Ukraine Long Proxy War VI - God Favours Russia

Indeed Does The Lord Work In Mysterious Ways.

The Apotheosis of War - Vasily Vereshchagin, 1871.

Note to Reader. A longer essay, in ten sections, some short. Readers are free to reproduce, in whole or in part. Not all later sections need be read in sequence.

Sections: Strategy Redux / Eyes On The Prize / Western Innocence & WW III / God Favours Russia / The China Mirage / The 7 Deadly Sins / Nord Stream - Heating Up & Cooling Down / Economics 303 - Washington’s Principle Exports / Memories Are Made Of This / End Notes I, II, II, IV.

>>> Strategy Redux <<

The US-NATO-UK Ukrainian Proxy War on Russia is an existential war of survival, for Russia. The West as well. It is now a Zero Sum Game Conflict. American political and economic goals are to destroy the Russian state, apply regime change strategies and steal Russia's vast natural resources. This campaign comes as the culmination of several hundred years of Western global dominance, not by the superiority of Western ideas and values, of which we hear much, but rather by The West's superiority in applying organized violence, mass murder and resource theft, notably against technologically inferior states. It thus is a test of The West's dominant Geo-Political and Geo-Economic Success Paradigm. Russia is not a technologically inferior state. The Ukrainian people are entirely expendable cannon fodder for this campaign and they are the modern equivalent of a Pyramid of Skulls.

For Russia, this Special Military Operation (SMO) is a veil that appears for the absorption of the Eastern Ukrainian States, thought long overdue yet in fact long in the planning and preparation. Their SMO is the principle vector to draw a fully committed West into a war with Russia on Russia's terms, not theirs, apply devastating resource counter-sanctions on a thoroughly corrupt and incompetent European Union (EU), weaken those states and run them, the US and the UK out of weapons and prosperity. A decade long campaign or longer. One that positions Russia as having responded to Western Aggression. Thus, to conclude that this SMO is entirely for the protection of the Eastern Ukrainian States is to conclude wrongly.

This is not a war between Russia (with China) with The Ukraine and for The Ukraine. Russia and China, like some other states, have challenged the Western Imperial Global System for Enrichment - theirs. Others have tried. China and Russia have the economic and military power to replace that World Community, as repetitively pitched, that 12.5% being The West, with their system of interests and preferences. One could pitch this war as a war of two ideological power blocks, one with the majority of the world's population, land, industrial power, resources and the military power for their security and the other, an Old Imperium that is running out of everything except propaganda and feckless leaders. The dismantling of Pax Americana.

Of this painting: Realism taken to near photographic quality by the nineteenth century anti-war painter Vasily Vereshchagin. Here, a Middle Eastern setting of a past battle, cited as that of the warlord Tamelane's Turco-Mongol Army and their entire destruction of the Persian city of Isfahan, 1387, a city of some 70,000 people, where after his soldiers stacked the severed heads of the population they murdered in pyramid formations, to have the flesh picked over by crows. Tamerlane directed the entire slaughter of that city as he did many others. Factually and more accurately, as the leader, he created the circumstances for his soldiers to act accordingly. He appealed to an accepted belief that lends justification to extreme violence, an ancestral license to kill. Such primal drives are always there, latent, for most and will dominate if given approval from a revered or feared figure of authority. This also lies within the brains of chimpanzees. Well understood in the Modern Era. For both humans and chimpanzees. Of this Modern Era, so-called, the poor under-educated working class boys are still transported to distant lands, sold on mythic adventure narratives and yet who know nothing more than Queen and Country or my country right or wrong. There are those who lie. There are those who die. What the US-NATO-UK Proxy War Elite Planners have done to the Armed Forces of The Ukraine [AFU] and foreign personnel as they commit themselves to industrial scale slaughter, courtesy of The Russian War Machine. The prerequisite for an orderly Modern Era is to suppress such primal drives in favour of reinforcing civilized behaviours. It is the Democratic West, so-called, in its foreign adventurism, that does the reverse. Thus do some so view the Executive arm of Western Governments as criminal operations. In the limit, Democracies sell out their principles to the interests of private power. Modern life may advance in a technical sense. Human nature remains invariant, highly self-serving and significantly is it genetically determined. Thus . . .

One might add that the commission of mass murder by highly trained individuals operating in groups can be as successful an integrative, social binding experience - for them - as singing hymns in church - for others. For some, both. Sermons on Sunday. Massacres on Monday. A rather obvious anthropological and historical reality and one that continues to allude that class of the over-educated, or most of them. They are the submissive void, contextualized further below.

"We invented this story that Russia was bent on aggression in Eastern Europe . . . so that we could blame President Putin. The West, especially the United States, is principally responsible for this disaster. If there had been no decision to move NATO eastward to include Ukraine . . . there would be no war in Ukraine" - Dr. John Mearsheimer, University of Chicago.

>>> Eyes On The Prize <<<

From the New York based political satire magazine Puck, 1902. Many illustrations dealt with US and UK intrusions into and exploitation of The Global South. Pitching the Civilization Narrative that non-Western, non-Christian, coloured people of less developed nations of the world as barbarians and thus less human. That those regions were rich in resources is not coincidental to Western interests. The prime driver beneath the veneer of Victorian moralizing.

"The Russian Federation, with a population of 2% of the world, controls 15% of the world's territory and up to 30% of the planet's main resources. Such a situation cannot continue indefinitely" - Dr. Condoleezza Rice, 66th US Secretary of State.

Considered by some to be an unindicted war criminal and here, helpfully explaining how her government functions. US planning was always to stop the European Union buying Russian gas. Dr. Rice May, 2014 - "You want to change the structure of energy dependence. You want to depend more on the North America energy platform . . . to have pipelines that don't go through Ukraine and Russia". Indeed is the present written in the past.

The subjugation by The West of industrially weaker states in pursuit of Geo-Economic Interests is, in the modern era, wrapped in the dress uniform of spreading democracy, promoting personal rights and that Holy Grail of Western Values, fighting for freedom. Historically pitched as The White Man’s Burden. The narratives are highly contrived, may use superficially convincing alliterative doubles such as the promotion of peace and prosperity or democracy and development and where target states see through this facade for colonial exploitation redux, The West resorts to intimidation of leaders, financial strangulation, trade blockades, small scale violence, assassinations and war. There is no example that can be evinced as convincing evidence that Western Thought Leaders, by their self-definitions, have ever bombed a country into a democracy. That Western States define their purpose as one of spreading peace, prosperity and personal rights and freedoms throughout the world is a lie, a permanent lie and it is the maintenance of The Permanent Lie that defines those states as Fascist States.

Fascist States operate on a bedrock of permanent lies, often evinced as the values that tell us who we are. Few question why these supposedly self-evident truths must be repeated. As for these values that tell us who we are, they are correct.

The vast wealth and benefits that several hundred years of Elite Imperial Western Geo-Political and Geo-Economic Interests that derived from the application of highly organized state violence on industrially underdeveloped societies has been squandered. Western societies face escalating difficulties of wealth inequities, corrupt political leaderships, central banks that serve the privileged few, loss of personal freedoms and loss of livable incomes, ecosystem destruction and a loss of security. Interestingly, Security is that Holy Grail of modern life that the Leadership Class most often promote, notably when vilifying foreign leaders. The West, more precisely Washington and always with its eyes on the prize, along with its subservient allies who ride kneeling on Washington's foreign policy coat tails, has now declared war on China and Russia and of the latter a kinetic war utilizing a fascist proxy presently sacrificed to a small theatre operation on Russia's western border.

Contrasting Dr. Condoleezza Rice's remarks directed at a foreign country, that foreign country's leader President Vlad Putin declared - “It is in our historical tradition, in the fate of our people, to stop those who are striving for world domination, who threaten to dismember and enslave our Motherland, our Fatherland. We will do it now and so it will be”.

On matters of sanction success, slightly over one hundred Western companies left Russia. Well over one thousand have remained and say nothing of it. Fertilizer is imported by The West with no restrictions on Russian ships. Sanctions are applied on Russian food and fertilizer to third world countries. Of cargo blocked in European ports, it is directed to their own needs (as reported) and thus the evidentiary Class A Exhibit that the European Union is fascist.

There were eyes on that other prize - The Ukraine. The rewards were personal.

In January 2018 at the Council on Foreign Relations New York, the US peak influence think tank, Joe Biden as former Vice President described US foreign policy in action. He informed in a media briefing how he forced the removal of the Kyiv State Prosecutor who was investigating his son's financial arrangements in The Ukraine. Withholding military aid was the pressure tactic.

In September 2019, House Democrats launched a formal impeachment inquiry into President Trump over whistleblower accusations that he threatened to withhold aid to The Ukraine as a pressure tactic to force the Ukrainian government to investigate whether Joe Biden's son Hunter benefited financially from the firing of the Kyiv prosecutor.

Vice President Biden and prominent Obama administration names were on record that the removal of the Kyiv prosecutor was official US policy.

Vice President Joe Biden, 23rd January, 2018: "And that is I’m desperately concerned about the backsliding on the part of Kyiv in terms of corruption. They made - I mean, I’ll give you one concrete example. I was - not I, but it just happened to be that was the assignment I got. I got all the good ones. And so I got Ukraine. And I remember going over, convincing our team, our leaders to - convincing that we should be providing for loan guarantees. And I went over, I guess, the 12th, 13th time to Kyiv. And I was supposed to announce that there was another billion-dollar loan guarantee. And I had gotten a commitment from Poroshenko and from Yatsenyuk that they would take action against the state prosecutor. And they didn’t.

So they said they had - they were walking out to a press conference. I said, nah, I’m not going to - or, we’re not going to give you the billion dollars. They said, you have no authority. You’re not the president. The president said - I said. Call him. (Laughter).

I said, I’m telling you, you’re not getting the billion dollars. I said, you’re not getting the billion. I’m going to be leaving here in, I think it was about six hours. I looked at them and said I’m leaving in six hours. If the prosecutor is not fired, you’re not getting the money. Well, son of a bitch. (Laughter). He got fired. And they put in place someone who was solid at the time. Well, there’s still - so they made some genuine substantial changes institutionally and with people. But one of the three institutions, there’s now some backsliding".

Backsliding here means appointments of other than Washington stooges within the administrations of Washington's good allies.

There was a time when The West was run by accomplished men who could accomplish things. One such accomplished man was the imperial murderer and Nobel Prize laureate Winston Churchill who continued to assert British interests even as Britain was in decline. President Harry Truman was a man of accomplishments who authorized two nuclear strikes on the population centres of a defeated, non-nuclear state, the outcome from which placed the United States at the head of the post-WWII Geo-political Dining Table. Now The West is mostly run by ignorant opportunists and sycophants who accomplish outcomes diametrical to their intents.

Russia is not losing in The Ukraine. They now appear to be moving to a war footing, the SMO is finished and the Russian Armed Forces are positioning for a larger war with US-NATO-UK proxy forces on Ukrainian territory now that the Eastern Provinces are as Russia. The Pentagon Generals understand what this means. Their political leadership may believe their own false rhetoric and would have us believe it too - that Russia has lost and repeatedly lost from the start of the SMO. For NATO to run a major war against Russia requires mass mobilization of industry as Europe is being de-industrialized. Russia's mobilization of more forces has timing consistent with military training and preparation for launching attacks as the winter ground freezes over.

The ancient Chinese military strategist SunZi (SunTzu) pointed out variously that every battle won is won before it is fought, that the leadership make many calculations before acting, to act deceptively and that to be decisive is to strike without warning. “Let your plans be dark and impenetrable as night and when you move, fall like a thunderbolt". What the Western Mainstream Media are left with is to cite decisive Russian victories as signs of weakness and every tactical maneuver of the AFU a strategic success and in doing so are we treated as fools.

>>> Western Innocence & WW III <<<

German film director Leni Riefenstahl said the “patriotic messages” of her propaganda films were dependent not on “orders from above”, that being the German Nazi Government, nor Adolph Hitler whom she knew, but on the “submissive void” of the German public, notably the liberal educated class. The liberal borgeosie as she expressed it. This is only half true. One always knows what those above want and expect. Whether it was the America First publishers, Randolph Hearst, Joe Pulitzer or Henry Luce and now the non-media media corporate executives. It never needs stating. American and British propaganda films, including recent films, are too numerous to list. One discussed in a prior essay is the Vietnam War era film The Deer Hunter.

From Harold Pinter's 2005 Nobel Prize for Literature address on the US-NATO-UK war on Iraq . . .

"How many people do you have to kill before you qualify to be described as a mass murderer and a war criminal? One hundred thousand? More than enough, I would have thought. Therefore it is just that George W. Bush and Tony Blair be arraigned before the International Criminal Court of Justice. But Bush has been clever. He has not ratified the International Criminal Court of Justice. Therefore if any American soldier or for that matter politician finds himself in the dock, Bush has warned that he will send in the marines. But Tony Blair has ratified the Court and is therefore available for prosecution . . . At least 100,000 Iraqis were killed by American bombs and missiles before the Iraq insurgency began".

“We don’t do body counts” - US four star General Tommy Franks clarifying military policy. Body counts require teams to count the dead. Difficult if entire apartment blocks have been collapsed via carpet bombing operations.

Notably, international lawyers within the UK Foreign and Commonwealth Office could not furnish Prime Minister Blair with any legal justification under international law for invading Iraq, as reported. The Prime Minister did obtain an opinion from one international law specialist and we understand that this remains classified. Nowhere in Australian Mainstream Media, always notable for that friendly face of fascism raised to a high art form, has the question of the Australian political executive as unindicted war criminals received substantive attention or any beyond unqualified assertions that foreign wars were legally authorized as an act of the Federal Parliament. Submissive voids do not just appear. They need to be worked up. Australian Governments have committed forces to numerous foreign wars waged by larger ally states against smaller other states that have presented no threat to the Australian state. No one discusses why Australian Forces joined American Forces in Vietnam or Afghanistan and what was achieved. Vietnam, incidentally, is still not a democracy but it is a Washington ally.

Certain principles that flowed from the Nuremberg War Crimes Trials may have more than just a passing relevance . . .

Principle VI.

The crimes hereinafter set out are punishable as crimes under international law:

(a) Crimes against peace:

(i) Planning, preparation, initiation or waging of a war of aggression or a war in violation of international treaties, agreements or assurances;

(ii) Participation in a common plan or conspiracy for the accomplishment of any of the acts mentioned under (i).

The campaign to vilify the Russian Leader started after his 2007 Munich address, wherein The Washington-London Masters of The Known Universe came to know that it just got smaller, courtesy of Russia declaring its intention of conforming to Western diktats.

The cover of this Rand Corporation paper, dated 2019 and entitled Extending Russia - Competing From Advantageous Ground, is one of several public domain documents that evidence plans going far back to destroy the Russian State short of direct war with The West. Western Mainstream Media can continue to claim that Russia's SMO was entirely unprovoked because the Curators of that domain know that even if there is clear evidence of their intentions, few will look for it and of those who find this, some will still deny the implications of what they are actually looking at. The Curators of The Public Mind understand this. Some marketing professionals label this The Grand Hypnosis. For others, the submissive void.

The myth of Western Innocence is virtually unassailable. In The West. Not in Asia nor The Third World so-called, The Global South, Africa, India, South America, Eastern Europe, Cuba, Haiti too. Nor in The West for native populations, such as they remain. Matters have turned serious - for The West and now that the Eastern Ukrainian Provinces are in the Russian State, military actions directed at them by Kyiv plus embedded AFU actions become direct attacks on Russia. This move to integrate with Russia has taken time and is not consistent with the revanchist accusations regularly leveled at President Putin as a modern day Peter the Great. Now courtesy of failed Western policies. Include those countries joining The Great Eurasian Union, as a flight from The West.

According to Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu in his Russian national address 21st September, 2022: “In reality, we are fighting the collective West plus NATO”. He stated that half of the main forces of the AFU have been destroyed – 61,207 dead, 49,368 wounded. The Armed Forces of the Russian Federation have lost 5,937. Over 2,000 foreign mercenaries were eliminated and 1,000 remain at the combat zone. On matters of certainty, clarity will come in one to two to three years time, looking back. Defense Minister Shoigu added that the entire constellation of NATO space based satellites are being used against Russia – over 70 military and 200 civilian satellites to reconnoiter the location of Russian units. He reports that the Western Command directs operation from Kyiv. Such Western strategies, directed with great success against technologically inferior states for hundreds of years, are now applied against two of the world's most powerful states, Russia and China, both of which can project force over continental distances. Whereas much has been written on the several years of a very restrained approach of the Russian Government to Western provocations, it appears that the Russian Government is not resisting The West walking into a trap of its making.

“The purpose of The West is to weaken, divide and ultimately destroy our country. They are already directly saying that in 1991 they were able to split the Soviet Union and now the time has come for Russia itself and that it should disintegrate into many mortally warring regions and regions" - President Vlad Putin in his national address, 21st September, 2022.

The last phrase is notable. Western Armed Forces operate well in conflicting regions, Syria an example where Syrian crude oil is removed for the benefit of the United States and the US Armed Forces function as supply chain guarantor, a role in which they have proven experience.

The Russian President added - “If the territorial integrity of our country is threatened, we will without doubt use all available means to protect Russia and our people - this is not a bluff” and . . . “those trying to blackmail us with nuclear weapons should know that the tables can turn on them”. The Russian President made clear that Russia will protect its territorial integrity and sovereignty by all the systems available to them and noted that they possess different types of weapons, some more modern than NATO weapons and by implication unstoppable. Notably misreported in certain of the Washington - London Mainstream Media.

Washington's nuclear blackmail comes with a long history and whereas the United States used two nuclear weapons against non-nuclear state Japan, already declared to have lost the war by the American general running the war, Douglas MacArthur, the United States has threatened their use against non-nuclear states some twenty times that are known. Russia has received such threats. China has received such threats. Certain of the Western Political and Military Classes talk to Pre-Emptive Strike Theory as if this runs in one direction, not theirs.

“The United States is ham-handed and brutal in conceiving and executing clandestine operations and it is simply no good at espionage; its operatives never have enough linguistic and cultural knowledge of target countries to recruit spies effectively. The CIA also appears to be one of the most easily penetrated espionage organizations on the planet. From the beginning, it has repeatedly lost its assets to double agents."

Dr. Chalmers Johnson, Dismantling the Empire: America's Last Best Hope, 2010.

China and Russia see the United States, Britain and NATO as sponsors of terrorism and the principle drivers of war and will treat them accordingly, inferred from speeches made at the September, 2022 Shanghai Cooperation Organization conference. Extended to sycophantic allies. Attendees included India, Turkey, Iran, Pakistan, Egypt, Saudi Arabia and others and so represent some three quarters of the world's population and the majority of its industrial power and resources. Those left out on their own decision are the FIRE economies of Finance, Insurance and Real Estate, the leaders of which falsely believe that they remain The Masters of This Universe. Yet no US dollar hegemony with a services economy. It needs more.

Notably absent - The West. Not the world community. Here the 85%. "We are working to create an international reserve currency based on the BRICS basket of currencies" - Vlad Putin. 21st May, 2022. This excludes the US dollar.

As Washington-London and now Brussels’ foreign policy operates on vilifying and dehumanizing these states and leaders who do not conform, this makes future accommodations difficult or impossible. Include general purpose lying that wraps up everyone in targeted states for collective punishment. What is not difficult nor impossible is war and their readiness to resort to war evidences that this Proxy War is a desired objective. Yet the aforementioned Masters of The Universe are facing an energy crisis and a population crisis in their own countries and these are not the only crises they face. They have disenfranchised foreign states that are energy and mineral rich, on that obsolete Geo-Political Success Paradigm - we can exert pressure and if needed invade them and take what we want. Those states include Venezuela, Iran, Russia, China, North Korea, some Stan States, The Ukraine, Syria, Iraq, Libya. The West now finds itself in Zugzwang, a chess term, wherein any moves positions the player as worse off.

Free to subscribe.

>>> God Favours Russia <<<

"For God’s sake, this man cannot remain in power" - President Biden to the assembled in Warsaw, Poland early 2022, appealing to a vaporously higher authority about President Putin's future. As President Putin remains as president, we may assume, in accordance with Joe Biden's Cosmology, God determined this outcome. Biden was rebuffed. Of course Biden knows that line was for its politically opportunistic appeal. May well have appealed to many in Europe. Just didn't appeal to God.

A picture of a very grateful Russian Chief of The General Staff, General Valery Gerasimov at right, grateful to the US-NATO-UK-Brussels Apparachiks and Kommissars of Chaos for handing the Russian Armed Forces this tangible (for them) opportunity to expand their military budget, acquire as well as test many new weapons and strategies, reclaim parts of The Ukraine as theirs (again) and stress test the entire Russian Military Industrial Complex. Here, one surmises that General Gerasimov points to the map that shows that Russia now controls Ukrainian territory that is responsible for 85% of Ukrainian GDP and all coastal access. Again to the Leadership in US-NATO-UK-Brussels must we accord to them credit where credit is richly deserved.

Following is a picture from the London Media of a rusty Russian gun they say is being issued to Russian Forces. An obvious fake. What is not fake is the refurbished British Aircraft Carrier HMS Prince of Wales as it lies offshore with a broken drive system. The HMS Prince of Wales is one of the most powerful surface warships ever constructed in the UK, as reported. Also reported some time back were the equipment breakdowns within British nuclear powered submarines, by a whistleblower. Reporting on the state of UK nuclear forces is now more or less suppressed.

Broken weapons, an inept armed forces, yet Russia will conquer Europe and the world, the reason for the Ukrainian War. That "fight them there before we fight them here" fear that underpinned waging all Middle Eastern wars. The Media Systems Managers intend to convince a less than thoughtful (they hope) general public that the Russians are sub-human and mad and that economic deprivations are worth the funding - to the domestic armaments industries, where most Ukraine War money is spent. Of the US Armed Forces and The War Machine more generally, Dr. Chalmers Johnson observed - "It eats money". No matter how this is pointed out, there remains many in The West, the 12.5%, who must believe populist television and print media figures whom they respect but do not respect them.

Neither Defense Ministers nor Chiefs of The General Staff run wars. Nor Presidents. Former Spetsnaz officer, General Sergei Surovikin now taking charge could explain the change of pace, with strikes on West Ukrainian assets. Winter draws near and very hard strikes into West Ukraine are expected. Much speculation surrounds this appointment with claims that the Russian SMO was stalling. The Russian Government says nothing of their war plans whereas the Western Mainstream Media run contradictory speculations as facts.

The hypothesis here remains that the Russian approach was always understated, with their hand thus seen to be forced by aggressive foreign states - The West. It is Russian strategy to destroy the AFU and de-Nazify The Ukraine. It suits them to have an inept Kyiv leadership, run by an inept US-NATO-UK leadership whose policy is not to negotiate and that suits too. The longer this campaign, the less of the AFU remains, always the intended result. Refer prior Substack essay and the remarks of US General Curtis LeMay, head of Strategic Air Command on winning wars. Judgment by outcomes, in a year or so looking back. Not much reported in The West are the convoys of ambulances taking wounded AFU to Kyiv and Western European hospitals as all the hospitals closer to the front and in Kyiv are overflowing with wounded AFU personnel. Rate of deaths of AFU soldiers is estimated at up to 20,000 per month now, as per Pentagon sources.

American leaders run their politics with God on their sleeve. Both sleeves. That one sided contract where God maintains a persistent silence. Political and religious leaders who come with a cause and a claim to be sanctioned by God. Persuasive leaders convince their followers to go into battle against another group of followers of another leader who has persuaded their followers to go into battle, both in the name of God. Just why God has any interest in seeing one group of these higher primates slaughter another, where after one side declares their victory as a vindication that God was with them, remains obscured. Yet God loves us all, as we are told. As far as Americans are concerned, the purpose of going into battle these days is to keep the oil supply chain running and resource control, for their benefit.

The French Finance Minister declared that the Russian State would be collapsed. Similar statements were made by British Prime Ministers and important Americans like Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin along the lines that it will take as long as it takes, presumably so long as they have not run out of Ukrainian service personnel prepared to die for the "as long as it takes" objective. Admittedly it has been taking longer than they thought but then the Russian Armed Forces do not publish timetables. All these people will have gone from their political appointments. Vlad Putin will remain and the Russian State will not collapse. It is doing remarkably well. This is not a vindication of Russian policies but a clear statement of how Western objectives fail. The West is run by fools who sell out their own populations.

By their reasoning, God favours Russia and President Vladimir Putin. Maybe President XiJinPing from China as well, the land of some 1.3 billion atheists. President Putin is not a Communist, his allegiance is not to any party but to The State. Ditto President XiJinPing.

“In my observations of life whilst journeying through the world, I was particularly struck by the fact that people today still kill each other under all sorts of pretexts and in all sorts of ways ... it happens even in Christian countries in the name of the one who taught peace and love” - Vasily Vereshchagin, circa 1800's.

The Russian Armed Forces, known for considering every contingency and taking whatever time suits them, now hover like The Angel of Death above the AFU and US-NATO-UK's plans and personnel in The Ukraine. Save short lived skirmishes, sold in Western media as regaining important territory, the Russian Armed Forces retain escalation dominance with superior weapons and the capacity to commit overpowering numbers of personnel and equipment. They could have destroyed critical Ukrainian infrastructure in the first few days of the SMO - power stations, pump stations, transport hubs, airfields, all electronic communications as well as Executive Government personnel in Kyiv - strikes on the decision centres with unstoppable hypersonic missiles. This would have immobilized the AFU early on. That they chose not to do that suggests that their intention was to destroy the AFU, the largest army in Europe. Kill a significant number of the some 600,000 who make up the AFU. Remove their capacity to wage any future war after rebuilding and rearming by NATO. Yet . . .

The manner in which the Western Mainstream Media covers the events in The Ukraine suggests that US-NATO-UK Decision Makers have concluded that there can only be one outcome with this Proxy War and that outcome is that they win. There is no means to reverse the anti-Russian narratives that they authorized and authored (and by extension anti-Chinese narratives) and save face. A mutually exclusive paradigm - a win-win outcome is excluded. The Western narratives now constrain Planners to a win-lose outcome. All parties to the conflict will double down. The reason others are pointing to an increasing probability of a serious escalation, first leading to the use of tactical nuclear weapons and then larger nuclear weapons. Dr. Des Ball, Nuclear War Analyst, demonstrated circa 1970's via simulations that all "limited" uses of nuclear weapons would always escalate to the use of strategic nuclear weapons with the well documented terminal results. The then US President Jimmy Carter said that Dr. Des Ball's "counsel and cautionary advice, based on deep research, made a great difference to our collective goal of avoiding nuclear war”. This has have been forgotten within the circles of educated, structured stupidity of academic researchers and those US military officers who, for several years, have argued that small tactical nuclear weapons "makes them more usable".

US Nuclear Doctrine asserts first strike primacy. Russia Nuclear Doctrine asserts no first use, but one may be assured that there will be nothing left of any US-NATO-UK decision centres thereafter.

Of the well documented terminal results, God favours no-one. God never did. Otherwise nuclear weapons would not exist.

Of direct relevance to that question comes from Dr Ernst Mayer, Evolutionary Biologist and Dr. Carl Sagan, Physicist who engaged in a debate at Harvard University on the question of aliens and life on other planets. The question that never goes away - Where are they all? Carl Sagan used a mathematics approach to assert that some other planets must support life given the vastness of the Universe and used that to justify the SETI Project - The Search for Exra-Terrestrial Intelligence. Dr. Ernst Mayr took a contrary view to Dr. Carl Sagan and considered the SETI Project a waste of time and money. As Ernst Mayr more or less put it - "When an advanced civilization creates the means to destroy itself, it proceeds to do so". This is the point now in human history collectively arrived at. More precisely, that point in human history handed to us by the Wizards of Armageddon, so called. The nuclear war planners. Not just them. There is that looming ecological crisis arising from over-population and over-consumption at the cost of a destructing Ecology, sometimes pitched as A Crisis Of Capitalism. A crisis of this present form of predatory profligate Consumption Capitalism. There are, by the way, no intelligent aliens. If there ever where any, they are gone. Or too far away to ever know.

The Wizards of Armageddon, American war strategists, had plans in place during The Cold War for pre-emptive nuclear strikes on Russia. This was before Russia acquired sufficient atomic, then hydrogen weapons of their own, along with the means to deliver them over continental distances. That the radiation fallout from a US pre-emptive or any nuclear strike on Russia and satellite states would kill tens of millions in Europe, so-called Washington allies, due to radiation poisoning was not an important consideration - refer prior Substack essay. It is apparent that if Washington Planners as of now believe that they could win a war on Russia with pre-emptive strikes, they would have pursued that course. The course so pursued is one of weakening Russia, likely to be followed by a US-NATO-UK attack, as they would figure it. Russia hardly looks weakened. Western States look weakened. The present daily drip feed from the Western and Kyiv Mainstream Media of Russian tactical losses and AFU wins, as asserted, relies on a readership whose ideas surrounding modern warfare are grounded in First World War imagery, to the extent that they are grounded in anything. The Western and Kyiv Mainstream Media function to exploit the moment in support of their national objectives - refer prior Substack essays. Without knowing anything of modern warfare and the objectives and plans of tactical maneuvers, it is impossible to make anything of the gain or loss of small territories. That US Secretary of State Antony Blinken notes that Russia retains significant forces in The Ukraine, including weapons and ammunition, receives scant regard in the Western Mainstream Media and none in the Kyiv Media. As previously noted, this must lead Western audiences into a cognitive dissonance moment that will not hold up. A very real threat to The Leadership Class.

It should go without saying that the application of Pre-Emptive Strike Theory is a war crime. Pre-Emptive Strike Theory was annunciated by George W. Bush as President and repeated by the then Australian Prime Minister, among others. It also serves to fuel the arms race and the profits of armaments manufacturers. Whereas it should be self-evident just what this means - the other side can act similarly, when the Russian President averred to the possibility of a hard response, the Western Mainstream response was notable for evading the entire history of Washington's pre-emptive strike plans. Their plan to have nuclear weapons in The Ukraine would lead to such a response from the Russian side. President Zelenskyy continues to press for the installation of nuclear weapons on missiles with flight times of minutes from Russian territory.

So, on that seemingly important question of intelligent life in the Universe, constructing one's own SETI Project is far beyond the financial and technical means of most. There remains another more important question. One can undertake an STI Project - The Search for Terrestrial Intelligence. Here on Earth. Such a project is both feasible and highly instructive - to children young and old. Go to The Zoo, pass through the high walls and find one's way to the Primate Enclosure. One can then say to the assembled children - "You see, there is intelligent life here on Earth, right here. But there is precious little outside". One reason, by the way, that zoos have high walls is that the more intelligent residents are known to plan out and attempt their escape and sometimes do.

In reflection of what the opening remarks mean, the French President recently announced the End of Abundance. For many living in France, they have never experienced abundance. More will not. The French President averred to the past golden era of very low interest rates, easy money for corporations and banks, high debt levels and easy consumer credit but not easy credit terms, cheap resources from Russia and cheap or cheaper products from the Asian industrial powerhouses, notably China, plus cheap food, all powered up under a degree of low trade barriers and open markets. But the US Treasury, an instrument of US power projection, has maintained extensive sanctions that affect almost half the world's population. All the forgoing is passing and rapidly. Apart from the sanctions, always illegal and which are increasing and China and Russia have introduced their own. Supply Chain Management will become more complex, inefficient, slower and more costly, especially to The West as the globe splits into two major trading blocks, Greater Eurasia and The West. Greater Eurasia and affiliate states have some 85% of the worlds population, The West somewhere around 15%, give or take. Greater Eurasia has the principle centres of manufacturing and possess the world's resources and know how from a large, educated population where education has not been financialized. The West possesses a high debt, high services speculative economy of much useless activity, is characterised by Military Keynesianism and increasing expenditures on military affairs. Eurasian States also have significant armed forces now. This presents difficulties that Washington can not solve, beyond their present strategies of exploiting allies for the financial gain of US Elites. This state of affairs cannot continue and what cannot continue will cease to continue.

Incidentally, the French President was not entirely truthful as French economic prosperity still depends on exploiting African states (discussed in the prior essay) and some have or are attempting to gain their independence from France - the Central African Republic, Mali, Burkina and the others to follow include Niger and Chad.

The Western Mainstream Media has broadcast for several months that President Putin, on appearance, is dying of cancer! Of those who have been around others actually dying of cancer, President Putin rewrites the medical literature by presenting as the healthiest, most energetic and articulate cancer patient the world has ever known. Truly does God favour the Russians. They have a leader who can transcend the severest of all mortal afflictions, run their economy, define foreign policy, defeat Western sanctions, lead military and aerospace research and development, write military policy and direct all foreign military campaign strategies and tactics, catalyze the Great Eurasian Union, meet with those foreign leaders (while ignoring the rest, a time saving measure), ride horses, catch fish, fly airplanes, drive speedboats, play with zoo wildcats and attend to the endless desires of his coterie of women folk which principled Western Media are eager to very helpfully inform us of.

Since appearances are now The Standard or their standard, Victoria Nuland, Kommissar of Chaos, is barely recognizable from a few years back, say, when handing out cookies at that Maidan "spontaneous" colour uprising. Extreme overeating goes with extreme stress from unsuccessful objectives and then disastrous health outcomes.

Joe Biden as Vice President also had a role in installing the new regime in Kyiv in 2014 and molding the Kyiv Government as an anti-Russian instrument of the US State but seems to be dealing with matters better.

We have their reference standard. We can see who lasts longer. Victoria Nuland now at 61. Vlad Putin now at 70.

>>> The China Mirage <<<

The Automobile of Civilization and Trade illuminates the darkness against the Chinese wretches. Leading with a gun to show that force is necessary, the truck carries modern goods, is driven by a determined Uncle Sam, yet faces an uphill journey against the Chinese dragon and Chinese rebel bearing a sword dripping blood and a banner declaring 400 million Barbarians. Pitched as Progress against the Primitive at the cliff's edge. 1900.

With some half the world's countries under US Treasury Sanctions, in force and effect before the Russian Ukrainian SMO, global supply chains will become more difficult in their administration, will be more costly and operators will experience unexpected shortages, sometimes occurring randomly - the roll of the dice. Russia and China have responded with counter-sanctions on The West. Thus a drift away from free trade and open borders, now consigned to those predictable, reflexive and premature optimisms of The Past. If Washington gets its highly desired and much misguided war with China over a matter of no intrinsic benefit to either country, US weapons sales withstanding, shortages of critical electronic parts are likely, with downstream flow on effects on The West's consumerist economies, a matter of no small psychological importance to those who pin so much on their magical consumption lifestyles. That the mainland Chinese people are in a crisis state of deep existential angst over TaiWan Reunification is a transparent confection of the Washington-London Propaganda Machine, delivered courtesy of one's favourite broadcasters - the Friendly Face of Fascism people - and directed at those who know nothing about China while thinking they do. The Chinese, by and large, could not care less about reunification with a former Chinese island which, practically speaking, is already economically unified with mainland China. Taiwanese people probably care more - about not being destroyed, the true lesson of The Ukraine. TaiWan, under International Law, is a part of China and until recently did any Taiwanese political party in power say much different. That was then and this is now. Notably TaiWan is presented as a future NATO partner, an absurdity that demonstrates the true purpose of NATO since TaiWan is not located in the North Atlantic.

In 2018, US Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin intended to negotiate a recalcitrant BeiJing Administration to apply sanctions on itself, that being to pull back on every technological advance and allow the United States to overtake - Artificial Intelligence, Industrial Patents, Super Computing, Advanced Software, Advanced Logistics, 5G and now 6G, Industrial Robotics, Ultra-High Density Integrated Circuits, Quantum Research, Space-Based Applications, Advanced Weapons Development including Hypersonic Weapons, Electro-Magnetics and Artificial Intelligence. BeiJing politely said no but have been less polite since and Washington imposed sanctions that have damaged American industrial interests as China pursues self-sufficiency and closer integration with Russia and other countries in this their dominant geo-political arrangement, The Great Eurasian Union. China, incidentally, graduates more musicians than The United States graduates scientists and engineers and China's graduates overall run to several million each year. Chinese people display an unmistakable commitment to their country as a whole. This cannot be said of The United States or other Western states where the much vaunted freedom of the individual is code for a cult of the self.

TaiWan, as the world leader in high density integrated circuit research and manufacture, attracts the interest of BeiJing and Washington and their interests are not aligned. Could US strategy here be to retard China's arrangements with TaiWan to favour the US with their integrated circuit developments, of which much is made in the technology media? Is TaiWan's world leadership in the realm of high density integrated circuits and the machinery to manufacture this technology strategic enough to threaten war?

Here, TaiWan President Madame Cài Yīngwén is being convinced of “the lessons of The Ukraine”.

Foreign navies to the Chinese region, notably American, Australian, British and now NATO's, sail massively armed warships and submarines through the TaiWan Straits under the rubric of freedom of navigation as well as conducting war games simulating the blockade of the Straits of Malacca, a principle Chinese trade passageway. This semblance of maintaining freedom on the seas turns on the proposition that the TaiWan Straits must be kept open for trading vessels against aggression of the Chinese Navy that otherwise would impede or shut down merchant navies shipping goods to the world, including the United States. That the majority of merchant navy ships sailing through the TaiWan Straits are from China demonstrates the true motives of those Western States, that we are treated as fools and the absurd conclusion that The West itself must protect the freedom of Chinese merchant navies from being stopped by the actions of the Chinese Naval Forces. The difficulty here becomes self-evident. The West cannot compete against China and cannot weaken China without weakening itself. The splitting of the world into two trading blocks, the apparent direction - The West and Eurasia - leaves The West with far less. Eurasian States hold the best cards - resources, manufacturing power and social unity. Western States are losing these to individualism and predatory consumer business practices and the influx of people from countries the object of Western Wars who will not integrate into Anglo-European societies. They come with their own axes to grind.

On balance of power considerations, a hot war between Washington and BeiJing seems small. Washington and Allies must project force one third of the way around the world using their navies, their traditional power projection vector. All reported war simulations involving US forces demonstrate that China wins a war on its near abroad, now extending much further East and South due to the range of their standoff weapons. The Imperial Japanese Armed Forces used TaiWan as a land bridge and stepping stone to attack China, the true start of the Second World War which started in Asia, prior to 1939, the assumed start of the European theatre. They could not have achieved success with only a floating navy. For a time, The United States placed nuclear weapons in TaiWan directed at China and also in South Korea, also aimed at China while murmuring about the North Korean threat. There is some passing concern that Washington will attempt in TaiWan what was done in The Ukraine.

China can easily devastate, say, the Australian economy via import and export restrictions. Others as well. Australia's dominant foreign policy dispositions have been determined to lie with countries far from it - the United States, Britain and Europe, all colonial powers that have exploited all countries this side of the equator and north of it too, as they continue to do so - Asia, Australia and New Zealand. Australia has few friends in this region and The Government has sought to antagonize BeiJing in conformity with and to the delight of Washington, a dangerous ally. Australia, TaiWan, The Ukraine and other ally states are the thin oil in Washington's geo-political gearing. This, in passing, includes Britain. Their sometime touted "special relationship" with Washington is their delusion.

Western leaders can present with angry faces and threatening words directed at foreign states. The Presidents of China and Russia are very careful in their public appearances, adopting bland faces and understated or neutral language. Cartoon depictions are the necessary creation to demonstrate the less than self-evident manifest evil of Washington's current object of contempt. This technique is not so easily applied to President XiJinPing since distorting Chinese physical features would invoke historic memories of Western anti-Chinese depictions and overt racism. Historic memories of long standing anti-Russian Western imagery are less well remembered or unknown. Refer prior Substack essay. Depicting a foreign leader as a character from an American Batman movie - here, The Joker - suggests that movies are used to condition the public mind, an assertion others have made.

The China Mirage - That historic belief by Anglo-Christian American Leadership that they could make China, a four thousand year, now predominately Confucian society, into the image of an American culture. Alternatively, US Elites see themselves (correctly) in an existential war of survival. The loss of the Afghanistan Campaign with its geo-political and economic value accruing to China and Russia is to be followed by the loss of The Ukraine as its geo-political and economic value accrues to Russia, on Russia's timetable. A similar outcome with TaiWan will cause US Elites to face desperate prospects as traditional intimidations are not available.

Finally, Washington's ban on the sale of US manufactured IC chips and machines to manufacture IC chips to China, to damage China's interests, will drain that US industry of investment, cause China to become self-sufficient and enable it to overtake the US sooner. Like Russian sanctions, there may be escape routes built in of benefit American interests. With an eye to not disrupting global supply chains, it seems to be business as usual as they continue to ship American chip manufacturing machines to China, but not top of line ultra-high density chip making machines.

Behind this is Washington attempts to weaken China's power projection in the Pacific region, in favour of US military power. Arguably too late. China’s ability to work around US technology restrictions is a high art and they can pay enough to hire who they want. Forecasting, as usual, remains notoriously difficult but the US continues to slip. Regional vassals like Australia are being used to develop weapon systems for US interests that Australia pays for, the China fear card will be replayed as it has decades before, security issues will be elevated and Australia will be used to threaten China, as is TaiWan and as is The Ukraine against Russia.

>>> The 7 Deadly Sins & Western Decline <<<

The Decline of The West is to be taken in the measure of the minutiae of daily life - an avalanche of virtue signalling, a self-assignment of thirty plus genders by the high functioning mentally disordered, readily accepted by some others and so that Class A evidentiary exhibit of The Greater Fool Theory, a widespread preoccupation with the lives of people who provide no productive worth and a belief that all thoughts and expressed narratives are equally worthy, which they are not. We have been here before and Charles Mackay dealt with it back then in 1841. The book of the title . . .

So to the present . . .

Conspicuous consumption, in itself, applies to expenditure that meets no need other than that most important of needs, entirely anthropological and that is to create prestige, that standout cultural signifier to both impress and intimidate. That the need for prestige is not primarily psychological suggests that humans, by and large, cannot be disabused of such collectively destructive behaviour through Public Relations' Influence Operations but only by force of circumstances. Such force of circumstances appears as the present preoccupation of the World Economic Forum and with other social think tank luminaries.

From the ascent of farming thousand of years past and the generation of surpluses in excess of per capita need arose the Classes of Parasitic Economics and classes that, of themselves, cannot be self-sustaining and require inputs from others who have done real work that earned them an income from the exchange value of their physical outputs. Those parasitic classes include the Religious Class, the Industries of Gambling, Organized Crime although there is a degree of work there, The Armed Forces as their ultimate purpose is destruction, not creation, Mainstream Media as they function as Propaganda Units and The Executive of both The Political Class and The Corporate Class as they are both identifiably criminal in at least some of their conduct and earn a net personal return that cannot be spent in any single lifetime nor several, while they themselves wax fat - literally and breed self-absorbed, degenerate children who grow into self-absorbed, degenerate adults.

Contrary to classical description of humans as rational agents who can calculate optimal economic utilities - who can? - humans are fundamentally irrational, compulsively driven by the none too deep seated need to achieve social status through prestige acquisitions and behaviours at the expense of their personal happiness and now the mental stability of their children and themselves. As an American daily television and magazine media billionaire exquisitely informed us years back - "I must live larger". From someone who pitched herself as a popular home audience self-help guru and whose major skill set was contained to broadcasting, so no evidence was ever adduced that any advice thus so dispensed ever worked and had long lasting benefits, nor any at all. The centrality of such people says much about their audiences. There is now an entire industry of self-appointed self-help gurus, a number of who come from dysfunctional families, now enabled by broadband digital broadcast technology and who assert, falsely, that they can help others while offering no evidence that they ever had, or themselves, a whole other story. As for this live larger class in their accumulation of assets that can neither be spent in several lifetimes nor ever invested in productive assets, they demonstrate the most conforming and basest of human traits, at the basest end of the human behavioural spectrum.

The Religious Class, both hypocritically and consciously, offer up a free pass to the wealthy while obliquely critiquing the extravagant way of life, so enabling that class within their congregations, those generous donors, to give conspicuous appearances to their pious and high minded devotions, accompanied by public displays of philanthropy - that they choose. The random act by an impoverished barefooted child with a begging bowl approaching their high estate gates and speaking up to the intercom would not be met with the same enthusiasm for unrecognized and unscheduled generosity and the requester would likely be turned away. A parochial yet portentous example of Unregulated Demand Side Economics, sometimes informed on in essays dealing with The Barbarians At The Gate eras - The Fall of Constantinople, The Sacking of the Western Roman Empire and the destruction of the Barbary Coast Slave Trade by mean spirited Americans with long memories and a formidable navy, another of the other whole other stories.

The Seven Deadly Sins are now The Seven Entitlements. They undergird modern Western Economies, seemingly pointless consumerism, existential angst, declining health and ecological destruction and of which in their practical effects are irreversible.

The standout psychic reward of the benefit of extreme surplus and thus conspicuous consumption is a profligate life in the pursuit of one's self and that relieves one of serious moral regard for others or the Ecology of The Planet that underpins all life. Thoughts ecological would be too abstruse for that class. The more affluent middle and upper classes have sought to emulate the historical elites - royals families and large estate private wealth families. Conservative or modest living has no importance attached to it. Thus are The Seven Deadly Sins The Seven Entitlements.

The Seven Entitlements flow from the Eight Desires or Primal Needs and no amount of Moral Education can ever (mostly) overcome them - Avoidance of Aging and Death, Connectedness and Inclusion, Mastery of Environment and Others, Creativity, Satisfaction, Objects of Love, Self-Worth and its Reassurances and Psychological Security. The importance of these cannot be underestimated in their usefulness to manipulate. Convince the targeted audience they are deficient in one, yet can be compensated by servicing another. Does not work in the long run. Works in the short run. Then target another need to convince the target audience to service the deficiency in that with another.

As the Canadian Nobel Literary Laureate Saul Bellow observed - "Whenever a new need arises, it is met falsely". In that sense is Modern Society a Psychic Prison for those who buy into these paradigms.

The expanding epidemic of mental issues in Western societies coincides with a loss of moral absoluteness and the rise of moral relativism along with its numerous class contradictions, compounded by a separation of engagement from reality, some of which came from dispatching most Western manufacturing to Asia while Western technocrats develop engagement with the systems of Virtual Reality. Exhibit A - the mobile phone.

"There was a time when being crazy meant something. Now everyone's crazy" - Charles Manson.

Charles Manson, graduate of the American Dale Carnegie Program "How To Win Friends and Influence People" and who took every psychology prison program on offer, who was never charged with murder, nor did he ever murder anyone and so came with at least some of the qualities of major political leaders.

In no particular order . . .

The Sin of Gluttony: The New Normal is Not Normal. The Banshees scream for profits and new markets. Their ever obliging Systems Managers decree that they decide what is to be put down your throat, by controlling the spectrum of popular ideas. Full Spectrum Manipulation. You are what you eat - and drink - and your biochemistry and health is their Domain of Profit. It is entirely personal and they know more about mind and reasoning, largely irrational for most, than most know. Difficult to step out of this paradigm, yet not impossible for those possessed of unusual levels of self-discipline. Accusations of eccentricity will attend that pathway. One's great grandmother would not today recognize as food what mostly passes for food. For that generation and prior, factory processed food was uncommon or none and little work was sedentary. Sugar was not widespread or none at all. The actual diet of a gestating mother puts an upper limit of the physical health and mental functioning of her baby as an adult. On those two dimensions, people are measurably worse. Well examined in the biochemistry but not well publicized by the Trash Peddling Mainstream.

Fast food corporations sponsor state government promoted exercise events, their message being that only exercise matters and food intake does not, their head office marketing strategy. The American weight trainer and bodybuilder to the Hollywood stars, Vince Gironda (1917-1997), was unusually honest in emphasizing that 85% of the training program benefit was diet and he disdained drugs. He trained the young Clint Eastwood and since the standard is judgment by outcomes, Clint Eastwood has remained slim and continues with weight training. Incidentally, Vince Gironda and others like him were featured on the covers of the early American physique magazine Tomorrow's Man (1952-1971). That they got largely wrong. Their concept of tomorrow's man does not correlate with today's man.

"Where there is luxurious living and dissolution, there are wealthy doctors, wealthy lawyers and an unhealthy population" - Socrates 470-399 BC.

Dr. Denis Burkitt, MD, became famous from treating deadly pathogenic diseases of The Third World, circa 1950's. A disease was named in his honour - Burkitt's Lymphoma. Upon his return to The West, a moment of surprise as he more of less put it, he devoted his efforts to the causes of the now epidemic of lifestyle diseases. The book title speaks for itself. 1994.

The last frontier of The Western Consumption Business Model - your dinner plate. Overeating - dressed as prestigious fine dining or dining out or having meals delivered to the doors of the slothful, save those who must go to three workplaces to survive and brought to us by the Gig Economy Systems Managers. Cooks or chefs, a working class career choice for the generally less intelligent, are now elevated to Celebrity Chef media icons as they compete to create ever more indulgences for their own elevation and profit, directed at a massively unhealthy population and especially children, the most easily influenced target market. The impact on the national health system, or discussions of excess weight, deftly dealt with by deflecting criticism, labeling the discussion of true causes as fat shaming, that successful pre-emptive public relations propaganda strike. Times may change. The submissive void endures.

The Sin of Sloth: Conventionally, attached to laziness and the excessive reliance on the efforts of others for one's self interest. The Sin of Sloth finds its most acute expression in the deliberate avoidance in acting against a social evil that remains contained in its effect on others and so manifesting that submissive void of the liberal educated class that the erstwhile Nazi State film director Leni Reifenstahl observed and capitalized on. Whereas the classical treatment of Sloth included withdrawal from societal affairs, the modern incarnation finds its expression in narcissistic self-absorption and an overly pronounced concern for oneself and those within the narrow circle of shallow interests. The pious repetitious observance of rituals, notably religious, exonerates the person from broader, secular societal responsibilities. There is no such thing as Society for them, so long as the hot water keeps running.

Sloth can find its expression in languishing in self-pity, withdrawal and lack of direction, now the subject of electronic media analysis in their elevation of attention deficit disorders and necessary drug treatments for children and adults, while ignoring proximal causes - their own curated, read manipulative programming and falseness and the off limits arena of poor parenting, though not entirely their fault.

Most take their ideas from populist media who arrogate to themselves the expertise to deal with a wide range of matters of which they have no qualifications whatsoever or just present outright propaganda and advertorials.

Thus, the slothful mind cannot see nor take action against the connivance and manipulations of the overly ambitious and the self-serving who crave excessive returns to themselves, at the expense of others.

The Sin of Greed: No greater certainty of Western economic collapse would arise from the disposal of any other entitlement than the entitlement to consume. Yet there is more. Class consciousness is anthropological. As one ascends the gradient of social classes, we observe contention and disordering of the mental state, as important people ascribe to biological superiority why others must subordinate themselves, the cultural class imperative. The visible sign of superiority is to be seen in one's accoutrements. As Oscar Wilde put it - "If you cannot be a work of art, wear a work of art". Frankly, most these days are artless. Thus their excessive application of material things for the display of higher social-status. The cause of a modern day, perpetual existential angst as others are "free" to do likewise. The driver of greed.

The Sin of Lust: In modern terms would this equate to obsessional desire for things and others. Essential to the other entitlements and so the Systems Managers of Public Relations work hard to promote feelings of inadequacy from what one does not have and should possess.

"He who is not content with what he has will not be content with what he desires" - Socrates, further irritating the Athenian democratic elites and of whom found his moralizing tiresome.

The Sin of Envy: The classical thinkers may have repeated themselves. To fuel lust or desire requires one to constantly compare oneself to others. Regardless of how many others may be thought inferior, one's presence in their seemingly unlimited numbers can ever compensate the insecure mind when in the presence of just one who has more. The God of The Old Testament acts as the progenitor of envy. Envy was the motivation for Cain to kill his brother Abel, since God favored Abel's sacrifice over Cain's, as it is written.

“This love of things is like a disease with them” - Chief Sitting Bull (1831-1890) of the Lakota Tribe on the American Christian colonizers and of whom, one supposes, they also found his moralizing tiresome. Both Socrates and The Chief came to untimely ends of other people's making.

The Sin of Wrath: A widely promoted entitlement as it finds its expression in punishing others of whom one feels have done them wrong. The substance of Hollywood films. The lone hero who arrogates to himself the entitlement to put things right - judge, jury, executioner. Some write on-line manifestos prior to shooting up public places. According to even more ancient wisdom, those consumed by wrath will consume themselves. As the ancient Chinese philosopher KongFuZi (Confucius) observed - "When you set out on a path of revenge, dig two graves".

The Sin of Pride: The capital of all vices, also pitched as Hubris, now the premier virtue and excessive pride is taken in one's acquisitions and achievements, however shallow and ephemeral. No matter. Never enough. Envy lurks beneath the surface consciousness of the sideways looking Peak Primate, seeking comparisons, eroding whatever pride came from the last necessary acquisition, fueling the insatiable appetite for more. One's achievements and possessions are never enough. A very, very narrow circle of repetitious behaviour, entirely programmed via marketing and advertising to generate dissatisfaction of one's self and what one has.

Hurbis is that descriptor term of choice for the exercise of misguided state power, as in Imperial Hubris. Now played out by Washington Masters of This Universe as their grip on world affairs for their past benefits slips to others. From trade sanctions on a recalcitrant BeiJing Administration for not conforming to US Treasury diktats, previously discussed. Then to sanctions and a direct US Proxy War on Russia in the full spectrum format, their Playbook chess play to take down weaker states, perhaps to apply to the next proxy pawn TaiWan against China. The Washington Wizards of Statecraft are very busy, yet strategies are not working and they resort to measures, somewhere between the desperate and the absurd, that only appeared to work because they were working on very weak states - Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, The Yemen, Syria, Vietnam, The Congo and a few more. Destroying a foreign state's energy pipelines, here Germany's gas pipeline from Russia and executed by another NATO vassal Poland, with assistance from the US and Nordic Sates, also NATO members, could only be undertaken if the Masters of The Universe truly believed that no-one could do anything about it, now or later, plus impliedly influencing other states contemplating a permanent break from US affairs and join The Great Eurasian Union. It remains unclear how many in The West understand this, given how little coverage the Mainstream Media provides, or if so, entirely pejorative.

The Sin of Wrath then finds its expression as the essential underpinning of Imperial Hubris and a key trait of an angry God Almighty, as those on Earth rain down terror and "the tremors of the earth" on lesser mortals, in God's name and sometimes in their own name. State Power frequently condemns the innocent to suffering and death and the moral thinkers made a particular reference to this. Western state leaders often talk in terms of collective punishment, before their armed forces apply Shock and Awe military tactics to targeted countries. Here Shock and Awe is taken to mean carpet bombing and it makes limited or no allowance for military and civilian targets. The American, British and NATO playbook. Others too.

Finally . . .

The God of Western Supremacy has been examined by psychiatrists, by His conduct given expression in the Old and New Testaments and by reference to the DSM, the Directory of Psychiatric Disorders. They concluded that this God manifests the Seven Deadly Sins, expressed as a psychopathic male personality, further characterized as a vain, insecure, aggressive, punishing, contradictory, obscure, split off narcissist who can tolerate millions being killed in His name and who threatens those who sin with the punishment of burning in Hell for all of Eternity, yet He loves us. This same God has ignored President Joe Biden's imprecations towards President Vlad Putin. President Putin does not implore God to remove President Biden. By such reasoning can it be concluded that God favours Russia. It is likely that President Putin will still be President Putin when President Biden is not, as with Prime Minister Johnson and the expected departure of President Zelenskyy and Prime Minister Liz Truss. At that time will God have repudiated President Joe Biden.

Of “All your Western theologies, the whole mythology of them, are based on the concept of God as a senile delinquent” - Tennessee Williams, American playwright.

>>> Nord Stream - Heating Up & Cooling Down <<<

Germany's industrial success turns on the cheap and unrestricted supply of energy, notably Russian piped gas. Of the self-evident . . .

"Everything happens for a reason and that's why they happen that way" - song lyric by American artist Stephen Bruton.

The Nord Stream attack is one event in a long economic war launched by Washington on the European Union. Beneficiaries include the US and the UK, from the de-industrialization of the EU powerhouse, Germany. Others benefit too. If any leadership, political and military, conforms to foreign state diktats, that raises the question of whether they have acted against the interests of their own states and thus acted with treachery and committed treason.

In what appears as a Washington-London engineered maneuver, the Polish Leadership has, if true, placed itself as the regional driver of geo-political events, blaming Russia and targeting Germany as they ride kneeling on Washington's long coat tails. Accusations of Washington's complicity, in anything really, is a Conspiracy Theory. Accusations against others warrants no investigation and must be accepted.

This military operation, which only major states can perform, done in darkness on September, 26th, 2022 and which may have used unmanned underwater vehicles as munitions to damage Nord Stream pipelines on the Baltic Sea floor, was executed by the Polish Navy and special forces, aided by the Danish and Swedish military and planned and coordinated with US intelligence and technical support, as reported.

The operation appears similar to an operation in April 2021, which attempted to sabotage Russian vessels laying the gas pipes. That was a direct attack on Russia. This attack targets Germany, with a scheme to blame Moscow for the stresses Germany faces and those to come with winter.

President Joe Biden, in a White House press conference, with the German Chancellor standing by his right and of whom said nothing when the President declared - "We can stop it. We can do it". February 7th, 2022. They have. Russian Intelligence, already on notice, would have picked up on preparations.

The President acknowledged that the United States would act against Nord Stream if required. This statement was made three weeks prior to the Russian Ukraine SMO which they knew was coming and had engineered events to bring this about.

President Joe Biden: “If Russia invades, that means tanks and troops crossing the border of Ukraine again, then there will be no longer a Nord Stream II.”

Reporter: “But how will you exactly do that, since the project is in Germany’s control?”

Joe Biden: “We will, I promise you, we will be able to do that".

Few remember that when Nord Stream II was proposed, major US energy executives visited Berlin to helpfully explain to the German government that they really should be buying US hydrocarbons. Supply could not be guaranteed and any supply would cost much more. Angela Merkel pressed on, Nord Stream II was completed and was about to supply cheap Russian gas to Germany, before winter.

Of this operation, the London-Washington Mainstream Media treats us as fools. They knew little of the attack. They knew immediately who to blame. Real intelligence works on specifics. They work to confuse. So . . .

The overarching objective - prevent The Great Eurasian Union which Germany would also join and so with China, Russia, Brazil, India, South Africa, Iran and other states, present a combined economic power that would overshadow The United States and The West. As British geographer Halford McKinder pointed to in 1904 - "Eurasia is The Heartland". The West has retained The Heartland within its control. Now slipping. This correlates with events in The Ukraine. Wars do not just break out. Yet this US-NATO-UK Operation is lost to them.

Following the sabotage, former Polish Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski knew the identity of the perpetrator - “Thank you, USA”. Here, one NATO country has taken military actions that harms another NATO country. As for who benefits, the US both replaced the Russian energy supplier and will force “their ally”, the EU, to pay several times Gazprom contract prices. German unrest with adhering to US foreign policy directions was proving tiresome. This has been “fixed”. Western Mainstream Media asserts that Russia destroyed its own pipeline. What was destroyed is any possibility of Germany departing from Washington's Rules Based International Order. Their Rules. On their orders. The US just became the world’s largest LNG exporter.

Since this operation required the prior presence of military assets in the region, as reported, Russian Intelligence would have known and not acted to prevent it. One may conclude that such unilateral action by Washington will hasten more countries to join the Great Eurasian Union and abandon the US dollar, the long term strategy of China and Russia - consistent with allowing Washington to destroy its own interests.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken announced that the sabotage of the Nord Stream pipelines would be ‘in no-one’s interest".

Not only would Germany likely ignore Washington's diktats as winter approached, other EU countries would. They recognize Washington propaganda directed at countries that threaten US geo-political dominance, notably Russia, China, India, Iran and now oil producing M.E. states.

Who Wins, Who Loses . . .

1. US interests sell LNG to the EU for several times Gazprom’s prices. 7 to 8 x times?

2. The US$ appreciates. Indebted countries cannot service US$ denominated debts. They are “invited” to sell state assets to US interests, as did Greece. As elsewhere.

3. Destroys German capacity to out compete US products globally. Suits UK interests.

4. Binds the EU to US interests and imports. Temporarily. There is the matter of shrinking economies and shrinking expenditures.

5. De-industrializes Europe in favour of US interests.

6. The EU goes the way of the UK - stagflation and a collapsing currency.

7. Russia sells its hydrocarbons at higher prices and in currencies off the US dollar.

8. More countries join the Eurasian Union and resist US diktats.

9. US armaments manufacturers receive orders for more military equipment to replace weapons shipped to The Ukraine. US Armed Forces quit obsolete equipment as their armaments manufacturers bring in new generation weapons. Ditto UK and NATO.

10. This applies to Russian armaments manufacturers. The Russian Armed Forces tested new weapons in this war. International armaments sales require real war performance data. Russia, the US, France, Sweden, Norway, Canada, the UK and more are major weapons exporters. Others aspire to.

As Washington's sanctions on Russia (and China) and the Ukrainian Proxy War on Russia are not going well for Washington, this is that moment of imperial hubris that accelerates Washington's long term global decline, that is, if other non-Western countries collectively oppose Washington's influence over them. As others have previously tried . . .

A Puck satirical drawing that dealt with the Monroe Doctrine and Washington's intrusions into South America, a resources rich domain. Know your place, seen in the placement of characters. Another Puck drawing appears after the End Notes.

>>> Economics 303 - Washington's Principle Exports <<<

"It may be our dollar but it's your problem" - Attributed to Dean Acherson, 51st US Secretary of State to his British counterpart.

Washington exerts global power through four principle means - Economic, Financial, Military and Covert, the linchpin being that the US dollar is the world's reserve currency. And so, by no means exhaustive . . .

- Control via trade expressed in US dollar contracts. Most world trade does not pass through US hands but for most trade, including oil, the flow of money was expressed in US dollar terms, which affords the US several advantages. Russian and Chinese Leadership have made clear that this is over and transactions will be expressed in their own currencies, as it suits them. It was reported but not widely that Saddham Hussein, having fallen out with his erstwhile American ally, sought to sell Iraqi oil with Euro denominated contracts, a direct threat to US Dollar primacy. Russia and China present the same threat and it is a serious one. China and Russia cannot be so easily dealt with, except on their terms and not Washington's.

- IMF loans to “bought off” foreign country leaders who indebted their countries and then must sell off state assets in place of debt repayments, a deliberate and effective imperialist strategy. Dr. Yanis Varoufakis explained how, as the new Greek Minister of Finance, he was threatened with a shutdown of Greece's ATM’s unless he signed over state assets to major foreign banks.

- Control of the price of oil, the supply of oil and who has their supply blocked. More generally, control of energy. Washington's declaration that the destruction to Nord Stream pipes is a "tremendous opportunity for the US" gives that game away. Recent events with Saudi Arabia in siding with Russia indicate that they do not follow US diktats. Trans-shipment via rail bypasses the ability of US and allied states’ warships to interfere. Say, blocking the Straits of Malacca to Chinese shipping. Concerning Saudi Arabia's recent declarations, Washington has threatened to cancel armaments sales that exceed one hundred billion dollars p.a., a market Russia and China will supply to. The British Ministry of Defense takes a billion dollars plus to train and equip the Saudi Ruling Family's private army of some 100,000 personnel, along with arms sales to the Saudi Armed Forces. Given the state of the British economy, this is not a market to lose. Anglo-US interests have kept the Middle East in a long one hundred year plus depression and turmoil while extracting oil. Oil suppliers could not set terms. Oil suppliers now set the terms and Anglo-US-EU consumers setting the price of oil as it suits them (a price cap diktat and imperial hangover) has passed. That Washington-London Thought Leaders thought that they could dictate to the world's largest energy and resources country - Russia - is an exercise in imperial hubris.

- Sanctions on countries backed up by pressure. The US Treasury website lists all sanctions in force, there are very many, including on individuals. There is no or doubtful legal basis for any under International Law. Washington and London assert the Rules-Based International Order, an expression that has no strict definition but is taken to mean what suits them when it suits them and no treaty or diplomatic arrangement will be necessarily honoured. The Russian and Chinese Leadership have made clear that this arrangement is over. Other countries too. For individuals, they may challenge these personal sanctions but there are the practical matters of getting a court hearing, if ever. Washington is doubling down on sanctions, an exclusionary policy. China and Russia are pursuing inclusive arrangements with The Great Eurasian Union which the US has excluded itself from. As have compliant US allied states.

- International financial settlements with SWIFT that provide the US with vital economic data on other countries that can be used to exert pressure and attack the value of foreign currencies. Russia and China have their alternative to international settlements, in development for several years and so a clear indication that present events spilling out from events in The Ukraine were anticipated and planned for.

- The buying off of foreign leaders and influencing them to Washington's world view. The children of foreign leaders, politicians, armed forces officers and senior civil servants are to be found in Western schools and universities. Former Libyan President Ghaddafi's adult children attended a London economics university and the President had donated generously to the university. Unexceptional but not well known, back then. As it became known, right thinking people of importance expressed their surprise and dismay, to something they knew of and themselves take advantage of. Influence operations extend to bringing qualified foreign journalists and media presenters to Washington to study media and world affairs - the Washington perspective. China and Russia do the same.

- Direct threats that spill into the open, like those made by American diplomat John Bolton, directed at judges of the International Criminal Court concerning their prosecution of any Americans for war crimes. Other threats too. That Russian and Chinese diplomats always adopt diplomatic prose publicly does not preclude the possibility of similar conduct behind closed doors. Dealing with super-powers is fraught with dangers.

- The less than glamorous blackmail opportunities arising from surveilling all global electronic communications by the National Security Agency, for commercial advantage. Admittedly, all other major state agencies do similar things.

That Washington has confiscated the national gold reserves of certain countries on deposit in New York and London banks and cancelled SWIFT financial transaction processing, both against international laws, including selective removal of certain credit cards from foreign country ATM networks, demonstrates that Washington's disposition towards global leadership is Washington's Rules-Based International Order for Washington's interests alone.

It is the termination of these arrangements by China and Russia, stated several times over several years by President Putin, that has led to the present state of affairs where states including allied states, as The Ukraine was, will be sacrificed to preserve Washington's dominance. London is the most vocal in its promotion of the US-NATO-UK Ukrainian Proxy War, far from the battle space as it is, while other states do the heavy lifting. Britain has a long one hundred plus year history of demonizing Russia. Looking forward some years beyond the Ukrainian Proxy War, just what the Russian Government may do to punish Britain and other Western countries is that lively topic for the coffee shop intellectuals. Punishment will come by exclusion from The Great Eurasian Union.

Finally, one's principle purpose in Modern Society is to wake each day, clean oneself up, front the work place on time, perform necessary duties - supply chain, mining, finance, food service, energy generation, repairing things, writing advertising copy, maybe sacrifice one's son in some remote conflict - earn money, pay tax, go home, watch television, shout at sports matches, drink, gamble and do not think too hard about things and certainly do not become operational and so just keep The Economic Show Boat running for that very small proportion of The Important People to do as they see fit. Economics 303.

" . . . destroy any emergent rivals before they destroy you" - Paul Wolfowitz, 1992. This requires the minting of fresh reasons for American Exceptionalism. Such as these . . .

>>> Memories Are Made Of This <<<

Remember what they said - in a year's time. As reported, as at 4th October, 2022 . . .

“A much bigger Russian collapse will unfold in the coming days" - Dr. Francis Fukuyama. Doctorate in Political Science. Dr. Fukuyama wrote The End of History 1992, specifically - "I believe that the EU more accurately reflects what the world will look like at the end of history than the contemporary US". The end of history, for them?

“No amount of shambolic mobilization, which is the only way to describe it, no amount of annexation, no amount of even veiled nuclear threats can actually get Putin out of this particular situation. He is losing and the battlefield reality he faces is, I think, irreversible" - US four star General Dr. David Petraeus who undertook his last key tour of duty in Afghanistan (2010). Barrack Obama as US President installed him there, replacing General Stanley McChrystal who, in regard to the Afghanistan Counter-Insurgency Program he was executing and denounced as a billion dollar fraud by certain military professionals, criticized the Washington Masters of The Universe - Senator Joe Biden and President Barack Obama, written up in Rolling Stone magazine by Michael Hastings, a journalist who worked around Pentagon rules on controlling embedded journalists. Michael Hastings went on to die in interesting circumstances near Venice Beach, California. According to his family, he was warned off several times to cease investigating matters related to the FBI and Central Intelligence but pressed on. Michael Hasting's body was not returned to his family - cremated without their knowledge. So goes the evidence. Another US journalist to die in interesting circumstances was Danny Casolaro who was investigating shady Washington elite arrangements and again was warned off, according to his family. A most interesting death concerns Senator Robert F. Kennedy in Los Angeles, 1968. The Los Angeles Coroner determined that RFK was killed by a bullet to the back of his head - entering "through the mastoid bone, an inch behind the right ear"and fired from no more than four inches from behind Kennedy's head. Sirhan Sirhan was at no time closer than three to four feet in front of Kennedy. Sirhan used an Iver-Johnson revolver, the same brand (different calibre) that was used to kill US President William McKinley in 1901. An advertising brochure for Iver-Johnson Safety Revolvers follows.

“This is a tremendous victory for the Ukrainians. And it’s a victory that I think that they could turn into a cascading series of defeats of Russian forces. What we might be at here is really at the precipice of really the collapse of the Russian Army in Ukraine" - US Lt. General Dr. H. R. McMaster.

“I think that everything we’ve seen is suggestive of a near collapse of the Soviet military, like a near total collapse and I think that the United States and NATO probably sees that this is an opportunity for a complete collapse of the Russian military and they’re going to take it. I think the battle for Ukraine is over" - Scott Adams, American cartoonist.

What is coming down the line is a bigger failure than the US-NATO-UK withdrawal from Afghanistan 2021, the longest of Washington's wars, any discussion of that effectively banned under a news blackout in The West.

The Iver-Johnson handgun. The handgun of choice for political assassinations. Safe, dependable, field proven. There can only be one standard for political assassinations and that standard is judgment by results. Iver-Johnson handguns deliver results. Real results on real people. Rely on Iver-Johnson handguns. Based on testimonials by actual witnesses of - King Umberto I of Italy 1900; US President William McKinley 1901; US Senator Robert Kennedy 1968. All killed with an Iver-Johnson. Note: Withstanding that RFK was also shot from the rear.

End Note 1 - Your Country Right or Wrong

As per the prior Substack essay, your enemy is anyone who can get you killed. Queen and Country. The Executive and The Elites. Kyiv and the US-NATO-UK Decision Centres desperate for even a minor victory to run out as a public relations win in the curated Washington-London-European Media have thrown hundreds of thousands of AFU personnel and their own manipulated countrymen as volunteers and conscripts into the distant killing machine of the Russian Armed Forces. Treating everyone now as pawns with few strategic pieces left to move. For most, Queen and Country, the Executive Leadership and the EU Leadership are abstractions of a reality so distant from most everyone as to have no meaning, save a metaphorical imagery programmed into one's mind via repetition. Queen and Country is almost that rhyming alliterative double so useful to manipulate the thoughts of one's mind. All this a highly constructed and managed repetition from those very persuasive Hidden Persuaders. Those people who want you to commit yourself will never, ever commit themselves, save token appearances of their fine selves near war zones and never where they are at any risk. Some people of colour have made something of The London Queen not having apologized for hundreds of years of British Imperialism on distant foreign societies, the British Concentration Camps, their trail of murders in local British Police Stations, public executions before forcibly assembled crowds and direct actions by the British Armed Forces and Special Forces on native populations, (possibly) much of which still remains classified. There can be no apology because it continues, reparations would bankrupt them and because others so convinced of their centrality in the scheme of the social order, always a fraud, might just start seeing things for what they are and no longer wish to pay for it. One only apologizes when it costs you nothing. In the end, it is about money - their money taken from other people's work.

After Good Luck. The aftermath of a battle, from featured anti-war artist Vasily Vereshchagin. Somewhere in an African region and more recent, judging from the Western undergarments of the Poor Boys from afar. English? Some lose their heads but then they lost their heads well before they arrived here. We also observe the physical limits to how many people one can kill using traditional weapons in any given time. Modern weapons dismember people located at and as seen within foreign lands. This is rarely seen in The West. But they see it.

End Note II - Focus On Applied Mathematics

Regarding the lead painting, the astute reader would have observed the various Angles of Repose that these human skulls assume, a mathematical engineering concept to describe the way granular objects will naturally arrange themselves without mortar. The importance of this cannot be overestimated as it highlights significant safety concerns and dangers when around steep sand dunes that may collapse, huge grain piles in wheat storage facilities that may collapse and mountainous waste rock from mining operations that may collapse. Strictly, equal sized spheres would assume a face angle of 54.7 degrees and an edge angle of 60 degrees to the horizontal of a four sided symmetrical pyramid. Whether the classically educated Turco-Mongol Warlord Tamerlane himself or his generals appreciated these finer, intrinsically fascinating, mathematical principles of Spacial Geometry, dating back to Antiquity and which accompanied their impressively memorable campaign work hitherto remains lost to us.

End Note III - The Winter Campaign

Western Mainstream Media's much vaunted failures of the Russian Armed Forces, to be seen in their enlarged commitment of some hundreds of thousands more is the next phase of the Russian Campaign, extending into winter. Claims of AFU success and Russian failures from the Thought Leaders of the West are not relevant to the battlefield, even as The Ukraine has now defeated Russia several times over, as reported. Critical analysis reveals that the Russian Armed Forces are preparing for a destructive Winter Campaign and a very deadly one for what remains of the AFU. The Russian tactic of withdrawing or ceding territory has the intended effect of drawing the AFU in so as to destroy them. The tactics of pawns and one the thoroughly artless President Zelenskyy is drawn into, flag waving less than minor advances as major tactical gains, the outcome from which is to convince Ukrainian service personnel to go to the front to be killed by Russian Forces. No-one is born with a losing hand. Outcomes are made and one's grave can be dug by people in far off places. As President Putin alluded to a few months back - "We have not started anything yet". What the Russian Armed Forces has not done is no indicator of what they will do and can do. As for the SMO, an outcome of over one hundred thousand AFU killed seems conservative. It is about to become far worse.

End Note IV - The Shotgun as a New Anti-Aircraft Weapon

Treating us as fools. The headline speaks for itself. The effective range of a shotgun is under 70 meters although a sabot goes further. Not much further. A very short range weapon, sometimes used for close in work, by city types. Air Force jets do not fly at treetop level nor at speeds that enable easy targeting. Another obviously staged photo-shoot with a person selected so intended that many in The West could relate to. Historically consistent with London media. This article pitches the Russian Armed Forces as that of a third world island. Military professionals know otherwise.

This advertisement is permitted in Western countries.

It specifies those with combat experience. No Western state commits its armed forces, the ones with real military experience, to a war with Russia.

It is a matter of conjecture as to why the Mainstream Media pitch the Russian Armed Forces as inept. They may believe that when the Kyiv Government disintegrates, Russian diplomacy will allow some saving of Western face, a consistent pattern of Russian diplomacy. Much talk within Washington circles of the use of tactical, read small, nuclear weapons. It is not new and reported for several years. One can surmise the thinking and as one hypothesis and it is only one hypothesis, there can be no loss of The Ukraine, coming so soon after their feckless and costly Afghanistan Campaign. An intention by US-NATO-UK interests to risk everything to lose nothing? Cast the Russian Armed Forces as ineffectual, then the Russian State as desperate. By US-NATO-UK interests then striking a Ukrainian population center, US-NATO-UK interests they can claim it as a Russian desperation attack and so, without due process, launch a nuclear strike on Russia. This complexion of nuclear war thinking, for some, is not new.

Difficulties with this reasoning include:

• The Russian Armed Forces have conventional weapons with more blast power than small nuclear weapons, as do many states. That the Kyiv Government continues to function is their decision not to destroy it or not yet.

• Russia has anti-missile systems that some claim are superior to that possessed by The United States, that Russia can defend against a US first strike and that the US cannot defend against a Russian retaliation strike.

• Nuclear War Calculus for US War Planners - Russia has deep water submarines with super weapons that can strike anywhere. Across the vast territory of Russian forests their mobile ICBM launchers constantly move. Thus The United States cannot disarm Russia with their much vaunted First Strike Doctrine. As for what then happens to the United States, this simulation provides some insight to destruction and deaths on the US mainland - https://www.nuclearwarmap.com/map01.html.

• For these and other reasons, recent media pieces expressing concern over the use of tactical nuclear weapons in The Ukraine is misguided, hysterical and uninformed. Perhaps an example of independent media using the same fear tactic of The Mainstream to drive paid readerships?

• Two countries that came perilously close to launching nuclear armed missiles at each other were Pakistan and India, early 2000. Both American allies. Both with difficult, entangled, colonial histories. Both who went to war several times. Both who commit skirmishes into each other’s territory. One who praised God when their first nuclear detonation worked - God is Great. Both heavily invested in expanding their nuclear armaments complexes. Both with populations who hold to strong views on everlasting life. Just not in this life. One might think that holding to such beliefs would disqualify one from possessing nuclear weapons. One might think . . .

  Are you feeling lucky?

US President Theodore Roosevelt, 1901 - 1909, clarifying the Monroe Doctrine to an intrusive Imperial Britain exploiting a small South American country. US President James Monroe, 1817 - 1825, opposed European colonialism in the Western Hemisphere, here South America, on the principle that interference in the interests of The United States could be a hostile act against the United States. Could be.