the surprising thing is that it was included in the “corpus” — presumably this was because the author was thought to be the “brother of the Lord”.
James advocates salvation through works as opposed to faith, which is in total contradiction to the Pauline doctrine that the Church adopted and still maintains:
James: “You see that a person is considered righteous by what they do and not by faith alone..” (James 2:24)
Paul: “For we maintain that a person is justified by faith apart from the works of the law..” (Romans 3:28)
“Neither ideology exist.”
In a way, Putinism and Orbanism are two sides of the same ideological coin. The difference being that Orban has played his nationalist-populist hand much more successfully than Putin.
“There is the most compelling reason: neither of them would let them join.”
Brexit changes everything.
Before Brexit, the EU could realistically pose as a major world power. Without Britain, a weakened EU needs Russia to feasibly compete with economic and geostrategic giants like the US and China.
And without its Slavic/Orthodox cultural hinterland to the west and south, Russia fades into Eurasian mediocrity. Russia and Europe need each other.
Which is why NATO and the EU will not stop their relentless march eastward until they’ve reached the Kremlin.
http://johnhelmer.net/the-samson-haircut-option-one-step-before-russia-opens-fire-on-american-israeli-forces/
When will Putler surrender?
Putin is obviously weak.
I think he was weak in the Syrian crisis, though I also think the Americans were weak there, too, so it didn’t matter much.
But it’s very likely that he’s not up to the task of managing an ever escalating conflict with an increasingly crazy opponent with no rational aims and not bound by any customs or laws or agreements. For example they break into diplomatic compounds.
It’s unclear how Putin could even capitulate. What would it look like? What would the Americans accept? Would they be willing to commit to accepting legitimate Russian interests anywhere? At least within Russia? Or would they keep pressuring them even within their borders, because gay marriage or human rights in Chechnya? I would guess the latter.
Must have missed that, what does it refer to?
Nobody really believes in salvation by faith alone, no matter what they say.
If somebody is “saved” by accepting Jesus as their Lord and Savior, but then proceeds to shoot up a McDonald’s before killing themselves, “faith alone” types would just say that that person was never really saved in the first place.
But if he’d repent and confess just before his death, the matter might look differently.
Just look how some Catholics feel about Rudolf Höß:
https://aleteia.org/2016/03/04/how-the-commandant-of-auschwitz-found-gods-mercy/
http://johnhelmer.net/the-samson-haircut-option-one-step-before-russia-opens-fire-on-american-israeli-forces/
That’s overdoing it a bit; breaking into diplomatic compounds relates to the Seattle Consulate, which the Russians had been ordered to vacate anyway (in response to which Russia closed the US Consulate in SPB).
Thanks, I’d missed that.
You guys are overestimating Russophobia as part of American Grand Strategy.
The Pentagon and State Department are concerned with 1 thing: protecting US hegemony. They aren’t interested in destroying Russia, they want to “defend”, for lack of a better word, against Russian encroachment against American uni-polarity.
This is just how international relations work and it has always been this way. As long as Russia continues to try to compete with the US, the US is gonna push back. This will change when the US can no longer afford to fund it’s imperial ambitions, not before.
I would also like to point out that it was Russia, not the US, that recently threatened to launch a genocidal nuclear war.
re Syria: I think that the US and Russia are on the same page in Syria: Assad stays in power and Russia and Iran stay in the country. So Russia got most of what it wants. Direct US involvement is less than direct Russian involvement and if not for the US, ISIS would still be going strong. If the US really wanted to bleed Russia in Syria, they could. But they are treating it like the backwater it is.
A sign of “elections as regime referendums”?
After all, Grudinin did beat everyone but Putin who did only beat his past performances thanks to Crimea.
I’d say the very concept of permanent US global hegemony, if realized, would do away with the concept of international relations as traditionally understood.
The ambitions of US elites aren’t reasonable or rational, no self-respecting great power could just accept what you term “American uni-polarity”.
Because that was the only way to keep the newest American aggression against Syria in-check.
I didn’t say they should accept it, I said that it was inevitable that the US would try to preserve it.
They could, but that would require American elites to a) be more inclusive and respect others interests and b) be strong enough to enforce their order.
China’s rise undermines b) and conflict with Russia, post-Soviet NK and others is fueled by insufficient a), limiting the uni-polarity.
But maybe Washington’s Rome needs conflict with “barbarians”.
The only reason the Kremlin is bothered by American uni-polarity so much is because they are excluded from it and instead are antagonized again and again.
It is only inevitable because Washington wants it to be inevitable.
exactly. That’s my point.
As long as the US can keep this going, it will. It will stop when it is no longer able to do so, not before.
guess who didn’t read your post 🙂
I am pro whatever my team is. As a result of history than means Protestant. Death to Mackerel Snappers.
That doesn’t mean I’m invested in the theological debates or even know anything at all about them.
And the whole debate is obviously quaint these days as we have bigger problems to worry about.
I think this is only in America – people debating so passionately about religion and knowing about theology in 2018. At least they don’t put this in their GRE exam.
Because America maintained its faith it became the most powerful country in the world. Now that it has lost its faith it is headed for oblivion.
There is no sustainable prosperity without faith in, and worship of, G-d.
I didn’t convert. I’m an ethnic Jew born to a Jewish mother. It just so happens that my mom hates Judaism with a passion so I was raised in my WASP father’s half assed American style Christianity, albeit with some very sporadic celebration of Jewish holidays.
In high school I came to embrace real Christianity on my own (long story) before losing my faith (long story) and becoming a militant, and then indifferent, atheist (long story).
Judaism came down the road (long story).
Partially correct.
It is increasingly obvious thst healthy flourishing depends on a faith in God. Imperial ambition and obscene wealth, depend on a breach with God, and are always a precursor to collapse.
“faith in God” is the kind of anodyne term only an American could use…as Eisenhower supposedly said “Our government has no sense unless it is founded in a deeply felt religious faith, and I don’t care what it is”. If you don’t want to talk about specific theology, what’s the point in going on about God?
The soldiers of the Caliphate in the early centuries of Islam or those of 16th century Spain had a lot of imperial ambition and undoubtedly many of them believed they were doing God’s will, so this seems like a rather one-sided view.
Someone named “William” is a fucking kike?!
You are correct, we must clearly formulate and choose a religion – even of it is syncretic, or new in important ways. We absolutely cannot remain on the level of generalities, you are quite correct about that.
I merely mean that it is clear that different communities, adhering to different faiths, can flourish, and have historically. It seems there are many legitimate paths to God. The only sure path to decline, history has shown, is loss of any path to God.
I think a closer reading of history will show that each of your examples immediately preceded a period of decline. John Glubb has some highly pertinent and revealing remarks on the social decline of 8th and 9th centry Baghdad that astonishingly mirror our own, down to feminism (!), in the period immediately following the Islamic expansion, and of course it’s well known that the Golden Age of Spanish wealth and power declined shortly after the conquest of the Americas.
Glubb’s essay examines all known empires up to the British, and finds a remarkably consistent pattern of decline immediately following a period of exuberant expansion.
Because, in truth, when imperial ambitions replace legitimate flourishing, you have already turned to excessive materialism and broken faith with God.
In the last weeks of the Obama administration they illegally closed down a diplomatic compound. I think they still haven’t given it back despite it being owned by Russia. The Seattle building also continues to be the possession of the Russian government. They cannot just remove the locks and break into it. At the very least they could have asked for cooperation.
They are obviously much harsher on Russia than they ever were on the USSR. The only comparison with the treatment of a greater power is that of the way they treated Imperial Japan and perhaps Nazi Germany. They are of course still less harsh on Russia than on Iran. But the treatment of Iran is also something of an anomaly. Did they ever unilaterally introduce such harsh sanctions on any country during the Cold War?
Cuba?
It was different. It was America’s backyard, and the Soviets were aggressive in going there at all.
During the Cuban Crisis the USSR had international law on its side. But they were the aggressors, according to Cold War custom, because they were operating in a country which had been an American semi-colony just a few years before. Imagine if in 1968, right before the invasion of Czechoslovakia, American troops were invited to Czechoslovakia by the government: it might have caused a nuclear war.
The Americans eventually didn’t start World War Three over Cuba (though it nearly happened), but they had every right to be pissed. If there had been a WW3 in 1962, it most definitely wouldn’t have been a unilateral American aggression.
And even with Cuba, it was a regular trade embargo. They didn’t sanction those who traded with Cuba, as Canada or Mexico did. The US couldn’t hurt Russia that much by merely introducing a trade embargo against it, since they don’t trade much. It’s sanctions against third parties which come into business contact with Rusal etc. which which hurt.
Did they ever do that unilateral sanctions against non-compliant third parties business during the Cold War?
Just like Iran and post-Soviet Russia.
Times changed.
Nowadays, the world is more globalized and America more central, hence sanctions against third parties have become an attractive weapon for the ruling power of the world.
Too bad Civ IV was the last Firaxis game worth playing.
No, Iran was never Russia’s backyard the way Cuba was for the US. Cuba had been under US military occupation for some time, its independence was won in a large part by American blood, it had an American military base on its soil, its governments resigned at the whim of the Americans, etc.
Iran was always independent of Russia, it’s an uneasy loose ally at best, and there’s not much love lost between Russia and Iran. The situation is not even comparable.
That’s what I’m saying. Probably, as you write, the world being more globalized is one explanation. But I also think US and Western elites in general are getting crazier. During the Cold War, there would’ve been a lot of pushback from the European allies against such unilateral actions. Now there’s some grumbling, but not much.
Iran needs to be made an example of. With the possible exception of North Korea, no other country of its relative size has independently defied the US so successfully and for so long. In contrast to Russia, the Persian elites really do appear implacable, whereas Russia it seems most of them would be quite happy to collaborate under American hegemony if only they were treated with respect. Even now Iran is still rather admirable in maintaining a stubborn independence in international affairs, Persians haven’t forgotten that the brief interlude where the USSR occupied the country and set-up puppet states.
I was not saying that Iran was Russia’s backyard*.
I was saying that Iran and post-Soviet Russia were America’s backyard.
*only (some) northern parts of Iran were
These elites still remembered the times when America was not the dominant power in West Europe.
In the present day, the ruling elites consist of people who became relevant after the CW and accepted nearly-unchecked American dominance.
Post-Soviet Russia had never been America’s backyard the way Cuba had been. You cannot seriously propose that it ever was.
Iran itself was once under international (Soviet-American) occupation for a while, and then it became an American ally. Even so, it was never occupied by a third party, and would’ve remained strictly neutral (unlike Cuba) if the Americans hadn’t kept pushing against it.
Iran’s elites would also be happy to work with the Americans, they always keep electing these westernizing reformers for president, only to get disappointed by the continued belligerence of the Americans.
In general, there needs to be some religion and spirituality for a society to be strong. Once it loses it (and goes for the fake spirituality of horoscope and esoterica worship), it gets decadent, and collapse will follow soon.
Though Rome managed to keep itself going for several centuries after that point.
The Russians retaliated by seizing the Americans’ dachas at Serebrenyi Bor. Are you unaware of this?
Retaliation is not the same thing as initiating such actions. For one thing, retaliation is legal. For another, I’m sure real estate prices are higher in the US, so the retaliation still probably meant the Russians lost more in terms of monetary value.
Example to whom? Iran is too big for it. Destroying Iran perhaps was supposed to be the lesson for Iran. The greatest crime of Iran is that it is functioning relatively well and despite of the setback of Iranian Revolution in 1979. Consider a possibility that the Iranian Revolution was engineered to stop the development of Iran under the Shah because having a strong Iran was not in the plans. Strong Iran was making Israel nervous despite of Shah’s good rapport with both the US and Israel. Having Iran onflicted with the US from the point of view of Israel was the most desirable outcome.
Obama’s deal with Iran was his greatest and most courageous accomplishment and the parting shot of not vetoing the UN resolution against Israel was the cherry on top. Obama really disliked Netanyahu and the lobby and certainly he wanted to do more as his speech in Egypt indicated but he was obstructed. Valerie Jarret, the most important person in the WH, who speaks Parsi as she lived in Iran probably was very instrumental in this deal.
Destroying this deal is the only task Trump must accomplish. One could say that Iran is the only reason why Trump was elected. To undo the deal with Iran and antagonize Iran to the point that Iran does something stupid.
Thanks for the short version of the multiple long stories.
My father was Jewish (his parents were from Ukraine of all places), although he gave it up at a very early age for reasons that I never learned. My mother was brought up Christian Scientist (and never saw a doctor or dentist until she went to university), and we were essentially raised as nonreligious, although we did do dreidels at Hanukkah and of course all the normal Christmas trappings.
Someone named “William” is a fucking kike?!
William Shatner?
I thought you were British. Are there Christian Scientists in the UK? I never knew that.
oftentimes acting erratically, with excess and hysteria isn’t a sign of strength.
In the Valdai Club article Anatoly linked above, the speaker Chen Dongxiao states “the US itself, where social instability is growing, is becoming the most unstable power in the world. ” Is it not a factual statement?
An easier way to achieve a weaker Iran would have been simply not supplying Iran with the most advanced weapons and nuclear technology at the time.
At the time Iran seemed to be pretty far away from Israel, and inherently hostile to the Arab states closer to Israel (especially Iraq) which were implacably hostile. The revolution itself made Iran hostile to Israel.
So it’s a conspiracy theory without any evidence or even motive.
And even with Cuba, it was a regular trade embargo. They didn’t sanction those who traded with Cuba, as Canada or Mexico did.
Another sleelpless night? Because this is a rather misguided view of the US embargo of Cuba. If all it entailed were that the US didn’t trade with Cuba, you would be right of course. But the US did indeed extend the embargo to prevent other countries trading with Cuba — thus if you are a Swiss pharmaceutical company, you can trade with the US or you can trade with Cuba but not both. So what do you think the Swiss pharmaceutical company will do?
If you are a European bank and you finance trade to Cuba, you will be fined by the US (the list of violators who paid up is long and includes many major players).
There are countless other examples that could be cited, and this has continued to be the case:
The extraterritoriality of US sanctions has in fact gone to ridiculous and absurd lengths. Thus, a couple of years ago a charity event was held in London to raise funds in order to send a piano to a music conservatory in Cuba. Unfortunately the organizers of the event did not realize that the company they contracted with to organize ticket sales was a US entity. The result, of course, was that all of the funds were confiscated. People were furious, but there was absolutely nothing they could do.
https://www.telesurtv.net/english/news/U.K.-Effort-to-Donate-Piano-to-Cuba-Blocked-by-U.S.-Embargo-20160822-0008.html
They are acting with impunity. Meanwhile they are imposing enormous economic costs on Russia, with very few ways for Russia to retaliate, and Russia not doing even what little it could do in retaliation for fear of inviting more sanctions.
You are mistaking craziness for weakness. The US is still strong. Even if it will collapse in a decade (I doubt, but who knows), for the moment it is still extremely strong. Just like the USSR was enormously powerful almost up to the moment it collapsed, and even beyond: it took several years for the US elites to get emboldened enough to start baiting the bear.
I thought you were British. Are there Christian Scientists in the UK? I never knew that.
Don’t think I ever said I was British, although I do have 1/4 UK roots.
I was born and brought up in the US (as were my parents) but have spent all but 6 years of my post-university life outside the US. Along the way I acquired Irish nationality, so that is what I am now.
seeing salient features of US political life right now such as the Russiagate or the growing trend towards censorship- it could be construed as ideology-driven, i.e. craziness. I believe however that it’s fear.
Why would google de-rank RT articles, or why are you called a Russian agent if you believe their version of one event or the other? Has it to do with the fact that they had to stage three CW theaters as trigger for intervention in Syria, more absurd and unbelievable each time, but they still carried on. Fourth is a charm, maybe? While the Syrian government is still sitting and the regime-change mojo has definitely gone.
I didn’t closely follow the situation in Cuba, so I might be wrong here, but after reading Wikipedia I get the impression I was correct that during the Cold War there was very little extraterritoriality to the sanctions, but they started in the 1990s, after the Cold War had ended:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_embargo_against_Cuba?wprov=sfti1
It’s an interesting reading. Castro apparently didn’t want to nationalize US assets in Cuba, but he was forced to do so after the US introduced an oil embargo and the US oil companies refused to refine the Soviet oil Castro had to import as a response. When the Americans responded by further sanctions, he was basically forced to step up and nationalize all US assets.
Cuba was basically a US clusterfuck, especially given how they engineered the revolution itself, at a minimum by refusing to support Batista.
Okay. Sorry for mixing you up with someone.
Syria so far is a loss for the US, but usually in most conflicts the losing side can point to local tactical or operational victories, while losing on the strategic level.
Currently Russia is bleeding white economically, while the US lost a marginal battle which is only important to it due to an ethnic lobby group.
It’s impossible for Russia to stay militarily strong and politically stable while being economically weak. The USSR kept winning in the third world until it collapsed, and Germany in WW1 was also winning until it suddenly collapsed after a quick campaign. Similarly they kept winning in WW2 while falling behind in war production, but finally they started losing.
The economy is the cornerstone of any sustained conflict (cold or hot), and the US is still very strong in that area.
So what. Stalin’s terror was also largely driven by fear — fear of both foreign powers and internal opposition. Yet it would be wrong to think he was weak. Hitler thought so, but he was wrong.
In PPP terms, the size of Russia’s economy is comparable to Germany’s.
Germany lost militarily and economically.
USSR failed primarily because of ideological instead of economical reasons.
Sanctions were certainly strenghtened by the Helms-Burton Act (Jesse Helms was the local television political commentator when I was at university), but they were quite strong even from the beginning. In particular they included:
— a prohibition of the importation of any product fabricated completely or in part from Cuban materials, even if manufactured in other countries;
— a ban on aid to any country which provides assistance to Cuba
— the blacklisting of all ships involved in trading with Cuba, without regard to the country of
registry, including a prohibition of any such ship from entering United States ports.
This last was particularly burdensome, I believe.
https://repository.law.miami.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1169&context=umiclr
(pp. 2-3)
Germany is probably too small.
One problem is that Russian citizens can see that their living standards are lower than in the West, and it’s a question how long they will be willing to put up with it.
But even if the answer to the former question is “forever,” it’s still a question how long Russia will be able to maintain military near parity with the US.
Even if the answer to both questions is “forever,” there’s still a strong asymmetry here: the US can single-handedly strangulate a major Russian corporation, while Russia cannot strangulate any American companies. It’s a quite uncomfortable situation even if it won’t result in a loss for Russia. And it very well might.
There would have been no problems at all if the Soviets were confident in the viability of their economic system. Andropov wanted economic reforms, and that’s why he supported Gorbachev as a successor. The whole debacle was a result of the economic weakness.
It’s strange that mainly the Jewish people on here, were accusing me of ‘Hasbara user’ because of my connection and knowledge to Israel.
Unless I misremembered who these people are.
So far we have Ron Unz (an American Jew), for-the-record (an Ukraine Jew), and Greasy (an American Jew?).
Internet is really an ironic place.
Postscript – I am also a Jewish roots, but to the third-generation – 1 grandfather through his mother (i.e. Jewish great-grandmother).
Israel supported Iran for the first 10 years after its revolution.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israel%27s_role_in_the_Iran%E2%80%93Iraq_war
A conflict which emerged after has a lot to do with theology, it is likely – otherwise quite difficult to explain why Iran cares about Israel, with which it has no borders or direct conflict mechanism.
Palestinians are the Sunni Arabs – the same demographic as all the countries that are fighting with Iran.
However Iran also fighted for the Bosnians against Serbia, so they can be involved in very abstract conflict.
I didn’t accuse you of being a ‘Hasbara user’. I thanked you for your support for Israel and the Jewish people.
I merely pointed out that you were an apologist for G-dless, secular Zionism which is detached from the Torah and is in it’s death throes. Your apologia for secular Zionism goes so far that you seem to even buy into the sanitized national myths of the State of Israel that I had previously thought that only dumbass Mizrahim were capable of believing. It doesn’t matter how many times you’ve been to Israel or how many Israeli’s you know: the future of Israel lies in the Haredim and Hardelim, not your secular or “traditional” Israel friends.
for-the-record is not Jewish. Those not born to a Jewish mother are not Jews, as you well know.
Unz is a self hating Jew and increasingly insane. If he is calling you a Hasbarist, it means you are doing good work.
These are somewhat tougher than what I thought, but it mostly falls short of the outright extraterritoriality which clearly is present in the sanctions since. The only unambiguously extraterritorial measure is the prohibition of ships to enter a US port after entering Cuban ports. Of course it would be easy for Russia to weather sanctions of this type.
The new generation extraterritorial sanctions are very difficult to survive.
And where is the correlation between religion and prosperity?
For certain communities (e.g. Mormons in America), there have been studies.
But for countries as whole, I would expect no relation, or even – to a small extent – an opposite relation.
Where? The original post – I am explaining that Israel was liberal – with my view that it could be too liberal for his long-term survival.*
I wrote a accurate description, with some personal knowledge, and I seem to know more about the country than anyone I talked to here (excluding for convenience proposal that half users here are secret agents of the Mossad), which results in ‘my authority’, even if self-claimed, on the topic.
I have no view to decide about the initial point, if Arabs or Jews are the morally right or wrong in Israel in the beginning, and neither do I care about these issues. (Sure I will care if innocent people are being killed – but I have less sympathy about other forms of moralizing that does not affect my life or friends).
*It will be interesting to see what the situation is with the proposals later this week to delimit the power of בג”ץ.
Rome only collapsed when the empire had become Christian, so I don’t think lack of spirituality can be adduced as a reason.
And while it’s true that the old cults seem to have lost much of their appeal by the late 3rd/early 4th century, that wasn’t a universal phenomenon either. Diocletian really seems to have believed that he had a personal relationship with Jupiter, and the emperor Julian was of course a devout pagan who spent much time on animal sacrifices.
You misremember, you were accused of being Hasbara by utu and AaronB iirc.
The whole debacle was a result of the economic weakness.
Economic weakness certainly was an important factor, but the primordial factor was Gorbachev, I believe. With another leader I think it could have worked out very differently.
That would have required cooperation between US and USSR.
Obviously we do not know and have no proof. This was the period when the secular government of Afghanistan was being destabilized by the support Islamists were getting form CIA to make trouble for USSR and ultimately to draw them in.
Somebody helped to destabilize Iran. Could it be USSR? I doubt because they ddid not deal with the Isalmists and they had relatively good relations with Shah. However Shah himself believed that Brits were behind Iranian Revolution. And indeed Brits continued to collaborate with Khomeini’s regime:
In a short term Israel was making the best of the fact that Iran was the US ally by wheeling and dealing and squeezing as much a possible in terms of profits from Iran and possibly even helping in nuclear program (this might be a disinformation though for alibi purpose) but most importantly Israel in the process was able to thoroughly penetrate Iran:
The Yinon plan was not officially formulated then as far as we know, but perhaps it was already being worked on. All secular ME states were considered a threat. Why not Iran? Would Israel wanted to have a strong Iran in a long term that also was friendly with West at the same time? No, Israel is much more comfortable with the nincompoops from Saudi Arabia that can be rolled up in 24h.
Iran had to be pried off the US. Which the Iranian Revolution succeed in doing so. Iran became official enemy of the West. Sanctions set back all developments. The next step was Iraq-Iran war in which the US was siding with Iraq while the Yinon plan was envisioning the destruction of Iraq in this war.
Anyway, my hypothesis is that Iran had to go because it was getting too strong and paradoxically because it was on too good terms with the West. Iranian Revolution accomplished it.
Economic weakness led to the appointment of Gorbachev.
I agree the reformist guy could have turned out to be more competent.
The ideology here also played a role. For example the communists talked about democracy (but didn’t practice it), so democracy was used as a weapon against the entrenched interests. Gorbachev used it extensively.
Another thing is that other than the communist party, nothing held the country together. Other than the implicit threat of brute force, nothing kept the European satellites on the USSR’s side. So as the communist party lost control of several republics due to the democratization, which was needed to prevent the “hardliners” from stopping the economic reforms.
Now after a few years (I’d say by 1989 at the latest) it increasingly became clear that the economic reforms weren’t working (the economy started to shrink), and the political reforms were leading to political disintegration (both of the Warsaw Pact and the USSR itself).
Under such circumstances Gorbachev tried momentarily to reverse the economic reforms (to stop the deterioration of living standards and get some breath), and doubled down on the political reforms (because otherwise he’d have to have admitted that his whole reform program was a dismal failure — politicians often double down on failure not to appear weak or stupid).
I think what he did was not totally illogical (except with the benefit of hindsight), but it’s difficult to know if others would really have done it well.
It’s strange that mainly the Jewish people on here, were accusing me of ‘Hasbara user’ because of my connection and knowledge to Israel.
Not by me, I have never used the word ‘Hasbara’ in my life. I did critcize your apparent lack of commiseration with the Arab and Christian inhabitants, so this is perhaps what you were thinking of. And I didn’t entirely appreciate your remark that Israel should have denied me entry because I was working for a (religious) NGO that was seeking to enhance the lives of these people.
Not sure I would describe myself as a Ukraine Jew, since that’s only half my ethnicity, and I wasn’t brought up Jewish.
Well, Islamism was a homegrown movement. Though the West certainly did nothing against it.
They certainly helped the Marxist revolutionaries, without whom the revolution would’ve failed. Later on Khomeini skillfully sidelined and destroyed them. Just as he did to his enemies within the Islamist movement.
The Soviets initially thought that the revolutionaries would become their allies, because they were anti-American and the shah had been pro-American.
If you haven’t already read it I strongly recommend Matlock’s Autopsy of an Empire, I need to go back and re-read it myself.
Real estate prices are probably higher in Moscow region than in Seattle region.
Contra Luther, James is not an “epistle of straw” and Church doctrine is not so simple: http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/10202b.htm
Lol, that was under a different post though. I got called this a lot – I will survive.
Maybe I should embrace it and add some Hebrew writing to my posts. Although probably only Greasy will understand and I don’t think I would continue sanity in a one-way conversation with Greasy.
Glubb Pasha’s essay is very good, but there are simpler and more banal explanations.
1 – Regression to the mean
2 – Imperial success causes others to sharpen their game and form coalitions against you
Look at the Napoleonic Wars or WW2 for instance. Napoleon and the Wehrmacht steadily got worse in their relative performance, and their enemies steadily got better (and amassed superior resources).
We can see this today with the new Russia-China alliance that America’s stupid policy created. And that brings up a third point. As the Greeks said, hubris breeds nemesis.
Or from our own magnificent King James Bible, Proverbs 16:18:
The Moscow region dachas were seized as a response to the illegal seizure of two compounds in Maryland and New York. I think those are probably among the most expensive states in the USA, though I might be wrong.
Well maybe I will re-write my point from that post.
My point of view is that, regardless of justice or not of the original situation, the country (Israel) is probably too liberal to minority groups, to a suicidal extent in the low level civil-war situation that is the permanent reality there (with hostile populations living mixed together in the same country).
Some liberalism is good, but in this case there is probably too much.
Commiseration and moralizing is not my concern. I feel a degree of commiseration for all minority groups, which would be larger if I was friends with them personally.
I feel commiseration when I see all kinds of people, including illegal immigrants and everyone else we criticize here.
But if I will invest and live all the time in Israel, like a number of my friends are – I would not feel sympathy, but rather prefer the domination of the majority group, regardless of historical injustice there might be.
Just as if I was to live permanently in America, I prefer not to have Native-American or African-Americans shooting arrows at me, but the domination of the majority group in America.
Likewise, if you live in Sochi, it’s good that Circassians are not charging from mountain top.
That’s not to say anything against the injustice which has happened with those people in the historical level.
The fear is of the internal opposition, i.e. the deplorables. We’re an emerging ruling class which seeks to replace the existing ossified (and deeply corrupt and evil one) one.
A good way to understand this is by analyzing this in religious terms.
The Cathedral (Moldbug’s term) is the Catholic Church. The deplorables are the Protestant Reformation.
Increasing censorship, conspiracy theories, etc. are the Counter-Reformation.
Of course, the Cathedral lacks the self-awareness and intellectual firepower of early modern Catholic intellectuals.
A more recent and secular example would be the Restoration, Holy Alliance, Carlsbad Decrees, etc.
They feared USSR and respected it for its monolithic ideology and internal discipline. Russia now is just like any other country of greedy and corruptible politicians that believe in nothing and have nothing to fall back on so they can be bribed and cowed. Yeltsin era clearly demonstrated it.
The Germans and Russians, incidentally, were both aware of this and developed appropriate doctrines as a result.
Prussia was so militaristic (outside of the ambitions of the Great Elector and Frederick the Great) because it had far fewer resources at its disposal than France, Austria, and Russia. The idea was that only through quick, decisive, and victorious campaigns could Prussia sustain its position and ambitions. When drawn into a war of attrition (the Seven Years War) Prussia was set to be snuffed out by Catherine the Great until she died.
An earlier equivalent to the Kingdom of Prussia was the Kingdom of Sweden. The Swedish Army was largely considered invincible on the battlefield until Poltava.
The Schlieffen Plan, Fall Gelb, and Operation Barbarossa all recognized this.
The failure of the Schlieffen Plan was really down to the Reichstag’s refusal to match continuous increases in French Army expenditures after the Tangier Crisis until after the Agadir Crisis. A cynic would of course note that Kaiser Wilhelm II was to blame for this owing to his fleet building program (diverting resources from the army) and various gaffes.
Fall Gelb and Barbarossa were really quite similar–the qualitatively superior German Army swept everything before them. Trouble was in the east they had to continue…sweeping. Until they outran their supply lines and reserves.
The Soviet Union had more or less the same doctrine during the Cold War. The reason Warsaw Pact forces were continuously larger than the NATO forces opposing them was awareness of the superior resources available to NATO. The longer any hypothetical WW3 persisted, the greater the likelihood of Soviet defeat.
Hence this plan: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seven_Days_to_the_River_Rhine
Binkov’s Battlegrounds on Youtube did a fun three-part series modeling a hypothetical WW3 in 1989:
This is the third video which covers the ground war: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kONMKmWQyE8
There are separate videos for the air war and naval war.
Today Russia is in such a relatively weak position that it threatens nuclear war instead, not even bothering to try to maintain conventional superiority in peacetime.
Admiral Martyanov is likely correct about Russian missile superiority, but these missiles would be quickly exhausted in a hot conflict against NATO.
Napoleon and the Wehrmacht steadily got worse in their relative performance, and their enemies steadily got better (and amassed superior resources).
And the Japanese in WWII, who dominated in the early going.
Minor addition to this: the fall of the Swedish Empire is not just down to defeat on the battlefield, but the poz.
The disastrous defeats of Karl XII could be compared to Jena and Auerstedt for Prussia. Prussia recovered.
Sweden on the other hand entered into the “Age of Liberty” (age of squabbling) and that was that. Had Gustav III lived longer Sweden may have recovered as a great power.
The Prussians however consistently refused the poz. Jacobins, German liberal-nationalists, and Friedrich Wilhelm’s Anglo-LARPing were all rejected.
Lesson there for Russia, Iran, and China today.
Yes. This basically applies to any weak power which is ambitious.
A story as old as struggle between Rome and Carthage.
And probably a lot older than that.
The only long war I can think of off the top of my head where the fundamentally weaker state prevailed is the Pelopennesian War. And Sparta got Persian subsidies so there you go.
WW2 is kind of interesting because of how Germany attempted to match its enemies economically after Stalingrad. The Germans got some astonishing results but it wasn’t enough in the face of the Soviet steamroller and the Allied Combined Bombing Offensive (Russians consistently underrate this as kind of a reaction to Western D-Day masturbation).
I agree.
Another factor is that now a relatively long time has passed since the collapse of the USSR, and the old guys think that since the USSR is no more, then the US must be the undisputed master of the world. The younger ones more or less grew up with that worldview, so for them it’s the natural arrangement of things and they cannot think of any other world order.
These people need a very strong opposition. Putin is apparently not such an opposition. He’s not a person willing to die for his ideals, and his ideals are probably not worth dying for in the first place anyway.
What’s “not a person willing to die for his ideals” supposed to mean? It’s not like Putin could enter into single combat against some American champion, he has responsibility for all of Russian society which would suffer horribly in a full-scale war with the Americans, so I find a certain restraint commendable.
And which ideals would be worth dying for?
Bit much Putin-bashing here imo. I’m not a fan of the man, but he does some positive qualities imo, and the decisions he has to make are very difficult.
It’s not an existential fear. Just the fear of a waning dominance, of losing the empire.
Yes, and nobody really knows what are his ideas. Though one that was definitive though apocalyptic was: there will be no world w/o Russia, meaning Russia will destroy the world before going down.
I suspect that China’s reluctance to give much stronger support to Russia comes from her evaluation of Russia’s elites as not trustworthy that they may fold under the pressure of stick and carrot because of the lack of internal discipline. China fears what American counts on. China has CPC which is responsible for the discipline among its elite.
Have you read Tooze, Overy, or Evans?
Apparently the new consensus is that the Germans already devoted nearly all available resources to war production already in 1940, but they didn’t do it in an efficient way, because the German military kept demanding many variants of the weapons, handmade quality, and constant improvements, and it killed mass production.
Another issue was investment, they kept building militarily important installations (including chemical plants for synthetic rubber and synthetic fuel), and this diverted resources away from war production in the first stage of the war.
A third issue (related to the previous one) is that they would have fully prepared for war with all capacities coming online and major weapons systems developed and put into service. That was prevented by the early outbreak of war, which left Germany without a full line of weapons. (No heavy tank until late 1942, no heavy bomber or transport plane, not fully motorized army, but anyway no synthetic fuel plants to fuel them, not enough steel production capacity, a lot of other bottlenecks, etc.)
They had a lot of luck in France, which enabled them to get as far as they could without a fully equipped army and a fully functional military industry. But they squandered the opportunity to get their war economy in shape, and didn’t fully start mass production until it was too late. The whole idea of conquering a vast racial empire in a few years was a long shot anyway.
Found this on /pol/ of all places. That in of itself should mean it has to be taken with a lot of caution, but still, interesting map nonetheless. Anyone see anything wildly out of the ordinary?
https://i.imgur.com/7FuFW55.png
Paris looks ridiculously low to me after a quick skim. Though as some wrote in the /pol/ thread, it probably includes all the banelieus.
The Warsaw Pact plans were not quite realistic. I have seen some discussion of the plans involving the Hungarian People’s Army, and it was obvious that our troops were not up to the task. I know Hungary was heavily criticized for shirking in the arms race, fortunately our opposite numbers, the Italians, did the same thing, so theoretically there was still some chance, but it was unlikely, because we had to first fight our way through Austria, and then within a week reach some strategic target in Northern Italy. After which the Hungarian forces would’ve been worn out and replaced by Soviet replacements.
Which shows that basically the job of satellite troops was to bleed the enemy while sparing Soviet casualties. Essentially they were to be sacrificed. But how well would they have fought? I guess without any enthusiasm.
Nothing obviously dishonest, however I think there are probably different standards for South America vs. the US. US is non-Hispanic whites, while, I could be wrong, I rather doubt Buenos Aires is about 70% pure Euro. Probably 70% are reasonably white, but pure? I doubt it.
Boston was 97% white into the 1950s. People who say that the US was like 89% white at one time are basically wrong. Most of the important cities like Boston were 95-97% white right into the ’40s and ’50s, which only means that the North as a whole was considerably whiter. It really hits you when you go into the Boston Public Library and see the murals vs. the people in the library.
In game theory, there are lots of situations where being willing to die for the smallest slights while being initially polite to all is a very good strategy. Under such circumstances being unwilling to get into fights will lead to humiliation and a higher chance of being killed.
Basically, where there’s no police and court system to protect you — like in international relations.
I don’t see how that’s really the case with Putin though, the Russians did threaten drastic reactions to a large-scale American attack on Syria after all…and presumably that was the main reason why such an attack didn’t happen. It’s not clear to me if there would have been a better course of action.
I’ve read Tooze who is excellent. I do agree that Germany’s focus on increasing production predated the appointment of Albert Speer, who charitably decided to credit himself with the “armaments miracle” while at the same time denouncing his old boss that he once hero-worshipped.
That said the “new consensus” is overly revisionist. Some examples:
*The fact that British airplane construction actually overtook German during the Battle of Britain
*The H-man’s determination to keep the German civilian standard of living above the WWI level, which continued until 1943 when he abandoned domestic affairs to Goebbels, Bormann, and Lammers
*Failure to properly integrate industrial and especially engineering talent of conquered territory and allies until 1943 (see for instance the Luftwaffe’s evaluation of the excellent Italian Series 5 fighters in 1943)
*Decision to basically murder Barbarossa POWs instead of enslaving them
*An absurd decision to reduce shell production prior to Barbarossa (?!)
*The dictate in the middle of 1940 to suspend development of weapons programs which would take longer than eighteen months to complete
*In a particularly embarrassing example, Herman Goering prevented the closure of his favorite restaurant in Berlin when it was decided to close all unnecessary businesses
I will say however the big myth that will not die is the idea that the Germans didn’t mobilize women into the workforce during the war.
It should also be noted that in some aspects the Germans employed more standardization than the allies and the Soviets. The Reich Air Ministry for instance strictly limited the number of types in a given aircraft class and the number of engine designs produced. Production constraints are generally cited especially with engines, but until 1942 Germany actually had more machine tools and machinists than America (but, to be fair, less of just about every other kind of production capacity).
The Army’s lesser standardization was partly the result of Germany not being fully rearmed or prepared for war. As a result booty was pressed into service and inferior designs kept in production. Heinz Guderian for instance personally kept the inferior PzKw IV in production (which, contrary to myth, was actually not more reliable than the Panther and was only 10% more expensive).
Other issues are doctrinal. The heavy tank for instance was part of Soviet and French (and British to some extent with their “infantry tanks”) doctrine, but not German. The German doctrine of armored warfare developed out of the failure of the Kaiserschlact in 1918. Germany was consistently able, without the use of tanks, to break through Allied lines owing to the superior tactical qualities of the German Army. What it was not able to do was exploit the breakthroughs on a major operational level.
Heinz Guderian:
French doctrine on the contrary stemmed from the need to break through battlefield fortifications, and as such heavy tanks were considered important.
I’m not really sure why the Soviets produced heavy tanks before the war, as it doesn’t seem to square with Deep Operations doctrine. Perhaps Stalin’s personal interest, or perhaps simply a result of bureaucratic imperatives.
German heavy tanks were developed in response combat experience with superior (in terms of firepower and armament) Soviet and French tanks, though the Waffenamt was interested in 30 ton tanks as early as 1937.
Heavy bombers are a similar story. The death of Walther Wever and the experience of Operation Condor led to abandonment of strategic bombing until the entry of America into the war. German four-engined heavy bombers in fact first flew in 1935–the same year as the B-17 and far before any British heavies.
Heavy transport planes another doctrinal decision. Until 1938 the opponents Germany was preparing to fight were France, Poland, and Czechoslovakia. It should also be noted that neither the allies nor the Soviets developed heavy transport aircraft in any numbers in the 1930s. The C-54 did not come out until 1942, and efforts like converting the B-24 and Boeing 307 to military transport use weren’t undertaken until that year either.
Full motorization of the German army was probably always an unrealistic goal given the inadequate size of the prewar German automotive sector. The USSR, with a more developed (in production capacity) automotive sector, also failed to fully motorize before or during the war despite also received Lend-Lease trucks. Germany didn’t actually have a large automotive sector until the late 1950s.
And a fully motorized German army would have been even more dependent on oil imports.
The Japanese early domination doesn’t mean much since they only did well because everyone else around them were complete basket cases. In fact, Japan itself knew this since they never thought they would be able to beat the USSR or the USA. Even in the early goings they managed to invade and lose to the USSR. They did pretty miserably in their invasion of China as well given their absolute military advantages. What Japan should have done is kept Manchuria and leave it at that instead of idiotically invading every which way.
Well, if you are willing to go to a nuclear war (albeit in a halfhearted manner — I guarantee that the world would be destroyed in a halfhearted nuclear war just as thoroughly as in one started in a fanatical manner) over Syria anyway, why not make the threat fully credible? You can sign a mutual defense treaty with Syria against American aggression. (American, because like the British in 1939 with the Soviets, the Russians probably would like to avoid an unnecessary war with Israel.)
Put your bloody nuclear forces on the highest alert level when there is a crisis, and publicize it fully. It’s important that the American and European public (like the commenter Matra) and the most obnoxious warmongers (like John Bolton) get the message that it was a nuclear war situation, as you clearly think it was.
By making your commitments crystal clear you will actually lower the risk of any future American attack. A corollary is that if Putin was truly willing to go to nuclear war (but was willing to otherwise be reasonable and not aggressive — like he is otherwise), the chances of such a war would actually go down. During the Cold War no one in a position of power had the idiotic idea to help the Hungarian Revolution with US troops in 1956. The same mentality should be made to prevail regarding Syria.
Oh, and don’t bank on a detente. It won’t come soon anyway. You can burn some bridges. In response to extraterritorial US sanctions destroying a major Russian corporation respond forcefully, like immediately selling S-400 systems to Iran, or even giving them for free.
Make the Americans fear that if they keep pushing you you will do something truly crazy. They certainly feared that if pushed over the USSR would react in a crazy manner. Actually, that’s what North Korea did for decades, but they were always very weak. There are clearly limits to it. But Russia is much stronger. Also Russia is not seeking to upset the regional balance, it just seeks to preserve what little is left of its sphere of influence.
The performance of the IJN in the early phases of the Pacific War was quite spectacular compared to the American, British, and Dutch navies. The sinking of the Prince of Wales for instance was one of very few occasions during the war that a battleship underway was sunk solely by other aircraft, and it was done with a small number of aircraft as opposed to the Yamato being attacked by 400 warplanes. The Pearl Harbor raid, while inspired by the British raid on Taranto, was a much more impressive operation.
You can also look at for instance the stunning proficiency of the IJN in night-fighting, done without radar.
That the IJN performed better than the Royal Navy which had already been at war for more than two years was deeply impressive.
While Japan was largely technologically inferior, it did develop some impressive technologies before the war to gain an edge as well. Most famously the Long Lance torpedo, but also superior optical range-finders and a lightweight aluminum-zinc alloy for aircraft production.
The Japanese Army was on the other hand not impressive, but the Japanese themselves knew this which is why they chose the Strike South strategy.
Highly recommend the website Combined Fleet for details: http://combinedfleet.com/kaigun.htm
Yes, that makes sense, thanks for writing that up. Such a strategy would also be quite risky and hard to calibrate though. And the fundamental problem, as you’ve written yourself, is of course that US elites seem to be increasingly crazy and not driven by rational calculations.
I think there were plans to increase synthetic fuel production capacity by almost an order of magnitude above the level actually achieved in 1942…
Yes, total motorization was not realistic, but they were planning to have something like triple the number of motorized and Panzer divisions than they actually had.
They were starving in WW1, I don’t think it was a bad decision. Starving population leads to a declining GDP (-30% I think by 1917) and thus makes everything else more difficult.
No, it was taken I think during the summer when it was thought that Germany was going to win in a few weeks anyway. Hitler himself probably never heard of the decision, because he was growing unsure already at that time.
I think his biggest failure was to spend all of his time staring at maps instead of dealing with grand strategy and war economy. Stalin actually spent a lot of time on both. Yes, he was also staring at maps a lot, but he dealt with his true job, too.
Germany had no choice in this matter in WW1, and in WW2 food supplies were not a problem owing to Germany’s conquests and willingness to starve or just kill people who would otherwise need food.
The fact that Miele alone produced “only” 22,000 washing machines in 1940 is a good example of the problem.
Another factor is that initial success gives you room to adopt stupid and delusional attitudes and policies which later can’t be changed in time, as can be observed in the British Empire and America today.
It was still far, far better than the equivalent British industries. German aircarft factories were about a 1/4 more productive than their British equivalents in 1944, despite the bombing.
Putin’s strategy of basically being a pushover, but not always, is also very difficult to calibrate. In fact, it might be more difficult to calibrate, because by often letting himself being pushed over he creates the expectation that he will let himself pushed over the next time.
In essence by letting himself be pushed over over and over again, he created the expectation that he’ll just “eat his spinach” the Nth time again. This could easily lead to a point where he will be pushed into a situation where he really cannot retreat any more (I think Crimea was something like this), and then his response will be totally unexpected. For example like during the Douma Crisis (or whatever it’s called) the American president quickly drew himself into a corner where he had to do something. Clearly because he was sure that Putin will fold again. Now of course a solution was found, but the more such situations come about, the higher likelihood of an accident.
Also, I’m not sure the Americans really folded. They promised a bigger retaliation than last year, and to be sure, according to the Russians, they truly did attack a large number of military targets. They didn’t dare escalate after the Syrians (Russians?) took down most of the missiles (except the ones aimed at worthless targets), but the fact that their attack was ineffectual doesn’t mean that it was not launched. They didn’t dare go any further, they warned the Russians ahead of it, etc., but they didn’t fold completely – they did attack, in the end. Putin didn’t retaliate.
The expectation of the warmongers is that next time Putin will threaten with a lot of things, but he won’t actually do anything. Needless to say, this is a very dangerous situation. You shouldn’t threaten at all unless you’re willing to follow through, and the fact that there’s a perception he didn’t follow through is extremely dangerous.
In short, I think if Putin was truly determined to fight with tooth and nails (and nukes), we’d actually have a lower chance of a nuclear war.
Producing any washing machines or refrigerators etc. was stupid, though I think the consensus view is that it amounted to only a few percentage points of production. (Still.)
Anyway, you make good points. It’s obvious that they could’ve done better.
They weren’t in 1940 I think, when the UK produced more aircrafts than Germany.
By 1944 it didn’t matter any longer, besides the UK was only a small portion of allied war production.
I came to this conclusion and then I thought of Israel and why Russia is so timid with respect to it. If Russia wants to flex its muscle and reassert itself it must put Israel in its place first. It is possible that if Israel gets the message the US will back off. As long as we will be seeing Israeli planes and missile flying over Syria we will know that Putin is not ready to make a serious confrontation.
America’s war mobilization strategy is quite interesting viewed in context.
Britain effectively mobilized more (much more in fact) of its economy than America did. The USSR not only mobilized more of its economy but basically stopped producing capital goods during the war, and depreciated equipment was replaced by American imports.
USA mobilized less, never introduced labor conscription, but most interestingly it allocated a huge proportion of its war effort to investment.
As a result the economy doubled in size during the war, and not only of that is down to recovery as the USA recovered its 1929 GDP by 1939.
This successful American experiment in dirigisme I believe is unmatched in world history and should be more carefully studied by historians, as should Germany’s “armaments miracle” for the same reasons.
Jodi has been a goldmine lately. This one surprised me somewhat.
https://jodi.graphics/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/Number-of-_Total-agree_-answers-to-the-question_-Compared-with-30-years-ago-opportunities-for-getting-ahead-in-life-have-become-more-equal-in-your-country_-Eurobarometer-2018-Jo-Di-graphics.png
Slovakia is the biggest question mark. Croatia is a given. Yugoslavia was a pretty comfy place from what I read. Croatia was also brutally beaten in the 2008 crisis compared to most EE nations, even the Baltics. Greece is self-explanatory.
France is interesting. The question asked is a 30 year perspective. Most people may not remember this – and neither do, since I wasn’t born then, but I have access to statistics – namely that France was as rich if not richer than (West Germany) 30 years ago. It was well ahead of the UK.
Now it looks a lot like Italy did in the early 2000s. Still a rich country but stagnating. But yeah, going back to Slovakia, I wonder what fuels their nostalgia. They have done quite well economically, arguably the best out of all EE countries. Seems a bit mysterious to me.
https://i.imgur.com/iKh7nKC.png
I was surprised by this chart, especially for Poland. What social scientists call ‘locus of control’ is often linked to success, both individually and nationally. Namely, if you view yourself as a hapless victim of outside circumstances perpetually, you will be stuck in a victimhood complex and never quite improve.
Historically, North European Protestant nations have had high rates of ‘locus of control’, together with individualism, and to some extent this is true here as well. Poland has often done quite badly on these polls. So either this is an outlier or part of a new trend. We are ahead of Estonia and almost on par with Germany. Far ahead of even Czechia, not to mention the Southern European states.
I even unironically sympathise with Greece’s response. They elected a far-left anti-austerity candidate who got crucified by the Troika. It was one of the clearest examples of the futility of democracy when it truly matters.
Here Putin is in a difficult situation, because Israel had bombed Syria with impunity well before Putin even showed up there. So it was basically the status quo when he went in there.
Another problem is that since he went there, he’s still allowed Israel to bomb Syria (see my previous point, I think it would’ve been difficult to change this suddenly), so now it’s doubly the status quo.
It’s always more difficult to make someone stop a behavior (stop bombing Syria) than make him not start one (like making the US not getting into the habit of bombing Syria). So I would’ve let Israel bomb Syria, but not the US. (I’d also have provided the S-300 to Syria in response to some new US sanction maybe a year ago. Let the US know that by sanctioning Russia they’re also making life more difficult for Israel.)
In any way, now Putin has maneuvered himself into a position where it’s now an almost established habit of the US to occasionally bomb Syria on the slightest of pretexts. So it’ll take more and more confrontation to stop them next time.
Another idea I just had is during the Douma Crisis (or whatever it’s called) sending a diplomatic note to Estonia asking them if, in the event of a US aggression against Russian forces in Syria or against the forces of Russia’s ally Syria, would Estonia let its airspace be used by US aircraft against Russia if as a result there would be a war between Russia and the US? It would only be a polite question, but it might send the chills down the spines of, for example, German, politicians, who wouldn’t even be asked. Or the public. It wouldn’t even be a threat: just a question. You wouldn’t need to follow it through, because if you’re not threatening with anything, you wouldn’t need to follow it through. It would just be a question. It wouldn’t even threaten Estonia with retaliation (that would be implicit anyway), just ask them if they have an official position about this eventuality.
Slovakia did pretty well, much better than Hungary, since 1998. But not so well before, I think. In fact, since a lot of the Czechoslovak communist heavy industry and armament industry was concentrated there, they were I think brutally beaten in the 1990s.
So maybe that’s the explanation. I’m not sure.
I’m fairly certain they were. According to the Audit of War by Correlli Barnett, the peak of British production was 1.28lb a day compared to the German average throughout the war being 1.5lb. This if anything understates the German advantage since far more of British production was going towards bombers, which take fewer man hours per pound.
The reason British toal production was so high was because of the gigantic proportion of British manufacturing being directed towards it, it probably also helped that so many of the inputs were being imported from America.
Those dachas were in Moscow, the city proper, not the Moscow region. It’s one of the few remaining dacha compounds in the city limits and is located, upstream, on the bank of the Moscow river. It’s prized real estate, mostly not available at any price. I don’t know if it’s exactly comparable to what the Russians had seized, but it’s probably pretty close. And, as Anatoly already wrote, the Americans lost all their St. Petersburg real estate.
Anyway, it’s all mostly symbolic. My original point was that the Russians do retaliate, not that what they did was illegal or unjustified.
Yes, this sounds plausible. As Steve Sailer has repeatedly pointed out, last in his recent post on Brazilian Affirmative Action, there was no ‘One Drop Rule’ in Latin America. People joke about the Amerimutt, but in reality, most white people in the US are really white, we’re talking about 98% or more on average.
Then again, most of the Argentinian population is descended from Southern Europe, whereas historically most of the US white population came from Northern and later Eastern Europe with just Italians and to a lesser extent Greeks being mixed in. There’s over 10 million Polish-Americans alone. This means that it is harder to judge how ‘white’ someone is in Argentina or anywhere else in the LatAm countries since the whites who settled there were quite dark to begin with.
The Nordic phenotype never dominated the way it did early on in the US.
Well…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historical_racial_and_ethnic_demographics_of_the_United_States#Historical_data_for_all_races_and_for_Hispanic_origin_(1610–2010)
According to the US census data, whites were never more than in the high 80s. What you say about Boston may not be wrong. The US was extremely segregated for much of its history. It was possible to live in a country that was 12% non-white but barely see a non-white person if you lived in New England. It was only with the so-called ‘Great Migration’ in the 30s and 40s that this started to change.
It’s interesting to note that it was the capitalists who needed cheap labour. Before the Northern Industrialists imported Mexicans, they imported blacks from the South. Of course this historical fact isn’t going to sit well with capitalist-worshipping GOPers.
Also, keep in mind that the 88% white percentage includes 2-3% Jews and even back then some Arabs and others who were not counted, though we’re talking no more than 10-20 basis points at most.
The reason why the US didn’t become non-white faster even with large non-European migration post-1965 is because of insanely high fertility rates. I mean even in the 1960s, you had something like 3 to 3.5 TFR per woman, that is insane. It was then structurally higher than in (Northern) Europe up until very recently. This allowed the process to drag on for longer. Otherwise you’d probably reach the current stage already in the 1990s.
I am ultimately an unsentimental person. If a people collectively decide that they do not want to exist, then they won’t. This includes being passive in the face of slow wipeout. Life doesn’t reward the meek or the passive. I know it sounds harsh, and I do genuinely feel empathy for the minority who were always against this displacement. But at some level I feel like people need to re-examine how much they themselves actually fight and how much is spent whining but doing nothing.
Whatever comes after America – I will not view it as the same nation anymore – will be worse than what it historically was. But if the original inhabitants and builders of America do not want to preserve their creation, then what is the actual loss? Only the strong and the wise deserve to survive.
That’s interesting. I admit I have limited knowledge about Slovakia – which is a common stereotype in Poland about our general ignorance of our nice neighbors to the south – but from what I understand, they basically had a soft semi-authoritarian leadership in the 1990s under the aegis of Mečiar. They had a brief interregnum, which was apparently mostly for show to mollify Western observers/liberals criticising the obvious lack of genuine democracy.
It was only towards the late 1990s that there was true democratisation and Mečiar and his oligarchs (somewhat) relinquished control. This authortiarian phase in the 1990s coincided with very gradual privatisation up until the late 1990s which meant that growth could be somewhat smooth. The big wave of privitisation came later. and by that time, there had been enough adjustment, which is why Slovakia did quite well in the 1990s.
Slovakia also had high unemployment throughout most of this period. But then again, so did we.
I think a key clue might be in the question itself. It asks: have opportunities to get ahead become more equal? One could reasonably say that life in general has improved a lot and still say that inequality has not become less of an issue. They need not cancel each other out and can indeed co-exist. This may be closer to the mark, since I do often hear that economic opportunity in Slovakia is heavily constrained to the Bratislavia region. The Eastern part of Slovakia has basically not closed the economic gap at all and might even have fallen further behind. This could be one of the reasons for the surprisingly negative response from them.
By contrast, Warsaw doesn’t dominate Poland nearly to the same extent. In fact, some even claim that Warsaw is underpopulated compared to the median ratio in most countries. Greater London is 20% of the UK population. Warsaw by contrast is barely 5%. There’s still regional inequality, but it has gotten better. That may not be true for Slovakia. Just a guess, of course.
Biggest European economy is too small?
What is the alternative?
Migrating does not necessarily mean an improvement of living standards.
And just doing what the West wants is not going to work either.
The rise of the PRC means that the USA has to relocate more forces against them which improves Russia’s chances to maintain an acceptable balance of power in areas relevant to Russia.
Rusal showed limits of this sanctions policy.
http://johnhelmer.net/us-reprieve-for-rusal-does-not-relieve-president-putin-of-fatal-choice-for-oleg-deripaska/
They can straggle a major Russian corporation, but it does not mean it is going to be cheap.
There would be problems even if they were confident in the viability of their economic system.
A better economic system would not suddenly fix the weakness of the ruling party or prevent rising nationalism.
Look at China. Chinese economy is doing fine yet they have real problem like corruption within the ruling party which undermines their legitimacy.
Okay, I stand corrected.
My point was that the US is doing outright illegal things in a kind of no holds barred struggle, for example seizing Russian diplomatic compounds. The Russian retaliation is irrelevant (because it’s legal) in this symbolic battle.
In the less symbolic cases, like the sanctions against Rusal, they do not (or only rarely) retaliate.
Obviously there’s no good symmetrical retaliation. But why not suddenly send weapons to Iran? Or even Hezbollah? And publicly announce that in retaliation for the sanctions Russia will send weapons to organizations considered to be terrorist by the US but not by Russia. If Netanyahu angrily calls, Putin could tell him to talk to the Americans. Tell him if he doesn’t want Hezbollah with modern heavy weapons (initially I’d only send them symbolically small arms) then there should be no more US extraterritorial sanctions against Russia.
Now Putin is not doing anything like this. He’s not doing anything at all. This is what I call “no retaliation.” I was aware that the diplomatic incidents always had proportional retaliations. They were only to illustrate how no holds barred the struggle is, on the side of the Americans.
I was exaggerating. There are always some problems. But not on the scale of the Soviet existential crisis in the late 1980s.
The issue here is that Putin is one of the younger ones who accepted American domination and victory and wanted to remain one the winning side.
Unsurprisingly, it is difficult to change such a worldview and commit to the opposite side.
Then they’d be in a still stronger position if they retaliated. By sending weapons to actors (Iran, perhaps even Hezbollah?) the US is heavily opposed to.
If they want some military strike to prevent it, then just calmly start preparations for a nuclear war. Don’t even threaten anything. The threats should be implicit. Like the polite diplomatic note to some NATO countries about whether they’d allow the US to use their airspace in the event the US attacked Russian forces elsewhere. Or simply putting all nuclear forces on the highest alert. Costs nothing, at least it’s a drill.
Washington DC seems significantly off (too low), as whites in 2017 were estimated at 44.6% . When I was in school (across the river in Northern Virginia) DC was more than 70% black. It’s interesting that between 1950 and 1970 the white population decreased from 65% to 28%, and its recent meteoric rise is all post-2000.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_Washington,_D.C.
https://www.census.gov/quickfacts/DC
For Paris the figures say they are for Île-de-France, which has a population of nearly 12 million , as compared to a bit over 2 million for Paris itself.
There were reports already in 2007 how Putin was totally fed up with the US and the West in general. After that, he allowed Medvedev to do foreign policy, inexperienced and unsupervised. Then Libya happened, then Syria started, then Ukraine (these were in my opinion all largely internal developments, but the US was always all too eager to take advantage of the situation), and Crimea, and there were reports about how Putin had now truly had enough, but then he kept trying to keep the doors open to an ever more elusive reconciliation. Then the Russiagate happened, and Trump with his strikes in Syria, and the ever ratcheting sanctions. And there were reports that now he really was fed up. And then the Skripal Affair and the Rusal sanctions and the new Syrian strikes happened, and then it looked like enough was enough.
And yet here we are. That’s what I described as Putin being weak.
Compare Neville Chamberlain. He wanted to avoid a new conflagration at all prices. He truly wanted to work with Hitler. Yet after Hitler finally broke his word to destroy Czechia, showing his true colors to be an imperialist, he resigned himself to starting a war against the next aggression. He was capable of learning. He was capable of adjusting his behavior as new facts came out. Putin doesn’t seem to be able to do so.
As long as we will be seeing Israeli planes and missile flying over Syria we will know that Putin is not ready to make a serious confrontation.
The S-300 will perhaps be a test of this. The other day there were news reports that the Russians would provide the S-300 to Syria, but reading things more carefully it seems that all they said is that they would “upgrade” Syrian capability. If in the end they don’t follow through with the S-300, it will be yet another example of their backing down.
Probably translations of these silly questions are iffy. Do Greeks Poles and French have the same concept of ‘fair’?
And the first question “getting ahead in life has become more equal” is really moronic. Getting ahead of what? Doesn’t getting ahead precludes equality? And how any single person is supposed to gage “the more equal” state? By looking at poorer or richer neighbors or by watching and listening to media?
Who are the morons who come up with these surveys? Hucksters and swindlers, I guess.
I can’t believe it. You are another Dimitry. And Karlin agrees as well. Wow.
You have to kill the chicken to scare the money not the other way around. Killing (intimidating) the chicken may not end the world while trying to kill the money most likely will.
For the record the Clausewitzes-Cucksewitzes reiner Tor and Anatoly Karlin just stated:
Maybe they would do that if these actors were merely heavily opposed to the USA and not others.
As it stands, the Kremlin does not want to be tied to the Axis of Resistance too much.
This is good. Not cucky at all. Taking shit to Estonians your can stomach but to the other Estonians who are not Etonians you can’t even envision.
The difference is that the position of Chamberlain’s Britain was stronger than Putin’s Russia.
It is easier to resign yourself to another war against someone after you won the last one against the same opponents and have still many of the same advantages.
Meciar was making anti-Hungarian nationalist noises, so for me it’s difficult to form an objective opinion of him. But I was wondering before if he really was as harmful to Slovakia as he was described in the Hungarian press.
And yes, a large portion of the communist heavy industries and armament industry were located in the east of Slovakia.
Because like 99% of non Muslims, reiner and Anatoly don’t really care about Syria. And both of them are infinitely more pro Syrian than most people.
Face it: nothing that you ever say or do will make people care about Syria. Russia isn’t going to save you from Israel, not with Putin and not when Putin is gone. NO Russian President is going to sacrifice Moscow and St Petersburg along with G-d knows how many other Russian cities by starting a nuclear exchange with Israel.
…
re s-300: If the s-300 is supplied to Syria, I doubt it will ever be used against Israeli planes. The IDF, usually the voice of restraint, really really really want war with Syria and Iran right now even at the price of a direct clash with Russia.
Russia will tell Assad that he can’t use the s-300 against Israeli aircraft. If Assad ignores him, Israel will destroy the s-300 batteries without loss and Russia will do nothing in response.
She is indeed quite the treasure. I plan on doing a Let’s Play of Russia Takes Over the World in Civ 6 soon ish as well.
In this one sentence you made three typically Jewish projections.
The first one it is that you as a Jew (though allegedly a shaky one) do not care for Syria so you project it on everybody else. This projection stems form Jewish narrow mindedness. This afflicts not the smartest specimens of the Jewish race but apparently some as you have just demonstrated.
The second projection is from your assumption that one cares about something when he/she is related to it by blood or religion only. This projection stems from Jewish ethnocentrism. You project some ethnocentrism on everybody.
The third projection is in more like an anti-projection because it stems from Jewish inability to think in terms of universal laws. Jewish imagination can’t conceive of universal justice that would be applicable irregardless of one’s ethnicity or religion. You just can’t imagine that a non-Muslim, non Arab , non- Syrian may care for Syria not because he/she has any connection to Syria but because he/she has some connection to few very basic universal precepts and rules, like law of symmetry and reciprocality. This he/she just as well can be from Alfa Centauri or he/she can be an abstract AI engine that is the supreme leader of the Universe. You as many Jews apparently still operate on the Bronze Age moral code and haven’t got nowhere near the 1st and the 2nd Kant’s Categorical Imperatives.
In the sentences that followed you only got worse. But let suppose that you are correct that in the present balance of power and the powers of will Russia with or w/o Putin will not save Syria form Israel. One may ask then why Putin decided to go to Syria? It is possible that Russia never had intention of saving Syria and made this excursion only to get some leverage. But to get the leverage iyou must pretend that you mean it. In this game Russia must convince her “partners” that she is willing to do whatever it takes. That’s where reiner Tor comes.
In my previous comment in discussion with reiner Tor who proposed that Russia should flex the muscle and draw the red line in Syria using the threat of nuclear weapons I suggested that instead of confronting the US at this point it would be better to conform Israel first. Russia have means of destroying Israel or anything in Israel on very short notice and Russia has ability to destroy 90% of all Israeli retaliatory potential, thus all what Russia needs to do is to convey to Israel that Russia will not hesitate, that Russia means business. By doing so the ball wold be in America’s court. Then it is American that needs to decide that she is willing to risk New York for Dimona or Tel Aviv.
I have just improved on reiner Tor’s idea because it would increase the length of decision chain before the total annihilation and thus would it improve everubody’s chances of survival. But apparently tackling Israel turned out to be the bridge too far proposition for our Cuckewitz. Attila he ain’t.
Nice, tell us if you upload that somewhere. I’m sure AK will be interested 🙂
There will be response at some stage if Israel keeps bombing Syria every couple of weeks, and these attacks are growing in size. It’s impossible for the Kremlin top to keep pretending nothing has happened with bombing nights like tonight.
At the same time, it will be first verbal condemnation.
Symbolic reaction which would have no negative effect in Russia, is to close the Israeli Cultural Centers in the cities – (this has happened before about 15 years ago)
Economic reactions – limit oil supply to Israel (would hurt Russia, by losing market share).
To limit tourism (like happened to Turkey in 2015, after the Su-24 shot down), or end the visa-free zone, would annoy Israel and also pilgrims.
To supply S-300 to Syria – probably will lead to some kind of bombing incident (and need for diplomatic response) in next couple of years. So it would make more sense if they make Syria pay for it, than if it is given for free.
And tonight’s news:
Judaism invented universal laws. Christians and Muslims got it from us and even the peoples of the east only learned about it from Abraham’s children that he sent there.
To save the Assad regime. I’m not saying that Putin can’t protect Assad from being toppled, I’m saying that he can’t “liberate” Palestine without paying a price that neither he nor the Russian people are willing to accept.
Putin and Russia got a big win in Syria. In 20 years, the US will be gone and Russia will be the only superpower active in the middle east. He’s playing the long game. It just so happens that his agenda is no your agenda.
Not Jewish.
Don’t care about Syria other than the Christian communities, in particular the Greeks.
Oppose meddling in Syria b/c it’s negative for our national interests.
That said I do admire the Assman.
There is a difference between a diplomatic response and starting a nuclear exchange. I never said that Russia wouldn’t respond to Israel, just that they wouldn’t start a genocidal nuclear war that would ultimately destroy Russia as well as Israel.
Have the Israeli dogs not hit any Iranian targets?
Guess the normally 100% effective Syrian air defenses missed these particular 1970’s era cruise missiles.
China must end the separatist Taiwan authorities.
https://www.taiwannews.com.tw/en/news/3417126
Have the Israeli dogs not hit any Iranian targets?
Apparently yes.
Guess the normally 100% effective Syrian air defenses missed these particular 1970′s era cruise missiles.
They’re like the guns of Singapore, pointed in the wrong direction.
You have to understand Israeli politics to understand these strikes.
Bibi wants peace at any cost. These attacks are being done by the IDF, in collaboration with DM Lieberman and against the will of Netanyahyu, not for defensive reasons, but rather to provoke Syria and Iran into starting a war with Israel. This is the same game the IDF played in 1967 against the wishes of the then Israeli government.
This is the opposite of how things normally work in Israel. In any conflict with the Palestinians, it is always the government that wants war and the IDF which urges restraint. Sometime in the last several years, however, the IDF has become obsessed with having a war with Syria and Iran ASAP. It is unclear what has caused this dramatic change but it is probably related to paranoia about having Iran in Syria.
Right up until the Syrian Civil War started, the IDF was putting enormous pressure on Bibi to give the Golan back to Assad so that Syria would be split from Iran. That tells you just how desperate the IDF is to keep Iran out of Syria. It may be that ever since they realized that there was no diplomatic way to get the Iranians out of Syria and they have decided war is the best option.
As to why they care so much about a podunk country like Iran being in Syria, I have no idea. Don’t ask me to make sense of the IDF’s thinking because it usually can’t be done.
Taiwan seems to be really decadent, homo-tolerance, guilt cult about nastiness towards the aboriginals and the alleged crimes of the Kuomintang, and now accommodation of foreign Muslims…maybe it would really be better if the mainland Chinese took care of that.
I do too. He’s a total badass.
The military conflict is between Israel and Iran.
Russia is third-party, but which – due to various commitments and now sunk costs – risks various embarrassment and loss of authority if there is not some kind of response or appearance of response to Israel.
Situation that will occur with future events, will follow as you would expect from the above two sentence.
I’m wondering about how it would operate, if there was a desire to close the Israeli cultural centers as the symbolic response.
If you read about what happened historically.
The Israeli cultural centers in Russia were closed in 2002, for ‘technical reasons’. It took 6 years of negotiations, and they were re-opened in 2008. And in response Israel finally allowed Russia to open a (much less effective) Russian cultural center in Israel, which doesn’t offer any useful programs.
Both sides had apparently believing these centers were part of a spy war, and refusing to give visas to staff.
It will be interesting to see how it will be reported in Russian media. Will there be public condemnation?
If Putin wants to be a big boy he must read the riot act to Netanyahu. It can be all hush hush but Putin’s will (if he has it) must be conveyed unambiguously so Natanyahu knows of consequences: (1) Russia extends protective umbrella over the whole Syria and (2) any Russia’s assets harmed nuclear retaliation on territory of Israel.
and the alleged crimes of the Kuomintang,
Alleged?
Apparently diplomatic responses do not work. Israel does not listed or pretends that it does not hear. A misbehaving child must be at some point threatened with a severe punishment. Russia does not have enough conventional power in the Syrian theater to deter Israel that’s why Israel is trying to provoke and escalate. Russia has no other choice but to deter Israel with the threat of nuclear strike.
Some bad things certainly happened and historians should research and write about that, but it seems quite decadent to me to make a big deal in national remembrance of it, that’s merely adopting the Western cult of the victim. Besides, I just feel the Kuomintang were kind of the good guys (or at least the lesser evil) in the context of the times.
Only according to your priorities. No more than a handful of Russians are willing to commit suicide to protect Syria and Iran. Nothing you ever say will change that.
Besides, I just feel the Kuomintang were kind of the good guys (or at least the lesser evil) in the context of the times.
The more I read about the KMT and their activities, unfortunately the less sure I am of this.
Also, one needs to keep in mind that “Taiwanese” have a separate issue with the KMT, as they effectively saw one heavy-handed colonial ruler replaced by another. Local languages were suppressed for decades, something which even the Japanese hadn’t done.
I wouldn’t worry too much about the aborigines directly. There aren’t that many in relation to the Han and they aren’t really that alien in the way “your skin is your uniform.” A worrisome sign though if you draw parallels to other countries like Canada or Australia though.
Indonesian migration is a problem, IMO. Some people even call it a “back migration”, since Austronesians supposedly set out from Taiwan and settled Indonesia. You would think the Chinese would be wary of them, since their experience with affirmative-action in Indonesia, but there probably is not a lot of honest communication between overseas and domestic Chinese, just as there wasn’t between Americans and Europeans.
I thought the Japanese had strong assimilationist policies during the colonial era (basically wanting to turn Koreans and Taiwanese into some kind of Japanese), so it surprises me the Kuomintang are supposed to have been worse…but I can’t exactly claim to be that well-informed about the issue.
Anyway, I’m not in favour of covering up historical crimes, but given similar phenomena in Western countries (e.g. the Spanish left and its obsession with the civil war which seems rather vindictive to me) I’m deeply suspicious of organized politics of memory.
Even I can vaguely remember how they had pogroms against Chinese in Indonesia in the late 1990s, it’s weird if Chinese aren’t influenced by that in their perceptions of Indonesia.
The 228 incident was not a crime.
It was a necessary use of violence to suppress the only thing that passed for a legitimate government on Taiwan at the time, and it was instigated by petty nationalists (or splittists in Chinese terminology) and communists.
In fact the immediate impetus for the uprising was…black market cigaretteers upset over being prosecuted by the state.
In fact the immediate impetus for the uprising was…black market cigaretteers upset over being prosecuted by the state.
You mean like the Boston Tea Party?
Local languages are loser languages and should be gotten rid of.
Yes.
Most of the stated reasons for the American Revolution were bullshit.
Local languages are loser languages and should be gotten rid of.
Than if Taiwanese Hokkien with its 15 million native speakers is to be gotten rid of, what fate do you suggest for Swedish?
why are you taking Taiwan’s side?
Again you are not getting the law of symmetry. You think that Jews are exempt form it? How many Israelis are willing to commit suicide by insisting to have the right to bomb anything they like in Syria at will? Do you really believe that Russians will just walk away or look the other way while Israel is bombing Syria any time it wants? If Putin decides to draw a line everything will be OK. Nobody will have to die and nobody will have to commit suicide if only Israel stops bombing Syria. Don’t you get it that it is really up to you.
It was Kuomintang that blew it with their grandiose insistence that they represented the whole China (yes, they were egged on by the US). When the mainland China was weak Taiwan had a chance of becoming an independent country and could get international recognition if only Kuomintang stepped aside and let the pre-Kuomintang Chinese who were more loyal to Japan than China and the native population rule. Now it is too late.
I don’t have an opinion one way or the other, but a very large number of Iranians believe this theory, from all sections of society. Curiously, Israel was the only major country in the world supporting them during the Imposed War. The motive is easy: enemies mutually destroying each other. Don’t forget Israel nurtured Hamas for decades.
Iran was becoming increasingly hostile towards Israel and independent of America in the Shah’s later years. The notion does have legs.
Sweden has been an independent state for its entire history (Kalmar Union was a personal union) and Sweden has made great contributions to the world.
That said I support a Nordic federation of Sweden, Finland, Denmark, Norway, Iceland, and Estonia. Each country would continue to have its own language but English would be the lingua franca.
Alternatively the Nazi scheme to subsume the Scandinavian countries into Greater Germany doesn’t seem like a bad idea.
Coming apart
https://twitter.com/adam_tooze/status/990682129368403968
About 85% of Israeli Jews.
If the only alternative is launching a nuclear war that will end Russia as a state? Yes. Absolutely.
It’s up to Putin, not us. We’ve already drawn a line in the sand: No Iranians in Syria. That line has been violated but we have no invaded and will not invade. We will continue to strike at them wherever and whenever we want, however. We are anxious and willing to do so in a way that doesn’t jeopardize Russian personnel and without threatening the security of the Assad regime. If that’s not good enough for Russia and they want to start a nuclear war over it, that’s on them.
That is not a problem for the KMT.
They would not mind closer ties to the PRC.
I know that is not a problem for KMT but they blew it for Taiwan.
Greasy, you know you’re talking nonsense 🙂
Israel can barely handle a few casualties in Gaza. It’s very risk averse.
I know this Jewish tactic well – pretend you’re crazy, with lots of bravado. Back down when it doesnt work, however humiliating. There’s a reason Jews survived two thousand years of exile – you’re not the heroic type. Jews think long term. Survival is worth any humiliation in Jewish thinking – you will grovel at Putin’s knees before risking annihilation.
I’m not trying to insult Jews here – it’s just a different kind of culture, tough and tenacious in its own way, but not descended from the knightly-aristocratic European culture, and not ashamed to plead for its life.
I do appreciate the show you’re putting on, though 🙂
I don’t think you have anything to worry about, because I don’t think Putin is likely to threaten Israel with annihilation.
Syria is a sovereign state and under no international law Israel has any right to impose conditions on who Syria invites in to help her fight the civil war. Furthermore Israel was not neutral in this war by providing refuge, support and medical care to rebels and engaged in bombing of one of Syria allies. Case is closed. Israel is in the wrong. Russia on the other hand by the rule of international law can draw a line and threaten Israel for violating Syria sovereignty by conducting military strike on Syria territory.
This is a stupid debate. Greasy is of course right.
Well, I don’t know if he’s right on Israel, but he’s right on Russia in this case. A minority would fight a nuclear war over Donbass. A negligible percentage would fight a nuclear war over Syria. And the only man in Russia who would fight a nuclear war over Syria, but not over Donbass, is Israel Shamir.
I mostly certainly don’t want to fight a nuclear war over a training arena for the Russian Air Force.
How do you think Russians would feel about the way that western Russophiles feel that Russia is morally obligated to launch a nuclear attack on Israel because Israel killed some Iranians?
On Southfront, the Russian posters are becoming increasingly frustrated with the ingratitude of their Arab and Russophile allies.
For the record, I have never talked about attacking Russian soldiers or toppling Assad and nobody in Israel is talking about that either.
…
As a Jew, I hope for friendship with Russia and the Russian people and am willing to give very much to bring that about. But as for the Russophiles, not one shall remain alive.
Amen.
…
Jews have a tendency to fear their own shadows but I can’t think of any case of them pretending otherwise. You are hallucinating.
However, when Jews are threatened with annihilation and proceed to return to G-d, they cannot be intimidated. Read the Torah.
Perhaps you’re right about religious Jews, Greasy.
I can believe religious Jews have an inner strength lacking in their secular brethren.
Nobody wants to fight a nuclear war. But you have to be ready. If you are not you have already lost.
Greasy is talking nonsense about Israel, although – I feel like everyone was bullying unfairly him today. So I will add he seems to know more about Russia.
Any small conflict for Israel, crashes the economy for at least 1 economic quarter, destroys tourist industry several years, stresses a population, encourages the Russian-speaking olim to plan the emigration to Canada (while the Africans and Arabs stay unaffected and will never leave), and leads to destruction of their country reputation around the world and mass marches inside Paris.
They have less tolerance for conflict even many their neighbours, since they are actually reaching the first world standard expectations for life style, the country is tiny, the rockets hit every side in the frightening way which maybe only East Ukrainians can imagine. In addition, their economy does well whenever there is peace, and vice-versa. In addition, their kids are in the army, everyone knows each other, and someone who will die in the conflict.
As for Russia intervention in Syria. Intervention was marketed as being low cost, like training exercise and advertisement for weapons systems, and not to be like Afghanistan (or Americans in Vietnam). Overall this was achieved, although sunk costs were probably higher than expected, with the number of soldiers killed rising over the last year. So there is a lot of sunk costs now, which makes exit a little more complicated.
Despite this, due to geographical distance, and having less in the balance in Syria compared to local Middle Eastern countries – it will obviously not have the same level of commitment to the conflict of the Middle Eastern countries, including Iran, Turkey, Israel (the Middle Easterners will be operating for a longer-term in Syria, as they be living in the region for all eternity, long after America and Russia have gone home).
It’s Iran which is going to respond, or not, physically for the attacks – (or through Hezbollah, Iran).
Predicting the response of Kremlin leadership is more complicated, and there will probably be different points of view there, from seeing Israel’s attacks as a humiliation that needs a reaction, to seeing attacks as an opportunity to increase influence in Syria.
Also in relation to war between Iran and Israel – in some sense Russia is in a parallel position on the board as in relation to the Armenia vs Azerbaijan conflict. Although with differences, such as that Israel is more firmly in an American, enemy, camp, than Azerbaijan is yet. And the scale of the war between these two would be a far larger war, and less desirable even for third-players (although the increase in oil price would not be bad).
I could have said this: A weak state like Russia can take political advantage of nuclear weapons it possesses only if the other side is convinced that Russia will use them when Russia says it would. Even if Russia’s imposed conditions would be frivolous or unreasonable. If Russia said it will nuke you for jaywalking the jaywalking would stop immediately if Russia was believed. If Russia was believed it could stop Israel intrusions into Syria with one short phone call. The problem here is not that Russia is not believed but that Russia like everybody here is telling me is not even trying to be believed. So the consensu here is:
Those of you who live in Russia should get ready for the triumphant return to Russia not of Russian troop because they will come back with their tails between legs but for the return of Khodorkovsky and the rest of them.
Russia/Putin getting absolutely ripped apart by the Russophiles on social media. Lot’s of talk about how Hitler should have finished Russia off. The Arabs/Iranians are even more extreme, saying that Russia is just as bad as Israel and America; presumably because Russia has a moral obligation to fight Syria and Iran’s wars. Noticeable frustration from pro-Putin Russians over how ungrateful and worthless their allies are.
I’m seeing 3 strategies being advocated for as to how to get rid of Israel in the aftermath of this latest attack:
Iran should just develop it’s own super weapons and then use them to conquer Israel.
Do nothing because this is just Putin playing 4d chess. Putin wants Israel to blow up Iranian bases in Syria because doing so actually strengthens Iran and Syria while weakening Israel. Some are comparing this to Russia’s scorched earth retreat against Napoleon. This line of thought is proving extremely unpopular with Arabs and Iranians.
I’ll make sure to keep you guys posted on the latest developments in Russophile strategy.
edit: Should have included Magnier’s take, as he is the Russophile king, they all worship him. He is saying that Iran’s refusal to retaliate (for the 8 billionth time) is strategic brilliance because Iran knows that Israel is trying to lure them into a war. Keep in mind that only 2 months ago Magnier said that Iran and Syria wanted war with Israel and that Israel would do anything to avoid such a conflict.
It’s enough to recognize that Mao was more horrible for China.
There’s no symmetry, because they have bombed Syria for so long that it’s now the status quo. You can say that it’s not fair that they have been bombing Syria with impunity, but it’s also not fair that Neanderthals are extinct or what I complained about in the other thread that Czechoslovakia got 100% ethnically Hungarian areas (still the best arable land in Slovakia) and then deported many of them (including some of my relatives) in 1945 because they were disloyal. It’s also unfair that I was poorer than you when growing up and my parents only had a Wartburg when your parents as Americans undoubtedly had a huge V6 or V8 engined car or truck and a bigger house. Oh, of course it’s also unfair that I was richer than the vast majority of African children – they didn’t have enough to eat, and probably thought that it’s only soldiers and presidents who have cars. In fact, I was richer than the majority of Hungarian children – a lot of them were cramped into smaller (occasionally much smaller) apartments than us.
Life is unfair.
Now that we’ve established that Israel has been there bombing Syria, we know that they would call your bluff. Except, of course, in your case it wouldn’t be bluff because (as you wrote) you’d be delighted if there was a nuclear war between Russia and Israel.
Since unlike you I don’t want a nuclear war, I would set my goals and red lines so that there’s a very good chance others would respect them. And only then would I be willing to die or go down fighting for those goals and red lines.
Okay, I cannot claim to be knowledgeable enough about the issue, so maybe you guys do have a point.
It wasn’t ever realistic to become part of Japan(and post-war Japan was not about to get any more territory), and the pre-KMT Chinese are the ones in TaiDu now running around and being idiots. Its not really like they’re doing anything useful nor did it really seem like they ever had a plan.
KMT had their faults – overt ambition and a bullheaded refusal to give up on taking over the mainland among them, but at least they didn’t think that they could gain independence through supporting same-sex marriage and other complete nonsequitors which presumably will bring “international attention.” The degree of “not a serious country” and utter divorce from reality is hard to comprehend.
The Co-Prosperity Sphere was supposed to be assimilationist, but the Japanese rule in pretty much everywhere except Taiwan was incredibly brutal. There’s a couple of American reviews on Korea, for example, which pretty much established that North and Southern Koreans were perfectly happy to put aside their significant differences if they could kill Japanese soldiers.
For a variety of reasons, Japanese rule in Taiwan was much more established and therefore they were able to utilize less brutal measures, but they also replaced local languages with Japanese education. Taiwan was supposed to be a kind of showcase colony to demonstrate the presumed benevolence of the Imperial Japanese as well to future members. It was enough for them to run a loss, since its purpose was to encourage other future colonies to give up peacefully.
The KMT, on the other hand, needed to establish order and setup for economic stability while dealing with the very real dual threat of invasion from the mainland and internal sympathizers to the Communists. As I mentioned before, whatever the KMT crimes might have been, they had goals which they needed to establish. Its hard to see what the TaiDu rivals wanted to accomplish, then or now. TaiDu has been in power for some time, and as far as I can see, they’ve only accomplished in simultaneously provoking China while making no serious efforts at either political or military resistance.
As far as I can tell, their greatest accomplishment has been to elect a cat lady to be their leader.
The KMT descendants remain the overwhelming majority of the military as well, while the non-KMT politicians are the ones agitating to get an invasion from China. There is this entire scenario of simultaneous idiocy and cowardice that I can’t really forgive.
Why let their opponents win everything?
https://twitter.com/Future_Cities/status/940184192046043136
The KMT has never wanted an independent Taiwan.
why are you taking Taiwan’s side?
Not very enthusiastic about the KMT, which is not “native” to Taiwan, I am sympathetic to those who complain about what happened in the not-too-distant past.
On the other hand, I have nothing against the “reunification” of Taiwan with the mainland, indeed can see certain aspects where this might well be advantageous.
As I wrote, from a game theory viewpoint, those who are not willing to wage a nuclear war over more trivial issues will be condemned to wage them over their lives.
That said, other than utu (who – as he wrote – would be delighted at the thought of a nuclear war between Israel and Russia), I don’t think it’d be sensible to go to the nuclear brink over Israel bombing Syria.
I do think that Israel’s bad habit of bombing Syria needs to be broken (and perhaps longer term, after Assad’s victory, Iran’s presence in Syria should be reduced?), but it takes patience and certainly nuclear brinkmanship is not the way to do it.
Well, you said that this is exactly what the leader of Israel wants and it is the Zahal who is warmongering.
I prefer calling him “utu,” since “western Russophiles” is too long. It’s also a somewhat misleading name, implying that it’s actually “western Russophiles” instead of just utu.
I didn’t propose to ruffle a single hair on the head of a single Estonian. My proposal was to take seriously preparations for a (nuclear or not) war (which is a more effective and credible way of threatening with it than empty words by diplomats, and the bonus is you don’t have to follow through on it, since it’s not a threat at all). It’s simply part of the normal preparations for war – you ask your neighbors if they’d allow their airspace or bases to be used by the US in the event of a war which was started by a US aggression. (Or if Estonians are unwilling to use the expression, in the event of a war started by an unprovoked US attack on Russian or allied forces.)
If there was going to be a war between the US and Russia, sure the Russian government would’ve needed the information. Maybe they shouldn’t have singled out Estonia, instead asked all European NATO members, or all NATO member countries bordering Russia, or all countries bordering Russia (like Ukraine), etc.
You mean taking shit to Israelies? You either didn’t read my other comments or you’re just lying.
I explicitly proposed to start making life difficult for Israel as an asymmetric response to American sanctions. First, sending small arms to Hezbollah. Officially announce this was a response to American sanctions. Then when Bibi angrily calls, tell him that heavy weapons will be sent in the event of further sanctions. Eventually Russia could be sanctioned to the point of Hezbollah getting a proper air defense and air force. (I’m not knowledgeable enough to know if this would be a viable strategy. Hezbollah might not be a reliable enough group for this. Then only Syria should get such weapons. But not as a response to US missile attacks, but as a response to sanctions – for which Russia has no symmetric answer. Similarly, sending weapons to Iran. Etc.)
Nuclear brinkmanship with Israel is, however, not a good idea. The threat is either not credible or it is stupid. But you would be naturally delighted if there was a nuclear war between Israel and Russia, so you are forgiven for advocating for situations which would have a high likelihood of bringing them about.
are you not on social media? The Russophiles/Arabs/Iranians have gone from “Russia will nuke Israel!” to “Russia is morally obligated to nuke Israel and they are treacherous criminals for refusing to fulfill their sacred duty”.
Hell hath no fury like a Russophile scorned.
…
utu’s all right. I initially wasn’t a fan but he has grown on me. I don’t consider him a true Russophile.
I agree he is being rude to you, though.
…
I’m glad that most people here have changed their original position of starting a nuclear war. The good news is that it sounds like Trump really is serious about leaving Syria, Deep State be damned.
I think it’s a mistake but all the Trump haters here will have no choice but to give Trump credit and admit that I was right in my claim that Trump was committed to peace.
What’s the Zahal? Is that what Russians call the IDF?
Bibi, want war? Are you kidding me? Hell no Bibi doesn’t want war.
The IDF wants war because they have lost their fucking minds. I’m happy to provide you guys with analysis of Israel but I can’t explain the IDF’s thinking on this or any other subject. They do things their own way and always have.
But Israel, Russia, Iran, Syria, Hezbollah, Bibi and the IDF aren’t important. What’s important is that Magnier is gay.
edit: Oh now I understand what you’re saying. It’s hypocritical of me to bash Magnier for saying something when I myself just said the exact same thing.
I see why you would think that, but you need to keep in mind that… hey, what’s that over there! ::runs away::
He’s wrong. Which is even worse.
“The Israel Defense Forces, commonly known in Israel by the Hebrew acronym Tzahal…”
A more likely explanation is that the air defenses on April 14 were manned by Russians, but after the strikes were given back to their original Syrian crews.
Yes. I cannot see an argument against delivering it (Dmitry said it’d be destroyed by Israel anyway, but I didn’t believe it), but maybe Putin knows something I don’t.
In any event, the rules are very simple:
1) Don’t threaten with things you’re unwilling to do.
2) Be willing to do things you’re threatening with.
If you regularly break this, don’t expect your word to be taken seriously. If there are things for which you truly are willing to wage a nuclear war, then such a policy will greatly increase the risk of a nuclear war, because when that point arrives, no one will take your threats seriously.
What is the possibility of a color revolution in Kazakhstan?
Nazarbayev is getting very old.
https://twitter.com/ChinaEurasia/status/990644692542017536
Yes, that thought had occurred to me as well.
Some Skripal stuff:
https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2018-04-29/uk-governments-skripal-conspiracy-theory-or-how-hold-mass-contradictory-thoughts
Interesting how the case has seem to have gone silent.
Perhaps not coincidentally, it seems that the British press is operating under the restriction of a DSMA notice (familiarly referred to as a D notice) regarding certain aspects of the case, notably its possible connection via Pablo Miller to the Trump “pee” dossier.
From Craig Murray (former UK ambassador to Uzbekistan):
I guess all of the independent journalists and editors of the free press and media just decided — independent of each other or of any unduly outside influence — that, with Russia’s guilt being established beyond a reasonable doubt, there was nothing else to investigate or write about. So they just stopped reporting. Which only shows, if anything, the strength of the British government’s case, and also the independence of the press and media, in that they are absolutely free of conspiracy theorizing and fake news or propaganda.
So I think we should just move on to some other, more interesting topics, as there is nothing to see here.
Twinkie explained how Germany still had a very good chance of winning by bleeding the Soviets dry (elastic defense – third Battle of Kharkov) if not for Hitler’s interference; Hitler forced the Germans to adopt more fixed positions, which did not play to their strength, and guaranteed the loss.
It may be illegal but are you sure? Embassies are one thing, but do countries have some sort of legal right to have real estate in other countries? Were these privately owned buildings where Russia had some sort of title, or not? I have the impression that such buildings aren’t taxed and are considered “foreign soil” at the discretion of the country they are in but I could be completely wrong here.
A quick search returned this result:
https://www.theatlantic.com/news/archive/2016/12/obama-announces-russia-sanctions/511862/
While the status of the New York compound is unclear (but I’d bet dollars to donuts it was purchased, too), the Maryland compound was clearly purchased, that is, acquired in exchange for money. I think it’s close to freezing an asset of a state in US territory, and I’m sure there were times not so long ago when it would have been considered casus belli.
Anyway, unlike the sanctions or military strikes, these measures are largely just symbolic.
I still think Russia did it. If the media is no longer covering it, it is probably because they realized that Russia was well within their rights to do so and because so much other shit has happened since then. I actually had completely forgotten about it until you brought it up.
Why are Sunni Arabs outside of Syria so hostile to Iran? The war with Iraq was 40 years ago and Iran hasn’t done anything to them since.
I’ve always argued it was a possibility. But the official British story as it is doesn’t stand up to scrutiny. They are clearly not telling the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth.
I think many of them have Shiite minorities (who are occasionally stirred up, unclear how independent of Iranian propaganda), and anyway, it’s just a rival (often considered heretical) sect, which in itself might be enough to hate it.
You are lying.
Israel minister calls for assassination of Syria’s Bashar Al-Assad
https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20180412-israel-minister-calls-for-assassination-of-syrias-bashar-al-assad/
I say we retaliate by striking at Israeli airfields, and then the Jews in Israel will get to make a choice between a Holocaust 2.0 or a climbdown.
You’re not gonna do shit.
Russia is not weak. But it’s a “one-dimentional power”, meaning that the use military is the only way for Russia to have its voice heard and its interests respected. If Russia is not willing to use its guns, nobody in the world will pay much attention to the Kremlin. We might as well pack up from Syria and go home.
Summary:
People wonder why Japan has such a low amount of crime. Many interpretations, some obvious. One not as obvious would be that they killed a lot of people for minor transgressions until fairly recently (August, 1945.) If I recall, in Korea, (pre-war) they used to chop off people’s limbs with swords. Korea did develop under them, but probably didn’t need them.
I’m reading Zhirinovsky’s wiki for the first time now. Are we sure he isn’t some type of long running controlled opposition? He reads like a western liberal’s caricature of a Russian nationalist.
This guy actually has support?
Lol Greasy you have to be a troll when you comment on Israel.
Zaba (or tzaba) = military
hahaganah = the defense
l‘yisrael = to Israel
This is the official name (‘IDF’ is the English translation, that is only in America).
Even Indian fanboys who post on youtube, seem to call it Zahal –
Is it really an “authoritarian legacy?” Is Taiwan authoritarian today? Not by the standard of the writer, I’d guess, which makes it sort of an illogical construction. A similar thing could be said about South Korea.
I’ve known a few people from Taiwan or with Taiwanese parents. None of them thought of Taiwan as being wholly separate. I wonder if the expats living in the West and observing are less pozzed than the people on the island.
You see here why Jews are ascendant, and the West in decline.
Greasy William has passion and fierceness, conviction, willing to sacrifice himself and his country for his cause. He is not “reasonable”, but irrational, emotion, loyal. He has what the Greeks called “thumos” – the source of all motivation. Greasy William may be wrong, but he’s admirable.
Now a milquetoast like reiner tor will take talk to you about “game theory”, reasonableness, how America is just too powerful and all the other defeatist stuff. You get the sense he’s too reasonable to have emotions, and will wilt if exposed to too much sunlight.
And so it is for most white commenters on this blog. Insipid.
This is the difference between having a religion and not having one. And there is nothing to be done about it – one can only hope the next generation will be raised with a religion. There is nothing to expect from the older generation of white people. They are not worth arguing with or taking seriously.
Did anyone ever think he wasn’t?
I found that proposal interesting. (And wrong, of course.)
Well.. if you were the Israeli Prime Minister, or US President, and Russia demanded that you dance naked on the street and upload the video to YouTube, and you firmly believed that the Russians would really nuke your country if you didn’t, would you
A) dance naked, and upload it to YouTube
B) prepare for a nuclear war with Russia (while of course hoping they’re not as insane to start a nuclear war over this)
C) other (write what you’d do)
?
I guess most people (at the very least most people who had enough drive to power to become actually, like, powerful) would choose B). And the politicians would have no problem convincing the people to follow them to nuclear war. You propose most (or all?) people would choose A).
I think your theory of the mind is wrong.
Indeed, many-directed and frequently expressed.
Now a milquetoast like reiner tor . . . one can only hope the next generation will be raised with a religion. There is nothing to expect from the older generation of white people. They are not worth arguing with or taking seriously.
You’re really fixated on this, as if your generation (and those that follow) will be blessed (by God no doubt) with all the wisdom that those older than you lack. Do you really think that religion is the solution to all problems?
Personally, you come across as an insufferable arrogant little shit, but then again I’m just your typical passionless insipid milquetoast.
Meanwhile in Israel…
https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2018-04-30/israel-closes-airspace-near-syria-border-ahead-significant-netanyahu-speech-iran
Good! You should be angry, and you should find me insufferable. It means there may – may – be a spark of life in you yet.
I think Greasy, nice fellow as he seems otherwise, is trolling us.
He doesn’t know (or pretends he doesn’t know) what is almost the most pervasive and commonly heard Hebrew word that can exist and you can hear in Israel – “Zahal”. At the same time he claims to be a true Jewish believer (which is a person who reads only in Hebrew, at least when reading the holy texts of the religion of Judaism).
Genuine support? No. He does sometimes say nationalist sounding things – much more so than anybody else – so some nationalists vote for him. Others vote for him for the entertainment. But there’s no real cultural or intellectual strength behind him and the LDPR.
There are approximately three major real nationalist locuses:
“National democrats” – pro-Westernist, pro-Ukrainian, racialists (in the idiotic Nazi larping sense, not the HBD sense), sort of anti-Semites but cavorted a lot with liberal Jews. Were discredited after 2014.
Various White Guardists – Central locus is Sputnik & Pogrom. Strictly Russian national interests, so Semitic-neutral and Western-neutral; anti-Soviet, anti-Ukrainian. Not a mass movement, but seem to have the most influence in the elites (e.g. Voloshin and Chubais (! of all people) have come out as readers).
Also many more minor factions and subfactions.
I intend to write a comprehensive mega-post about Russian nationalist factions sometime this year.
And yes, I do think religion is the answer – literally the only answer.
To flip Ibsen on his head, “the weakest man is he who stands most alone”. An individualist can only ever be a milquetoast, slowly wilting away. If you want to be motivated and self-confident, connect to something larger than yourself.
Though maybe you’re right about some type of people.
I always wondered about crimes like that:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wichita_Massacre
I don’t know how I’d react in a situation like this, but I’d assume if they were forcing me to engage in sexual acts in front of them, then they won’t let me out alive. Why give them their fun?
Anyway, threatening with a nuclear war is not exactly the same type of situation. I certainly wouldn’t engage in sexual acts if I also had a gun.
I am sure Greasy knows the word Tzahal. Maybe he objected to the absence of a t.
Incidentally, the French media uses the word tzahal, while the British media frequently uses IDF, while the American press most often used Israeli army. Interesting the differences.
As well as being on the five permanent members of the UN security council, which is the only real power center in international diplomacy (China, France, Russian Federation, the United Kingdom, and the United States).
In addition, world’s largest supplier of oil, world’s largest supplier of gas. By far the largest populated country in Europe (146 million people, compared to second place Germany with around 80 million).
And the world’s largest nuclear weapons capacity.
All that said, I don’t really see relevance of the power-balance to this issue.
At UN security council, there was an attempt to condemn the US/French/UK airstrikes in Syria earlier in month. US/French/UK are powerful countries.
But there has been no attempt to condemn Israeli airstrikes (conducted by a vastly weaker power).
So it’s not clear, and the best information we get is from reading the foreign media – what the actual viewpoint is of this kind of airstrike (which involves conflict between Iran and Israel inside Syria).
I’m surprised nobody else here seems to think the Bajau thing is important. IMO, it might be the most important HBD discovery in many years. A lot of the other mutational adaptations seem fairly minor by comparison.
What makes the Bajau case so interesting is that it is directly about resource acquisition in a certain environment, but not about resource acquisition through the gut, skin, or by digestion, or by survivability to pathogens. Not only does that have massive implications, but it is a very easy example to understand, and even picture.
To take one obvious implication, already theorized many years ago, if people in one area had soft soil where women could use a hoe to farm and others had hard soil where men had to be behind a plow. Well, then, those people are probably going to be really different. If the Bajau were influenced by their waters, it is a virtual certainty that others were influenced by their soils.
I think the better transliteration is with ‘z’ instead of ‘tz’, because as צ is at the beginning of the sentence, this sound of the word is more like ‘zahal’. The ‘tz’ sound comes more when you put the letter inside a sentence e.g. ‘in army’ (בצבא) when it sounds more like ‘betzava’ to me.
Lol I actually made a mistake here with ב. (It is zava/tzava).
No I read your comment a few days ago and was searching about them on youtube.
Yeah, what could possibly go wrong with a willingness to sacrifice oneself and one’s country for a cause…
You almost sound like the people who were enthusiastic about going to war in 1914 (Greasy does as well with his disturbing hope for a general Mideast war). Didn’t turn out that great, and did more to reduce Europe to its present weakness than any loss of religion ever could have.
Try to read more carefully next time. In the sentence
If Russia said it will nuke you for jaywalking the jaywalking would stop immediately if Russia was believed.
the key phrase is “if Russia was believed.”
No Israeli pronounces it with a z. That would suggest an accent. It’s definitely a ‘ts’ sound. צ is always a ‘ts’ sound. Zayin is a z sound.
Check out YouTube.
The צ in tzahal, is pronounced like ‘Zahal’ at the start of the sentence. It sounds like ‘tz’ if you put another word in front of it.
So the issue of correct transliteration – both are used, but I think ‘Zahal’ is probably less misleading.
As for letters ‘zayin’ – that’s because there’s plenty of redundancies with the consonants (tet and tav, samekh and shin, vav and bet, and even kaf and qof – in different contexts, these can all have the same sounds as each other, although there are grammatical rules for which are used).
You make a good point, and I was thinking that when I wrote my comment. Too much thumos, unrestrained by religion, is also problematic.
But what strange and fatal defect of the West makes it swing constantly between extremes? Either you have an excess of thumos and do stupid things like 1914 and the Peloponnesian War, or you swing to the other extreme and let yourself get invaded and raped.
Yes, 1914 is problematic – but do you think the current milquetoast situation is better? We know that in the West religion has led to strife, so we tried no-religion – ” pas de zele”, as Voltaire said. We now know that is not a solution – it merely dries up all sources of motivation, all springs of action, and all desire to live.
So Western culture is now poised to go into a new stage – maybe, heaven forefend, balance? But to restore balance right now means restoring passion, community, and religion – this time in a balanced fashion. Nationalism but not empire. Religion but no contempt for other religions.
It has become clear we cannot hide in the shadows because passion and religion are dangerous – because lack of these things, history has shown, is equally dangerous. Life is dangerous. Avoidance is not the answer. Learning to navigate danger is a task we cannot run from.
The way that I view WWI, it was mostly about a willingness to sacrifice one’s own countrymen. Not only from the perspective of the elites, but also on much lower levels. Teachers who knew they were too old to go to the front, tried to teach boys that war was a good thing. Similarly, many women encouraged men to fight. And all that was before the outbreak.
I actually agree with a lot of that…though I still find your enthusiasm for “religion” (which immediately raises the question “What kind of religion?”) somewhat strange. I don’t think a return to the premodern state of affairs is either possible or desirable in this regard.
Also, I would point out that 1914 was itself a consequence of the steady erosion of religion, to where people felt bored and restless with the mechanical and materialistic life being offered them, with comfort as the highest ideal, and yet with nowhere for their energy and desire for transcendence to go.
The solution is not to neuter peeople, castrate them, make them milquetoast s – but to provide them illegitimate religious outlets for their desire for transcendence.
Well, the more outlandish and frivolous and the less reasonable the demands, the less likely it would be believed, obviously. But let me remove the phrase which made you misunderstand my comment. So please answer this:
Well… if you were the Israeli Prime Minister, or US President, and Russia demanded that you dance naked on the street and upload the video to YouTube, and you firmly believed that the Russians would really nuke your country if you didn’t, would you
A) dance naked, and upload it to YouTube
B) prepare for a nuclear war with Russia
C) other (write what you’d do)
?
I’d choose B), and I think you’d choose B), too. I believe there’s no self-respecting government or head of state which would do otherwise. It’d also be pretty irrational to choose A).
I found the idea of independent Taiwan appealing when it was explicated to me by my Taiwanese friends many years ago. Some of them felt more affinity to Japan than China though they did not want to be a part of Japan. But even then they were realistic that it was already too late and they blamed KMT’s grandiosity for the missed opportunity. Taiwan will become a part of China sooner or later. Whatever is happening in Taiwan now is not really important. The independence activist or whatever they are will not change the course of things to come.
Yes, dulce et decorum est pro patria mori and all that.
Is somewhat of a problem for me, obviously I’m in favour of patriotic sentiment, but one has to recognize that it can lead to pretty disastrous results.
You say we cannot “return” – that is because you are captured by modern myths like evolution and progress. In fact, history is cyclical – rise and fall. Returns happen all the time. I wonder if the Romans thought they could never return to a less advanced state. We have already returned to a pre-modern state in many ways – loss of free speech, taboos, collapse in science, loss of interest in objectivity.
If modernity is maladaptive, then not only is return possible, it is inevitable. Nothing is “frozen”.
My emphasis on religion is not strange, but crucial. There is no need to have a too restrictive view of it, however, nor is it necessary to abandon everything about modernity, although that may happen.
As to what religion? Good point. The essence of a religion is that it is not chosen for rational reasons. We cannot analyze our way into it. As science collapses, and the obsession with over rational and hyper conscious control subsides, a religious synthesis will emerge, choosing us. It may emerge from the ruins of Christianity, or not.
In the meangime, we can connect to something larger than ourselves now – God, community, other people. Recognize we are not individuals, logic is not final, and the divine is real. Draw inspiration from sacred texts. Cultivate morality. The precise rituals, traditions, etc will emerge over time in a non rational, communal process.
But we must take the first step, even if it is our fate to be a transitional generation.
Netanyahu: Iran had secret ‘Project Amad’ to design, produce and test warheads
https://www.cnbc.com/2018/04/30/netanyahu-claims-to-show-irans-secret-nuclear-files-obtained-by-israel.html
Sure, who could ever suspect the Israelis or Americans of lying…
Really looks like they’re planning for a re-run of Iraq 2003.
Apparently they got some documents from Iran. I don’t know what or how they got, but I’m sure it’s less than what they make it out to be.
The sickening part is Putin will not help Iran much. He should already start sending them weapons.
But there is something they can do.
They can run the country in a competent, even impressive way which will make Beijing second-guess themselves if acquisition or pressure is the right thing to do. Beijing does respect competence; they would get far more autonomy if they demonstrated competence. The problem is that Taiwan is an economic basket case on top of everything else; college students are graduating to less than $15k USD where mainland workers are earning between $30k to $80k for the same work.
The Taiwanese problems are not primarily caused by China at the moment. It is the result of extensive incompetence currently being masked by cargo-culting Western values.
Thanks for the info. I do not follow what is happening in Taiwan so I was not aware that they were not doing well. Nevertheless I have known more Taiwanese than Mainlanders perhaps because I found Taiwanese less foreign more universal and most importantly not tainted with the Chinese chauvinism that I find rather scary though understandable but unpleasant enough to preclude closer relations with them. Just like I could not imagine close relationship with Bronze Age troglodytes of Greasy W. ilk though I understand where are they coming from.
Gene-culture co-evolution. At any rate, Japan seemed like they were spazzing out with massacres such as Nanking which didn’t earn them any admiration.
I think had the Japanese been less ambitious and had better control of their soldiers, they might have done much better.
I think you said that his core supporters include “trolls.” I can’t deny that its hard not to find him utterly entertaining.
I think he won me around the time he supported both strip clubs and Orthodox values without a single hint of contradiction in him. This is a man of taste and conviction.
The Taiwanese do tend to be more pleasant, but I wonder if it is in part due to the lack of thymos that they’ve been saddled with now. What is the driving philosophy of the Party to its mainlanders?
“The Dragon will rise again! Sacrifice for the great rejuvenation of China, to claim our rightful place in the world as a superpower.”
What was the KMT promise, as grandiose as it was?
“We must save our mainland cousins from the red bandits! We shall return even if we have to do it by infiltrating the Party and turning it into our values.”
And what does Taidu say?
“…we are a democracy…our gays have more rights…we have human rights as understood by the UN…”
I don’t know what or how they got
As I understand it, it concerns Iran’s pre-2003 programme and may be nothing new at all.
http://www.moonofalabama.org/
Most likely. I cannot imagine it’s anything more serious than a the Iraq WMD “evidence.” Not because I cannot imagine Iran secretly working on a nuclear program, but it’s always easier to lie than to truly find such secret evidence. And they being inveterate liars, there’s nothing to stop them from lying. So probably they are lying.
My take is that their not lying really, just trying to make a mountain out of a molehill with regard to documents about a previous programme, which they will try to argue was not fully disclosed and hence represents the greatest sin since Eden.
Yes, but I’d call that lying. Since obviously they know that this is not really an active Iranian nuclear program, and they also are fully aware that they are making it sound like one.
How is it any different from the previous incident with the Russian Wagner mercenaries?
The brutality of the Japanese during WW2 was really amazing. Easy to dismiss along the lines innertribal vs. extratribal, but I can’t help but feel there was something more to it. Maybe, the geography of Japan made it much more hierarchical. I wonder if anyone ever did Stanley Milgram in Japan.
That runaway ambition aspect of it is really fascinating. I know it is really cliche to compare people to Hitler or Tojo, etc., but the example of them both attacking the US is just so mindbogglingly stupid. I don’t care what others say – Japan did not need to attack the US. I can’t help but feel that there are many non-militaristic parallels to this elite hubris, among the globalists. Where it comes from, (the isolation? how they are selected?), and how to combat it is a very important matters which concern us all.
I assume you have read John Toland’s Rising Sun? I found it probably the best single book I have read in terms of understanding the Japanese “side”, and the absolute suicidal nature of what they did (though many, perhaps even a majority, were against it). The amazing thing about the book, published in 1970,, is that Toland was able to interview so many of the actual participants, from “grunts” to political leaders (such as Marquis Kido, the Lord Keeper of the Privy Seal and intimate of Hirohito) to the principal Japanese spy at Pearl Harbor, important military personnel, Yamamoto’s widow, etc.; and on the American side leaders such as Nimitz and John McCoy (Asst. Secretary of War).
They did not even need to attack China:
Effectively a few low-level officers triggered a massive war which they never had a clear plan for. The Chinese were quite pro-Japanese then, with Zhou Enlai having been educated in Japan and a general sense of Japan as a model being present in China.
Getting dragged into the long and expensive war in China would cost them resources and began the long march toward attacking the United States. None of it really made any sense; Japanese internal documents showed that they were quite aware that their population was not in any place or position to try to occupy the extensive area that was China, so all they could hope for was…miracles, really.
Could they actually have gobbled up the European colonies in Southeast Asia without the US declaring war on them?
I know they already had troops in French Indochina and Thailand before Pearl Harbor, but how would the US have reacted if they had invaded British Malaya and the Dutch East Indies without attacking American forces in the Philippines?
Could they actually have gobbled up the European colonies in Southeast Asia without the US declaring war on them?
Almost certainly not, but they could have simply stuck with Manchuria.
Even with just Korea and Taiwan, they would have been in an excellent position territorially.
Yes, but by 1941 they were bogged down in their war in China, and if I understand correctly the American oil embargo would have severely hindered (crippled?) their war effort, so they felt they had to acquire the oil (and other resources like rubber) of Southeast Asia…otherwise they would have needed to end their imperial project.
Of course it would have been better if they had never even begun with it.
There are two separate issues:
Political: The US had a strong isolationist streak. Despite the machinations of FDR, real war (total commitment) at that time, IMO, needed real provocation. Something like the Lusitania, to stir up the public. I think the good example would be Germany – Germany was in strategic position to harm the US in much more realistic way than Japan was, being so much closer. But the US did not declare war. The US was pretty resource-independent, at least on the level of the Western hemisphere, and I don’t see why they would have declared war on Japan and not Germany.
FDR was already a three-term president, and there was a lot of dislike and resistance to him, in part because of it. There were people switching parties and even mainstream Hollywood movies that seemed to tacitly show displeasure. I think he understood there were limits to his power. Not to mention, Congress would not have been corralled. WW2 was the last time the US was totally committed to war on an economic level. Vietnam and Korea were only partial affairs, destructive dabblings.
Then there is the economic side for Japan: Japan didn’t really need the resources – unless they were fighting the US. There wasn’t any other power that could realistically challenge them at the time. They could have tightened their belts, found alternatives, endured a recession, and shown there was a limit to their territorial ambitions, while making peace overtures, even through a public campaign, which would have made it darn near impossible for war to break out.
I’ve not read the book, but I’ll put it on my reading list.
That’s what I was wondering about…if the Japanese hadn’t attacked US forces (and actually on US territory at that, Pearl Harbor was as provocative as one could get), but just invaded British Malaya and the Dutch East Indies, would Roosevelt have managed to bring about a declaration of war in reaction to that? European colonialism wasn’t popular with the US public, so many Americans might not have cared that much about a change of colonial masters in Southeast Asia. I’ve never seen a discussion of such a counter-factual though, so I don’t know if such a scenario was even remotely likely.
That would certainly have been the most prudent course of action.
As I understand it, Japanese strategy depended to a large extent on the perception that Germany was winning the war in Europe, which of course turned out to be a serious miscalculation.
The US would in fact have accepted a “withdrawal” to Manchuria. Unfortunately Hull’s “ultimatum” of 26 November was poorly worded: he insisted on a withdrawal from “China”, which for him did not include Manchuria; the Japanese understood it to require withdrawal from Manchuria, which was a total nonstarter for them.
John Toland (Rising Sun) interviewed various high-ranking Japanese involved in the final war deliberations, and when they learned of this misunderstanding their reaction, while not completely uniform, strongly suggests that war with the US could well have been avoided.
That’s interesting, I didn’t know about those discussions.
I find it surprising that the Japanese considered ending their war in China, since their ambitions there were long-standing (they had already tried to turn China into a quasi-protectorate during WW1 through the 21 demands) and they did control many of the coastal areas. But starting a war with the US (and then in such a provocative manner which was sure to enrage the American public) was pretty insane in any case, given the disparity in industrial power.
would Roosevelt have managed to bring about a declaration of war in reaction to that?
There are reports (originating from the British side) that Roosevelt had promised US intervention in this case (the so-called ADB or ABC conversations). Whether he would have been able to deliver on this via a declaration of war is a very good question, given the anti-war sentiment in the US. Fortunately for him he did not have to face this problem, as the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor (and the Philippines) was literally manna from heaven. Whether or not FDR knew specifically about the planned attack on Pearl Harbor (and many believe he did), an even stronger case can be made that his actions were designed to provoke a Japanese attack on the US (most likely in the Philippines).
I find it surprising that the Japanese considered ending their war in China,
The problem is that one can’t really talk about “the” Japanese — there was essentially no political control over the military (which literally had a veto power over the government) and even within the military there was only limited control over what officers did in Manchuria and China. But there was a faction within the military that was willing to end the war in China, although for them to act it would have required a firm indication from the US that this would end the embargo.
Israel’s Jericho ICBMs are presumably targeted at Iran, or at the ocean (like the US and Russian arsenals), not at Russia. The few minutes warning Israel would have before the Russian missiles hit, would not be sufficient time to retarget its Jerichos at Russia.
Even if Israel did have its Jerichos targeted at Russia in advance of a Russian attack, Russia can launch SLBMs from the Black Sea or Mediterranean, whose flight time will be only a handful of minutes. And even it were possible, within such a narrow window, for Israel to launch a countervalue strike at Russian cities, it would be insane to do so, and guarantee the annihilation of the Israeli population in response, without knowing whether the incoming ICBMs are a counterforce or countervalue strike.
But suppose that somehow Israel does manage to launch every one of its ICBMs, targeted to kill as many Russians as possible. And further suppose that they manage to penetrate Moscow’s ABM defenses (unlikely). This probably impossible-to-execute scenario results in a maximum of around 15% of Russia’s population killed, similar to what Russia lost in WWII. And obviously, that did not destroy Russia.
No, Israel does not have MAD capability vs. Russia, not even close. After a Russian first strike, it would be difficult for Israel to kill even 1% of Russia’s population in a retaliatory strike, while of course Russia could still completely destroy Israel after an Israeli first strike.
Even more hilarious is that apparently Kanji Ishiwara didn’t even want to expand the war with China after taking Manchuria. The dude seems to be a true believer of East Asian cooperation. From a geopolitical point of view, Japan wanting Manchuria is understandable since they had to drastically expand their industrial base if they wanted to be taken seriously as a world power. Expanding their invasion into the rest of China is bizarre. IIRC the KMT was willing to give up Manchuria, was even willing to come to a settlement with Japan after Shanghai, but any settlement basically became impossible after Nanjing.
He may have been somewhat serious back in ’93 where he managed to gain a plurality of the vote, mainly due to Yeltin and that Zyuganov, despite having good points, is one of the most boring men alive.
Zhirik, despite his clowning, is actually very intelligent, after resigning any serious attempt to win, he’s played his role of court-jester with gusto ever since, occasionally mixing in serious proposals between OTT trolling in a Shakespearean manner. He certainly has a better grasp of high culture than most Russian politicans, I was looking for his ‘Gogol’ speech but couldn’t find it with subtitles.
You have to remember that Imperial Japan did repeatly challenge and fight greater powers and countries and get away with it.
If you so often manage to get away with provoking others and keep winning, even something insane seems acceptable.
Taiwanese separatists and their foolish cat lady got cucked again.
http://www.scmp.com/news/china/diplomacy-defence/article/2144115/dominican-republic-breaks-taipei-forges-ties-beijing
https://www.reddit.com/r/taiwan/comments/8g4hx8/dominican_republic_forges_tie_with_china_breaks/dy8xbe3/
I think they did it twice.
The first one was the Sino-Japanese War of 1894-95, where Japan was smaller and at least nominally weaker. It’s usually forgotten in retrospect, because in hindsight after the 1930s Sino-Japanese War and the Japanese victories against Russia and in the early period of the Pacific War we consider Japan to be a highly capable and strong military power, while in light of the poor Chinese performance in all their wars against Western or Japanese forces until 1945 we consider China to be a total basket case. (Which was largely true.) But in the early 1890s Japan just barely started to industrialize, so the difference between the Chinese and Japanese economies wasn’t huge qualitatively, while quantitatively China was still vastly bigger than Japan. It must be noted that most of their weapons were imported anyway, so I think both Chinese and Japanese vessels were mostly built in British (or other European) shipyards (the Japanese had a few Japanese built warships), and the Chinese had some battleships which were bigger than anything the Japanese had at the time. Of course it turned out during the war that the Chinese vessels were obsolescent and not well maintained, and especially their guns were inferior. The Chinese navy also didn’t have good training or tactics. But these things weren’t well known in advance, the Japanese navy commanders were apprehensive of the situation.
Then they attacked Russia. This time they were more confident, especially because the attack on Port Arthur was very similar to the attack on Pearl Harbor – a surprise attack without a formal declaration of war. Although it’s well known that the Russian Empire was unstable and the revolution did them in, but were it not for the revolution, Japan would surely have lost eventually in a sustained conflict, as they did in 1941-45, because Russia had a vastly bigger economy.
Basically in 1941 they were hoping for a similar outcome as in 1904-5, so the stronger party unwilling to fight on and granting them a favorable peace. They also thought that the direct American losses would be relatively small (other than the Philippines, which was already promised independence, just a few small islands), the Americans were not a martial race anyway, so, whatever.
Meanwhile, regarding Netanyahu and Iran, I read somewhere that a possible course of action would be to bomb Iran out of Syria in a coordinated US-Israeli-French (?) action.
Will Putin fold, if it happens? I don’t know, but by folding last time, he surely created the expectation that he would do so again.
His foreign minister also foolishly said that he thinks it’s absolutely impossible that Putin and Trump would “allow” a nuclear war to happen. This will mean that nuclear blackmail will be less effective (the bluff will be more likely to be called), because it won’t be nearly as credible as before Lavrov opened his foolish mouth. (I really wonder why otherwise brilliant diplomats have to say such stupid things.)
Now I guess the Russian leadership is still “studying” the possibility of sending the S-300 to Syria. I also guess they are really thorough in those studies, as they shouldn’t jump to quick conclusions. Hopefully they will reach a conclusion after thorough studies sometime during the next decade, and they will release the results of those studies sometime before I die, so that I could at last learn what they came to. Obviously, the Russian contingent will be forced to leave Syria by that time.
If I understand correctly, their idea was to establish a defensive perimeter in the Pacific and make reconquest so costly for the Americans that the American public, being casualty-averse and supposedly non-martial, would lose interest and force a negotiated end to the war, leaving Japan in control of its conquests.
It was a pretty stupid plan imo.
Well, now, they still have Haiti don’t they? LMAO
But seriously, though I can appreciate a certain formalism when it comes to diplomacy, I think it serves as a good demonstration that foreign aid is nearly utterly worthless to the donor.
IMO, a very poor reading of American history (or just history in general) up until 1941, and very wishful, delusional thinking on the part of the regime. Perhaps, Teddy Roosevelt secretly helped draw America into WW2 by helping to negotiate a peaceful settlement between Japan and Russia in 1905.
If Ho Chi Minh had led a surprise attack on America without a declaration of war, he’d have been dead as a doornail. And not only would there not be a city bearing his name, the communist party would be banned in Vietnam and there would be American bases there today.
Perhaps, Teddy Roosevelt secretly helped draw America into WW2 by helping to negotiate a peaceful settlement between Japan and Russia in 1905.
And one that favoured Japan, whose personal envoy (Baron Kaneko) was Teddy Roosevelt’s personal guest throughout most of 1904-5. According to Kaneko, this was the message given to him on parting, to be conveyed to Emperor Meiji:
And he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for it, but I suppose it is not as crazy as some of the later ones.
https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2018-05-01/us-officials-israel-preparing-war-iran-seeking-us-support
Bibi should be let known that in the unfortunate event of a US-Russian nuclear conflagration, top US allies would also be targeted, and that his country is on the list. Not a threat or even something likely to happen, just letting him know.
Russia will do nothing, so do not worry too much. Russia does not have what it takes. Russia after all follows your brilliant and daring strategic plan: “Let Israel bomb Syria.” So why not let Israel and US bomb Iran, right?
Sinotriumphalism – lithium battery edition
https://twitter.com/adam_tooze/status/991399361912467457
It’s either dishonest or stupid not to understand my arguments why letting Israel bomb Syria is different from letting the US bomb Syria or letting Israel bomb Iran. You are in bad faith here, which is not conducive to discussing the topic at hand – which would be the purpose of an online forum like this one.
Nevertheless, good to see you here, utu. Now you might answer the question I asked in #317, which you must have overlooked back then.
(A) Suppose you come back after long absence like from being separated from your wife and family because you wanted to be back together and provide support to your family. You discover that your son has been bullied by my son for a long time during your absence. You decide to do nothing because there is no symmetry (you used this term in your argument) and your son kind of got used to be bullied by my son but all what you do is to sternly wag your finger and draw the line that you will step in if I try to bully your son as well. I may consider you a wimp and go and beat up your son and then you retaliate. And we all die.
(B) Now a reverse the situation. It is me who is coming back to discover that your son is bullying my son. I go to your son and tell him that I will kill him if he does it ever again. If he stops, nothing happens but if he continues I indeed kill him. Then it is up to you whether you retaliate and face mutual annihilation or not. So you may think twice and rather find consolation in the fact that you also have a daughter and want to live and perhaps plot revenge for later.
Chances of mutual annihilation in (B) and (A) might be similar though probably lower in (B) and (B) guarantees that the bullying stops. In (A) your survival depends on continuation of bullying.
As far as your #317 comment I do not see what point you are trying to make. Perhaps that’s why I have ignored it. It must have been it because I usually try to respond to sensible comments directed to me. And in cases when my comments are ignored I do not sweat it.
It was obvious what my point was – that it does matter how frivolous or how unreasonable the demand is. The less reasonable the demand, the more insane you look like (with whom it’s impossible to talk to, and so with whom a nuclear war is inevitable anyway), and so the less likely they are to budge. So your statement about “it doesn’t matter how frivolous or unreasonable the demand” needs to be qualified. That was the point I was making.
As to your analogies. They are bad analogies. Bashar is not Putin’s son, obviously. Putin didn’t much care for Bashar’s wellbeing, his reasons were to
Bashar was already being bombed by Israel. It was a fight Bashar has had with Israel since time immemorial, basically they’ve been in a state of war since Israel (or Syria, for that matter) became internationally recognized independent states.
Putin came there to help, but obviously qualified his help – he helped Bashar against the American/Qatari/Saudi/etc. supported rebels (who were easy to fight), and also provided a shield against the Americans (who had not yet gotten directly involved in the fight), but not in the ongoing fight against Israel (which would’ve required either a huge number of military assets or a dangerous nuclear blackmail), because it would’ve been costly. I agree with Putin’s assessment, and it looks like you also agree.
Another problem with your analogy is that the harm caused by Israel bombing Syria is relatively minor: Israel is too small in itself to make Bashar lose the civil war. The same is untrue of America. So it’s not simply someone “bullying” a boy, it’s someone occasionally humiliating him, but not causing him physical harm, and another guy potentially killing him. Is it important to stand up to the first? Maybe, but it’s definitely more important to stand up to the second.
If you’ve ever tried to help someone in a fight, you know that by simply showing up you can make the opponent of your friend calm down, that is, before a fight started. But I got kicks and punches when I tried to help a friend already engaged in a fight. (His opponents friends were also there…) So it’s inherently much more dangerous to help your friend already engaged in a fight, than helping him before the fight started just by showing up and signaling your willingness to trade punches if it comes to that. (I’m a relatively small and thin guy, and was very thin at the time I visited bars where my friends got into altercations and occasionally fights, but I think my relatively limited experience in bar fights can be generalized: it’s easier to prevent a fight than stopping one. The fact that even a harmless looking guy like I am will be taken seriously as an extra danger before a fight starts shows how easy it is to prevent a fight – but when it’s already started, you really will be required to join in and kick and punch and take kicks and punches.)
To sum it up, Bashar is only important to Russia to the extent that he can provide some trial ground for Russian weapons and the Russian military base, Israel is already in the habit of bombing Bashar (unlike the US, at least before April 2017), and so would be more difficult to stop, and Israel is not doing much harm to Russian objectives, while the US is much more dangerous to those objectives. This is why Putin was willing to let Israel bomb Assad, but was less willing to let the US bomb Assad. (He was stupid enough to let it happen a couple of times nevertheless, and as I wrote, that was a mistake.)
Accept Kudrin’s proposal.
http://johnhelmer.net/vice-president-for-capitulation-putin-decides-what-job-to-give-kudrin/
But what would be the policies?
What policies would lead to a dismantlement of the sanctions? My guess is there’d be no immediate dismantlement. For example, a lot of the sanctions were nominally introduced as a result of the Crimea annexation. Would Kudrin immediately return Crimea to Ukraine? Some of the sanctions were in response to “Russian meddling” in the US presidential elections. Will they also be lifted?
But as I said, Putin seems to be weak anyway, so some kind of capitulation is in the cards. It’s just that – fittingly – the Russian elites won’t be able to reap many benefits of the capitulation. It will take a long time to dismantle the sanctions (some of which need an act of Congress, for example), so I’m just skeptical capitulation would actually work for its intended purpose of reinvigorating the Russian economy.
But we’ll see.
Crimea sanctions do not matter much.
Donbass (and other newer sanctions) matter.
Even during Kudrin’s time in office, Russia was sanctioned.
They might be lessened for concessions like the arrest and transfer of certain people to America or elsewhere
They might. Or they might not.
I agree a capitulation is in the cards. It’s just difficult to see what kind of concessions you are talking about.
Arresting Russian citizens and extraditing them to America is theoretically forbidden by the Russian constitution, and I don’t think Russian elites want to go there anyway. They like this provision, and they liked it already in the 1990s, when some oligarchs were already sanctioned.
Are you talking about Snowden?
What other concessions do you have in mind? How could the West guarantee that the sanctions won’t continue despite Russia giving up Donbass? What to do about “election meddling” sanctions? What can Russia do? Officially accept that it “meddled” (whatever that means) in the US elections, apologize, and..? Will the Americans accept that, or, smelling weakness, amend their demand list?
Remember that Gorbachev also wanted economic concessions (perhaps aid worth hundreds of billions of dollars) in exchange for giving up the empire. In the end, he didn’t receive much. Nor did Yeltsin.
And this is why that FT article strikes me as being wishful thinking, or a plant by Kudrin.
I don’t consider the kremlins to be clever, but nor do I think they’re that stupid.
Also the personal relations between Kudrin and Medvedev are hostile. I am not sure they have the capacity to coordinate a scheme like that.
And this is why that FT article strikes me as being wishful thinking, or a plant by Kudrin.
Or a plant by a Kudrin enemy? Possibly to make Kudrin look suspicious in the eyes of Putin?