Medvedev: And quite frankly, it is not clear whether it is needed at all...

The second "it" is "full normalization" of relations with the Outlaw US Empire.

Dmitri Medvedev has provided an excellent epilogue to the Biden Administration’s Greek Tragedy written and posted to his Telegram on January 18 and sets the stage for the following analysis:

The Walking Dead. The end of the season.

Using the example of the walking dead Biden, who has gone into oblivion, you can trace how an experienced and generally intelligent politician (and he is very experienced, he worked in high positions back in the Soviet period) gradually turned into a senile man out of touch with reality.

When I talked to him, he did not yet have dementia. What even then attracted attention was an unhealthy interest in Ukraine, although he explained this to me with Obama's instructions.

Gradually, the instruction turned into an idefix. In this miraculous transformation, big political mistakes, banal corruption and simply poor analysis of the situation played a role - ignorance of history and misunderstanding of the nature of "Ukrainianism". And the old man at some point hit all the hard, in fact, unleashing a war between the collective West and Russia, which almost turned into a nuclear conflict with NATO.

Recently, he clearly did not fully understand what was happening. Yes, it must be admitted that such a war is beneficial to the United States in economic terms. But the political costs and the real threat of a fatal conflict are much more serious. But the old man was not ready for this. This is the case when the head of the largest power in the world completely failed to cope with the situation. As a result, the Democrats lost the elections miserably. If Biden's misfortune is in his inadequacy, then the fault of his administration is that on the Russian track it deliberately left a very difficult crisis legacy to its successors. The harmful bookmarks of Biden's decisions will manifest themselves for a very long time. And therefore it will be extremely difficult to communicate. The full normalization of Russian-American relations will drag on for decades.

Although, in my opinion, in the current realities, it is basically impossible. And quite frankly, it is not clear whether it is needed at all... [My Emphasis]

Almost two months ago, I wrote an updated essay assessing the post-election world Trump would inherit, “NATO Faces Capitulation in Europe.” Since then, many news conferences and Putin’s Direct Line made abundantly clear what Russia’s fundamental grounds for any Ukraine negotiations would entail, with the Outlaw US Empire’s position unchanged since December 2021. The most graphic example of just how Dead Team Biden became was encapsulated in an interview Blinken had just a week ago saying all the Empire’s adversaries are weaker today than when Team Biden took office, with Sullivan saying essentially the same thing in another interview. Those were BigLies told to the US Public and the world as the opposite is true. What follows is a listing of facts dealing with the ability of the USN to construct ships versus the PLA’s Navy that were listed on today’s Week in Review MoA thread:

Navy's $10B multiship deal will bolster defense industry ...

Stars and Stripes:
› branches › navy › 2024-10-02
2 Oct 2024 — A Navy deal to pay nearly $10 billion to build three new warships will help strengthen the shipbuilding industry and efforts to satisfy a congressional demand.

>US Navy’s amphibious fleet plagued by aging ships, deferred maintenance and capacity shortfalls
>The Navy will need a budget boost of at least $85 billion annually to realize an ambitious goal to grow its fleet by nearly 100 ships over the next three decades, according to a recent Congressional Budget Office analysis.
>President-elect Donald Trump criticized the management of the US Navy’s Constellation-class frigate program today following cost increases due to what he called people “playing around and tinkering and changing the design.”
>Navy shipbuilding plan would cost $1 trillion over the next 30 years.

China out-mans and out-guns the US.
from Andrew Erickson
By CMPR’s suspense date of “early 2024,” China already had over 600 operational nuclear warheads.
All of China’s roughly 400 ICBMs can reach the continental United States (CONUS).
PRC has the world’s leading hypersonic missile arsenal.
3 new silo fields add 320 silos for solid-propellant ICBMs.
China working to double its DF-5 liquid-propellant ICBM force to likely 50 silos.
September 2023, China test-launched two CSS-10 Mod 3/DF-31AG ICBMs from training silos in Western China. China simulated “Joint Firepower Strike Operations” against Taiwan, in part by live-firing PCH191 close-range ballistic missiles in its 2022 exercises, and drilling with the missile in its 2023 exercises.
China’s four Type 093B Shang III guided-missile nuclear attack submarines, 3 of which may be operational by 2025, may have land-attack cruise missiles.
China now has 5 types of ASBMs: DF-21D, DF-26, DF-17, DF-27, and YJ-21.
5,000-8,000 km-range DF-27 IRBM/ICBM: The “‘long-range’ DF-27 ballistic missile is deployed to the PLARF and likely has a HGV payload option as well as conventional land-attack, conventional antiship, and nuclear capabilities.”
Potential targets include Guam, Alaska, and Hawaii.
Pentagon estimates China’s actual defense budget is $330-450 billion.
China has world’s largest military force: 2.035 million active, 510,000 reserve, and 500,000 paramilitary
China’s navy already has over 370 ships and submarines, including more than 140 major surface combatants.
CMPR anticipates 395 PLAN battle force ships by 2025, including 65 submarines; and 435 by 2030, including 80 submarines.
China’s air force has 51 Y-20A heavy lift transports, whose up to 2,400 nautical mile range may be extended by 16 Y-20U tankers.
https://www.andrewerickson.com/2024/12/department-of-defense-just-released-2024-china-military-power-report-fact-sheet-full-text-here/

So, best case, it would take the USA a $1trillion and 30 years to build 100 ships. China can do that in a year and for a fraction of the cost.

Now consider that in a real knock-down-drag-out naval slugfest between the US and China, the US could lose a hundred ships. Maybe China would lose more, maybe not, but a year later, who will be ruling the seas? The US will be out of the fight for decades at best. Keep in mind that many of China's front line ships are more modern (because they were built more recently) and are designed specifically to counter the US Navy.

The US Navy is terrified of a real fight with China, and for good reason.

A US-China naval battle six thousand miles away?
With a retarded US Navy?

from the web:
>Why the U.S. Military Has to Hitch a Ride on Commercial Ships. . .Pentagon’s limited capacity to support a potential China conflict forces planners to tap private cargo companies
>USS Boxer makes U-turn for repairs on long-delayed, short ...Apr 15, 2024 · Maintenance problems forced an amphibious assault ship to return to California last week, just days into its first deployment in five years.
> India will be serving as a future maintenance hub for U.S. Navy assets in the Indo-Pacific,
>The Navy's maintenance troubles are getting worse -
>Feb 5, 2023 · The biggest problems have been increased maintenance delays, coupled with a rise of parts shortages, forcing crews to cannibalize parts for repairs.
>Amphib Boxer soon to be sidelined again for 18 months of ...May 30, 2024 · WASHINGTON — Although the Navy says it will be able to fix the amphibious assault ship Boxer’s (LHD-4) rudder issues pierside, the service is now planning for the problem-
>Crew Shortages, Bad Mattresses Causing Navy Surface Sailors ...Oct 30, 2023 · Among the top reasons sailors are getting an average 5.25 hours of sleep a day instead of the desired 7.5 hours, according to the GAO, are crew shortages and uncomfortable mattresses.
>significant projected delays in deliveries of several types of Navy ships; industrial base capacity constraints for building Navy ships; inflation in Navy shipbuilding costs;
>Fewer than 2 Dozen Shipyard Workers Involved in Suspect Welds, Delay in 17-Sub Contract Creates ‘Unpredictability’
>Overhaul Delays for USS George Washington, USS John C. Stennis Partially Due to Unknown Steam Turbine Damage
> The Navy projects that 10 new ships will be delivered to the fleet in FY2025. -- China has 230 times the shipbuilding capacity of the United States. - About 70 percent of Chinese warships were launched after 2010, while only about 25 percent of the U.S. Navy’s were.
>The U.S. Coast Guard said that it intends to send specialized forces, training teams, and other capacity-building assets to help Indo-Pacific allies. The United States aims to enhance the capacity of regional coast guards to support them in countering ‘malign influence’ [i.e. China] in the region.
>there is a lack of new, younger skilled workers . . . Today, we are short nearly 140,000 workers to support the building of submarines alone.
>Navy extends service life of a fourth San Diego warship as vessel shortage worsens
>China is currently outpacing the U.S. in fifth-generation fighter jet production, a development that would shift military power in the Pacific.
>YOKOSUKA NAVAL BASE, Japan — Two sailors assigned to the USS George Washington died within days of the aircraft carrier’s arrival at its new homeport in Japan, a ship spokesman confirmed Monday.
>‘Come for the dog, stay for the care’: Sailors find mental health care aboard Navy warships through ‘fur therapy’
>Delayed and skipped amphibious warship maintenance has prevented Marine Corps units from training and deploying on schedule, reads a new Government Accountability Office report.
>Physically fit sailors may be exempt from body standards next year, Navy says.

My interjection:

PLA Navy is designed to work close to Mainland with primary focus on Taiwan. USN has no assets capable of defeating PLAN in its realm. As noted, Chinese shipbuilding ability makes US ability essentially zero. Losing the war against Russia foretells the result of any war against China--defeat for US forces.

As for what appears to be a strategic redirection of the Outlaw US Empire's aims to its portion of the Arctic, a quick look at a map will reveal zero infrastructure of any sort capable of supporting any military or corporate project. Essentially no ice breakers clearly adds to the infrastructure deficit. Russia is a whole century ahead of the Empire in its Arctic development, and the cost in today's dollars to match Russia's current facilities would be 30-40 Trillion--an amount the Empire cannot afford. Monies obtained via rents of all sorts can't be translated into higher defense/war spending when much of those rents were obtained via the deindustrialization of the means required for defense/war.

Enough time has passed for Neoliberalism to be judged as the greatest ever miscalculation and misallocation of resources in history. It's no wonder that the two nations that didn't allow themselves to be captured by that dysfunctional philosophy now have the strongest militaries on the planet and have the most technically advanced industrial capabilities and are closely followed in ability by their two major allies--Iran and India.

Adding Greenland or Canada will only increase the Empire's overall financial burden as the resources they supposedly contain that might add assets will require massive amounts of expense for infrastructure development before anything positive appears.

This very interesting video Q&A between Rossiya 1 journalist Pavel Zarubin and VTB CEO Andrey Kostin that was posted at Martyanov’s blog today:

The SWIFT system should be abandoned to avoid information leaks, VTB CEO Andrey Kostin said in an interview that journalist Pavel Zarubin published on his Telegram channel. "SWIFT should be simply killed, in a good sense of the word, abandoned and no longer used. This is a direct leak of information to our enemies <…> and the main thing is that it is so easy to solve — it is a purely administrative decision, an agreement between the two parties and a few technological solutions, that's all," Kostin said. Several years ago, SWIFT was the main system for processing payments — almost all banking transactions in the world went through it. But in 2014, when Western countries first threatened to disconnect Russia from the system, large countries began to create alternatives. The Financial Message Transfer System (SPFS) appeared in Russia.

The longstanding weekly chats on Nima’s Dialog Works featuring Drs. Michael Hudson and Richard Wolff has centered on the topic neither Harris nor Trump mentioned during their campaigns: How to manage the declining US Empire. Trump tacitly admits with his MAGA slogan that what was once strong is now weak. Both endorsed US Imperial policy that says Russia, China, Iran, and North Korea must all be defeated, but only Trump admitted Russia’s beating the Empire in Ukraine and seeks to solve the problem, but there’s been no acknowledgement of Russia’s steadfast grounds for the SMO’s cessation, which is an admission that the Walking Dead’s policy lives on.

Given the powerfully negative political affects of the anti-Russian sanctions on Europe, Germany especially, the basic demilitarization of European NATO assets, and the additional onus on NATO members promised by Trump, there’s potential for the NATO Bloc to dissolve and with it the EU since they’re both run by the Outlaw US Empire to Europe’s detriment—facts becoming more well known and protested against. What both Hudson and Wolff have been saying for decades is Europe’s been getting a free ride for defense as most of NATO’s cost is paid by the Empire, and that free ride allowed Europe to enact what until recently was its high-quality system of social benefits. NATO’s Narrative has always been about an aggressive USSR/Russia, which the Ukraine conflict was supposed to show while inflicting a strategic defeat on Russia. The truth is the opposite as some of the world knows. More European leaders have come to understand that truth and are beginning to see who their real adversaries are and where they’re located—Brussels and Washington. And as NATO/EU grows more totalitarian, more Europeans will see the light. Europe needs to free itself from the NATO/EU system of control and regain sovereignty—politically and economically. They could sing along with Medvedev: Who needs relations with the Outlaw US Empire?

Back on 14 February 2022 Lavrov said the following in his report to Putin about the results of the December security proposals :

[T}his approach is about the legal settlement of issues that generally threaten the Euro-Atlantic Region.

As we’ve seen over the last 18 months, that is no longer the case. Both Putin and Lavrov have publicly stated the Euro-Atlantic security system is now dead. What will replace it is a Eurasian Security Structure based on the indivisibility of security, which the UN Charter, previous OSCE Treaties and China’s Global Security Initiative are all based upon. To arrange such a structure, the consent/participation of the Outlaw US Empire isn’t required. Eurasia is a well-established geographical entity that has no parts within the Western Hemisphere. It may or may not include the islands that closely surround it—I’m thinking the UK, Japan, and Philippines. Thus, relations with the Empire aren’t required. There’ll likely be some European/Eurasian naysayers because of their degree of supine obedience to the Empire—as Putin has said, the structure will be open to all; unlike NATO there’s no must. Such a structure will also join with China’s Global Security Initiative that would bring in African and South American nations. Decades hence once the Outlaw US Empire becomes a normal nation for the first time in its existence, it too will be welcomed.

That’s where we are generally as Trump again becomes the Empire’s President. The Empire faces a plethora of problems and conundrums, some solvable, many not without massive structural alteration of the US political system and its massive debt overhead. If Trump chooses confrontation over cooperation with his supporters—not his bankrollers—his tenure will be a failure. Trump will find it close to impossible to admit Russia defeated the Empire, although that’s the outcome’s reality. Once Trump embarks on his policy course, we can make further assessments. And in the back of many minds will be the 2028 election.

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