Monthly Archives: May 2018

Eastern Europe Awakening

Has Europe Rebelled?

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Via Oriental Review,

Washington’s current foreign-policy practice is a bit reminiscent of the golden era of the Ottoman Sublime Porte, in the sense that any visit by a leader of a vassal state is seen as nothing more than an opportunity for a public demonstration of his willingness to serve the great sultan or, in the modern context, to do the bidding of the master of the White House.

The visitor must also wear a big grin and speak passionately about how happy he is to have been given the opportunity to kiss the Sultan’s slippers. Or, to put it in the language of today, to be impressed with the leadership of the US and personally inspired by the energy of the American president. The Washington establishment can’t wrap its head around any other configuration, and therefore in the present era of America’s ebbing hegemony, the ideal visitors to the White House are the presidents of Ukraine or the Baltic countries. The other heads of states that come to Washington, including EU leaders and even some African presidents, act like insolent upstarts, who — from the standpoint of imperial tradition — do not stand to attention, tend to offer their flattery without fervor or exuberance, and, most importantly, do not race off to fulfill the wishes of the leaders of the empire.

Reception ceremony of the Conte de Saint Priest at the Ottoman Porte by Antoine de Favray 1767

The meeting between German Chancellor Angela Merkel and US President Donald Trump on April 27, 2018 served only to confirm that Washington does not need allies who have their own national interests: all allies must be guided by the concept of the unipolar hegemony of the US. Anyone who is uncomfortable with this is relegated to the circle of those who are seen as unfriendly to the White House. The Washington Post makes it clear that Germany falls into this latter camp: “Angela Merkel is becoming Europe’s weakest link.”

That article points out how serious the differences are between the two countries’ ruling factions. Both Germany’s political elite, and as well as the German population as a whole, are characterized very disparagingly: “German passivity is deeply ingrained. Berlin’s political class lacks strategic thinking, hates risk and has little spunk. It hides behind its ignominious past to justify pacifism when it comes to hard questions about defense and security issues.” The general decrepitude of the Bundeswehr and its equipment are criticized and mocked in the discussion of Germany’s refusal to take part in the missile attack on Syria carried out by the US, Britain, and France. And then the article even alleges that Germany’s Syrian policy has actually abetted the wrong side by granting asylum to almost a million refugees fleeing that country, thus supposedly allowing Bashar al-Assad to continue fighting.

In this context it becomes quite obvious that the specific issues that Merkel brought to the table in Washington were merely secondary concerns to her American partner. Germany’s Madam Chancellor had to traverse a distance of 10,000 kilometers to be granted a 20-minute conversation, from which it was clear that Trump had not altered his negative attitude toward questions so vital to the Germans as customs duties on steel and aluminum (set at 25% and 10%), Nord Stream 2, a loosening of the Russian sanctions for major German manufacturers, or the nuclear deal with Iran.

Angela Merkel had a difficult choice to make. Either Berlin declares war on all of Washington’s opponents, or it is dismissed once and for all as the “weakest link,” with all the ensuing consequences. But the first option would be a blow to Germany’s national interests. It is not just its international trade that would take the hit, but also its energy projects and German public opinion. She was given to understand that otherwise Germany would fail to meet the White House’s criteria for the role of America’s main partner in Europe.

Angela Merkel did not seem overly impressed. She sees the constraints that exist for her. The historical memory of the greatest defeat of the twentieth century still lingers. Hence the high level of wariness when it comes to invitations to join NATO’s military escapades. Nor has anyone there forgotten the 1980s, when Germany lived in intense fear of the USSR’s SS-20 missiles that could have incinerated that country in the blink of an eye. Germans have no desire to meekly toe the line of yet another US president, which could end up taking them back to those days.

Apparently this is why the head of the German government seemed to have armored herself with the mantra of “don’t give anything to Trump” during the negotiations in Washington.

If you look at things pragmatically, Trump needed to get a few concessions from Merkel. First of all, he needed the consent of the German chancellor to at least bring back the sanctions and hopefully to even agree to a war against Iran, because for the current Washington administration, a dissolution of the “Iran deal” and a subsequent war with Tehran is the biggest item on its foreign-policy agenda. Second, Trump had to “squeeze” Merkel on the issue of increasing Germany’s financial contributions NATO’s budget. According to the White House, Germany should be contributing 2% of its annual GDP to the alliance’s budget (or in other words, to the backlog of product orders for the US military-industrial complex). As Trump expressed it so poetically, “NATO is wonderful, but it helps Europe more than it helps us, and why are we paying the vast majority of the costs?” Third, the US needed to ensure that European leaders, and especially Merkel, capitulate in the tariff wars between the US and the EU, and, in a best-case scenario, to also secure the EU’s assistance in the trade war with China that Trump recently kicked off.

Based on the results of the meeting, Washington received a polite refusal on all three points. Five years ago it would have been difficult to imagine this kind of situation, but now this is objectively the real-world state of affairs, and it is something that neither the political analysts in the US nor a significant faction of the European media class (which still views the European Union as a “big Puerto Rico”) can get used to. The significance of Puerto Rico is that it is a place outside the US borders, but that is in effect controlled from Washington, although it has no power to influence American policy. Incidentally, Washington’s official discourse in regard to the European Union has already undergone a radical transformation and, according to Trump himself, it seems that the EU was “formed to take advantage of the United States,” although prior to that the EU was painted in the official Western narrative exclusively in terms of its “ideals of freedom,” “protection of democracy,” and some kind of “pan-European destiny and values.”

The essence of today’s transatlantic relationship can be seen in the contacts between Washington and Paris. Despite the White House’s high hopes for France to prove its loyalty to the alliance, its leaders have been just as firm as Germany’s in standing up for their own interests. This mindset was evident in the stance taken by President Emmanuel Macron, who was quoted by Bloomberg as saying “we won’t talk about anything while there’s a gun pointed at our head.” European leaders insist that any discussions take place with everyone on an equal footing, which Washington cannot indulge as a matter of principle. Even lower-level European officials are using their economic power to threaten the US. French Economy Minister Bruno Le Maire claimed, “One thing I learned from my week in the U.S. with President Macron: The Americans will only respect a show of strength.” Needless to say, one does not speak to a real global hegemon in such terms.

No matter what the outcome of all the diplomatic and economic conflicts between the two shores of the Atlantic, it is already safe to say that Europe has broken free of Washington’s grip, and future relations between the US and the EU will become increasingly tense. We shall soon see whether Europe will take advantage of its current opportunity to reclaim the economic and political freedom that it lost at some point.

Military Affairs

Deep State, not Trump, is in Control of US, Russia is the Target – Assad

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Meeting with Donald Trump would be pointless because the deep state – not the president – controls the US, Bashar Assad said in an interview. He noted that the agenda of the deep state is to create conflict aimed against Russia.

In an exclusive interview with Athens daily Kathimerini, Assad said there was no reason to meet face-to-face with Trump, since the US president “says something today, and does the opposite tomorrow,” and is likely not even being in control of policy decisions.

“[W]e don’t think the president of that regime is in control,” Assad told the paper, referring to Trump. “We all believe that the deep state, the real state, is in control, or is in control of every president, and that is nothing new. It has always been so in the United States, at least during the last 40 years, at least since Nixon, maybe before, but it’s becoming starker and starker, and the starkest case is Trump.”

Assad also dismissed the possibility of a third world war breaking out in Syria, telling the Greek newspaper that Moscow’s levelheadedness has so far prevented a catastrophic escalation – even as the US aims to expand the conflict. Asked directly if he was concerned about the possibility of a third world war, Assad replied: “No, for one reason: Because fortunately, you have a wise leadership in Russia, and they know that the agenda of the deep state in the United States is to create a conflict. Since Trump’s campaign, the main agenda was against Russia, create a conflict with Russia, humiliate Russia, undermine Russia, and so on,” the Syrian president said.

Assad ended the interview by vowing to reunify Syria and restore its sovereignty, adding that the US, France, UK, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Turkey are ultimately responsible for the seven-year war and must be held accountable for supporting “terrorists” fighting in Syria.

Cultural/Ideological Divide

The West doth protest too much (about Russian protests)

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By Neil Clark

The condemnation by the EU, and others in the West, of police ‘violence’ at an unauthorised opposition rally in Russia, stands in stark contrast with the line taken when protesters are dealt with forcefully in Western countries.

“The detention of over a thousand demonstrators and violence used against them by the Russian authorities across the country today threaten the fundamental freedoms of expression, association and assembly in the Russian Federation,” the European Union said in response to events on Saturday.

Pretty principled stuff, eh? Unfortunately, principles go out of the window when the demonstrations take place closer to home. Think back to the anti-austerity protests which spread across Europe a few years ago.

An Amnesty International report in April 2014 found that the Spanish government was using fines, harassment, and excessive force to limit the right to protest.

“With threats of fines or threats of being beaten, the government is trying to stigmatise and criminalise people who are just practising their rights,” the report said.

It cited the case of one Ester Quintana, who was hit by a rubber bullet fired by the police, which caused her to lose her left eye.

‘The police act with complete impunity, while peaceful demonstrators and leaders of social movements are continually harassed, stigmatized, beaten, sometimes arrested to face criminal charges, imprisonment and fines.”Amnesty’s Europe and Central Asia deputy programme director, Jezerca Tigani, said.

Yet the police actions in Spain brought about no fierce condemnation from the EU, or indeed from others who are usually so quick to castigate Russia.

It was a similar story last October when there was a crackdown on pro-independence protesters in Catalonia. Nearly 900 people were injured, some seriously, in clashes with the authorities. “In several cases, the actions of National Police and Civil Guard officers involved excessive and unnecessary use of force, and the dangerous use of riot control equipment, injuring hundreds of peaceful protesters,” John Dalhuisen of Amnesty said.

Examples cited included one officer beating a woman round the neck and face on at least two occasions and another officer punching a man in the face.

The EU did issue a statement, but only 24 hours later. It’s instructive to compare its wording with the one it issued at the weekend about Russia.

It’s very first sentence declared: “Under the Spanish Constitution, yesterday’s vote in Catalonia was not legal.”

Only in the fourth and final paragraph was there an allusion to the protests – but there was no denunciation of the Spanish authorities. The statement said: “We call on all relevant players to now move very swiftly from confrontation to dialogue. Violence can never be an instrument in politics.”

So while the violence was directly laid at the door of the Russian authorities in one statement, in the other, it was presented as applying to “all relevant players.”

To literally add insult to injury, First Vice President of the European Commission Franz Timmerman declared: “It is a duty for any government to uphold the rule of law. This sometimes requires the proportionate use of force.”

But as we saw in Ukraine in 2014, some governments are more equal than others when it comes to being allowed to use “the proportionate use of force.” Hardcore ultra-nationalists and bona fide neo-Nazis provided the cutting edge to protests against the democratically-elected government of Viktor Yanukovych. But while it was OK for protesters to use violence, the government wasn’t supposed to respond. “This is Ukraine’s moment to meet the aspirations of its people or disappoint them,” declared Victoria Nuland of the US State Department.

Just imagine if protesters occupied or blocked government buildings in Washington, as they did in Kiev? You can be sure the US State Department’s line would be rather different.

The double standards are glaring and are there for all to see. Put simply, if the protests are against a government which the Western elites approve of, then brutality by the authorities will be ignored, or even justified, on the grounds that ‘law and order’ must be maintained. In this scenario, it’ll be the protesters who are smeared as ‘thugs’ and ‘anarchists’ – even if they’re all waving joss-sticks and are sandal-wearing disciples of Mahatma Gandhi. But if the protesters are demonstrating against an administration which the Western elites want removed, then anything goes. The protesters can be as violent as they like, they can smash up statues, or even in the case of the US-sponsored ‘regime change’ op against the Socialist government in Yugoslavia in 2000, set fire to government buildings, but they will never be condemned. In this scenario, it’s the government who will be warned: don’t you dare respond with force!

The hypocrisy over unauthorised protests is also off the scale. If I tried to organise, through social media, an unauthorised march against the NeoCon war lobby through central London culminating in a protest outside Parliament, I’d very likely be arrested. Here is the UK lawabout “letting the police know” about public marches.

It’s the same situation I’d imagine in all other Western nations. To hold a march you must notify the authorities and obtain official permission. But when this happens in Russia, there are expressions of outrage.

People should be able to protest where they want – say those who oppose such a right in their own country. In fact, the Russian authorities say they offered the anti-Putin demonstrators several choices of venue at the weekend, including Sakharov Avenue, where a big protest had already taken place earlier in the week. But opposition figure Alexei Navalny urged his supporters to go somewhere else.

Now, you can either support the right to protest anywhere, or you can oppose it. But what you can’t do – unless you’re a Weapons Grade hypocrite – is support the right to protest anywhere in Russia, but not the same right in Britain, France, or the US. The respective cases of Pussy Riot and Trenton Oldfield are illuminative.

The former were lauded in Western establishment circles after they were arrested and sentenced to two years in jail for bursting into Moscow’s Cathedral of Christ the Saviour and performing an obscenity-laden song which attacked the Orthodox Church’s support for Putin. Madonna, Sting, Peter Gabriel, and the Red Hot Chili Peppers were among the celebs who voiced their support for the “prisoners of conscience,” who were released before term.

There was no such support for Trenton Oldfield. If you haven’t heard of him, that’s not surprising because his case, unlike Pussy Riot’s, didn’t receive international coverage. The Australian was arrested after disrupting the annual Oxford vs. Cambridge Boat Race in London. Rightly or wrongly, he wanted to make a public statement about elitism and poverty – but didn’t get as much sympathy as the Russian punk-rockers. He went to prison for six months and was threatened with deportation.

“Britain was one of the first countries to come out in support of Pussy Riot — so we thought people would stand up for the same thing here,” Oldfield’s wife Deepa said in a newspaper interview.

But she was disappointed. Instead, she noted how politicians intervened to increase her husband’s charge.

If we are serious about protecting free speech then it’s not just about allowing people to protest. It’s about not denying them platforms either. While UK Neocons were attacking Russia for “anti-democratic clampdowns,” there was also glee from the same Neo-McCarthyite witch-hunters that the venue hosting a conference in Leeds critiquing mainstream media coverage of the Syrian conflict had bowed to pressure and decided to cancel the event.

Among the invited speakers were a former British ambassador and two university professors. Imagine the outcry if this blatant act of censorship had happened in Nizhny Novgorod. But it occurred in the UK, so let’s pretend not to notice. The sad truth is that the right to protest, the right to dissent, the right to espouse genuinely anti-Establishment views, is gravely threatened in the West. Before pointing our fingers at Russia, we need to get our own house in order. As the old proverb goes, Medice, cura te ipsum.

Follow Neil Clark @NeilClark66

Cultural/Ideological Divide

Karl Marx sacrificed logic on the altar of his desire for revolution

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Karl Marx sacrificed logic on the altar of his desire for revolution
Global Look Press

By Steve Keen

Karl Marx, the committed revolutionary, once proved that the revolution need not happen. What did he do next?

Marx was a committed revolutionary, so much so that when reflecting on his life, he said that if he had it all to do over again, he would still be a revolutionary but would not marry, to save his wife from having to suffer the privations of life with him.

There were, of course, many committed revolutionaries in the 19th century. What set Marx apart from them all was that he had proven that revolution not only would happen, but had to happen. It was inevitable.

And then, one day, he proved, using a significant advance in his own economics, that revolution did not have to happen: that the inexorable force he had believed pushed in that direction was the outcome of a flaw in his own theory. When the flaw was corrected, the force was gone, and not only was revolution not inevitable, it might not even be necessary. How do you think he reacted?

He fudged, of course.

He distorted his logic to hide the result, while still continuing to use, in all other respects, the blinding new insight that both extended his logic, and revealed the fatal flaw in his earlier beliefs.

I can vividly imagine when he came to these revelations, because they are recorded live in his own handwriting. It happened one day in January 1858, as he wrote what became known as The Grundrisse: the ‘rough notes’ of his re-readings of the great economists as preparation for writing his magnum opus, Capital. By sheer chance, as he was reading Quesnay, Smith, Ricardo, Malthus, and many more, a friend dropped in with Marx’s own annotated copy of his philosopher master Hegel’s treatise Logic. Marx re-read it, and he started doing something he hadn’t done in 13 years: he began to think and write like a Hegelian philosopher.

The change in the language is dramatic, like reading the gonzo journalist Hunter S Thompson as he transits from one drug (say, cocaine) to another (marijuana) over a few paragraphs.

Until this point, the Grundrisse reprised the dry logic and prose of his adopted Ricardian methodology. Using this logic, years earlier, Marx had answered a question that Ricardo himself had never solved: if everything was bought at its value, and sold at its value, how did capitalists make a profit?

Following Smith and Ricardo, Marx argued that the use-value of a commodity played no role in setting its price. Instead, for these classical economists, price was determined by the cost of production.The intersecting demand and supply curves of Marshall were not for them. Decades earlier, they asserted that the long-term cost of producing an item determined the price for which it was sold.

Demand, in effect, set quantity only: price was determined by the cost of production. That in turn resolved itself to the amount of labour used to produce something. As Smith famously said:

If among a nation of hunters, for example, it usually costs twice the labour to kill a beaver which it does to kill a deer, one beaver should naturally exchange for or be worth two deer. It is natural that what is usually the produce of two days’ or two hours’ labour, should be worth double of what is usually the produce of one day’s or one hour’s labour.

Ricardo elaborated this slightly, noting that:

“Suppose the weapon necessary to kill the beaver, was constructed with much more labour than was necessary to kill the deer… one beaver would naturally be of more value than two deer.”

But these were explanations of relative prices: they were not explanations of how those relative prices enabled capitalists to make a profit.

Smith and Ricardo simply assumed that they did: Marx proved that they did, by taking advantage of a unique characteristic of labour. For every other commodity, the buyer bought and got the commodity itself. But for labour, the capitalist buyer purchased labour-time: the capacity to work in a factory for, say 12 hours a day (a typical working day in Marx’s time). What he paid for this was the cost of production of the labourer him/herself: the means of subsistence. But these means of subsistence might only take, say, 6 hours of labour-time to produce. The gap between the amount paid to the worker (equivalent to six hours of labour) and the product enjoyed by its capitalist purchaser (12 hours of labour) was the source of the physical surplus of outputs over inputs generated in production, and this gap was unique to labour. In Marx’s words in 1847:

The labourer receives means of subsistence in exchange for his labour-power; the capitalist receives, in exchange for his means of subsistence, labour, the productive activity of the labourer, the creative force by which the worker not only replaces what he consumes, but also gives to the accumulated labour a greater value than it previously possessed.

With labour as the only source of surplus, and hence profit, Marx also hypothesized that competition between capitalists would lead to them mechanizing production more and more over time, leading to a higher ratio of machinery to labour (he called it the “organic composition of capital”) and therefore a lower rate of profit. Though he saw seven countervailing tendencies that might slow it down, this “Tendency for the Rate of Profit to Fall” was the inexorable force that Marx thought would lead, first to social conflict, then to the breakdown of capitalism, and finally to the rise of socialism. Whereas others before him had championed socialism as a preferable form of social organisation to capitalism, Marx believed he was the “Scientific Socialist” who had proven that socialism had to come about.

And then he re-read Hegel, re-acquainted himself with his dialectical philosophical roots, started writing in dialectical pairs, of foregrounds and backgrounds and unities, and found a far superior way to analyse capitalism.

This revolution in Marx’s thought was misunderstood by most Marxists. Some ignored it completely, and described it as Marx “coquetting [flirting] with the Hegelian mode of expression.” This is rather like physicists rejecting Einstein because he “coquetted with the quantum mechanics mode of expression” to solve the problem of the photovoltaic effect.

Others confused Marx’s approach with the mumbo jumbo of “thesis, antithesis, synthesis.” This is not only virtually impossible to pronounce (you try saying it five times in a row without sounding like Daffy Duck), let alone apply, but also it belongs to Fichte, not to Hegel or Marx.

Marx’s dialectic is best abbreviated as “Society-Unity-Foreground-Background-Tension.” Everything exists in a given society, and is a unity in its own right. But society will focus upon one aspect of that unity, bringing it into the foreground. That necessarily pushes the other aspects of the unity into the background. Since the unity can’t exist without its background as well as its foreground aspects, that sets up a tension, which can transform the unity, and perhaps society itself, over time. It’s a philosophy of change, and ideally suited as a foundation approach to analyzing the economy, in contrast to the stale equilibrium foundations of modern neoclassical economics.

Marx’s first appreciation of this technique occurs in a two-page-long footnote, which starts with this opening sentence on page 267 of the Penguin edition of The Grundrisse:

“* Is not value to be conceived as the unity of use value and exchange value? In and for itself, is value as such the general form, in opposition to use value and exchange value as particular forms of it? Does this have significance in economics?”

This insight became the foundation of his economics from this point forward. He could now justify the Classical School argument that commodities exchange at their cost of production. The commodity was the key social unity in capitalism, and it had two aspects, use-value and exchange-value. Capitalism focuses upon exchange value, putting that in the foreground, and use value in the background. The former determines the price paid for a commodity, the latter is what motivates the exchange in the first place: a seller parts with the use-value of a commodity, which he doesn’t need, to get its exchange-value, which he wants; the buyer pays its exchange-value and gets its use-value.

Marx’s immediate application of this insight was to develop a positive reason as to why labor was the source of profit: rather than relying on how labor differed from all other commodities, he now used what it had in common with them. Normally use-value is qualitative, and exchange-value is quantitative, and the two are incommensurable for that reason alone. But in production, the use-value that motivates the buyer to buy a commodity is quantitative: its capacity to produce other commodities for sale. With both use-value and exchange-value quantitative, there will be a difference between these two “intrinsically incommensurable magnitudes” (Capital I. Ch. 19) that is the source of surplus.

Marx’s best statement of this in relation to labor was in Capital I itself:

“The daily cost of maintaining it [Labour], and its daily expenditure in work, are two totally different things. The former determines the exchange-value of the labour power, the latter is its use-value. The fact that half a [working] day’s labour is necessary to keep the labourer alive during 24 hours, does not in any way prevent him from working a whole day… The seller of labour power, like the seller of any other commodity, realises its exchange value, and parts with its use-value.”

He thus had a far more satisfying, positive proof as to why Labour was a source of surplus. But was it the only source? What about machinery as well?

In the Grundrisse, when he was still enthralled by his new methodology, he applied it correctly to machinery:

“It also has to be postulated (which was not done above) that the use-value of the machine [is] significantly greater than its value; i.e. that its devaluation in the service of production is not proportional to its increasing effect on production.”

But Gadzooks! This means that machinery can be a source of surplus as well. And if so, then an increasing “organic composition of capital” has no implications for the levels of surplus and profit: they could go up just as well as go down when production became less labour-intensive. The “Tendency for the Rate of Profit to Fall” disappears. Socialism is no longer inevitable.

Marx’s reaction to this shock discovery was to employ verbal gymnastics until such a time that he could fool himself that he had reconciled the two approaches (I’ll spare you the details, but you can check them out here, here or here). He then set about fooling everyone else, and finally declared emphatically—and falsely—that:

However useful a given kind of raw material, or a machine, or other means of production may be, though it may cost £150… yet it cannot, under any circumstances, add to the value of the product more than £150.

With this false statement swallowed by Marx’s followers, the belief in the inevitability of socialism continued. Accidents of history led to his Russia’s Bolshevik followers attempting to impose socialism on feudal Russia, and the rest is a very unfortunate history.

Marx also ruined his intellectual legacy with this subterfuge. His most fervent followers continue to champion the “Labour Theory of Value,” ignoring what Marx saw as his major advance over Smith and Ricardo. Though Marx’s many political and social critiques of capitalism continue to resonate today, his analytic contribution was to hobble his successors with defending an inane approach to economics that stymies their ability to analyse capitalism, rather than enhancing it.

So Marx’s legacies for his first 200 years are very poor indeed. His fallacious pre-Hegelian ideas led to a social experiment with hideous consequences that we are still, to some degree, living with today. His distortion of his own analytic method led his economic intellectual followers to waste their time trying to solve pointless conundrums in the equally pointless Labour Theory of Value.

It could have been otherwise. In his own PhD thesis on Hegel’s philosophy, Marx noted that a philosopher could undermine his own work, and that it was the duty of his followers to amend his error:

“It is conceivable that a philosopher should be guilty of this or that inconsistency because of this or that compromise; he may himself be conscious of it. But what he is not conscious of is that in the last analysis this apparent compromise is made possible by the deficiency of his principles or an inadequate grasp of them. So if a philosopher really has compromised it is the job of his followers to use the inner core of his thought to illuminate his own superficial expression of it.”

In the end, Marx was as human as Hegel: he sacrificed his own logic on the altar of his desire for revolution. Not only his family suffered for that devotion.

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Western Hegemony's Collapse

Theresa May’s Lies Must Stop

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Authored by Matthew Jamison via The Strategic Culture Foundation,

It would seem that the so-called British prime minister Theresa May, leader of the Conservative Party [who heads up a minority Tory Government only kept in power through a confidence and supply arrangement with the Democratic Unionist Party] has forgotten that there is such a matter as reality backed up by solid strong evidence and grounded inrational fact. It has been a consistent theme of my writings over the last near two years now that Theresa May is not only a light weight with little leadership talents, but also unhinged and dangerous. Indeed, Mrs. May has become something of a loose cannon on deck deluding herself to the truth of the matter that she badly messed up the General Election of 2017 and just about everything else she inherited as prime Minister and her time is long overdue to leave 10 Downing Street.

One of the more alarming aspects of the near two-year-old nightmarish May Ministry has been the near total casual evisceration of consistent truth telling and consistency of position regarding fundamental political and philosophical questions of judgement and values which goes to the heart of Leadership. It has not just been the near complete collapse of the UK Government’s negotiating position vis-à-vis Brussels and Michel Barnier. It has not been the incompetent and disastrous fashion Mrs. May has governed losing one Cabinet minister after another in rapid succession. It has not just been the lies that Theresa May has poured forth internally.

It has been the growth under Theresa May and her Home Office of almost Nazi styleblack op false flag operations and exercises – conducted by Mrs. May’s personal Gestapo MI5 – as an instrument of government policy in order to control and manipulate the uneducated masses of the UK and turn the mass of the UK population into an even more disgusting Peter Bazgallete Endemol style Big Brother feeding frenzy dump. The distortion of mass public opinion in the UK and the dumbing down across all sections of society has been deeply disturbing and frustrating to watch, but not the least bit surprising. In Theresa May’s extreme and increasingly desperate quest to hold on to the title and position of prime Minister, May has become even far more dangerous than I ever could have imagined. Theresa May is such a shallow empty third rate politician she will say anything and do anything to hold on to power just for the sake of it to spite her internal Tory Party enemies such as George Osborne. After less than two years in the job Theresa May has managed to achieve the unthinkable. She has made Gordon Brown’s Premiership look like a model for stable Government.

May, after botching badly her gift of an early General Election from the powers that be in Washington DC, has basically conducted the most embarrassing and weak negotiation in modern political history with the European Union 27. Unable to deliver the massive majority that elements in DC and Berlin/Brussels were banking on, May has had to resort to increasingly wild, desperate and highly dangerous tactics to remain in Downing Street, attempting desperately to shore up and re-invigorate her obviously dying leadership and crumbling administration. Which brings us to the subject of Russia, a country and people I have tremendous respect and admiration for and has been treated terribly by the West where I grew up. I am appalled at how the Russian people have been treated and spoken of and harassed and targeted by the right wing English Tory Government of Theresa May. Where to begin with? Hillary Clinton’s pathetic whinging and moaning blaming her loss on the Russians? Theresa May’s bigoted, xenophobic, dangerous anti-Russian rhetoric? The EU’s expansion and NATO encroachments right up to the borders of Russia itself in violation of understandings and promises made at the end of the last Cold War? The ‘shock’ doctrine capitalism of the West injected without proper thought and planning post-Gorbachev? Theresa May, let us be blunt, is in the pocket of certain deeply anti-Russian forces in Washington DC and Brussels. This group of ‘foreign policy’ and ‘national security’ experts and their allies who [seem to be everywhere] hate Russia. For what reason I think I know and it has all the hallmarks of Nazism…. all over it. It stinks to hell of Nazism.

Let us be very clear, Russia is not a threat to the UK and has not interfered or attacked UK vital national interests. Russia is not interested in attacking the UK or UK interests. Russia is not an enemy of all civilised freedom loving peoples. It is in fact a great guardian of them. And it has been treated terribly by the West, misunderstood and disrespected beyond belief. The so-called poisoning of Sergei Skripal was just that, so-called. It never happened. Sergei Skripal was not poisoned with Novichok. The nerve agent, if one was even used which I highly doubt, did not come from Russia. The chemical nerve agent is not Russian and did not come from Russian Labs. The Russian State and Russian Government had nothing to do with it. No Russian agents, assets, personnel were involved in this most disgusting, appalling, freak show pathetic English MI5/6 spectacle of Salisbury. One wonders since the English always boast non-stop about how great their country is and how their intelligence and security services are the best in the world. In fact they are rubbish. How could Britain’s so-called domestic security service, the all seeing [supposedly], all hearing [supposedly], all knowing [supposedly] all mighty [supposedly] MI5 allow a chemical nerve agent like Novichok into the UK and then allow it to be transported to Salisbury and then administered first in Yulia Skripal’s car, then it became the Mill Pub, then it became Zissi Reastaurant, then MI5/6 finally, finally settled on….the door handle. If this had really occurred like the English State and Establishment want us to believe and would have us believe then all of Salisbury would be dead by now if it had really been Novichok. It never happened. The whole Skripal affair was made up by the wildly anti-Russian CIA/BND controlled Theresa May and her English Nazi style lackeys whether they be in the English Government, media, local authorities, police or population at large – and their pay masters in DC and Brussels.

The whole Salisbury/Skripal affair was made up, plotted, stage managed and produced by British, American and German intelligence services. Everything the UK Government under Theresa May said about the Salisbury affair was pure lies, scripted and made up as talking points sent from Washington DC and Brussels. Everything May said, and Boris Johnson, and Amber Rudd and Philip Hammond with regards to Russia and the Salisbury affair was pure lies. The entire story the English put forward regarding the Salisbury affair kept changing and there were terrible inconsistencies. The whole episode from start to finish was a classic English Monty Python circus act. The Salisbury-Skripal affair was pure English Tory lies. Besides Theresa May who ran the Home Office when all these terrible things [apparently] were going on, knew all about it, did not lift a finger to stop it, did not put up a fight or even resign and lead a rebellion from the backbenches. Theresa May authorised everything she now claims is a terrible threat to UK National Security. The woman must go. .

The world was told by the British prime Minister the nerve agent used was a military grade Novichok chemical only from Russia. The creator of Novichok said if exposed to it you either die a painful slow death or if you do miraculously survive you will be a vegetable the rest of your life. So how come Yulia Skripal is up and singing and dancing and checking herself out of the hospital? And what about Sergei Skripal? I’ve lost track? Is he still in intensive care in the hospital? Or has he been able to miraculously recover and check himself out? And the police officer also made a very speedy recovery. The police have still not been able to find any suspects even though there is a huge and expensive massive police operation under way. The majority of the English police like MI5 are utterly useless. The Chief Executive of Porton Down stated that Porton Down was unable to verify that the Novichok chemical agent came from Russia. The OPCW review was completely flawed and biased against the Russian Government.

Yet Mrs. May seemed to be rather enjoying her pseudo-role as the new found Amazonian suffragette Wonder Woman FemiNazi, the instrument of the Americans and Germans to take down the ‘Evil Empire’ of the brilliant and visionary President Vladimir Putin who unlike Theresa May has got his country back strongly and proudly on its strong feet. I suppose Mrs. May was desperate for a ‘Falklands’ style moment to rescue her dying leadership, and for a brief time it seemed to be working. Mrs. May had successfully wiped off the media agenda any mention of the crucial and critical final stages of the UK-EU divorce negotiations. There had been a flurry of right wing press briefing against Jeremy Corbyn in the lead up to the Salisbury affair just like before the Manchester bombing during the General Election of 2017 which May called. May and her backers had calculated – that in order to bolster her position, take the fight to the Russians [which Mrs. Clinton was supposed to have done], weaken Jeremy Corbyn [which she failed to do fatally last year], change the UK narrative on Brexit and impress May’s supporters – a black op false flag trashing Russia and the Russian people and the great Russian President on the eve of President Putin’s historic fourth election victory and the glorious World Cup in Moscow – would do the trick nicely for Mrs. May’s position. As I have been writing consistently, if Mrs. May is so desperate and crazy and power mad to hold on to her position that she is willing to start a war with a vastly superior and vastly stronger country like Russia, she has completely lost the plot and must go.

After May’s appalling power grab at the EU27 Council Summit in March she could not believe her luck. The EU27 were all lined up behind her as the anti-Russian warrior princess egging her on to do their bidding in their unofficial war against Russia. This would be the new security role for Britain in Europe once out of the EU, the anti-Russian Trojan horse leading a robust and united anti-Russian global coalition in Europe and beyond to effect regime in the Kremlin on behalf of the EU and their American allies. Unfortunately for Mrs. May the wheels started to come off this unbelievable, wacky, crazy, ridiculous and extremely dangerous Anti-Russian foreign policy with another false flag black op in Syria this time. From Salisbury and all the lies the English told there we jumped to the sands of the Middle East and all the lies that the Americans have told there along with the British. I could not believe what was going on before my very eyes.

For a split second it looked like the world was on the brink of an all out war between American and Russia in the Middle East. Do Mrs. May and her supporters really want to start a Third World War in the Middle East just so she can pretend to be prime minister for a year or two more? Douma was carried out by German secret service intelligence, the BND, in conjunction with the CIA and MI6. Again, this was not the fault of the Russians or Assad Syrian forces, but rather US backed rebels. However, the consequences of Douma are even more profound geopolitically than what happens in some provincial English town. Theresa May has succeeded in driving a wedge between Trump and President Putin and has successfully destroyed any hope of a rapprochement and detente between Washington DC and Moscow. That is bad for the peace and security of the international order. Thanks Theresa! The world came very close to a possible nuclear confrontation between America and Russia, completely unthinkable during the last Cold War, in the sands of the Middle East only a couple of weeks ago. In this New Cold War, which is merely a preparation and build up phase to a much bigger confrontation, all the rules of the old Cold War have changed. I have never felt more ashamed and more embarrassed about being a British citizen in my life.

The anti-Russian bigotry and racism and xenophobia displayed by the English and their Government against the Russian people and Russian interests is not something I will ever forget and has been deeply disturbing, troubling and deeply concerning. I wonder where all this anti-Russian war mongering is leading? Meanwhile back on the domestic home front after the near clash between the USA and Russia was avoided, May’s Government has been crumbling. May lost a senior Remain supporter, the Home Secretary Amber Rudd, and has boxed herself into a corner with her ‘good friends’ in the DUP who now realise May was just using them for her own ends and was prepared to drop them quickly once she had achieved what she was ordered to achieve by DC and Brussels. It will be fascinating to observe who survives this Theresa May Tory English MI5 car crash of Her Majesty’s Government. But what I have seen of heard and experienced in England of the anti-Russian bigotry is something that will remain with me for a lifetime.

Cold War

Does Russia Know What’s Up? Trump Has Invited Putin to the White House

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By Dr. Paul Craig Roberts

I find myself wondering if Russia understands the Washington criminal with whom Russia is so desperate to negotiate peace and understanding.

Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov is excited that Trump has invited Putin to the White House “to jointly curb the arms race.”

Of course the US military/security complex wants to curb an arms race in which Russia is 30 years ahead. Will the Russian government in all its delusions and romanticized view of the US and its vassals again be sucked into meaningless agreements that leave Russia exposed to annihilation?

How can Russia expect any agreement with Washington or any European country to mean anything when in front of Russia’s very eyes the US, alone in the world, is breaking the agreement the US made with Iran with regard to Iran’s enrichment of uranium?

Why does Lavrov want to negotiate another agreement with Washington that Washington will break as it has every other negotiated agreement with Russia since the Clinton regime. Does the Russian Foreign Ministry find it difficult to learn from experience?

Russia has the winning hand, but does not know how to play it. The caution with which the government operates encourages more provocations, whereas a more decisive policy would discourage provocations.

Washington interprets Russia’s conciliatory behavior as weakness, and now also so does the tiny country of Israel. Believe it or not, Israel has issued an ultimatum to Russia. Israel, a country so small that it can be wiped out by conventional weapons alone has now ordered the world’s primary military power to get out of the way of Israel’s illegal military attacks on Syria.

A country that can be given an ultimatum by Israel, whose army was twice routed and utterly defeated by a small Lebanese militia, has no respect in the West. This is Russia’s problem. Even the militarily impotent British talk about going to war with Russia as if that is a riskless undertaking.

As long as the Russian government conveys indecisiveness and weakness in its responses to extreme provocations, the provocations will continue to push the world to World War 3.

*

This article was originally published on Paul Craig Roberts Institute for Political Economy.

Western Hegemony's Collapse

Big Mac Index suggests America in decade-long depression

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Written by Peter Diekmeyer, Sprott Money News

U.S. GDP grew at a 4.6% clip in current dollar terms during the first quarter, according to U.S. Government officials at the Bureau of Economic Analysis.

On the surface, the data makes sense.

Businesses across the country saw sales rise. Workers got salary increases. Trump must be right, America is becoming great again, the experts seem to suggest.

But are they right?

Not if you measure U.S. economic output based on the number of Big Macs the country’s annual GDP can buy.

Measured that way, America has been in a Great Depression for the past decade.

Burgernomics: the Big Mac index applied to GDP

“Burgernomics” is hardly new. The Economist Magazine’s Big Mac Index has been using the famous hamburger as a light-hearted proxy to determine the purchasing power parity value of global currencies for decades. The idea is to see whether the market values of existing exchange rates adequately measure what people can buy with that money.

A Big Mac, which is made the same way in most countries around the world, and whose recipe has changed little during the past thirty years, provides an excellent tool.

However, the Big Mac also provides a good proxy for how much Americans’ real national output has changed.

In addition to its famous ingredients (two all beef patties, special sauce, lettuce, cheese, pickles and onions on a sesame seed bun), the burger also contains substantial inputs related to rent (purchase entitles the buyer a seat at the restaurant for an hour or so), labour and taxes (which comprise a huge portion of business costs).

America is in a Great Depression right now

Measured in official terms, U.S. GDP came in at $19.4 trillion in 2017. That’s a 33% increase over the $14.5 trillion recorded in 2007.

However, those $14.5 trillion could buy 4.25 trillion Big Macs back in 2007 when they cost just $3.41 each.

By 2017, the price of a Big Mac had risen to $5.06, so the $19.4 trillion in GDP that year equated to only 3.83 trillion of the burgers.

That suggests that U.S. GDP, as measured in Big Mac terms, fell by 10% between 2007 and 2017.

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ShadowStats, stagnant wages and the two-income trap

The idea of measuring U.S. GDP in Big Mac terms is, of course, far from fully-baked.

However, the results tie in with a lot of other anecdotal data points.

John Williams, of ShadowStats, for example has for years tracked how the U.S. Statistical agencies have changed their data calculations. The reasons cited by the officials always sound good, but their net effect is to make government statistics look a lot better than they actually are.

Williams calculates that U.S. inflation (which came in at 2.36% during March) was running at 5.9% based on the way the government calculated the data back in 1990, and at 10.1% based on 1980 methodologies. The official U.S. unemployment rate of 4.14% during March is actually 21.7% when calculated using ShadowStats’ alternative measure.

Other research, also by the Bureau of Economic Analysis, shows that real wage gains for U.S. workers in many categories have actually fallen during recent decades. For example, a typical 27-year-old man earned more in 1969 than he did three decades later.

Trust the experts?

That said, questioning the methodology of U.S. government experts is tricky business.

Academic economists and those that work at the big banks all use the numbers, generally with little or no question.

Those that do question the numbers, such as ShadowStats and the economists at the Mises Institute in Auburn Alabama, tend to be ignored or shut out of mainstream media.

For example, the latest BEA data release saw no prominent experts rise to question the data.

As such, average Americans will need to do their own calculations to figure out whether their government’s numbers are trustworthy.

Those that do so in a booth at their local McDonald’s will get a relatively good indication as to which way the wind is blowing.

Note: neither the Economist Magazine, nor McDonald’s Restaurants responded to requests to confirm data and findings done for this article.

Big Mac index suggests America in decade-long depression

Military Affairs

How Russian electronic warfare systems interfere with the US military in Syria

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A publication on April 26 in Vzglyad, the Moscow online analytical website, reveals with open sources, including American ones, how this option would work. This is an unofficial translation into English.

The EW Krasukha systems well-tested in real combat in Syria

By Andrei Rezchikov and Nikita Kovalenko

“Because of the actions of our unidentified enemy today, our military in Syria are in the most aggressive electromagnetic environment on the planet," said the American general. It is clear that such an enemy means Russia, actively using the means of electronic warfare in Syria. What are Russian electronic warfare systems capable of and why are Americans so afraid of them?

General Raymond Thomas, the head of the special operations command of the US armed forces complained at the closed Symposium GEOINT 2018 that “opponents” are jamming the system of American aircraft in Syria. He did not specify which “opponents” he means, but called the current situation in electronic warfare “the most aggressive in the world”. However, the publication Drive, quoting the general, expressed confidence that this is about Russia.


Left: General Raymond Thomas speaking at GEOPOINT 2018, which took place between April 22 and 25. Listen to his speech and read the DRIVE report of April 25 at http://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/20404/american-general-says-adversaries-are-jamming-ac-130-gunships-in-syria Right: DRIVE’s published photograph of the Russian Krasukha-4 electronic warfare system.

“They test us every day, suppress our communications, disable our (fire support aircraft) AC-130,” added Raymond Thomas.

Earlier, the NBC TV channel, citing unnamed US officials, reported that Russia has blocked the radio signals of US drones in Syria, which has significantly affected US military operations. The Russian military allegedly began to interfere with US drones “after a series of alleged chemical attacks in Eastern Ghouta.”

The editor of the magazine Arsenal of the Fatherland, Alexei Leonov, does not believe that in Syria there was an unprecedented situation in terms of the use of electronic warfare. “In fact, it has not affected the habit of Americans to fight with a weak opponent. After 1991, the United States led all its military conflicts against states whose EW [Electronic Warfare systems] were very weak or not used at all,” he told Vzglyad.

In the assessment of Leonov, the US is now clearly inferior to Russia in the effectiveness of EW systems, primarily for the reason that the Americans stopped paying these technologies due attention. Back in the 1990s, during the first war in the Persian Gulf, the Americans actively used electronic warfare equipment because at the time the Iraqi army was quite developed, and it was necessary not to allow their air defense and intelligence to detect the accumulation of American troops in the main targeting direction, the expert recalled.

But they began to relax, and since then they have developed only one effective electronic warfare system based on the F-18 aircraft to cover aviation units, Leonov said. “Russia did not stand still. And now the Americans, when they have watched our electronic warfare systems, they have recognized that they are among the best in the world”, he added.

“The characteristic of American means of communication is that they work in the K-band. We know this range, so this range was configured in the electronic warfare systems that could be jamming the signal and to catch all the communications,” said Leonov. In addition, Americans in Syria mainly use airborne electronic warfare systems; in Russia they are deployed in ground systems. “Ground systems will always be more powerful and stronger than air ones due to the energy supply,” the source says.

This has long been said by a former head of electronic warfare for the US Army Laurie Buckhout. “Our most serious problem is that we have not fought for several decades in conditions of suppression of communication, so we do not know how to fight. We not only do not have tactics, techniques and procedures for their implementation, but even the preparation for the conduct of hostilities in the absence of communication."

In the Federation Council it was noted after the statements of General Thomas that Moscow has nothing to do with the failure of electronic systems of American aircraft in Syria. “I do not know who they mean by opponents, but Russia has nothing to do with this, these claims are unfounded”, RIA Novosti was told by the first Deputy Chairman of the Federation Council Committee on Defense and Security, Yevgeny Serebrennikov.

However, the fact that Moscow denies involvement in the impact on US military equipment does not mean that Russia does not use electronic warfare in Syria at all. In particular, to repel the recent raid of drones which tried to attack the Russian airbase at Khmeimim, along with Pantsir-S anti-aircraft missile and gun complexes, EW was extensively operated. According to a source of Izvestia in the Main Operational Directorate (GOU) of the General Staff, after detecting the danger at a distance of about 10 km, the electronic warfare system silenced the GPS signal over a certain area, disabling the navigation and control system of the drones.

A British expert on the Russian armed forces Roger McDermott sees the superior effectiveness of Russian electronic warfare in repelling the drone attack. He is convinced that Russia maximizes the ability of electronic warfare, achieving impressive results. According to him, unlike NATO, Russia has integrated military command, communications, intelligence, space, cyber and electronic warfare.

In early January, 13 drones with homemade bombs attacked the Khmeimim airbase and the naval base at Tartus; seven of them were destroyed by Pantsir-S, and another six were intercepted by EW units. Some experts have also assumed that during the recent US missile strike on Syria radio-electronic means of suppression were used to intercept some of the cruise missiles, as a consequence of which many missiles simply did not reach their targets. At the same time, some military experts have questioned this, given the complexity of the signal suppression systems of these Tomahawks.

What kind of electronic warfare means is Russia using in Syria? Detailed information about this is unavailable in the open press because of the increased secrecy surrounding this topic. However, the press has often received fragmentary information, much of it thanks to the activity of Syrian bloggers who have repeatedly photographed examples of Russian weapons. This is how the transfer to Khmeimim was reported of the ground-based jamming system Krasukha, along with Mi-8 helicopters equipped with active interception system Richag-AB. In late March, the Russian Defence Ministry transferred to Syria the latest model of electronic warfare helicopters, Mi-8 MTPR-1.


Official Defence Ministry video presentation of Russian EW equipment: https://vz.ru/politics/2018/4/26/919811.html
The Mi8 MTPR-1. For a detailed review from 2015, read this.

About the EW [operations in Syria] too little is known. The Krasukha was unveiled in 2011. Several modifications were created. The most powerful option – Krasukha-4 – ‘silences’ airborne aircraft radars, including drones and cruise missiles. A killer electronics system Richag-AB refers to the latest developments and entered service only in 2016. It disables not only the navigation devices of aircraft, but also drones and cruise missiles.

According to some observers, the EW intelligence complex Moskva-1 is designed for a detection and tracking range of 400 kilometers for overhead sources of radiation at different radio frequency ranges.

In addition, as Vzglyad has reported, EW-equipped SU [Sukhoi] aircraft are deployed in Syria in various modifications. In particular, there is the well-known myth about the suppression of [radar and fire-control] systems of the American destroyer USS Donald Cook by the Khibiny system, which has been designed to block radio-electronic signals. As noted by experts, in fact the capacity of this system is quite limited; it is not enough to ‘stun’ American destroyers.

What, then, can EW really do? Military expert Dmitry Drozdenko in an interview with RT noted that such means muffle the channels of communication, and introduce blockages in the frequencies used by the US military to exchange information. “As a result, information is not received between the control centers and combat units; in fact, the armed forces are blinded. If a radar installation searches for a target and tracks the space around it, it sees not only the real targets, but also a large number of false ones,” he explained.

Lenkov said that all the electronic warfare systems work on one principle: perform the tasks of intelligence, that is, determine the frequency and modes of communication and navigation, and their whereabouts. After that, the signal begins to jam. “The power of the signal is more than the transceiver, and therefore it makes for reliable jamming of communications, intelligence and navigation,” the expert said.

As pointed out by US General Thomas, the AC-130 aircraft is particularly vulnerable to our EW attack. The Lockheed AC-130 is a flying gunship for direct support of land force divisions on the battlefield, based on the transport plane C-130 and equipped with several artillery pieces. This aircraft is very dependent on backup from supporting units, and if you block its communication channels, at night it will not be able to identify its objective, or in the afternoon to distinguish other [hostile] forces from its own. This means that if [the AC-130] can attack, there will be a high risk of hitting the allied forces.

Moreover, according to the general, there is a danger of impact by Russian electronic warfare even on the EC-130H Compass Call. One of the tasks of the EC-130H is to detect the EW suppressors of the enemy and transfer data about them to the allies for counter-strikes. However, the electronic warfare equipment of the enemy is able to crack it in order to lure the American forces to attack their own.

Blocking with the help of EW signal transmitters and GPS receivers can not only make it impossible for aircraft and warships to attack targets, but also create problems with their navigation, said the American. In addition, radio-electronic weapons may interrupt the communication of operators with drones, which can lead to their loss.

In addition, General Thomas stressed that for the time being Russia is not operating EW in Syria at full capacity. If Russia starts [to do that], the United States will lose all its communication in the region. The former head of electronic warfare for the US Army Laurie Buckhout adds that the US does not have such extensive capabilities for electronic warfare as Russia has.

“We have very good radio intelligence, and we can listen to everything. But we do not have one- tenth of their capabilities to disable equipment,” she said.

Where and for what reason do American generals produce such self-criticism and such laudatory notes about the Russian systems? This may well be aimed, for example, at trying to extract additional funds for the military budget. Hearings on that in the Senate, by the way, were just held on Thursday.

Source: https://vz.ru/politics/2018/4/26/919811.html

Military Affairs

The Samson Haircut Option – One Step Before Russia Opens Fire on American, Israeli Forces

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By John Helmer, Moscow

At the start of April President Vladimir Putin believed he could postpone Russia’s strategic and battlefield responses to the state of war which the US is escalating. He was to be disappointed.

On April 6, the US Treasury announced it is putting the state aluminium monopoly United Company Rusal out of business, not only in the US but worldwide. Not since July 26, 1941, when President Franklin Roosevelt froze Japanese assets in the US and prohibited all US trade with Japan, especially metals and oil, as well as all US dollar transactions, has the American state attempted such a thing against a rival Great Power. Roosevelt calculated it was one deterrent step short of US war with Japan. Everybody understands now that miscalculation led to Japan’s decision to make its preemptive strike against the US Navy at Pearl Harbor, five months later.

There is another, earlier precedent for the US Treasury’s act of war against Russia. That was on November 21, 1806, when Napoleon issued his Berlin Decree. That forbade the export of British goods to Europe or other states controlled by the French military, or the imports of goods on which Britain depended from its empire. Too weak to defeat the British Navy or invade the British islands, Napoleon opted for economic sanctions, retaliating for the trade blockade imposed by the British Navy around the French coastline, starting in May of that year. “It being right,” Napoleon had declared as the justification for his blockade, “to oppose to an enemy the same arms she makes use of, to combat as she does, when all ideas of justice and every liberal sentiment (the result of civilization among men) are discarded.” The British had extended war beyond military operations, Napoleon added in his decree: “it cannot be extended to any private property whatever, nor to persons who are not military, and until the right of blockade be restrained to fortified places, actually invested by competent forces.” The Continental Blockade, thus launched, lasted until Napoleon’s first abdication in April 1814.

On the fourteenth of this month the US launched its assault on Syria, agreeing in advance with the Russian General Staff to avoid Russian forces and Russian-defended targets. That attack was a military failure. But with continuing Israeli operations from the air against Syrian, Iranian and Russian targets, Putin has been requested by the General Staff and Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu to authorize the deployment of Russian S-300 missile defences to deter and destroy fresh attacks. Putin has been delaying this decision.

Then on April 25 US forces broke into the Russian consulate at Seattle. This was the second such attack by the US on Russian diplomatic territory in the US; the earlier one was on September 2, 2017, when the Russian consulate in San Francisco and simultaneously, Russian trade mission offices in Washington and New York.

The Russian Foreign Ministry called the US actions “illegal invasion”, and violations of the Vienna Convention, but not acts of war.

In the past four weeks Putin has called his Security Council into session just twice. The first was on April 6, to discuss, according to the Kremlin communique, border control plans. The second Council meeting took place on April 19, which the Kremlin reported as discussing “the recent Western airstrikes…[and] measures to prevent floods and wildfires.”

Putin took several important decisions besides, but he did it out of sight at the Novo-Ogaryovo dacha, and for his own reasons kept them secret.

On Rusal it is now clear the President told his current spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, to call the attack on the company “illegal”, but not an act of war. Putin refused to agree to nationalization of Rusal when he met with one of the advocates of this option, the leader of Russia’s trade unions, Mikhail Shmakov.


At Novo-Ogaryovo on April 13, the President met with Mikhail Shmakov, Chairman of the Russian Federation of Independent Trade Unions. Source: http://en.kremlin.ru/events/president/news/57251

Instead, without revealing his contacts with Oleg Deripaska, Putin decided to delegate to him the initiative for responding to the April 6 sanctions. This was also confirmed with Finance Minister Anton Siluanov, whom Putin called to the dacha on April 17, along with the Kremlin economic adviser, the minister for economic development, and the chairman of the Central Bank.


At Novo-Ogaryovo on April 17, Putin met with presidential economic adviser Andrei Belousov (2nd left), Finance Minister Anton Siluanov (1stleft) , Economic Development Minister Maxim Oreshkin (2nd from right) and Central Bank Governor Elvira Nabiullina (right). Source: http://en.kremlin.ru/events/president/news/57269

Siluanov was told to meet US Treasury Secretary Stephen Mnuchin in Washington and see what shareholding arrangement the US Government will accept for Deripaska and his shareholding associates in the Yeltsin family to keep control of Rusal; and at the same time release Rusal itself from the global trade embargo. For details of their negotiation on April 20, read this. For the shareholdings of the Yeltsin family in Deripaska’s stake, look at this. What has been concealed of the Rusal shareholding arrangements and beneficiaries can be followed in this backfile.

Siluanov returned from Washington and reported back to Deripaska. On April 26 Deripaska filed an application to the Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) at the Treasury for extension of the time to reorganize; Mnuchin had already announcedthis three days earlier, on April 23. Mnuchin had told Siluanov the target of the sanction was not Rusal, but its “entanglement with Oleg Deripaska”, as the Treasury press release called it. They have yet to agree on what Mnuchin will accept as disentanglement.

Deripaska then announced through EN+ that he has “agreed in principle [sic]… to reduce his shareholding in the Company to below 50%. In addition, in conjunction with ‎efforts to engage with OFAC as described above, Mr. Deripaska has agreed… that he will resign from the Board and consent to the appointment of certain new Directors such that the Board will comprise a majority of new independent [sic] directors.”

Deripaska persuaded the Financial Times to headline the move: “Deripaska agrees to relinquish control of sanction-hit Rusal”. Noone in Moscow, including the President, believes this.

Silently, Putin has decided to protect Deripaska; not to call the US attack on Rusal an act of war; and to test the Americans with an offer of a limited armistice. International bankers close to Russian business believe it is a Russian illusion that an armistice with the US can be anything but temporary; pursuing it is a miscalculation of US intentions, the sources add. They warn that new attacks will come. “The oligarchs,” the sources say, “will be put out of business by the Americans unless they choose – either return to Russia and face a very different future from the one they have enjoyed until now; or leave Russia, join the American side; lose what they own in Russia to the state. There is no middle position. That’s what the US economic strategy means. There’s no modern precedent for an attack like this. Putin isn’t prepared.”

By deciding against nationalization of Rusal, one of the international sources claims, Putin has retreated from the Napoleon precedent on the economic front. In Syria, military sources in Moscow believe, Putin has opted for one step short of extending Russian missile defence beyond the Russian air and naval bases to cover the territory now controlled by the Bashar al-Assad government.

This was discussed by Putin with General Staff chief Valery Gerasimov and Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu on April 20. The Russian military, they told the President, want the go-ahead to deploy S-300 missile batteries to cover Syrian and Iranian forces against US and Israeli attack from the air. They believe Israeli threats to attack the S-300 batteries as soon as they are operational are a bluff which Russia must call if Russia’s positions in Syria, and Iran itself, are not to come under subsequent attack from the American-Israeli combination. Testing the threat in Syria, they argue, is the less threatening, less costly option than encouraging the Americans and Israelis to prepare their offensive against Iran. Putin won’t agree.


At Novo-Ogaryovo on April 20, Putin greets General Valery Gerasimov. Source: http://en.kremlin.ru/events/president/news/57311

To respond to Putin’s reluctance, the General Staff and the Defence Ministry have devised a step short of the S-300, but with potentially enough defensive power to intercept or deter American and Israeli air attacks. This is the deployment of more Russian electronic warfare systems with the capacity to jam the surveillance, targeting, fire control and command signals on which the attackers rely. It is the Samson Haircut option – deprive the giant of control of his firepower, blind him.

A publication on April 26 in Vzglyad, the Moscow online analytical website, reveals with open sources, including American ones, how this option would work. This is an unofficial translation into English.


Source: https://vz.ru/politics/2018/4/26/919811.html