You are precious to me, karlof1. There is no other way for me to find out what is going on there.
one of the key problems is the problem of settlements. Therefore, we are following the path of using national currencies
But we are not inventing a single general system yet, and what we have is sufficient in principle. We only need to make appropriate decisions at the administrative level on time and in a timely manner.
My takeaway, admin issues being worked, software to be written. This will take a few years. I worked as one of the senior software architects on a couple of trillion dollars of the US economy for quite a few years. The business rules were well understood before that project got off the ground in 2002.
I also think there's an issue with gaining consensus within the new grouping. I note Saudi Arabia isn't really in despite publicly saying it was joining back i January, and then there's manipulation/pressure being applied to Brazil. The Empire's going to use all its disrupters while also provoking conflict, which it can do without having much military might anymore. IMO, enough momentum's been injected during Russia's term that will carry BRICS through a lackluster Brazilian presidency in 2025 as a large mountain of work's within the Kazan Declaration.
The irony, Guterres goes to BRICS but can't go to Israel (but who really wants to?). India and China resolve a long standing border issue, and the leaders of Armenia and Azerbaijan are seen in discussion. No rush into the mistakes of the EU by creating a common currency but movement on issues for commodity exchanges, like the grain market and BRICS pay. The glass could be half full or half empty.
Is BRICS the endpoint? I'd look at it as an evolution towards what the UN should have been, hopefully the lessons of the EU and bloated bureaucracies are lessons for a leaner future; barring the US turning the table over cloud of nuclear funk.
I always appreciate a good Putin presser, Karl. Putin is being a wimp on stopping Israel. I feel like Russia and China still haven't figured out how powerful they are. Hypercautious to a fault.
The dollar's core strength is the demand for both banking reserves and transaction settlements.
Aa long as these two elements exist, US.gov will continue to be able to sell treasuries into the marketplace.
It seems Brics is wisely avoiding challenging the reserve side, but has identified trade clearing (with or without Swift) as the most vulnerable element.
If Brics can provide a suitable dollar free settlement environment, it's going to be very interesting to see the auction impact on interest rates.
At $35T, the USA no longer has any real cushion for maneuver. I really wonder if a Trump like realist will be able to assess the potentional checkmate situation and respond accordingly.
Yes, it was noted that the adoption of the Euro was premature and that BRICS going down a similar path would be a wrong move. The BRICS pay and bridge are a starting point, maybe not the progress everyone wants. Of course the most pressing problems are the high probability wars as the US throws fuel onto the fire in the middle east. The escalations, the projection propaganda are all signs of desperation and the US may decide to go all in on all fronts. The US political system seems so fragile; its undoing is of its own making. Don't blame Putin.
To take it one step further, we don't actually have to monitor the results of treasury auctions or observe interest rates flucuations between true market demand and Fed interference ie buying activity.
No, to understand the broad macro impact of all these global financial and economic machinations, one need only continue to buy groceries to truly experience the true effect of the resulting severe inflation.
In fact, you don't even need to do that. Rather, the combined impact causing widespread social breakdown should be apparent to even the most casual observer lost in Tic Tok memes and other superficial distractions.
Ultimately, it all comes back to losing the war against Russia. It really is that elementary; if we had prevailed we wouldn't be having this discussion. (I would have leveraged myself to the hilt.)
Instead, we lost. Now everyone, the US.gov, corporations, the people, are all incredibly vulnerable to the slightest emanation from the proverbial butterfly wing. (I myself unwound all debt and hold real assets outright.)
Every incremental Brics non dollar transaction is another, almost imperceptible, pressure point applied against the weakening edifice.
The icing on the cake, i.e. inflation was from Covid and the lockdowns. The WEF basically took the supply side and shut it down.
I don't agree about the Russian factor that you mentioned, but that's a minor point.
Holding assets outright is the only device that might save people from the upcoming disaster. Holding assets and being in the right BRICS country even better
More BS from Putin. Notice he didn't actually answer the question on North Korean troops inside Russia. Real hand-waving there.
More nonsense about "implementing UNSC Resolutions". Didn't say the word genocide, continued to talk about Palestinian "terrorism", didn't really mention Israel except to "work with" it.
The Kyrgyzstan guy had it right: Russian ships should be next to Lebanon and Gaza delivering weapons to Hamas and Hezbollah. And the whole Global South would applaud Russia for doing it.
When Putin talks like this, I have to conclude that even Ukraine isn't going to be solved by him. He's going to stop at the Dnieper and "negotiate" Minsk III - and be back at war with Ukraine six months later.
I don’t think Putin is accountable whether or not North Korean Soldiers are present in Russia. He doesn’t deny it and why should he inform the enemy?
The West, NATO, the EU deny that they are sending troops to Ukraine, when they do.
From the beginning, Russia has said what the goal is and that is not the total conquest of Ukraine.
I don’t think that given the current situation you can also ask for a leading role of Russia in war Israel. It would be nice if a joint peacekeeping force or something similar would be organized from Brics or non-bound countries.
Putin not confirming or denying it just his usual non-committal way of talking about most things. While he is a politician and thus this is to be expected, it's still "mealy-mouthed" as they say.
As for what Russia's "goals" are, everyone treats that as gospel when in fact it's just more "mealy-mouth." In fact, objective analysis of Russia's security interests demands that Ukraine be taken off the board entirely, as I have analyzed repeatedly since April, 2022. The "goals" Putin announced at the start of the war are merely the pre-conditions for the real goals to be achieved.
As for the Middle East, Russia wants peace there. It's not going to get it by hiding behind the totally dead "two-state solution". It's pointless to claim Russia backs Iran when in fact Russia could do a number of things to delay or avoid a US-Iran war. The Kyrgyzstan guy had it right, as I said. If Russia (and China) don't act, Russia could well lose Syria and Russia's only Mediterranean naval base as well as Iran.
In contrast to most Western politics, I don’t think Putin in particular is someone who talks with flour in his mouth.
He is often very clear and has a lot of knowledge about many different things and interferes on many levels in Russian society.
He deserves more and more respect from other states and the “success” of Brics proves this.
All the translations of various interviews and articles by Karl confirm this for me.
As for the goals, I think it makes little sense for Russia to occupy or destroy all of Ukraine, including that part that is hostile to it. And then stay directly on the border with Poland.
Just occupying that part where the Russian-speaking people live is the only logical choice. Perhaps the area will have to be adapted a bit for strategic reasons.
In the event of a possible post-war arrangement, it will also be important for Ukraine and Europe and the business partners that they can make a peaceful build-up.
Many Russian Jews have also moved to Israel and there are also Jewish roots in Russia so we see that this is a complicated matter for Russia. The bombings made to measure and almost by appointment as it seems? Of last night seem to confirm that Israel also realizes that a total war with Iran is not a foregone conclusion and that this is a controlled reaction to which Iran will probably not react? In my opinion, there is already a lot of consultation between the big boys here on how things can be controlled.
Let me be clear. When I say Putin is "mealy-mouthed", it's always when he's discussing a difficult situation for Russia. In the case of Ukraine, it's because he's concerned NATO will over-react if he announces that he's taking all of Ukraine. In the Middle East, it's because it would scare BRICS if Russia announced that it was getting militarily involved.
Or perhaps Putin is just a "peace-nik" and really doesn't understand what is going on in the Middle East. If so, he's a fool. He was a fool to try to get an agreement with Ukraine in March-April, 2022 - although I understand that he did that because he had concerns over the impact of the Russian SMO on the Russian economy, the Russian population, the Global South and how NATO would react. Nonetheless, the deal was completely ridiculous and would have failed within weeks, if not months - as in fact it did. Which is why Putin said later that he had been "played" by the West over Minsk II - so presumably trying to get "Minsk III" which is what he was essentially asking for would be not helpful. Hopefully he learned his lesson - but maybe not.
In that case, stopping at the Dnieper will mean he lost the war - because it will just start again in six months or six years, when the US and NATO manage to wreck it again.
As for why Russia needs to take Ukraine, it's simply because Russia 1) can not afford to not counter the Aegis Ashore installations in Poland and Romania and the only way to do that is to place Russia's anti-missile defenses as close to them as possible, and 2) because Russia needs to place a Military District in western Ukraine to counter any possible NATO encroachment in the future, just as Russia is doing with the new Military District further north. In my opinion, Russia is building an "Iron Curtain 2.0" in terms of military defense from the Black Sea to the Arctic. Russia has been invaded by the West too many times. They don't intend to let it happen again.
But I could be wrong. Putin could be that stupid. I don't think the Russian General Staff is. I suspect they're told him in no uncertain terms that since his dumb deal in March, 2022, failed, he'd better listen to them. And they've told him what I said - it has to be done for objective military reasons.
In short, Russia's objective national security interests require that Ukraine be taken off the board entirely - leaving no part of Ukraine susceptible to manipulation by the West against Russia.
As for the "big boys" controlling the conflict, the only people in charge in Washington and Israel have decided that this is the moment to take out of their enemies at once - and they're not going to stop until they are defeated by the Axis of Resistance.
Any other belief is "hopium". I suggest you listen to Alastair Crooke as he and Pepe Escobar are the only two who have the Big Picture.
Thank you! I also follow Crooke and Escobar with some regularity, but I follow so many different news facts, opinions, substacks, Russian telegram channels, China square, Iranian and Palestinian news channels, that I sometimes have to skip something.
Just as the West believed in its invincibility for decades and disarmed itself, I think it is an illusion that they can destroy the so-called “axle of evil”.
I try to use my own “common sense” for as long as possible and probably also suffer from wishful thinking and above all as the last of the pacifists I am a “peace nik” :)
I try to limit the amount of foreign policy material I consume, sometimes unsuccessfully. My Substack is supposed to be about other things, but it's ended up discussing foreign policy more often than I desired.
I've never been a "peace-nik" - which is usually defined as someone who hopes for peace beyond all reason for believing it will happen - rather than someone who rationally prefers peace. Plus my bias is against the human species, so I have to be careful I don't go overboard on expecting war.
In the case of Ukraine, I initially throughout 2021 did not expect Russia to invade unless Ukraine attacked Donbass - which, of course, Ukraine did in February, 2022, by escalating artillery attacks in preparation for an attack.
After that, I expected Russia to annihilate Ukraine - which didn't happen. Once I was apprised of the reasons for that, I adjusted my expectations.
When the peace initiative was proposed in Istanbul, I was pissed at Putin for essentially losing the war.
Then I was apprised of the Aegis Ashore installations and that's when I revamped my expectations of what Russia would do.
So it's a matter of taking in as much context as possible and then using common sense to conclude what the parties will do based on their stated as well as objective interests. I usually phrase this as: "What would I do if I were them?"
So it's usually relatively easy to discern the overall purpose of the parties and their intentions and emotional drives. Where it gets difficult is to assess the impact of specific events on those intentions and whether the event is sufficiently important to derail those ultimate intentions.
This is where Crooke and Escobar come in. They're very good on background context and the motivations of the parties because they talk to those parties directly. The rest of the "Judge Nap" crowd don't do that. They make their assessments based more on current events - and they mostly have a US bias. They're right about most things, but tend to be unable to deal with the emotional intentions of the parties because of a "rational interests" bias that comes from being in intelligence work. Unfortunately, many of the parties involved are not rational.
It was Crooke who first clued me in to the level of irrationality on the part of the Israelis back in October. I already knew the Zionist motivations, and I already knew the motivations of the neocons. But I didn't know the level of crazy the Israelis were at.
Escobar has a close ear to the motivations and intentions of the Russians, as does Gilbert Doctorow (although much of his information comes from watching Russian television which I don't think is as reliable as Pepe's contacts with actual Russian officials.) Pepe also goes everywhere and talks to everyone. His own takes I don't always agree with but his value is his reporting on what the players are actually saying and doing.
Right now I'm trying to interpret why the Israeli attack on Iran was so lame. It makes no sense. I predicted "go big or go home" - apparently the Israelis "went home." That's not right. Something is off. Either my assessment is simply wrong or something has constrained the Israelis. Or something else is happening we haven't seen yet.
WTF does have to do with anything I said? Yes, the US economy is going to go down the tubes. That's in five or ten years. We have a Middle East war about to start now which will be the proximate cause of that decline. But it also means a couple million people die. Russia and China can prevent that by acting now, not later.
Hudson and Wolff take on the BRICS conclusion - and they aren't happy so far (I'm 33 minutes in). Hudson actually used the term "kumbayah" and he was clearly irritated at how none of the Arab states wanted to even discuss the Israeli genocide. Wolff says "no one wants to be on the receiving end on an Israeli missile attack with the support of the US" and no one wants to deal with someone who is "crazy" - so everyone shies away from "becoming another Lebanon."
They mostly complained about how the BRICS countries have internal issues that those countries don't seem to be addressing - both the US and the BRICS countries. Wolff predicts a US civil war. Hudson is saying that BRICS needs to understand that it has to rebuild civilization and that it needs to recognize that the West won't allow that. So the question will be: How does BRICS deal with that (without WWIII)? Hudson says this implies his version of economics and that Russia and China avoided saying that because it would scare a lot of the BRICS countries.
Interesting, but not immediately relevant to me compared to the problem of BRICS basically totally avoiding the Middle East conflict.
The problem they had in their chat was not knowing what was said by BRICS leaders in the Expanded session as only Putin's and Xi's words were widely published and I provided. Then they didn't have any idea what happened in the Partners meeting and the presser afterwards, which I know from direct communication with Dr. Hudson. I conducted a search to find translated video of both sessions but came up empty yesterday. Hopefully, that will soon change. The Kazan Declaration includes the usual denunciations of the violence in the Levant but refrains from directly calling out the genocidalists. As you'll have seen later in the chat, Wolff provides a different explanation as does Orlov which may seem cynical but at a strategic level makes sense. We see and judge things from our perspective while trying to understand those same things from other's perspectives. I did note that neither Putin nor Orlov said anything about Russia's many dual citizens still residing within Occupied Palestine nor the Constitutional mandate to somehow protect their interests.
As to the latter, it would be interesting to see what Russia would be willing to do to "protect" those 1.3 million Russian Jews.
Someone said Russia has asked them to leave Israel. In my view, if they don't, Russia should wash their hands of them, Russian legalities notwithstanding.
Conversely, Russia could declare hostile relations with Israel just as it did with Ukraine over the Donbass residents. The problem with that is there is no guarantee the Russian Jews in Israel would accept that, and there would be huge international law issues were Russia to intervene on that basis, just as there was in the Ukraine invasion. Putin being a stickler for international law, I suspect that would go no where.
Still haven't seen the Orlov interview - I have two stacked up on the hard drive: Orlov's and Johnson's interview with Crooke on Counter Currents. The Crooke one will come first.
You are precious to me, karlof1. There is no other way for me to find out what is going on there.
one of the key problems is the problem of settlements. Therefore, we are following the path of using national currencies
But we are not inventing a single general system yet, and what we have is sufficient in principle. We only need to make appropriate decisions at the administrative level on time and in a timely manner.
My takeaway, admin issues being worked, software to be written. This will take a few years. I worked as one of the senior software architects on a couple of trillion dollars of the US economy for quite a few years. The business rules were well understood before that project got off the ground in 2002.
I also think there's an issue with gaining consensus within the new grouping. I note Saudi Arabia isn't really in despite publicly saying it was joining back i January, and then there's manipulation/pressure being applied to Brazil. The Empire's going to use all its disrupters while also provoking conflict, which it can do without having much military might anymore. IMO, enough momentum's been injected during Russia's term that will carry BRICS through a lackluster Brazilian presidency in 2025 as a large mountain of work's within the Kazan Declaration.
The irony, Guterres goes to BRICS but can't go to Israel (but who really wants to?). India and China resolve a long standing border issue, and the leaders of Armenia and Azerbaijan are seen in discussion. No rush into the mistakes of the EU by creating a common currency but movement on issues for commodity exchanges, like the grain market and BRICS pay. The glass could be half full or half empty.
Is BRICS the endpoint? I'd look at it as an evolution towards what the UN should have been, hopefully the lessons of the EU and bloated bureaucracies are lessons for a leaner future; barring the US turning the table over cloud of nuclear funk.
I always appreciate a good Putin presser, Karl. Putin is being a wimp on stopping Israel. I feel like Russia and China still haven't figured out how powerful they are. Hypercautious to a fault.
The dollar's core strength is the demand for both banking reserves and transaction settlements.
Aa long as these two elements exist, US.gov will continue to be able to sell treasuries into the marketplace.
It seems Brics is wisely avoiding challenging the reserve side, but has identified trade clearing (with or without Swift) as the most vulnerable element.
If Brics can provide a suitable dollar free settlement environment, it's going to be very interesting to see the auction impact on interest rates.
At $35T, the USA no longer has any real cushion for maneuver. I really wonder if a Trump like realist will be able to assess the potentional checkmate situation and respond accordingly.
Actually for the most part since the GFC in 08 the US and other Central Banks have been the biggest buyers of treasuries.
Capitalism and the Dollar were diagnosed w/cancer in 08, the heist of Venezuela/Russia assets in 2023 has sealed their fate
Yes, it was noted that the adoption of the Euro was premature and that BRICS going down a similar path would be a wrong move. The BRICS pay and bridge are a starting point, maybe not the progress everyone wants. Of course the most pressing problems are the high probability wars as the US throws fuel onto the fire in the middle east. The escalations, the projection propaganda are all signs of desperation and the US may decide to go all in on all fronts. The US political system seems so fragile; its undoing is of its own making. Don't blame Putin.
To take it one step further, we don't actually have to monitor the results of treasury auctions or observe interest rates flucuations between true market demand and Fed interference ie buying activity.
No, to understand the broad macro impact of all these global financial and economic machinations, one need only continue to buy groceries to truly experience the true effect of the resulting severe inflation.
In fact, you don't even need to do that. Rather, the combined impact causing widespread social breakdown should be apparent to even the most casual observer lost in Tic Tok memes and other superficial distractions.
Ultimately, it all comes back to losing the war against Russia. It really is that elementary; if we had prevailed we wouldn't be having this discussion. (I would have leveraged myself to the hilt.)
Instead, we lost. Now everyone, the US.gov, corporations, the people, are all incredibly vulnerable to the slightest emanation from the proverbial butterfly wing. (I myself unwound all debt and hold real assets outright.)
Every incremental Brics non dollar transaction is another, almost imperceptible, pressure point applied against the weakening edifice.
The icing on the cake, i.e. inflation was from Covid and the lockdowns. The WEF basically took the supply side and shut it down.
I don't agree about the Russian factor that you mentioned, but that's a minor point.
Holding assets outright is the only device that might save people from the upcoming disaster. Holding assets and being in the right BRICS country even better
More BS from Putin. Notice he didn't actually answer the question on North Korean troops inside Russia. Real hand-waving there.
More nonsense about "implementing UNSC Resolutions". Didn't say the word genocide, continued to talk about Palestinian "terrorism", didn't really mention Israel except to "work with" it.
The Kyrgyzstan guy had it right: Russian ships should be next to Lebanon and Gaza delivering weapons to Hamas and Hezbollah. And the whole Global South would applaud Russia for doing it.
When Putin talks like this, I have to conclude that even Ukraine isn't going to be solved by him. He's going to stop at the Dnieper and "negotiate" Minsk III - and be back at war with Ukraine six months later.
It's ridiculous.
Thank you Karl,
Richardstevenhack:
I don’t think Putin is accountable whether or not North Korean Soldiers are present in Russia. He doesn’t deny it and why should he inform the enemy?
The West, NATO, the EU deny that they are sending troops to Ukraine, when they do.
From the beginning, Russia has said what the goal is and that is not the total conquest of Ukraine.
I don’t think that given the current situation you can also ask for a leading role of Russia in war Israel. It would be nice if a joint peacekeeping force or something similar would be organized from Brics or non-bound countries.
Putin not confirming or denying it just his usual non-committal way of talking about most things. While he is a politician and thus this is to be expected, it's still "mealy-mouthed" as they say.
As for what Russia's "goals" are, everyone treats that as gospel when in fact it's just more "mealy-mouth." In fact, objective analysis of Russia's security interests demands that Ukraine be taken off the board entirely, as I have analyzed repeatedly since April, 2022. The "goals" Putin announced at the start of the war are merely the pre-conditions for the real goals to be achieved.
As for the Middle East, Russia wants peace there. It's not going to get it by hiding behind the totally dead "two-state solution". It's pointless to claim Russia backs Iran when in fact Russia could do a number of things to delay or avoid a US-Iran war. The Kyrgyzstan guy had it right, as I said. If Russia (and China) don't act, Russia could well lose Syria and Russia's only Mediterranean naval base as well as Iran.
In contrast to most Western politics, I don’t think Putin in particular is someone who talks with flour in his mouth.
He is often very clear and has a lot of knowledge about many different things and interferes on many levels in Russian society.
He deserves more and more respect from other states and the “success” of Brics proves this.
All the translations of various interviews and articles by Karl confirm this for me.
As for the goals, I think it makes little sense for Russia to occupy or destroy all of Ukraine, including that part that is hostile to it. And then stay directly on the border with Poland.
Just occupying that part where the Russian-speaking people live is the only logical choice. Perhaps the area will have to be adapted a bit for strategic reasons.
In the event of a possible post-war arrangement, it will also be important for Ukraine and Europe and the business partners that they can make a peaceful build-up.
Many Russian Jews have also moved to Israel and there are also Jewish roots in Russia so we see that this is a complicated matter for Russia. The bombings made to measure and almost by appointment as it seems? Of last night seem to confirm that Israel also realizes that a total war with Iran is not a foregone conclusion and that this is a controlled reaction to which Iran will probably not react? In my opinion, there is already a lot of consultation between the big boys here on how things can be controlled.
Let me be clear. When I say Putin is "mealy-mouthed", it's always when he's discussing a difficult situation for Russia. In the case of Ukraine, it's because he's concerned NATO will over-react if he announces that he's taking all of Ukraine. In the Middle East, it's because it would scare BRICS if Russia announced that it was getting militarily involved.
Or perhaps Putin is just a "peace-nik" and really doesn't understand what is going on in the Middle East. If so, he's a fool. He was a fool to try to get an agreement with Ukraine in March-April, 2022 - although I understand that he did that because he had concerns over the impact of the Russian SMO on the Russian economy, the Russian population, the Global South and how NATO would react. Nonetheless, the deal was completely ridiculous and would have failed within weeks, if not months - as in fact it did. Which is why Putin said later that he had been "played" by the West over Minsk II - so presumably trying to get "Minsk III" which is what he was essentially asking for would be not helpful. Hopefully he learned his lesson - but maybe not.
In that case, stopping at the Dnieper will mean he lost the war - because it will just start again in six months or six years, when the US and NATO manage to wreck it again.
As for why Russia needs to take Ukraine, it's simply because Russia 1) can not afford to not counter the Aegis Ashore installations in Poland and Romania and the only way to do that is to place Russia's anti-missile defenses as close to them as possible, and 2) because Russia needs to place a Military District in western Ukraine to counter any possible NATO encroachment in the future, just as Russia is doing with the new Military District further north. In my opinion, Russia is building an "Iron Curtain 2.0" in terms of military defense from the Black Sea to the Arctic. Russia has been invaded by the West too many times. They don't intend to let it happen again.
But I could be wrong. Putin could be that stupid. I don't think the Russian General Staff is. I suspect they're told him in no uncertain terms that since his dumb deal in March, 2022, failed, he'd better listen to them. And they've told him what I said - it has to be done for objective military reasons.
In short, Russia's objective national security interests require that Ukraine be taken off the board entirely - leaving no part of Ukraine susceptible to manipulation by the West against Russia.
As for the "big boys" controlling the conflict, the only people in charge in Washington and Israel have decided that this is the moment to take out of their enemies at once - and they're not going to stop until they are defeated by the Axis of Resistance.
Any other belief is "hopium". I suggest you listen to Alastair Crooke as he and Pepe Escobar are the only two who have the Big Picture.
Thank you! I also follow Crooke and Escobar with some regularity, but I follow so many different news facts, opinions, substacks, Russian telegram channels, China square, Iranian and Palestinian news channels, that I sometimes have to skip something.
Just as the West believed in its invincibility for decades and disarmed itself, I think it is an illusion that they can destroy the so-called “axle of evil”.
I try to use my own “common sense” for as long as possible and probably also suffer from wishful thinking and above all as the last of the pacifists I am a “peace nik” :)
I agree that the West can not destroy the Axis.
I try to limit the amount of foreign policy material I consume, sometimes unsuccessfully. My Substack is supposed to be about other things, but it's ended up discussing foreign policy more often than I desired.
I've never been a "peace-nik" - which is usually defined as someone who hopes for peace beyond all reason for believing it will happen - rather than someone who rationally prefers peace. Plus my bias is against the human species, so I have to be careful I don't go overboard on expecting war.
In the case of Ukraine, I initially throughout 2021 did not expect Russia to invade unless Ukraine attacked Donbass - which, of course, Ukraine did in February, 2022, by escalating artillery attacks in preparation for an attack.
After that, I expected Russia to annihilate Ukraine - which didn't happen. Once I was apprised of the reasons for that, I adjusted my expectations.
When the peace initiative was proposed in Istanbul, I was pissed at Putin for essentially losing the war.
Then I was apprised of the Aegis Ashore installations and that's when I revamped my expectations of what Russia would do.
So it's a matter of taking in as much context as possible and then using common sense to conclude what the parties will do based on their stated as well as objective interests. I usually phrase this as: "What would I do if I were them?"
So it's usually relatively easy to discern the overall purpose of the parties and their intentions and emotional drives. Where it gets difficult is to assess the impact of specific events on those intentions and whether the event is sufficiently important to derail those ultimate intentions.
This is where Crooke and Escobar come in. They're very good on background context and the motivations of the parties because they talk to those parties directly. The rest of the "Judge Nap" crowd don't do that. They make their assessments based more on current events - and they mostly have a US bias. They're right about most things, but tend to be unable to deal with the emotional intentions of the parties because of a "rational interests" bias that comes from being in intelligence work. Unfortunately, many of the parties involved are not rational.
It was Crooke who first clued me in to the level of irrationality on the part of the Israelis back in October. I already knew the Zionist motivations, and I already knew the motivations of the neocons. But I didn't know the level of crazy the Israelis were at.
Escobar has a close ear to the motivations and intentions of the Russians, as does Gilbert Doctorow (although much of his information comes from watching Russian television which I don't think is as reliable as Pepe's contacts with actual Russian officials.) Pepe also goes everywhere and talks to everyone. His own takes I don't always agree with but his value is his reporting on what the players are actually saying and doing.
Right now I'm trying to interpret why the Israeli attack on Iran was so lame. It makes no sense. I predicted "go big or go home" - apparently the Israelis "went home." That's not right. Something is off. Either my assessment is simply wrong or something has constrained the Israelis. Or something else is happening we haven't seen yet.
Only to someone living on public assistance lacking any financial perspective.
The dollar was, is and will continue to be the linchpin behind US global dominance.
Any weakness in demand, even a few billion, will force the Fed to buy the issue.
This will cause a divergence in interest demanded, (artificially) bid, with obvious spillover to inflation and supply.
Slowly slowly catchy monkey.
WTF does have to do with anything I said? Yes, the US economy is going to go down the tubes. That's in five or ten years. We have a Middle East war about to start now which will be the proximate cause of that decline. But it also means a couple million people die. Russia and China can prevent that by acting now, not later.
IMO, you'll disagree with Orlov's take on the West Asian issue, but IMO you still need to hear and consider it, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m0u8jI6SwQ8
Just listening to this right now:
Richard D. Wolff & Michael Hudson | BRICS Shocker: Russia, China & Iran Ready to Face Off w/ the US!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fsX_z9nzRao
Hudson and Wolff take on the BRICS conclusion - and they aren't happy so far (I'm 33 minutes in). Hudson actually used the term "kumbayah" and he was clearly irritated at how none of the Arab states wanted to even discuss the Israeli genocide. Wolff says "no one wants to be on the receiving end on an Israeli missile attack with the support of the US" and no one wants to deal with someone who is "crazy" - so everyone shies away from "becoming another Lebanon."
They mostly complained about how the BRICS countries have internal issues that those countries don't seem to be addressing - both the US and the BRICS countries. Wolff predicts a US civil war. Hudson is saying that BRICS needs to understand that it has to rebuild civilization and that it needs to recognize that the West won't allow that. So the question will be: How does BRICS deal with that (without WWIII)? Hudson says this implies his version of economics and that Russia and China avoided saying that because it would scare a lot of the BRICS countries.
Interesting, but not immediately relevant to me compared to the problem of BRICS basically totally avoiding the Middle East conflict.
The problem they had in their chat was not knowing what was said by BRICS leaders in the Expanded session as only Putin's and Xi's words were widely published and I provided. Then they didn't have any idea what happened in the Partners meeting and the presser afterwards, which I know from direct communication with Dr. Hudson. I conducted a search to find translated video of both sessions but came up empty yesterday. Hopefully, that will soon change. The Kazan Declaration includes the usual denunciations of the violence in the Levant but refrains from directly calling out the genocidalists. As you'll have seen later in the chat, Wolff provides a different explanation as does Orlov which may seem cynical but at a strategic level makes sense. We see and judge things from our perspective while trying to understand those same things from other's perspectives. I did note that neither Putin nor Orlov said anything about Russia's many dual citizens still residing within Occupied Palestine nor the Constitutional mandate to somehow protect their interests.
As to the latter, it would be interesting to see what Russia would be willing to do to "protect" those 1.3 million Russian Jews.
Someone said Russia has asked them to leave Israel. In my view, if they don't, Russia should wash their hands of them, Russian legalities notwithstanding.
Conversely, Russia could declare hostile relations with Israel just as it did with Ukraine over the Donbass residents. The problem with that is there is no guarantee the Russian Jews in Israel would accept that, and there would be huge international law issues were Russia to intervene on that basis, just as there was in the Ukraine invasion. Putin being a stickler for international law, I suspect that would go no where.
Still haven't seen the Orlov interview - I have two stacked up on the hard drive: Orlov's and Johnson's interview with Crooke on Counter Currents. The Crooke one will come first.
I'll check it out.
So BRICS has that fatal flaw the the UNSC has, the power of Veto.
Putin to me seemed to be extremely polite in most of his answers almost to the point of being politcally correct.
My guess is that behind the scenes Putin/Xi are playing a game few can discern, otherwise most of the world is being led down a path of disaster.
The USUKIS axis of evil cannot be negotiated with, WWIII has already started
I suggest reading some other recaps of the Summit, those at MoA and by Simplicius for starters.