Here is How WWIII is Likely to Proceed

by J. Kim via skwealthacademy substack

Every major modern war, as US Brigadier General Smedley Butler once infamously declared, is a banker war. The NATO Russian war being fought in Ukraine is no different. Non-EU nations that heavily rely on Russian gas, like Norway and UK, will have to make choices in the near future of whether to align with the US MIB (Military Industrial Banking) complex to uphold USD hegemony in international currency markets or to break away from the US MIB complex for the first time in our lifetimes and join the Central America-Asia-Africa—Russia-South America (CAARS) economic alliance that is forming right now.

It may seem ridiculous right now that the UK and Norway would ever consider joining a Russian led economic alliance, but it probably still seems ludicrous to the majority of people that Germany would consider joining an anti-USD hegemony alliance at this time. But if we are remaining realistic in our assessments of how the progression of our current world war will shape economic alliances in the future, we must consider a future with Germany not on the side of the Allies, as was the case during the previous World War, WWII.

WWIII, will play out whereby, to use the Allies and Axis division of WWII, the Allies will include the US, the UK, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Japan, South Korea, and the Axis will include nearly everyone else. And for even the Asian nations that historically have exhibited complete obedience to the Western, pro-USD MIB (Military Industrial Banking) complex, the government officials of such nations are likely to encounter fierce opposition to this exhibited loyalty in the near future from their citizens, due to the massive destruction of the purchasing power of their domestic currencies that this blind loyalty has incurred.

Those of you that have been following my writings for a couple of decades know that during the 2008 global financial crisis, I stated many times that when the time came for the world’s major fiat currencies to fail, that they would fail in this order: the yen, the pound, then finally the USD. As we can see, my 2008 prediction has started to play out already. The yen just passed 150 yen to the dollar this month, marking the weakest it has been v. the USD since 1990, 32-years ago and marking a loss of 55.2% against the USD just since November of 2008.

Below, I have posted a long-term historical GBP-USD forex chart. Although one can easily spot that the GBP (Great British Pound) is the weakest it has been against the USD in half a century with the exception of 1985, since November 2008, it has weakened a significant 33.6% against the USD, but is still lagging behind the JPY in terms of collapse against the USD.

As WWIII plays out, even strong allies of the USD hegemony central banking complex will have to overcome massive protest on behalf of their citizens to continue to side with the allies in war when the economic missives of war are so obviously hurting their own citizens.

Thus, even as the loyalty of the Allies governments will surely face more challenges as their domestic currencies collapse and plunges their citizens into increasing economic suffering and hardships, several of the largest Allies powers during WWII, Russia (the Soviet Union back then) and China have clearly flipped sides in this world war and are no longer on the side of the Allies. The color coded map below shows the nations (in maroon) that are already part of, and most likely to join the CAARS economic alliance.

Most Westerners, because they only read Western MIB controlled media (as former German editor Udo Ulfkotte admitted that his newspaper was filled with CIA planted propaganda as “news” during his editorial tenure), have zero knowledge of the major fractures between German cabinet members and the US political elite regarding economic issues that have been intensifying for decades now (and of which all paying subscribers on this site, if you’ve read all my articles, should be well aware).

Furthermore, when it is likely revealed, either privately or publicly that a US or US/UK military theater operation was responsible for destruction of parts of the Russian Nordstream gas pipeline in order to punish German economically for their lack of support to the US/UK in the Russia NATO war in Ukraine, German cabinet members will likely interpret these findings as a declaration of war of NATO against them. And this will provide even more incentive for Germany to finally leave the NATO alliance. In addition, former US Under Secretary of State Victoria Nuland’s leaked phone conversation in 2014 in which she vitriolically spewed, “F*ck the EU!” when discussing the EU’s lack of support for NATO’s war against Russia in Ukraine widened the fracture between some economic giants in the EU and NATO, despite Nuland’s subsequent apologies, which were likely viewed by the offended as completely insincere. Consequently, Germany leaving the NATO alliance, as WWIII progresses, to preserve the economic future of its citizenry and the sovereignty of its nation, is a real distinct possibility of which most people around the world are completely ignorant.

It is a near given that the world’s largest producers of gold, silver, platinum and palladium that are not part of the NATO alliance, specifically China, Russia, Mexico, South Africa, Uzbekistan, Peru, Indonesia, Sudan, Chile, Bolivia, Kazhakstan, India, Indonesia, South Africa, and Zimbabwe, will all join the future economic alliance I discussed here, that I have labelled the CAARS alliance in this article. Why? Simply because it behooves all of them, even if they are not major producers of these metals, to join a regional alliance intent on freeing the global prices of these precious metals from the pro-USD hegemonic Central Banking alliance.

When nations with the largest GDPs in Africa, Latin America and Asia join this alliance, it only makes sense that the nations in these regions with smaller economies also join, as their massive debt is denominated for the most part in US dollars and is becoming untenable given USD strength against the fiat currencies of emerging markets.

Joining an alliance will allow such nations to eventually escape the gravitational pull of their crushing USD denominated debt that has withheld the economic development of such nations for decades, if not centuries.

For the above explanation, I’ve attributed entire global regions to the CAARS alliance in the US against the world WWIII map. And why have I labelled the CAARS alliance versus the Allies a military conflict versus just an economic conflict if I have described the entire conflict as economic up until this point? Because economic conflict always breeds military conflict. As I stated in previous articles I’ve published on this platform about this topic, the NATO alliance would never have baited Russia into invading Ukraine if there were no directives to maintain USD hegemony, continue the suppression of gold prices, and therefore maintain the status quo in global power that funnels the world’s wealth into the pockets of the Western MIB (Military Industrial Banking) complex.

And as all major wars begin with economic sanctions (study the economic sanctions levied against Japan during WWII to understand the economic sanctions levied against Russia this year), these economic sanctions, when proven to be insufficient to maintain the status quo, as they have been this year, eventually always transform into military actions (the coordinated explosion of the Nordstream gas pipeline and destruction of the Kerch Bridge joining Russia and Crimea). At this point and time, any rational student of history that understands that all military wars begin as economic wars also understands that WWIII has already begun.

With WW III Already Begun, Could Nuclear Escalation Be Next?

I still stand by my take that if this world war is escalated further in theater operations, that a member or members of the NATO alliance will be the one, not Putin’s Russia, to escalate the economic/military conflict into a nuclear conflict. If it is proven to be true that the US/UK blew up the Nordstream gas pipeline, then their willingness to take desperate measures to maintain the status quo to keep half the world’s population in great economic suffering will have already been proven.

However, even then, I don’t believe the escalation will be via a dirty bomb or an outright nuclear strike, even though the big story this week has been the levied claims of Russian cabinet officials that a “false flag” dirty bomb inside Ukraine may have been tabled by NATO forces as the next phase of this war. Rather, the most likely strike in my opinion, as the MIB complex has shown a willingness time and time again to sacrifice millions of lives as pawns in their military wars to accomplish their economic missives, is something much worse. In my opinion, the most likely escalation of this current NATO Russia war will be a strike against Ukraine’s nuclear reactors that will create a nuclear meltdown and radiation fallout that will sicken and kill thousands, with planted evidence to blame Russia as the culprit of the attack.

The most likely manner in which this would be carried out, if this insane tactic is on the table, is through a cyberattack, of which I warned about extensively here, as it is near impossible to prove up allegations made regarding the origins of a cyberattack without leaked evidence, much as the Western media initially blamed the Stuxnet virus on Iran. However, after the target of the Stuxnet virus was revealed to be centrifuges of the national Iranian uranium enrichment program, this false, trumped up charge no longer remained credible.

The reason I see such an escalation as a possible next step of this military escalation is because such a cyberattack/or direct strike would kill several proverbial birds with one stone. As always during war, when such attacks occur, we must ask, “Cui Bono?” or “Who Benefits?”

“Few men are willing to have the disapproval of their peers, the censure of their colleagues, the wrath of their society. Moral courage is a rarer commodity than bravery in battle or great intelligence. Yet it is the one essential, vital quality for those who seek to change a world that yields most painfully to change.” ― Bobby F. Kennedy

“Power Over the World is What the West Wants” – Putin

via RT

The West and its allies are playing a “dirty game,” the prize of which is global dominance, Russian President Vladimir Putin has said. However, the US and its allies are not safe from the consequences of their own actions, he added.

“Ruling the world is what the so-called West has staked in this game, which is certainly dangerous, bloody and – I would say – dirty. It denies the sovereignty of countries and peoples, their identity and uniqueness, and disregards any interests of other states,” the Russian president explained. In their so-called “rules-based world order,” only those making the “rules” have any agency, while everyone else must simply obey.

“They [American leaders] now have no creative ideas to promote positive development,” Putin argued. “They simply have nothing to offer the world, beyond maintaining their dominance.”

The Russian president’s comments came at a Valdai Discussion Club meeting outside Moscow on Thursday. He offered his view that Western nations deny others on the global scene the right to any kind of independence, be it political, economical or cultural. Last December, Russia’s proposals to address its concerns about national security were “tossed aside” by Washington, he noted.

“But in the modern world, sitting aside is hardly an option. He who sows the wind will reap the whirlwind, as the proverb says,” he said, pointing out that the ongoing global crisis affects everyone and all aspects of life.

Humanity basically now has two paths it can pursue, Putin stated. It can either be fractured and keep accumulating problems that will eventually bury it, or try to find “may be not ideal, but working” solutions to common issues.

Putin said he believes in common sense and is convinced that sooner or later “new centers of power in the multipolar world and the West will have to start talking as equals about our common future.”

The president noted that while the disruption of the ecological balance threatens biodiversity, diversity of political thought, social norms, and culture is as important as genetic diversity.

Western nations, which want to impose their values and vision as universal, are robbing everyone, including themselves, Putin reasoned. “First of all, this eradicates the creative potential of the West itself,” he warned.

“There is a mercantile interest here too” the Russian leader added, explaining that a homogenous society makes selling things simpler.

Our adversaries, as I would call them, are trying to expand markets for their products. It’s ultimately as primitive as that.

Liberal democracy has changed beyond recognition and has gone from promoting freedom of speech and expression, to demanding the ‘cancelation’ of anyone with a different point of view, Russian President Vladimir Putin said during a speech at the Valdai Discussion Club in Moscow on Thursday.

Speaking about the major changes in the world in recent years, Putin noted that the West has continued its policy of escalating tensions across the globe, and is trying to subjugate the world under its “rules-based order.”

He added that it remains unclear who invented these rules, what they are based on, or what exactly they even are. The only thing that is clear, according to the president, is that the rules are meant to allow those who hold global power to live “without any rules at all,” and allow them to get away with doing whatever they want.

“The West in recent years and especially in recent months has taken a number of steps towards escalation. They always play for escalation; there is nothing new here. This includes the incitement of war in Ukraine, provocations regarding Taiwan, and the destabilization of the world food and energy markets,” he said.

Humanity now basically has two paths it can pursue, Putin stated. It can either be fractured and keep accumulating problems that will eventually bury it, or try to find “not ideal, but working” solutions to common issues.

“Above all, we believe that the new world order should be based on law and justice, be free, authentic and fair,” the Russian president said.

“The future world order is being formed before our eyes. And in this world order, we must listen to everyone, take into account every point of view, every nation, society, culture, every system of worldviews, ideas and religious beliefs, without imposing a single truth on anyone, and only on this basis, understanding our responsibility for the fate of our peoples and the planet, to build a symphony of human civilization.”

The president went on to stress the importance of preserving cultural diversity in the world, stating that the West is trying to flatten everything out to be identical and is blocking the “free creative development” of other civilizations and imposing its own style of development.

“Simplification and the erasure of any and all differences have become almost the essence of the modern West. What is behind this simplification? First of all, this is the disappearance of the creative potential of the West itself,” Putin said.

The most important fragment of president Putin’s speech at Valdai forum:

The collapse of the Soviet Union destroyed the balance of forces. The West felt like a winner and proclaimed a unipolar world order in which only its will, culture, and interests had the right to exist.

Now this historical period of undivided dominance in world affairs is coming to an end. The unipolar world is becoming a thing of the past. We are standing at a historical milestone.

Ahead is the most dangerous, unpredictable and at the same time important decade since the end of the Second World War.

The West is not capable of governing humanity alone, but it is desperately trying to do so. And most of the peoples of the world no longer want to put up with this. This is the main contradiction of the new era. In the words of the classics, the situation is, to a certain extent, revolutionary – the upper classes cannot, and the lower classes do not want to live like this anymore.

On Ukraine:

It is a historical fact that Russians and Ukrainians are one people, which makes the current conflict a “civil war” of sorts, Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Thursday during the Valdai Discussion Club session in Moscow.

“This is one people, speaking one language,” Putin declared during the question-and-answer period, calling it a “historical fact” that cannot be questioned. Russian statehood emerged in the territories of present-day Ukraine in the 9th century and that language differences only “emerged in the 14th and 15th century due to Polish meddling,” he added.

Asked by the moderator if the current fighting in Ukraine amounts to civil war, Putin responded “Sort of, yes.”

“We found ourselves in separate states for a series of reasons,” the Russian president explained, saying that the Soviet Union’s creators “decided to appease the nationalist tendencies of Bolsheviks native to Ukraine, and gifted them Russian ancestral lands without asking the people who lived there.” 

In this way, the Ukrainian Soviet Republic was granted all of the historical Little Russia, the entire Black Sea coast, and Donbass, Putin said.

On the “Collective West”:

Russian President Vladimir Putin declared on Thursday that Russia is an “independent”civilization that does not consider itself an enemy of the West. Instead, he is concerned about the “aggressive” and “neo-colonial” liberal elite in charge of the bloc.

“In the current conditions of a tough conflict, I will say some things directly,” Putin told a meeting of the Valdai Discussion Club. “Russia, being an independent, original civilization, has never considered and does not consider itself an enemy of the West.”

Hatred for American, British, French or German people “are the same form of racism as Russophobia and anti-Semitism,” he added.

Putin went on to describe the West as two entities. On one hand, the traditional, primarily Christian West “is close to us in some ways,” he said, noting that “we have in many respects common and ancient roots.”

“But there is another West – aggressive, cosmopolitan, neo-colonial, acting as an instrument of neo-liberal ideas. It is precisely with the dictates of this West that Russia, of course, will never put up with,” he continued.

While Putin undoubtedly sees the conflict in Ukraine as an existential struggle against the West – describing his forces as fighting the “entire Western military machine” and blaming the derailment of peace talks and sabotage of the Nord Stream gas pipelines on the “Anglo-Saxons,” he has drawn a distinction between Western elites and Western society before.

Speaking at a ceremony following the accession of four formerly Ukrainian regions into the Russian Federation last month, Putin declared that “the Western elites target all societies, including the citizens of Western countries themselves.”

While the West expands primarily to secure its “mercantile interest,” he stated at Thursday’s meeting, it also pushes its cultural exports on an unreceptive world. “If Western elites believe they can launch new trends like dozens of genders and gay parades, they have the right to do so,” he said. “But they don’t have the right to demand that others follow the same direction.”

Putin also condemned the “pure Satanism” of Western liberal culture in his speech last month, noting that “many like-minded people in Europe and the United States” feel the same way.

On the Western Economic Model

As soon as any market is opened for certain goods, the West seizes it along with all the resources, pushing away local manufacturers, according to Russian President Vladimir Putin.

“They build relationships this way – markets and resources are captured, countries are deprived of their technological, scientific potential. This is not progress, but enslavement, mixing economies to a primitive level,” he stated on Thursday at a plenary meeting of the Valdai Discussion Club.

According to the Russian leader, Western countries lay claim to all the resources of mankind as they aim “to strengthen their unconditional dominance in the world economy and politics.” 

On the topic of world trade, Putin said the beneficiaries of this should be the majority, not the super-rich corporations. “Together everyone will gain more than individually,” the president said.

He also criticized Western companies who are leaving the Russian market and supposedly selling their entire businesses “for merely one ruble.” They are doing this while whispering in the ear of their management: “we will be back soon,” Putin added.

The Cost of Sanction for Europe – up to 11.5 % in GDP

The EU’s plan to ditch Russian energy may cost the bloc’s economy from 6.5% to 11.5% in GDP and up to 16 million people are at risk of losing their jobs, according to the head of Russian oil major Rosneft, Igor Sechin.

Speaking at the Verona Eurasian Economic Forum on Thursday, he said that key areas of the EU economy, such as the metallurgy, chemical, pulp and paper industries, and agriculture are affected by the energy crisis.

The potential slump in the chemical industry may reach 20-45%, while metallurgy output is feared to plummet by 30-60%, as these are among the top energy-consuming sectors. According to Sechin, Europe has already stopped 70% of its nitrogen fertilizer production capacities and reduced aluminum output by 25%.

While Washington is upholding its “hegemony at any cost,” Europe has emerged as “the main victim of US policy,” as it has lost the ability to diversify its energy supplies, he said, referring to plans by Western officials to impose a price cap on Russian oil and gas.

“Introducing a cap is an attack not only on fundamentals of the market but also on the fundamentals of sovereignty. The idea in fact is to abolish sovereign rights of the countries to their own resources, because the ‘right’ nations which lack energy resources need them more than the ‘wrong’ ones,” the Rosneft CEO said.

At the same time, no restrictions are applied to the US, where gas prices are five to six times lower than in the EU, he added.

US Chip Ban Most Punitive Move Yet Against China

Excerpt

[. . .] In a speech to the Communist Party Congress a week after the US controls were announced, China’s President Xi reaffirmed, twice, his country’s goal to “join the ranks of the world’s most innovative countries, with great self-reliance and strength in science and technology” within five years.

The controls announced by the Biden administration directly undermine Xi’s ambition for China. They seek to maintain US tech supremacy, while simultaneously eroding China’s ability to conduct fundamental research. Given this, a significant escalatory response from China should not be unexpected.

US-China decoupling

In an age when militaries, economies and our daily lives depend on technology it is astounding how many people continue to tune out when technology – and the policies that shape it – are discussed. If there ever was a time to tune in, it is now.

For several years, leaders and commentators the world over have speculated about the possibility of the US “decoupling” from China: reducing economic and technological entanglement with the rising Asian power.

Debates on the feasibility of economic decoupling will continue. However, historians will pinpoint Biden’s decision on October 7, 2022, as the moment at which US and Chinese technology decoupling became inevitable.

The US has now played its hand. The most consequential question remains: what will China do next?

Professor Johanna Weaver is Director of the Tech Policy Design Center, Australian National University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

On “Dirty” Bombs, Depleted Uranium and False Flag Bombing

Question: “There is the pesky theory that the 1945 bombs dropped on Japan were also maybe “dirty bombs”, supplemented by a firebombing attack.”

Whoever came up with such a “pesky theory” should take a look at the photo of the mushroom clouds over Hiroshima and Nagasaki, as well as the photos of those cities before and after being hit by US atomic/nuclear bombs. No, these cities were not subject to US firebombing raids, rather they were spared from such raids because they were being ‘saved’ for the atomic bombs, because the US wanted to see the effects on undamaged cities.

Question: “Supposedly, a uranium based atomic bomb would leave the target area uninhabitable for centuries, yet those cities were rebuilt in 4 years.

The atomic bombs that destroyed Hiroshima and Nagasaki were airbursts (this was done to maximize thermal and blast effects); their fireballs did not come into contact with the surface of the earth. Had they been ground bursts, their fireballs would have vaporized anything they came in contact with; immense amounts of soil and surface materials would have then been made highly radioactive, and produced huge amounts of fallout. The resulting high levels of radioactivity would have made the cities uninhabitable for a very long time.

As it was, many tens of thousands of Japanese died from radiation exposure to the fallout that came down as black rain following the detonation and subsequent firestorm that burned out the heart of the city.

There is much ignorance about toxicity of radioactive materials…

The same radiactive material at the same quantity and same radioactivity can be completely safe and absolutely deadly depending on what form that material is in. This is particularly true about alpha and beta emitters – for example you can safely hold a chunk of metallic Plutonium 239 in your hand, and it feels warm due to radioactive decay. The alpha particles (He4 nuclei) it emits are stopped effectively by the outer layer of skin (dead cells). A few mg of Pu239 in the room as a fine powder, and you are dead from cancer because if you inhale a single dust particle, it will keep causing mutations in unprotected cells. Or take Cesium 137 – it’s dangerous mostly when ingested as it displaces calcium in bones and stays emitting radiation for years inside.

The dirty bomb pulverises and disperses radioactive materials, so they stay in the area in the form which is easily ingested or aspirated, and anyone not wearing proper rad suit and respirator (and following proper decontamination protocols when taking these off) runs a high risk of dying from cancer. The normal civilian life is impossible in the area for years or decades, depending on the level of contamination. There in nothing “psychological” about this danger.

A dirty bomb is a mix of explosives, such as TNT, with radioactive powder or pellets. When the TNT or other explosives are set off, the blast carries radioactive material into the surrounding area. A dirty bomb works completely differently and cannot create a nuclear yield. Instead, a dirty bomb uses TNT or other explosives to scatter radioactive dust, smoke, or other material in order to cause radioactive contamination.

“The main danger from a dirty bomb is from the explosion, which can cause serious injuries and property damage. The radioactive materials used in a dirty bomb would probably not create enough radiation exposure to cause immediate serious illness, except to those people who are very close to the blast site.”

A dirty bomb is not a “weapon of mass destruction” but a “weapon of mass disruption,” where contamination and anxiety are the major objectives. Immediate health effects from exposure to the low radiation levels expected from a dirty bomb would likely be minimal.

On a related note, the USA massively increased global radiation levels by repeatedly testing nuclear weapons, chemical and biological warfare agents on humans without their consent, that this has affected people across the globe, and this is a crime for which the US should be held accountable.

The bomb itself is not going to be ‘just a dirty bomb’. That wouldn’t accomplish the goals of the west: to implicate a sophisticated state actor with motive, meaning Russia. Ukraine (or anyone else) can put together a dirty bomb from any kind nuclear waste. A dirty bomb has to be something Ukraine couldn’t just put together. You need a Skripal/Novichock setup so Russia can be blamed. That means either a dirty bomb containing some plutonium (all plutonium is man made in reactors) or a 3rd generation low-yield nuclear device that will produce very little, but enough fission product radionuclides to be positively identified (and implicate Russia).

This also impacts where such a bomb would be used.

If the bomb only produces local contamination, then it has to be in Ukrainian (NATO) controlled territory. That provides the usual favorable conditions: Russia can only guess what happened and that uncertainty looks like deceptive denial. And the US/UK/NATO will have exclusive access to samples and their distribution. Those samples will be provided to ‘impartial analysts’ (in the West) who will (surprise) fill out the narrative of what was found and what kind of device was used and, therefore, how Russia must be the guilty party. The Assad/Ghouta/Sarin playbook.

If the bomb produces gaseous or fine particle radionuclides, then it could be detonated anywhere (including Russian-held areas) that wind currents would carry radioactive gas/particles to western controlled atmospheric sampling sites. The amounts will be minuscule and pose little risk to the public, but will be enough that sampling sites and US nuke sniffer planes can detect specific fission/fusion weapon byproducts (iodine, xenon, etc.). Again, the west controls the narrative and it will inevitably rule out Ukraine as a potential source and point to Russia as the ‘most likely’ perpetrator. Russia can do all the analysis they want if it’s in territory they control, but anything they report will be discounted as a lie. After all, who can argue with multiple, independent ‘impartial’ western atmospheric sampling sites (the nuclear nonproliferation treaty monitors).

Depleted Uranium is just Uranium with a much lower percentage of lower content of the radioactive isotope of Uranium U235 than natural Uranium. That doesn’t meàn that it is harmless. Even without fissile material uranium is nephrotoxic and may be cytotoxic, teratogenic, mutagenic, and carcinogenic, although direct links have not been documented. Depleted Uranium is primarily used in munitions because it is heavy and when shot fast carries and can transfer a lot more energy than a projectile made of lighter elements. When such projectiles hit something solid, some of the kinetic energy is transferred to thermal energy, vaporizing some of the material and causing a local toxic cloud which can be inhaled, ingested or transferred by touch.

Fortunately, the amount released in this way in any location is relatively small and the percentage of radioactive material released is miniscule. Something else is needed to explain the alleged rise in tumors and birth defects wherever the USA has attacked people, and I would prefer studies by researchers that are not American, British or controlled by them (as so many International organizations, including the OPCW, are.)

Depleted uranium shells do not produce a nuclear reaction. They are not “mini tactical nuclear bombs”…not even close.

Depleted uranium increases penetrative power, this is due to density, not radioactive properties, good for taking out armor. A small amount of radioactive material does get released, which contributes to thyroid issues and various cancers.

If you have ever been around a tank hit by a depleted uranium shell, yiu can see that the damage is very similar to that of what a normal tank shell does. The entry holes (when one can be found) are a little cleaner, that is it.

Posted by: Steven Starr

Then Russia Stays in Ukraine Accordingly

State Department Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Iraq, Iran, and Public Diplomacy Jen Gavito speaks at the Atlantic Council, Oct. 25, 2022. (Al Arabiya English)

*****************************************************************
by Joseph Haboush, Al Arabiya English

A senior US diplomat said Tuesday that Washington was not disengaging from the Middle East, refusing to leave a vacuum for Beijing, Moscow or Tehran to exploit.

“We will not walk away from the Middle East and leave a vacuum to be filled by China, Russia or Iran. America’s interests are interwoven with the successes of the Middle East,” said Jen Gavito, the State Department’s Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Iraq, Iran, and Public Diplomacy.

Speaking at an event on Iraq at the Atlantic Council, Gavito said the US understands that Iran is “a very important partner” for Baghdad.

“But they should be positive in both directions. Persistent threats and attacks from Iran-aligned militia groups undermine Iraqi sovereignty and erode public trust in the government,” she added.

Pro-Iran militias can’t claim to be part of the security apparatuses in Iraq and be unfettered by the state’s authority and chain of command, Gavito said. “They’re either in, or they’re out.”

Iran has promised to expel US forces and diplomats from Iraq and the region. They have also, directly and indirectly, attacked American troops in Iraq and elsewhere.

But Gavito doubled down on previous commitments by US President Joe Biden to deter and counter Iran’s destabilizing activities in the region.

She also touched on the ongoing anti-government protests across Iran, which were sparked by the death in police custody of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini.

“We will always stand with the Iranian people striving for the basic rights and dignity long denied them by the regime in Tehran,” Gavito said.

Iran-Russia alliance, China

Turning to the Russian war on Ukraine, Gavito lamented Tehran’s military support for Moscow and commended Iraq’s vote at the United Nations to condemn Russia’s illegal annexation of Ukrainian territories.

“We’re concerned with the deepening Russia-Iran alliance, as evidenced by recent deliveries of Iranian UAVs that Russia has used to destroy civilian infrastructure in Ukraine,” the US diplomat said.

As for China and its bid to exert influence in the Middle East, Gavito warned that Beijing was seeking to remake the international order and its “profoundly illiberal” image.

Nevertheless, the US understands that Iraq could look to advance its development goals with China. “However, we encourage Iraq to do so with its eyes wide open,” she said, pointing to economic arrangements with China that only benefit Beijing.

Another reason Iraq should be cautious, according to Gavito, is that China has made little to no contributions to the fight against ISIS as the terrorist group continues to try to revive itself.

As Russia, China and Iran seek to exploit Iraq’s political, religious and ethnic divisions, Washington remains committed to Baghdad.

“I am here to tell you that we are not going anywhere. It is in our interest to work with the Iraqi people to confront these shared challenges I’ve described,” Gavito said.

The Russian Civil War – 100 Years Ago

By Georgiy Berezovsky, Vladikavkaz-based journalist via RT

One hundred years ago, on October 25, 1922, the Russian Civil War drew to a close. It was on that day that the Provisional Priamurye Government, the last anti-Bolshevik Russian state enclave, ceased to exist, in the Russian Far East.

The remnants of the White movement left Vladivostok. By that time, the territory of the former Russian Empire was almost entirely controlled by the Bolsheviks, although islands of resistance continued popping up sporadically in various parts of the country for several more years.

The Russian Civil War wasn’t similar to other such conflicts most people know. Unlike the American Civil War fought between the Northern and Southern states or the Spanish Civil War between the Francoist forces and the Republicans, the fighting in Russia was not simply a standoff between two uncompromising sides. The opponents of the Bolsheviks, which were collectively known as the ‘Whites’, were unable to present a united front against the ‘Reds’ due to discord within their own ranks. Moreover, separatists who were active on the periphery and generally leaned towards the Communists often intervened in the confrontation between the main warring groups and factions, which were the Bolsheviks, Monarchists, Februarists, Mensheviks, Socialists, Anarchists and other scattered forces adhering to various ideologies.

The theater of the Russian Civil War looked very much like a blood-covered patchwork quilt on fire, with short-lived state entities appearing now and then across the vast expanse of the country. It was an ‘all-against-all’ kind of warfare, with numerous coalitions and alliances formed and then disbanded time and again. As this was happening, however, the Bolsheviks claimed more and more Russian territory.

And the Allied interventions – coming from states that had previously been friendly with the Russian Empire and were even supposed to help it crush the Bolshevik regime – took place right in the middle of all that bloody chaos. But instead of supporting Tsarist Russia, their course of action ended up serving the Bolsheviks’ goals.

RT looks back at how the global community exploited the country’s weakness and, instead of trying to disrupt the formation of a state that would later evolve into one of its bitterest enemies, on the ruins of imperial Russia, did its best to facilitate the process.

It all started with foreigners

It’s probably no coincidence that the official start date of the Russian Civil War is identified by many historians as the revolt of the Czechoslovak Legion – on May 17, 1918 – even though by that time hostilities had already been going in the south for a few months.

The Czechoslovak Legion was a volunteer armed force with the Russian Imperial Army composed predominantly of Czechs and Slovaks fighting on the side of the Entente powers during World War I. In the fall of 1917, the Russian Provisional Government granted the group permission to increase its force by enlisting Czech and Slovak prisoners of war and deserters from the Austro-Hungarian Army, many of whom wished to fight the Austro-Hungarian Empire for the independence of their homelands and gladly joined the Russians.

RT

Personnel of the 1st Czechoslovakian corps listen to award ordinance. © Sputnik / Nikolai Yeronin

The decision backfired after the October Revolution ended the Provisional Government and the Bolsheviks moved to sign a separate peace treaty with the Central Powers, thus effectively undoing a lot of the Russian Empire’s achievements of the previous decades. The Czechs hurried to denounce the new revolution and declare their support for the deposed government.

Thus, formally, the Czechs turned against the Bolsheviks, but it became clear over the course of the conflict that they were primarily fighting for themselves rather than for any other cause.

First, the Czechoslovak Legion was swiftly reassigned to the command of Paris and effectively became a part of the French army. Second, one of the founders and leaders of the Legion, Tomas Masaryk, who was also the future first president of Czechoslovakia, was actively involved in negotiations with all parties to the Russian Civil War. He abstained from siding with the White movement, tried to forge a relationship with the Bolsheviks and even allowed Communist propaganda in the Legion’s units.

The Legion, which was stationed at the time on the territory of modern Ukraine, was eager to leave Russia for France, but that plan was foiled by the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk, which ceded a large chunk of the Russian Empire’s western lands, including Crimea and present-day Ukraine, to Germany. The Czechoslovak Legion had to retreat eastward in a hurry.

Masaryk decided that the Legion should travel to the Pacific port of Vladivostok and even negotiated a deal with the Bolshevik authorities. Tensions continued to mount, however, as each side distrusted the other, and ultimately the Legion had to fight its way to the Pacific along the Trans-Siberian Railway, refusing to surrender its weapons to the Reds or to deal with them in any way – until they had no choice.

Treachery of the Allies

The Czechoslovaks easily foiled all attempts to disarm them and kept capturing towns along their route. Everywhere they went, Whites from the Siberian regions joined them. Also, they were able to seize the Russian Empire’s gold reserve.

RT

However, there were fewer and fewer battles for the Legion to take part in. By autumn, the war with Germany was over and the Czechs had won their independence – an event that, paradoxically, depleted their morale: the soldiers could think of nothing else but returning to their homeland. In 1919, they hardly did any fighting at all – instead, they went on a looting spree. As they were in control of the Trans-Siberian Railway, the Czechs would routinely stop trains, rob everyone on board and ’empty’ the train cars of refugees. This eventually earned them their nickname, ‘Czechosobaks’ (which in Russian literally means ‘Czechoslovak dogs’).

One of the victims of the Czechs’ tyranny on the railroad was the White movement’s most prominent figure, Alexander Kolchak, who had been named supreme ruler of Russia not long before. His train was repeatedly stopped by the Czechs in late 1919, until it ended up in the town of Nizhneudinsk. At that time, in the neighboring city of Irkutsk, a leftist group that included Socialist-Revolutionaries and Mensheviks established a political group called the Political Center, which demanded that Kolchak hand over power to Anton Denikin. Kolchak was then promised safe passage, but his personal guards were to be replaced by Czechoslovaks. Admiral Kolchak accepted these conditions, but that did not save him from eventually being executed. On January 15, 1920, the Czechoslovaks turned Kolchak over to the Political Center, and the Socialist-Revolutionaries threw him into prison.

After an attempt by White forces loyal to Kolchak to recapture the former supreme ruler in Irkutsk, the interventionists behind the Czechs announced that they were prepared to fire upon the Whites to prevent Kolchak from escaping. To prove that their intentions were serious, the former Entente allies disarmed several units of the White Guardsmen.

As early as January 21, the Socialist-Revolutionaries and the Mensheviks surrendered power in Irkutsk to the Bolsheviks. The latter interrogated the admiral and sentenced him to execution by firing squad.

The handing over of Kolchak to the Bolsheviks was, in a way, the foreign legion’s ‘payment’ for a chance to safely leave Russia. With the prisoner in their custody, the Bolsheviks promptly began negotiations with the Czechoslovaks. The two sides exchanged detainees and the Central Europeans promised to return the gold reserves to the Soviets as soon the last foreign soldier left Irkutsk. In September 1920, the last servicemen of the Czechoslovak corps left Vladivostok aboard the US Army Transport ship Heffron.

RT

Admiral Alexander Kolchak, the ‘supreme ruler of the Russian state’, at the front. © Sputnik

But that was not the end of the Czechs’ involvement in the Russian Civil War.

Aliens in Russia’s north

The need to evacuate the legion was used to justify the Western intervention after Germany’s ultimate defeat. However, foreign troops had been on Russian territory several months before the end of World War I. Ostensibly, their presence was the result of the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk, although in actuality Russia’s ‘allies’ from the Entente had agreed on the occupation zones of the Russian Empire well before it was signed. The Bolsheviks’ peace treaty with Germany was just the catalyst to force the Allied powers to act more resolutely.

There was an attempt to justify the intervention by the need to establish an anti-German front in Russia with or without the cooperation of the Soviet government. The Allies were afraid that the Germans, who had landed in Finland, might be able to capture Murmansk and Arkhangelsk, Russia’s main northern ports, which also held military supplies.

The British reached out to the Bolsheviks and offered to land in Murmansk and take the city before the Germans could do so. In spite of the peace treaty, the Reds were indeed afraid of possible German advances, so they took London’s offer while trying to maintain secrecy and shifting the responsibility to the local authorities.

After direct threats from Germany, the Bolsheviks realized they had made a mistake, but it was too late to try to push the Brits out. In the spring of 1918, 1,500 British troops were stationed in Russia’s north.

The subsequent landing of 9,000 more servicemen in Arkhangelsk was not coordinated with the Bolsheviks at all. Apart from the British, soldiers from other countries, including Italians, Serbs, and Americans, were involved in the operation.

RT

Invaders enter Arkhangelsk, 1918. © Sputnik

The Red Army was helpless to thwart the landing and simply withdrew from the city before the Allied forces arrived. Enemies of the Bolshevik government led by Captain 2nd Rank Chaplin tried to exploit the situation, but, much to their disappointment, the British had their own plans for Arkhangelsk. They installed a leftist government headed by Nikolai Tchaikovsky, an English socialist with a long track record of socialist agitation.

The local officers were not pleased by such a turn of events, so they orchestrated a coup in September 1918 and arrested the leftwing politicians. The British intervened by freeing all of those who were jailed and removing the conspirators from Arkhangelsk.

Anti-Bolshevik forces in the sparsely populated northern regions lacked resources and struggled to feed their armies so, consequently, they had to depend on the interventionists, who had no intention of helping the Whites topple the Reds.

Foreign troops spent the whole of 1918 stationed in Murmansk and Arkhangelsk without making any serious attempts at major inroads beyond pushing a few kilometers inside Russian territory.

After the end of World War I, even the Allied powers themselves had trouble figuring out what they were still doing in Russia, given that they were not actively fighting the Bolsheviks and lacked the power to do so. By 1919, the Red Army had become a formidable force that a few thousand foreign soldiers were no match for.

Ultimately, in September of that year, the Allied powers simply boarded their ships and left the region.

Americans in Siberia

The intervention was much more active in the eastern part of Russia, through which the country’s main transport artery, the Trans-Siberian Railway, passed.

The Americans landed an expeditionary force dubbed ‘Siberia’ consisting of about 8,000 troops in Vladivostok in August of 1918. They immediately declared that they were completely neutral and gave assurances that they would not interfere in Russia’s internal affairs or provide support to either the Whites or Reds. While the British in the north were still engaging in political intrigues, the Americans claimed to be simply guarding the railway.

RT

American soldiers from the 31st Infantry marching near Vladivostok Russia. © Wikipedia

Perhaps the American mission would have been less upsetting for the locals had it not been headed by General William Graves, for whom the word ‘monarchist’ was a terrible curse word. Having no understanding of the local situation at all, he thought the Bolsheviks were something akin to America’s Founding Fathers and that they were fighting for freedom against tyranny, while he considered all Whites to be monarchists.

As a result, Graves sympathized with the Bolsheviks and put spokes in the wheels of the Whites. His relations with the latter’s officers, who could see the American general’s actual deeds, were very strained. For example, in the fall of 1919, he blocked a shipment of weapons bought by Whites on the grounds that they allegedly wanted to attack him.

The manager of affairs in the Kolchak government, Georgy Gens, observed:

“In the Far East, the American expeditionary forces behaved in such a way that anti-Bolshevik circles became convinced that the United States did not want to see the triumph, but rather the defeat of the anti-Bolshevik government. They expressed sympathy for the partisans, as if encouraging them to take further action.”

In his opinion, “It was clear that the United States did not realize what the Bolsheviks were, and that the American general, Graves, was acting according to certain instructions.”

Another White leader, Ataman Grigory Semenov, recalled:

“Almost all the weapons and uniforms coming from America were transferred from Irkutsk to the Red partisans, and General Graves, an ardent opponent of the Omsk government, knew about this. The conduct of the Americans in Siberia was so hideous from a moral point of view and just in terms of basic decency that the Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Omsk government, Sukin, being a great Americanophile, could barely hush up the scandal that had begun to erupt.”

RT

Ataman G. M. Semenov with representatives of the American mission headed by W. Graves. Vladivostok. © Wikipedia

The Canadians also took a symbolic part in the intervention in Siberia. As subjects of the British crown, they sent a small expeditionary force, which mainly carried out police service in Vladivostok. It stayed in Russia for only six months before returning home in the spring of 1919.

Japanese adventurism

The only participant in the intervention that approached the issue in a serious way was Japan. According to various estimates, its army in the Russian Far East was 30,000-70,000-strong. In terms of numbers, the Japanese forces significantly outnumbered all of the other Allied contingents combined. In addition, the Japanese -were the most adamant in insisting on the intervention – and they were also the last to leave. They were the only Allied country to take active part in actually fighting the local partisans themselves.

For this reason, the allies had to constantly pull Tokyo back and tame its ambitions. The Japanese placed their hopes in Ataman Semenov, who could only be classified as ‘White’ because his detachments were fighting the Bolsheviks.

Unlike the Whites in the north and Siberia, who had to buy weapons and ammunition from the Allies (often even defective ones), Semenov received weapons from the Japanese in large quantities for nothing.

Unlike the rest of the Allied forces, which were either engaged in protecting the Trans-Siberian Railway or sitting in port cities without sticking their noses out, the Japanese occupied a significant chunk of the eastern territories, holding all of the larger cities east of Chita by the fall of 1918. With the military support of the Japanese, Semenov’s detachment managed to capture the area of Transbaikalia.

RT

At the same time, the Japanese clearly did not seek to unite with the White forces in order to defeat the Bolsheviks. While they supported Semenov, they were extremely hostile to Kolchak. This animosity also manifested itself in their relations with the Russian commanders. One witness to the Civil War in Siberia, the Latvian writer Arved Shvabe, noted:

“Sometimes, the Japanese approved territorial uprisings directed against Kolchak in order to weaken his position.”

By the beginning of 1920, all of the Allied expeditionary forces had withdrawn from the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic (RSFSR). Only the Japanese remained, hoping they could still get something for their trouble. In order to rid themselves of the Japanese, the Bolsheviks turned to a diplomatic trick. A significant part of the region was proclaimed to be a completely independent state called the Far Eastern Republic (FER), which was not designated as a socialist state. In fact, Social Revolutionaries and Mensheviks worked side by side with the Bolsheviks in local government there.

So, it turned out the Japanese were no longer occupying Russian land but rather an independent and neutral Far Eastern Republic, which, de jure, was not even a Soviet state. This made it twice as hard for the Japanese to justify their presence there, as they were under a lot of pressure from their allies, especially the Americans.

Under diplomatic pressure, the Japanese recognized the FER and left its territory. At this point, Vladivostok and the north of Sakhalin were the last places still occupied by the Japanese, who were already in diplomatic isolation. In 1922, Tokyo began to evacuate its troops from Vladivostok.

RT

Japanese officers in Vladivostok with local commander Lieutenant-General Rozanov. © Wikipedia

Two weeks later, the Far Eastern Republic announced its accession to the RSFSR. Having fulfilled its mission, there was no further reason for its existence.


The intervention had ended with the White movement harmed while the Reds were assisted. The Bolsheviks instantly turned into defenders of the Revolution and patriots fighting imperialists (though there were practically none to fight). This greatly facilitated propaganda against the Whites, who were forced to tolerate allies who had been harming Russia.

The interventionists had never set out to overthrow the Bolsheviks and did not fight the Reds. The military contingents these ‘allies’ sent to Russia were miniscule. According to the most optimistic estimates, the number of interventionists, not counting the Japanese, did not exceed 30,000 troops. Against the 5-million-strong Bolshevik army, this was less than a drop in the bucket.

Can You Tell Your Friends and Family Why We Are in The War of the World?

By John Helmer, Moscow
@bears_with

In the history of the wars in Europe, and the wars in Asia, there has never been a combination like the present one.

When the Special Military Operation began on February 24, the Russian forces at the western border were counted by the western media at about 190,000; roughly half then crossed the frontier into the Ukraine. They were opposed by a Ukrainian force of about 200,000 entrenched and fortified east of the Dnieper River. Never has an offensive force fought against a defensive force with a ratio of one to one or less; the customary US Army rule of thumb is not less than three to one, and with firepower added to the ratio, preferably five to one.

The line of contact between the two armies, the Ukrainian and Russian, has been differently estimated from the 672-kilometre distance of the Kharkov-Odessa road, to about 1,000 kms to take account of the salients in and out of the Donetsk and Lugansk territories. Compare the length of this line to the trenches of the Allied and German armies between 1914 and 1918 of about 760 kms; the Maginot Line built by the French against the Germans in the 1930s of 448 kms; the Berlin Wall of 1961 of 140 kms; or Israel’s West Bank Barrier, fortified between 2002 and 2005, of 708 kms. Never has so long a line as the Novorussian one been manned by so few.

Not since the US imposed asset confiscations, export bans, and the oil and fuel embargo on Japan between 1937 and 1941, and the trade blockade against Germany from 1939, has US and allied economic warfare against a target country reached the present scale against Russia.

And never before has Russia proved strong enough militarily and economically to bypass, neutralize, overcome, or defeat all three.

At the same time, not since Woodrow Wilson’s stroke of 1919 has a US president been as incapacitated medically as Joseph Biden. Never before have the European allies been as politically incapacitated as the British, French, and Germans all at the same time.

This combination of strength and weakness has spilled the war for Europe into a war of the world. As Hrvoye Moric asks the questions, listen to the new TNT Radio podcast discussing the why, the wherefore, and what happens next.

Click to listen from Min 19:56.

Source: https://tntradiolive.podbean.com/

By the way, at the very end of the interview, as radio time was running out, the comparison is drawn between the British bombing raid of May 1943 against the Mohne and Eder dams in Germany, and the threatened attacks by the Kiev regime against the Kakhovka hydroelectric dam near Kherson; the latter led last week to the evacuation by the Russian army of civilians on the west bank of Kherson.

Satellite image of the Kakhovka hydroelectric dam on the Dnieper River, October 18, 2022.

The Dambusters Raid, as the Royal Air Force operation is popularly known, targeted the Mohne and Eder hydroelectric dams in the Ruhr region of Germany. Initial British reports indicated that more than 50 towns had been flooded; 4,000 people killed, and 120,000 made homeless. Some of the casualties were prisoners of the Germans being held in a forced labour camp below the dam wall; 53 of the 133 British aircrew involved were killed. The Imperial War Museum summary notes that “although the impact on industrial production was limited, the raid gave a significant morale boost to the people of Britain.” A 75th anniversary assessment of Operation Chastise, the RAF codename for the bombing raid, has concluded: “For all the raid’s audacity and courage; the technical brilliance behind it; and despite the widespread destruction and adverse repercussions for the German war economy that it certainly caused, it did not bring about the long-term crisis for which planners in the Air Ministry and Ministry of Economic Warfare had hoped.”

The Mohne dam, before (left) and after (right) the May 16, 1943, Dambusters Raid.

“Only the defeated commit [war] crimes”, the British novelist John Mortimer wrote not long ago.

The City of London Elects Sunak as next British Prime Minister!

Note by the Algora Editors: In the last week, the Kremlin escalated a major rhetorical offensive on the subject of Ukraine’s false flag “dirty bomb” plot, along the line that:  

“There is information about the contacts of the office of the President of Ukraine with representatives of the United Kingdom on the possible acquisition of nuclear weapons technology”.

Suddenly Liz Truss resigns, Boris Johnson withdraws his candidacy for the premiership, even Ben Wallace, the hawkish Defense Minister, is called  to Washington and then he also withdraws his candidacy. Did the Russians have the “smoking gun” on the plot to stage a false flag “dirty bomb” event? Very possible.

If so, then, is this the turning point in the war in Ukraine, the moment when the war in Ukraine has been decided? Is this the winning strategy of the Kremlin’s Special Military Operation?


by Gilbert Doctorow via Doctorow

Aside from the United Kingdom itself, there may be no single country taking a greater interest in the ongoing competition to replace Liz Truss as British Prime Minister than in India. After all, the leading contender for the post, Rishi Sunak, is of Indian descent and is married to the daughter of one of India’s richest men.

Against this background, a couple of hours ago I was delighted to participate alongside a half dozen other talking heads on a featured live broadcast hosted by Republic TV of India.  My fellow panelists, mostly Indians plus one Brit, examined the prospects of a Sunak premiership from various angles:  What will this mean for Indian-UK relations?  Whether an Indian can win not merely within the closed circle of Tory parliamentarians but in the next general election in two years time, when the people of Britain decide at the ballot box if they are content to be led by a man of color? What will a Sunak premiership mean for the pound sterling?  What does a Sunak premiership imply for British foreign policy generally?

As the last speaker, I was given the opportunity to upend the playing board and to suggest that Mr. Sunak, if he wins, will have been elected by ….the City of London.  This is not merely because he worked for Goldman Sachs before entering the House of Commons six years ago. It is because the City of London, aka Capital or The Markets effectively removed Liz Truss from office by facilitating the dramatic crash of gilts and the slide of the pound. The markets were responding to one stimulus: the evident incompetence, particularly the ignorance of economic laws demonstrated by the PM and her Chancellor of the Exchequer when they rolled out their mini-Budget shortly after taking office. The City was not interested in ideological convictions of the PM; they were interested in what works and what does not work in the real world.

Now what is extraordinary about that, you may ask? It is extraordinary that in the UK Capital still speaks, still decides who runs the country and how.  That raw fact alone may be the best justification for Brexit, because it sets Britain apart from every country on the Continent. Here in Europe we see incompetence in the premiers, in the cabinets of country after country. For the most part, it is not because the individuals in power are stupid, but because they have assumed portfolios for which they have had no grounding in their education or in their professional careers.  They receive their portfolios or leadership batons strictly through political horse-trading among coalition partners who have different agendas and agree only on the desirability of sharing out the spoils of electoral victory within the proportional representation schemes in place. And the same applies to the European Commission which sits atop all of the member states and barks orders. What is the quality of economic or defense decisions that you can expect to come from the desk of one Ursula von der Leyen, whose professional education was as a gynecologist and who was kicked upstairs to Brussels after she failed, as minister, to keep the German Defense Ministry free of corruption scandals.

 Here across Europe, and particularly in what is considered to be the locomotive of the European Union’s economy, Germany, Capital is silent.  Silent in the face of economic incompetence in high places no less egregious than that displayed by Liz Truss.  German Chancellor Olaf Scholz is destroying the German economy by his stubborn, asinine insistence on denying Russian hydrocarbons access to the German and EU markets.

German companies are announcing their transfer of production to the United States and Asian countries where the cost of energy is vastly lower and where their end products can be competitive on global markets.  In fertilizers and glass and metals, industry is already shutting down capacity due to excessive energy costs, while Mr. Scholz beams before the television cameras as he announces that Germany will not run short of gas this winter because of his purchases from every imaginable supplier except Russia, damn the price.  Nonetheless, Industry and Capital are silent here about the political leadership responsible for the pending catastrophe. Only workers come out on the streets to complain about inflation and unsupportable energy costs at the household level.

The question which the moderator on Republic TV tossed to me was what to expect by way of foreign policy from a Sunak premiership.  My answer took no time to formulate:  it is likely to be a foreign policy dictated by The City of London. I expect this policy to be more moderate, less strident and hostile towards Russia and China than the policy of Boris Johnson or Liz Truss.  Not friendly, you understand, but not vicious either. Sunak is unlikely to speak about his readiness to press the nuclear button. At some point Realism has to trump Ideology and the Bubble.

Can Iran’s T34 Drones Stop World War Three?


by Declan Hayes

© Photo: REUTERS/Wana News Agency

Iran’s Shahed 136 kamikaze drone, the T34 of our age, is a global game changer, not least because some 22 countries are clamoring to buy them.

Iran’s Shahed 136 kamikaze drone, the T34 of our age, is a global game changer, not least because some 22 countries are clambering to buy them. First tested in Yemen and now going through its paces in the T34’s old stomping ground of Ukraine, these kamikazedrones, like the T34s before them, are showing themselves to be sturdy war horses that deliver bang for buck.

By releasing the Shahed 136 in swarms, Russian forces can overwhelm NATO’s defenses and, as the Shahed 136 loiters in mid-flight to choose its target, it causes consternation in Zelensky’s conscripts. Although it can evade missile defense systems [but] is vulnerable to small arms’ fire, NATO and their Israeli allies rightly fear it.

One important reason to fear Iran’s kamikaze drones is they were developed and produced under NATO’s most severe sanctions, instigated at the behest of nuclear armed Israel, which now knows with 100% certainty that its own illegal nuclear sites are totally vulnerable to Hezbollah strikes using even more advanced and infinitely more lethal versions of the Shahed 136.

For, let’s face it. Although Iran’s engineers can be very proud of their work, there is no doubt that Russia, Pakistan, India and, especially China, are reverse engineering Iran’s wunder-armament because it fits directly into the war doctrine of the Chinese Peoples Liberation Army, which is to wage asymmetric warfare against the U.S. 7th Fleet and anyone and anything else NATO sends into the Taiwan Strait and South China Sea.

Lest this truism is lost on Japan, which has one of the world’s best navies, Japan should let the 7th Fleet stand alone. If the U.S. and its colonies wish to go toe to toe against China’s entire arsenal, Japan should not get involved as its cities are much too vulnerable to Chinese and North Korean counter attack. If the U.S. has a beef with China, just as it has a beef with all others, Japan should not make it Japan’s problem. If the U.S. sowed the wind, let the U.S. reap the whirlwind.

And then there is the calumny of calling these drones kamikaze. The original kamikaze were the divine winds, the typhoons which saw off the Mongol invaders and the more recent kamikaze were the patriotic Japanese pilots who flew their Mitsubishi and Kawasaki planes into attacking American warships off the Okinawan coast. Although the Mitsubishi A6M2 Zero was a beautiful plane that took the Americans some years to come to grips with, NATO has no hope of corralling Iran’s kamikazes. That is because the reverse engineers of Iran, Pakistan, India and China do not work under the same constrictions Imperial Japan’s engineers did.

In contrast to the Zero, it is the engineering simplicity of the Shahed series that make them the T34 of our age. Although the T34 had an inferior design to Germany’s over engineered Tiger tank, German generals von Kleist, Guderian and Jodl all affirmed what a game changer the T34 was. The engineering genius of the Soviets, much like their British allies with their ground breaking Sten gun, and their Mosquito wooden wonder bombers, was that they kept it simple.

The Germans, on the other hand, were obsessed with their engineering, rather than with winning the war. Even though the Nazis had jets ready to go in 1938, they only brought them into service in 1945 when the war was already lost and when the Luftwaffe’s pilots had not yet learned the best way to use defensive jets or to land them safely. As with the V1, V2 and V3 rocket series, the Nazis squandered their technological advantages. As they did by embroiling themselves in the muck and mire of the Ukraine where the Wehrmacht’s advanced weaponry ground to a halt, causing its officers and men, when faced with ever fresh waves of T34s, to despair.

Whereas much of that German failure can be attributed to the fact that the Third Reich was led by a clique of myopic madmen, NATO’s Top Gun myopia is due to their vegetarians’ lust for lucre at the expense of the lives of Panamanians, East Timorese, Palestinians and Russians and of even having a healthy, diverse, domestic economy.

Although artificial intelligence (AI) stands at the heart of NATO’s war-obsessed economies, AI was founded, funded, promoted and developed by NATO’s war machine so that NATO, like Hitler’s Reich before it, might have its own array of wunder weapons. But because NATO’s prey have now evolved to surpass the NATO predator at its own game, NATO, like Hitler before it, must prepare for a last roll of the dice. That last throw is a false flag tactical nuclear attack, something the Daily Mail and NATO’s other media outlets are never done prattling about.

First off, NATO has a long history of false flag attacks not only in Syria but in Cuba (Remember the Maine), Vietnam (Gulf of Tonkin), and just about anywhere else they have invaded. As NATO’s media were fully complicit in all these war crimes, their bleatings about General Armageddon, Putin, the Wagner Group, the Chechens or the Russian Armed Forces can be safely ignored for the sake of analysis.

If a false flag tactical nuke is deployed, then as with Syria, where NATO wants us to believe that the Syrian Arab Army needlessly deployed chemical weapons every time victory was at hand, the question is cui bono, who benefits? The only answer can be NATO and the gangster Kiev junta it supports. Not only has NATO deployed such weapons in the past but it has repeatedly threatened to use them over the last 70 years against the Soviet Union, China, Vietnam and others. Only a simpleton would believe that BlackRock or any of the other financial powers behind NATO would be perturbed by a nuclear bomb in Ukraine, as long as “Putin” could be blamed and their own quarterly profit forecasts were not hurt. If they had no problems using white phosphorus in Serbia and Iraq, why should a small nuke in the Black Sea perturb them?

Far from being idle speculation, that scenario is totally on the money. Even after America’s second nuclear terrorist attack on Nagasaki, many Imperial Japanese Army officers were prepared to fight on regardless. As were considerable numbers of Waffen SS officers as their Reich crumbled around them. And then we have the various doomsday cults, of which there is no shortage in Kiev or, for that matter, in Washington which long ago silenced Phil Donahue and its handful of other genuine anti-war journalists. If Zelensky or his CIA handlers thought they could get away with it, make no mistake, all the evidence indicates they would drop the big one.

The atomization of anti war movements in Britain, Ireland and Germany and the control of their remnants by the military intelligence units of their respective countries does not augur well, either. There currently is no effective opposition in NATO’s home countries to a false flag tactical nuclear bomb. The Nazi regime in Kiev, like the CIA’s head hacking, flesh eating Syrian rebels before them, are begging for NATO air intervention on any false flag pretext that fits the bill.

Given all that, there are only a limited number of end plays. If NATO opens the door to nuclear Armageddon, then it is soyonara and no more cherry blossom seasons in Yasukuni shrine for any of us. If mutually assured self destruction is the price NATO demands, so be it. If, on the other hand, Iran’s engineering resilience can convince the U.S., Israel and their colonies to see that the global chessboard has tilted in favor of China and their other self made enemies, then there might be hope life, as it should be lived, can continue. Though the ball is in NATO’s court, they must realize that they no longer dictate either the play or the rules of the game. They can either live with that reality or perish in the light of that truth.