"withdrawal of the nuclear arsenal from the United States"
That whole concept rendered his entire article useless. But then he has zero military background, so it surprises me that Martyanov takes him seriously (apparently because the guy has a physics degree, whoop-de-do.)
US nukes may be "ossified", but they still work. It may be possible for Russia to survive a US nuclear attack and be able to rebuild (China certainly could given its size and population), but I'm sure no one in Russia wants to find out.
This relates to Scott Ritter losing it completely about how we were "all going to die on Saturday" if the US military hadn't advised Biden to drop the long-range Ukraine missile idea. Putin isn't going to nuke the US because a couple Storm Shadow missiles land in Moscow. Putin is not an idiot and doesn't want WWIII any more than anyone else outside of the US neocon crazies. What Putin would do is bring the hammer down on Ukraine (finally), and possibly take out some airfields in Poland and Romania - and if he's smart, use the opportunity to take out the Aegis Ashore installations there, too.
I notice this guy suggests that Russia doesn't want western Ukraine. He's like Martyanov in that respect: western Ukrainians hate Russia, so he hates western Ukrainians, and he assumes the Russian military planners don't want western Ukraine. None of that follows. It's not a question of what Russia "wants" - it's a question of military necessity. But again, this guy has no military background so understanding why it's important to put your air defenses as close to the enemy's launch points escapes him.
This is what happens one allows emotional issues to cloud one's analysis - as it did with Ritter.
It’s a lot more than ten years, but at least they have realised it’s time to panick over the implications of the failure of the US to contain AA and the wider impliations for regional stability
This is Kuwait media, one can imagine the most pro US it is possible to be even more pro US than the US
« The United States, alongside the Muslim Brotherhood—whose actions led to the ousting of Ali Abdullah Saleh without fully grasping the consequences—shares considerable responsibility. This is not to exonerate the former Yemeni president from his numerous mistakes. Notably, the actions of the Brotherhood have inadvertently benefited the Houthis—and by extension, Iran. Through all this, the United States remains a passive observer, undervaluing Yemen’s strategic significance, seemingly indifferent to the prospect of northern Yemen transforming into an Iranian military outpost, staffed predominantly by teenagers armed with Kalashnikovs, ignorant of their own homeland’s heritage. A fundamental question lingers after 10 years of Houthi rule in Sana’a: Have they succeeded in completely dismantling Yemen’s tribal structure, or does the tribe still retain a role that might resurface in a society far more resilient to change than Iran anticipates? »
« Senior official in Houthi Ansar Allah moverment : Group ready to send hundreds of thousands of operatives to Lebanon in case of escalation between Israel and Hizbullah’
« On September 16, 2024, the Hamas-affiliated Shehab News Agency published[1] a statement it obtained from Nasreddin Amer, deputy information minister of Yemen's Iran-backed Ansar Allah Movement (the Houthis), about the group's ongoing confrontation with Israel.
Referring to the group's September 15 ballistic missile attack on Israel[2], Amer stated that the operation was not part of the response to Israel's July 20 airstrikes on Yemen's Hodeida port.[3] Mentioning the Houthis' July 19 drone attack which killed an Israeli civilian in Tel Aviv[4], he asserted that those attacks were not "orphan" retaliation strikes, but rather part of an ongoing campaign aimed at stopping the "aggression" on Gaza. He added that the group was actively working to expand its capabilities to strike any target within "occupied Palestine."
Regarding Israel's threats to escalate its confrontation with Lebanese Hizbullah, Amer assured that Hizbullah was fully capable of "painfully" striking the "Zionist enemy," adding that the Houthis would support Hizbullah in such a scenario. He further claimed that if needed, the Houthis were ready to send "hundreds of thousands" of trained operatives to Lebanon, and stated: "We will support [Hizbullah] in the same way we support our brothers in the resistance in Palestine, as our stance is based on faith principles."
AA will go down in history as Lions Of The Desert.
If they send hundreds of thousands to Lebanon they will swarm across the river and end the Zionist filth. The ZioNAZis have created a nightmare for themselves.
Ansarallah has long shown to have its strategic compass in order. They exposed the vast military weakness of the Saudis and Emirates along with the lameness of Outlaw US Empire weaponry of all sorts. I'm guessing but their fighting ability must be admired by the Russians and Chinese. Clearly, the Empire does as well since it refuses to invade it with a marine force, which once upon a time would be a no-brainer response. Ansarallah are people you want on your team--a truth its opponents have learned the hard way.
Thanks Karl, I find the logic highly plausible. The elites in the US will use any WMD to maintain their hegemony over the global majority. I think you covered the decline of US nuclear weapons in an earlier piece, and seeing UK trident test fails that too is plausible.
Now it looks like a race towards outright fascist dictatorship and disintegration of the Union. And possibly a bit of both meaning civil war. And why not? Most of the European states are under economic strain that can spread into sectarian violence, and once that path is opened (even if manipulated) outcomes become uncertain.
Russia could be an example of how a multi-ethnic state can function when the Russian core is strong. The west has become vacuous, it's core is neoliberalism having completely subsumed all other values to "money" and profit.
It's the entire anglo-sphere I'm afraid, the same money changers mostly control media, banking, and government. Recently three Labor luminaries, Keating, Gareth Evens, and Bob Carr have been outspoken on the danger of AUKUS and purchasing subs. Unfortunately there's a shortage of people like Chifley or Curtin to reclaim some level of sovereign control.
i found this fellow Timofey Sergeitsev's article a worthwhile read.. i got a bit confused his use of the term communism at first, but worked it out over the course of the article... he may very well be right about what happens with the nuclear weapons and it did remind me of your article on them from a month or two back..
it seems to me we are entering a more dangerous phase and in some ways it is directly associated with the usa election in november... lets hope for the best but it is hard to see it here..
Nima had Hudson and Stein on today, although I spent my hour watching his earlier talk with Pepe. I'll likely watch tomorrow unless that transcript gets posted, then I'll read. Sergeitsev has quite a number of articles, and then there's the club he belongs to that has tacit sanction by Russia's government. HIs historical perspective was interesting to digest. Given the topic of propaganda, this article in relation to the attack on RT is curious, https://www.rt.com/news/604221-us-losing-monopoly-sanctions-rt/
thanks for pointing out this additional article karl, as it is quite fascinating, juxtaposing it to a previous era as the author of this article has done... cheers james!
Very interesting take on military power and state building. It’s hard to argue with the point that traders have rented the US military for their own ends, procurement is similarly compromised with profits not capabilities prioritized, and that it cannot reconstitute itself if led thusly... yes the US has nuclear weapons aplenty but our arms manufacturing is both extremely concentrated and dispersed in highly vulnerable ways. If we are serious about fighting a kinetic war with Russia everything needs to be moved underground and deep... but how can we do that when the supply chains are so long? Los Alamos is currently unable to produce a new plutonium pit. The land based portion of the triad is of questionable readiness.
Politicians talk about fighting wars that we are nowhere near prepared for and our adversaries have so many ways to hurt us. No one seems to be talking about this, although it seems that the military may finally have clipped the dual citizen war cabinet’s wings when it comes to Hizbullah...
1 “And sooner or later they [the world] will stop feeding the dragon.” “… the withdrawal of the nuclear arsenal from the United States”
Wishful thinking: offer a single static mental impression of complex processes and call for its magical enaction. This is the metaphor of patterned paint. Dip your brush in one of the patterned paint pots - checkers, fractals, paisley, rainbow - slosh it on a surface, and the pattern magically emerges. A pattern emerges from the arrangement of its particulars. If you don’t actually arrange its particulars or components, no pattern can emerge.
2 Historically almost inevitable development: exclusive in-group few usurping rule on behalf of a collective self-regulating mutualist governance. Oligarchic rule and collective political self-regulation are mutually exclusive. The first rule of rulers is keep-rule. Hence a trend towards fascistic governance.
Chinese governance is attempting to avoid this historical trap through ‘socialism with Chinese characteristics’, making individual welfare, moderate prosperity for all a paramount purpose of governance, and fostering a public service ethic as the norm. Corruption and abuse of office are to be tackled mainly through public vigilance and continuous audit.
3 The rulers of the ‘West’ think and perform under a superstitious disorder: obsessional, compulsive addiction to belligerence. Obsessive: must think about it [competing, fighting]; compulsive: must do it [cause trouble, initiate wars]. Plus tabus - mustn’t think about it; mustn’t do it [mutualism, co-operate]. This condition is self-reinforcing, recursive. Obsession/compulsion is obsessively compulsive - there’s no escape.
The rest of the world is avoiding this mental derangement by instituting and practising mutual aid, co-operation, win-win interactions.
Sometimes all this becomes somewhat overwhelming. In such moments I have learned that it is best to keep silent and to get some more sleep so as to wake up with a clearer head and a clear sky.
Thanks Karl for picking this up and opening to discussion
Martyanov is often blunt and brutal but here he found something more sophisticated, even if it disagrees with most western attitudes
This is extremely interesting as a case of non Communist, non traditionalist critique of the inevitable failure of capitalism, what might be called a Russian new wave civilisational way of thought
As employed by President Putin, a fusion of state directed traditional collectivism and autonomy centric practices with a market and consumer economy
The destruction of the US nuclear arms has it seems been largely achieved by the US itself - if the reports of hundreds of billion dollar restorations are true, and the lack of skills to do so
This is of course in line with the author's argument
The westerners underestimate the sort of collapse which is becoming visible - hundreds of years of US exceptionalism does not disappear easily or quickly, but disappear it will
This is the long view, this will not happen tomorrow but the day after
VVP and Xi will be long gone, and so will the kind of thinking that promotes US everlasting power
The neoconservative philosophy is born out of Marxism. Irving Kristol, William "Bill" Krystol's father was a Marxist till its promised fruits didn't materialize as Marx envisioned. He exchanged orthodox Marxism for a new form of collective utopianism pushed by US government power. His ideas were anti-Stalinist but no less dependent on collective government control than Marxism or fascism. His ideas led to the Liberty-Hawks who became Neocons. Bill Krystol is an apple that didn't fall far from the tree.
It is also why people like Herbert Marcuse could work with neocons in whatever iteration they manifest in. And it is why the 1,800 plus literal Nazis brought to the US post WWII had no real problem working in the US government. The only real criteria for success was exchanging German prosperity for US prosperity. All of these groups: neocons, cultural-Marxists, and fascists want collective control to force utopia on others. They all want to consolidate power in their pursuit of a modern Tower of Babel.
The US government has been the dominant player in the economy since WWII, being at least a 50% controller of it. That is by definition fascism - State control without overt ownership. It dovetails perfectly with cultural-Marxism which seeks the same hegemony. Modern Communism based on cultural-Marxism. Fascism. Both apply.
This is a very good article. Sergeitsev gets the implication of an unfettered US. If the US has nukes and a will to power, then no nation is safe. To takes the nukes the US controls is no easy matter. Such an assertion foreshadows a much greater conflict than the US manifest in Ukraine. Perhaps it can be done through a ling game through organizations like BRICS. I doubt it though.
They who? Stalin was anti-Trotsky. Many supporters of Marxism were (are) anti-Stalin because they felt he distorted it. So, many orthodox Msrxists looked around for a more functional approach.
It's an interesting point; the journey from Marxism-Leninism-Stalinism. Hudson and Graeber looked at the issue from the pov of the "money lenders" as the final arbiters and allocators of resources, hence real power. There's certainly some colour to be had attributing the root to marxism, but I think that's too limiting.
The root is not Marxism per se. Marxism and, fascism, neoconservatism, and several other political systems share a basic construct they attempt to use force, through centralized power, to achieve a collective good whether the collective wants it or not. Many early neocons (before the term was coined) were, like you point out, aligned with Trotskyist ideology, although not all. The point is that many of the ideologies that are framed as being at odds because they are right or left of each other, are in fact compatible, sharing similar or identical approaches to power. Often what differences exist are more of style than substance.
I agree, the power brokers behind them manipulate some of them. Most ideologues do not need manipulation though, at least not the ideologues at the top. They are true believers - self-motivated. The power brokers take advantage of existing predilections as often as they create them. That is, they are opportunistic and predatory. They have no issue eating carrion or hunting for fresh meet.
Great article. thank you. From what I have been able to gather the West has been after Russia's natural bounty since their overthrow of the Czar in the February 1917 revolution. In October the people took it away from the plutocrats in the October 1917 revolution the plutocrats sent in troops from around 20 countries to try to take it back and haven't let up since.
I agree with the author's analysis of the problem and possible solutions, but I find his opinion of the end of the USSR wanting and politically wrong. For one thing, he was outside of the USSR during crucial years. For another, he ignores the weight of fighting the US during the Cold War that exacted enormous resources from the Russian people. Add to that the Chernobyl disaster and the war in Afghanistan, the Russian communist experiment was crushed. Of course, there was always the negative of a sclerotic leadership and Stalin's paranoia, but the Soviet Union was violently opposed by the West ever since the beginning of the USSR, a fact which detrimentally affected the experiment.
Why the USSR failed has many answers, problems at the outset combined with problems along the way. What Team Putin has done over the last 25 years shows what was possible during the Soviet Age but was never pursued for a variety of reasons. But we no longer need to worry about keeping the USSR viable. What we need to determine is how to defeat the Outlaw US Empire without using nukes or other WMDs--IMO, that's the #1 challenge, along with ousting Zionism from the planet. IMO, that latter task needs to be done first.
"The big exception seems to be the Old Europe core—France, Italy and Germany. Their internal politics could do great damage to the Empire’s attempt to go to war directly with Russia."
I respectfully disagree: most of the political class in these countries consists of vassals of the Outlaw US Empire (or Great Satan, using Ayatollah Khomeini's definition), unless you are referring to the peace-loving peoples of these countries!
But of course I refer to the plebs, the sans culets, the hoi polloi, the people being ousted from their longstanding jobs because of EU/NATO policy--the centuries-old German beer industry is dying due to EO/NATO policy as is the entire European automotive industry, to name just two. The obvious choice will be nationalist political parties that want to exit EU/NATO, which is why those parties are being demonized by the Liberal Dictatorship.
I agree with the author's analysis of the problem and possible solutions, but I find his opinion of the end of the USSR wanting and politically wrong. For one thing, he was outside of the USSR during crucial years. For another, he ignores the weight of fighting the US during the Cold War that exacted enormous resources from the Russian people. Add to that the Chernobyl disaster and the war in Afghanistan, the Russian communist experiment was crushed. Of course, there was always the negative of a sclerotic leadership and Stalin's paranoia, but the Soviet Union was violently opposed by the West ever since the beginning of the USSR, a fact which detrimentally affected the experiment.
Another factor is that the US took its position at the end of WWII to economically dominate the globe. When it went off the Gold Standard in the 1970s, it developed a finance system that allowed it almost unlimited resources to spend on its military. Thus, it was able to outspend the USSR in every field of military and society. For the moment, it still has access to global resources—in many ways, the current wars are a move to maintain that access. However, we see that this scam is coming to an end.
The machine translation is very bad. eg ""Russia will have to withdraw nuclear weapons from the United States"" is not a correct translation and makes no sense in English.
The article would make more sense if it was translated properly and the right words used. On top of that the narrative / ideas and text jumps all over the place and is disjointed. Lacks support for some claims assertions. And what is it even saying over all? It does not really add up to anything much.
It's Putin, Lavrov, Medvedev, or Dugin in a new voice. There's nothing grand about it.
The US is rotten to the core and dysfunctional and must be militarily defeated and then forcibly broken up as threat to world peace - we know that. Tell me something I didn't know about the US delinquency, or Russian perspective of trying to deal with it? There are far easier ways to say this than what is copied to here above.
The article was written for Russians - I do not see much use for it in the west or for myself. It says nothing I didn't already know - and it's various conjectures prognoses (those I can rely upon) are fine but far from unique or earth shattering new. I do not see the point of this at all. I am none the wiser and trying to follow the story or get some value insights out of it was a pain.
Whatever is going to go down in the USA in the future, re war with Russia, this article seems of little to no use at all. Again it would be nice if it was translated correctly - the parts that are clear offer nothing new or exceptional even in Russian circles.
"withdrawal of the nuclear arsenal from the United States"
That whole concept rendered his entire article useless. But then he has zero military background, so it surprises me that Martyanov takes him seriously (apparently because the guy has a physics degree, whoop-de-do.)
US nukes may be "ossified", but they still work. It may be possible for Russia to survive a US nuclear attack and be able to rebuild (China certainly could given its size and population), but I'm sure no one in Russia wants to find out.
This relates to Scott Ritter losing it completely about how we were "all going to die on Saturday" if the US military hadn't advised Biden to drop the long-range Ukraine missile idea. Putin isn't going to nuke the US because a couple Storm Shadow missiles land in Moscow. Putin is not an idiot and doesn't want WWIII any more than anyone else outside of the US neocon crazies. What Putin would do is bring the hammer down on Ukraine (finally), and possibly take out some airfields in Poland and Romania - and if he's smart, use the opportunity to take out the Aegis Ashore installations there, too.
I notice this guy suggests that Russia doesn't want western Ukraine. He's like Martyanov in that respect: western Ukrainians hate Russia, so he hates western Ukrainians, and he assumes the Russian military planners don't want western Ukraine. None of that follows. It's not a question of what Russia "wants" - it's a question of military necessity. But again, this guy has no military background so understanding why it's important to put your air defenses as close to the enemy's launch points escapes him.
This is what happens one allows emotional issues to cloud one's analysis - as it did with Ritter.
Thanks for replying. Your work got some love at MoA. I'm curious about the club he belongs to and will look into its other members and their writings.
"But then he has zero military background"
Nor do you. You are nothing but a common criminal, a felon, and a blowhard.
And a cowardly, weak, compliant clot shot accepting sheep. Baaa baaaa.
Grr - ignore the doomers and the ignorant - rather follow the constant progress the AA are making in West Asia
See how how such a 'tiny' force from such as 'tiny' country can defeat the US and chase them out
Arab panick and rejection of US over Ansar Allah spreads, as AA spreads throughout the region
« Ten years of Houthi-Iranian presence in Yemen
Sept 13 2024
https://themedialine.org/mideast-mindset/10-years-of-houthi-iranian-presence-in-yemen/
It’s a lot more than ten years, but at least they have realised it’s time to panick over the implications of the failure of the US to contain AA and the wider impliations for regional stability
This is Kuwait media, one can imagine the most pro US it is possible to be even more pro US than the US
« The United States, alongside the Muslim Brotherhood—whose actions led to the ousting of Ali Abdullah Saleh without fully grasping the consequences—shares considerable responsibility. This is not to exonerate the former Yemeni president from his numerous mistakes. Notably, the actions of the Brotherhood have inadvertently benefited the Houthis—and by extension, Iran. Through all this, the United States remains a passive observer, undervaluing Yemen’s strategic significance, seemingly indifferent to the prospect of northern Yemen transforming into an Iranian military outpost, staffed predominantly by teenagers armed with Kalashnikovs, ignorant of their own homeland’s heritage. A fundamental question lingers after 10 years of Houthi rule in Sana’a: Have they succeeded in completely dismantling Yemen’s tribal structure, or does the tribe still retain a role that might resurface in a society far more resilient to change than Iran anticipates? »
« Senior official in Houthi Ansar Allah moverment : Group ready to send hundreds of thousands of operatives to Lebanon in case of escalation between Israel and Hizbullah’
Sept 18 2024
https://www.memri.org/jttm/senior-official-houthi-ansar-allah-movement-group-ready-send-hundreds-thousands-operatives
« On September 16, 2024, the Hamas-affiliated Shehab News Agency published[1] a statement it obtained from Nasreddin Amer, deputy information minister of Yemen's Iran-backed Ansar Allah Movement (the Houthis), about the group's ongoing confrontation with Israel.
Referring to the group's September 15 ballistic missile attack on Israel[2], Amer stated that the operation was not part of the response to Israel's July 20 airstrikes on Yemen's Hodeida port.[3] Mentioning the Houthis' July 19 drone attack which killed an Israeli civilian in Tel Aviv[4], he asserted that those attacks were not "orphan" retaliation strikes, but rather part of an ongoing campaign aimed at stopping the "aggression" on Gaza. He added that the group was actively working to expand its capabilities to strike any target within "occupied Palestine."
Regarding Israel's threats to escalate its confrontation with Lebanese Hizbullah, Amer assured that Hizbullah was fully capable of "painfully" striking the "Zionist enemy," adding that the Houthis would support Hizbullah in such a scenario. He further claimed that if needed, the Houthis were ready to send "hundreds of thousands" of trained operatives to Lebanon, and stated: "We will support [Hizbullah] in the same way we support our brothers in the resistance in Palestine, as our stance is based on faith principles."
AA will go down in history as Lions Of The Desert.
If they send hundreds of thousands to Lebanon they will swarm across the river and end the Zionist filth. The ZioNAZis have created a nightmare for themselves.
Popcorn is ready.....
Ansarallah has long shown to have its strategic compass in order. They exposed the vast military weakness of the Saudis and Emirates along with the lameness of Outlaw US Empire weaponry of all sorts. I'm guessing but their fighting ability must be admired by the Russians and Chinese. Clearly, the Empire does as well since it refuses to invade it with a marine force, which once upon a time would be a no-brainer response. Ansarallah are people you want on your team--a truth its opponents have learned the hard way.
Yes indeed- hard not to admire AA
I believe it is not Iran that provides fancy missiles to AA but Kim, Nth K, with Irani logistical help
The only other country and government to show longlasting determined autonomy and refusal to compromise as well as great inventiveness at survival
Interesting hypothesis. No wonder Kim and Shoigu were laughing and dancing.
why such a hostile attitude?? did someone run you over or cut you off, on the way to the comment section??
Thanks Karl, I find the logic highly plausible. The elites in the US will use any WMD to maintain their hegemony over the global majority. I think you covered the decline of US nuclear weapons in an earlier piece, and seeing UK trident test fails that too is plausible.
Now it looks like a race towards outright fascist dictatorship and disintegration of the Union. And possibly a bit of both meaning civil war. And why not? Most of the European states are under economic strain that can spread into sectarian violence, and once that path is opened (even if manipulated) outcomes become uncertain.
Russia could be an example of how a multi-ethnic state can function when the Russian core is strong. The west has become vacuous, it's core is neoliberalism having completely subsumed all other values to "money" and profit.
When I read it the first time, I was thinking his notion of American Nazism was an apt description. I'm glad I live in a quiet part of rural Oregon.
It's the entire anglo-sphere I'm afraid, the same money changers mostly control media, banking, and government. Recently three Labor luminaries, Keating, Gareth Evens, and Bob Carr have been outspoken on the danger of AUKUS and purchasing subs. Unfortunately there's a shortage of people like Chifley or Curtin to reclaim some level of sovereign control.
I found Mr. Sergeitsev's article interesting and some of his points quite original. Thanks for posting it Karl.
thanks karl.. i agree with your last sentence...
i found this fellow Timofey Sergeitsev's article a worthwhile read.. i got a bit confused his use of the term communism at first, but worked it out over the course of the article... he may very well be right about what happens with the nuclear weapons and it did remind me of your article on them from a month or two back..
it seems to me we are entering a more dangerous phase and in some ways it is directly associated with the usa election in november... lets hope for the best but it is hard to see it here..
Nima had Hudson and Stein on today, although I spent my hour watching his earlier talk with Pepe. I'll likely watch tomorrow unless that transcript gets posted, then I'll read. Sergeitsev has quite a number of articles, and then there's the club he belongs to that has tacit sanction by Russia's government. HIs historical perspective was interesting to digest. Given the topic of propaganda, this article in relation to the attack on RT is curious, https://www.rt.com/news/604221-us-losing-monopoly-sanctions-rt/
thanks for pointing out this additional article karl, as it is quite fascinating, juxtaposing it to a previous era as the author of this article has done... cheers james!
Very interesting take on military power and state building. It’s hard to argue with the point that traders have rented the US military for their own ends, procurement is similarly compromised with profits not capabilities prioritized, and that it cannot reconstitute itself if led thusly... yes the US has nuclear weapons aplenty but our arms manufacturing is both extremely concentrated and dispersed in highly vulnerable ways. If we are serious about fighting a kinetic war with Russia everything needs to be moved underground and deep... but how can we do that when the supply chains are so long? Los Alamos is currently unable to produce a new plutonium pit. The land based portion of the triad is of questionable readiness.
Politicians talk about fighting wars that we are nowhere near prepared for and our adversaries have so many ways to hurt us. No one seems to be talking about this, although it seems that the military may finally have clipped the dual citizen war cabinet’s wings when it comes to Hizbullah...
What a time to be alive!
1 “And sooner or later they [the world] will stop feeding the dragon.” “… the withdrawal of the nuclear arsenal from the United States”
Wishful thinking: offer a single static mental impression of complex processes and call for its magical enaction. This is the metaphor of patterned paint. Dip your brush in one of the patterned paint pots - checkers, fractals, paisley, rainbow - slosh it on a surface, and the pattern magically emerges. A pattern emerges from the arrangement of its particulars. If you don’t actually arrange its particulars or components, no pattern can emerge.
2 Historically almost inevitable development: exclusive in-group few usurping rule on behalf of a collective self-regulating mutualist governance. Oligarchic rule and collective political self-regulation are mutually exclusive. The first rule of rulers is keep-rule. Hence a trend towards fascistic governance.
Chinese governance is attempting to avoid this historical trap through ‘socialism with Chinese characteristics’, making individual welfare, moderate prosperity for all a paramount purpose of governance, and fostering a public service ethic as the norm. Corruption and abuse of office are to be tackled mainly through public vigilance and continuous audit.
3 The rulers of the ‘West’ think and perform under a superstitious disorder: obsessional, compulsive addiction to belligerence. Obsessive: must think about it [competing, fighting]; compulsive: must do it [cause trouble, initiate wars]. Plus tabus - mustn’t think about it; mustn’t do it [mutualism, co-operate]. This condition is self-reinforcing, recursive. Obsession/compulsion is obsessively compulsive - there’s no escape.
The rest of the world is avoiding this mental derangement by instituting and practising mutual aid, co-operation, win-win interactions.
Sometimes all this becomes somewhat overwhelming. In such moments I have learned that it is best to keep silent and to get some more sleep so as to wake up with a clearer head and a clear sky.
Later.
Thanks Karl for picking this up and opening to discussion
Martyanov is often blunt and brutal but here he found something more sophisticated, even if it disagrees with most western attitudes
This is extremely interesting as a case of non Communist, non traditionalist critique of the inevitable failure of capitalism, what might be called a Russian new wave civilisational way of thought
As employed by President Putin, a fusion of state directed traditional collectivism and autonomy centric practices with a market and consumer economy
The destruction of the US nuclear arms has it seems been largely achieved by the US itself - if the reports of hundreds of billion dollar restorations are true, and the lack of skills to do so
This is of course in line with the author's argument
The westerners underestimate the sort of collapse which is becoming visible - hundreds of years of US exceptionalism does not disappear easily or quickly, but disappear it will
This is the long view, this will not happen tomorrow but the day after
VVP and Xi will be long gone, and so will the kind of thinking that promotes US everlasting power
The neoconservative philosophy is born out of Marxism. Irving Kristol, William "Bill" Krystol's father was a Marxist till its promised fruits didn't materialize as Marx envisioned. He exchanged orthodox Marxism for a new form of collective utopianism pushed by US government power. His ideas were anti-Stalinist but no less dependent on collective government control than Marxism or fascism. His ideas led to the Liberty-Hawks who became Neocons. Bill Krystol is an apple that didn't fall far from the tree.
It is also why people like Herbert Marcuse could work with neocons in whatever iteration they manifest in. And it is why the 1,800 plus literal Nazis brought to the US post WWII had no real problem working in the US government. The only real criteria for success was exchanging German prosperity for US prosperity. All of these groups: neocons, cultural-Marxists, and fascists want collective control to force utopia on others. They all want to consolidate power in their pursuit of a modern Tower of Babel.
The US government has been the dominant player in the economy since WWII, being at least a 50% controller of it. That is by definition fascism - State control without overt ownership. It dovetails perfectly with cultural-Marxism which seeks the same hegemony. Modern Communism based on cultural-Marxism. Fascism. Both apply.
This is a very good article. Sergeitsev gets the implication of an unfettered US. If the US has nukes and a will to power, then no nation is safe. To takes the nukes the US controls is no easy matter. Such an assertion foreshadows a much greater conflict than the US manifest in Ukraine. Perhaps it can be done through a ling game through organizations like BRICS. I doubt it though.
Really, I thought they were former Trotskyists.
They who? Stalin was anti-Trotsky. Many supporters of Marxism were (are) anti-Stalin because they felt he distorted it. So, many orthodox Msrxists looked around for a more functional approach.
Here's a link, but ages ago I read that many neocons had previous histories as trots: https://etherzone.com/the-cult-of-power-from-leon-trotsky-to-paul-wolfowitz/
It's an interesting point; the journey from Marxism-Leninism-Stalinism. Hudson and Graeber looked at the issue from the pov of the "money lenders" as the final arbiters and allocators of resources, hence real power. There's certainly some colour to be had attributing the root to marxism, but I think that's too limiting.
The root is not Marxism per se. Marxism and, fascism, neoconservatism, and several other political systems share a basic construct they attempt to use force, through centralized power, to achieve a collective good whether the collective wants it or not. Many early neocons (before the term was coined) were, like you point out, aligned with Trotskyist ideology, although not all. The point is that many of the ideologies that are framed as being at odds because they are right or left of each other, are in fact compatible, sharing similar or identical approaches to power. Often what differences exist are more of style than substance.
I agree, the power brokers behind them manipulate some of them. Most ideologues do not need manipulation though, at least not the ideologues at the top. They are true believers - self-motivated. The power brokers take advantage of existing predilections as often as they create them. That is, they are opportunistic and predatory. They have no issue eating carrion or hunting for fresh meet.
Great article. thank you. From what I have been able to gather the West has been after Russia's natural bounty since their overthrow of the Czar in the February 1917 revolution. In October the people took it away from the plutocrats in the October 1917 revolution the plutocrats sent in troops from around 20 countries to try to take it back and haven't let up since.
I agree with the author's analysis of the problem and possible solutions, but I find his opinion of the end of the USSR wanting and politically wrong. For one thing, he was outside of the USSR during crucial years. For another, he ignores the weight of fighting the US during the Cold War that exacted enormous resources from the Russian people. Add to that the Chernobyl disaster and the war in Afghanistan, the Russian communist experiment was crushed. Of course, there was always the negative of a sclerotic leadership and Stalin's paranoia, but the Soviet Union was violently opposed by the West ever since the beginning of the USSR, a fact which detrimentally affected the experiment.
Why the USSR failed has many answers, problems at the outset combined with problems along the way. What Team Putin has done over the last 25 years shows what was possible during the Soviet Age but was never pursued for a variety of reasons. But we no longer need to worry about keeping the USSR viable. What we need to determine is how to defeat the Outlaw US Empire without using nukes or other WMDs--IMO, that's the #1 challenge, along with ousting Zionism from the planet. IMO, that latter task needs to be done first.
Excellent article! Withdrawall, suicide or nuclear War!?!? Maybe they learn soon, or ....
"The big exception seems to be the Old Europe core—France, Italy and Germany. Their internal politics could do great damage to the Empire’s attempt to go to war directly with Russia."
I respectfully disagree: most of the political class in these countries consists of vassals of the Outlaw US Empire (or Great Satan, using Ayatollah Khomeini's definition), unless you are referring to the peace-loving peoples of these countries!
But of course I refer to the plebs, the sans culets, the hoi polloi, the people being ousted from their longstanding jobs because of EU/NATO policy--the centuries-old German beer industry is dying due to EO/NATO policy as is the entire European automotive industry, to name just two. The obvious choice will be nationalist political parties that want to exit EU/NATO, which is why those parties are being demonized by the Liberal Dictatorship.
Chilling. I think both are insane, in response to your last paragraph. Loose cannons.
I agree with the author's analysis of the problem and possible solutions, but I find his opinion of the end of the USSR wanting and politically wrong. For one thing, he was outside of the USSR during crucial years. For another, he ignores the weight of fighting the US during the Cold War that exacted enormous resources from the Russian people. Add to that the Chernobyl disaster and the war in Afghanistan, the Russian communist experiment was crushed. Of course, there was always the negative of a sclerotic leadership and Stalin's paranoia, but the Soviet Union was violently opposed by the West ever since the beginning of the USSR, a fact which detrimentally affected the experiment.
Another factor is that the US took its position at the end of WWII to economically dominate the globe. When it went off the Gold Standard in the 1970s, it developed a finance system that allowed it almost unlimited resources to spend on its military. Thus, it was able to outspend the USSR in every field of military and society. For the moment, it still has access to global resources—in many ways, the current wars are a move to maintain that access. However, we see that this scam is coming to an end.
The machine translation is very bad. eg ""Russia will have to withdraw nuclear weapons from the United States"" is not a correct translation and makes no sense in English.
The article would make more sense if it was translated properly and the right words used. On top of that the narrative / ideas and text jumps all over the place and is disjointed. Lacks support for some claims assertions. And what is it even saying over all? It does not really add up to anything much.
It's Putin, Lavrov, Medvedev, or Dugin in a new voice. There's nothing grand about it.
The US is rotten to the core and dysfunctional and must be militarily defeated and then forcibly broken up as threat to world peace - we know that. Tell me something I didn't know about the US delinquency, or Russian perspective of trying to deal with it? There are far easier ways to say this than what is copied to here above.
The article was written for Russians - I do not see much use for it in the west or for myself. It says nothing I didn't already know - and it's various conjectures prognoses (those I can rely upon) are fine but far from unique or earth shattering new. I do not see the point of this at all. I am none the wiser and trying to follow the story or get some value insights out of it was a pain.
Whatever is going to go down in the USA in the future, re war with Russia, this article seems of little to no use at all. Again it would be nice if it was translated correctly - the parts that are clear offer nothing new or exceptional even in Russian circles.