Recent Speeches by Putin, Lavrov and Xi Signal Fundamental Changes in the Pipeline

Three recent speeches and interviews given by major politicians have sharpened the political debate now raging in the Western media. Ironically, none of the three speeches received significant coverage in the Western media. Ironically, despite the lack of Western media coverage, all three mark a significant development in the world geopolitical dialogue. Two of the speeches occurred at the same meeting of the Valdai Discussion Group, an organisation established in 2004 and modified to become a foundation in 2011. Russia’s President Putin was an initial founder of the group and has spoken at every meeting since then.

In this year’s meeting Putin again gave a keynote speech and although, as is his preference he spoke in conciliatory terms toward Russia’s major geopolitical foe, the United States, there was no mistaking the edge to his remarks. Putin spoke of a new era that in his view was about to begin. The world was not just on the edge of dramatic changes, but in what he described as a “tectonic shift” that would affect all areas of life. The process of change has become most marked in the past 40 years. Russia has been and will continue to be a major force in the process of change, undoubtably to the chagrin of its political foes.

For those in the West who were expecting, and undoubtably hoping for, the decline of Russia after the demise of the Soviet Union, Putin declared that to those still waiting for Russia’s decline,” the only thing we are warned about is catching cold at your funeral.”

Putin identified China as moving quickly towards superpower status, although some, including myself, would argue they have already achieved that status. The United States he identified as having at some point (the period 1990–2008?) having absolutely dominated the international stage, but “can hardly claim exceptionality any longer”. Therein lies enormous risk to the world.

Although Putin did not refer to the point, the United States’ unwillingness to acknowledge and accept the fundamental changes in their world status poses a very grave threat to the planet. He referred to authoritative international institutions (unspecified) as following in the wake of someone’s selfish interests as “saddening.” It is worse than that. Not only does it discredit those institutions (and the recent fiasco over the Navalny affair springs to mind) it exacerbates, said Putin, the world order crisis.

On the positive side, Putin identified the Shanghai Corporation Organisation as having spent almost 20 years contributing to development and the peaceful settlement of disputes in Central Asia. It is shaping, he said, “a unique spirit of partnership in that part of the world.” It is precisely because of this success that has been a major factor in the destabilisation efforts by the United States in the region, which has accelerated in the past few years, including but not limited to a diplomatic effort in the region (to use a polite term) of United States Secretary of State Pompeo.

Russia’s foreign minister Sergei Lavrov also addressed the meeting and gave extensive interviews following his speech. Whereas Putin spoke in his customary polite manner, Lavrov made no attempt to conceal his anger. In his principal speech Lavrov asked the not entirely rhetorically question: “when the European Union is speaking as a superior, Russia wants to know, can we do any business with Europe?”

In a later radio interview, Lavrov made the further point that “no matter what we do, the West will try to hobble and restrain us and undermine our efforts in the economy, politics and technology.” Although he did not use the illustration, the reaction of the West to the alleged poisoning of Alexei Navalny is a classic example. The inherent stupidity, illogicality and sheer mindlessness of the Western attacks on Russia, not only in the Navalny case but also in the equally ludicrous claims regarding the illness of the Skripal father and daughter has recently been brilliantly ridiculed by former British diplomat and commentator Craig Murray. The West cannot militarily defeat Russia, so this has led, Lavrov points out, to “non-stop harassment and undermining of Russia.” He went on to cite a number of recent examples of this in countries such as Belarus, Armenia, Azerbaijan and Kyrgyzstan.

Lavrov referred to the “comprehensive strategic partnership” that has emerged, not least in defence from this sustained Western economic and political attack, with China. He referred to this development making “total Eurasian sense, geopolitically and geoeconomically”.

Several years ago, Vladimir Putin referred to the West has being “not agreement capable.” Lavrov applied the same description to the European Union. Russia, he argued, should stop orienting itself toward the European countries, and caring about their assessments. A similar level of growing exasperation with the West’s persistent disruptive techniques and the waging of all out warfare short of actually shooting is seen in the similarly recent address by China’s President Xi Jinping.

In a major speech Xi gave to commemorate the 70th anniversary of China’s involvement in the Korean War (another regime change operation mounted by the West under other pre-texts) Xi bluntly warned that China was not to be trifled with and would not sit idly by while its sovereignty was attacked. He specifically referred to current United States efforts to foster problems between China and Taiwan. Pretending that Taiwan is a separate sovereign state is a long-standing Western tactic dating back to 1949 when the Nationalists fled to what was then called Formosa. Part of the pretence fostered by the United States and its allies is to ignore the fact that China’s claims in the South China Sea not only pre-date the coming to power of the Communist party in 1949, but that the exact same territorial claims are made by Taiwan, a fact never mentioned in the Western media.

Xi accused the United States of attempting to start a war between China and Taiwan to which Xi gave a blunt response: their (the United States) foreign policy will go nowhere. China would make what he called a “quiet strike” in retaliation without specifying exactly what he meant. It was clear from Xi’s speech that he regarded United States foreign policy (and he is not alone in this view) as having been hijacked by the United States’ far right contingent. Irrespective of which of Trump or Biden succeeds in the November presidential election it would be extremely naïve to anticipate any meaningful changes in United States foreign policy towards either Russia or China. Both countries have taken significant steps in recent years to prepare for the fundamental realignment in geopolitical affairs currently underway. The re-emergence of China as the world’s most powerful economic entity is essentially a redressing of the historical aberration that the past 300 years have exemplified.

The great danger to the world comes from the inability and unwillingness of the West to recognise that those 300 years were an aberration, not a blueprint for the future. How well the West copes with that reassertion of the old order may well determine the future of our planet.

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Instability, Poverty and Nuclear Weapons

The President of the United States has the power to fire off thousands of nuclear weapons and destroy the world. As succinctly explained by William Perry and Tom Collina in the New York Times, “Mr. Trump has the absolute authority to start a nuclear war. Within minutes, the president could unleash the equivalent of more than 10,000 Hiroshima bombs. He does not need a second opinion. The defense secretary has no say. Congress has no role.” This is the Trump who contracted the Covid 19 virus and on October 2 was taken to hospital where he was drugged to the eyeballs, referred to the infliction as “a blessing from God”, and declared “I’m a perfect physical specimen.” He then was flown to a massive election rally in Florida on October 12, joining his supporters in shoulder-rubbing maskless happiness and announced “Now they say I’m immune. I feel so powerful. I’ll walk in there. I’ll kiss everyone in that audience. I’ll kiss the guys and the beautiful women, just give you a big fat kiss.” The mental instability evident in these and many other utterances of that “perfect physical specimen” is disturbing. And the fact that it exists in a man who could destroy the world is terrifying.

The immediacy of nuclear danger is evident in Trump’s attitude to the presidential election itself. As the Financial Times noted, he “has refused to commit himself to a peaceful transfer of power if he were to lose on November 3, citing unsubstantiated claims of electoral fraud. He told one rightwing group, the Proud Boys, to ‘stand back and standby’ during last month’s presidential debate.” His ‘Proud Boys’ supporters constitute one of the armed and deeply bigoted militias that have recently surfaced in the U.S., and nobody knows how they will react in the event of a Trump defeat. It is of some concern that “Facebook has taken down at least 6,500 pages and groups linked to more than 300 U.S. militias [emphasis added] after it announced in mid-August that it was culling groups that host ‘discussions of potential violence’ on its platform, including ‘when they use veiled language and symbols’.”

If Trump refuses to stand down and get out of the White House in January in the event of a Biden victory, what happens to the nuclear football that is carried by the military aide who is always the president’s closest shadow? Would Trump insist on retaining possession of the case containing the essentials required for ordering nuclear war? Would the military officer carrying the football obey such an order? What would the rifle-toting ‘Proud Boys’ or other armed militias do about it?

Trump told CNN that “The only way we’re going to lose this election is if this election is rigged” and on October 7 tweeted “This will be the most corrupt Election in American History!” but did not elaborate on what he might do if in his own judgement he lost the election by alleged fraud. The interregnum, the period between announcement of the result and the Inauguration of the 46th President on January 20, will be fraught with uncertainty because Trump will still be in a position of power — power to issue executive orders that do not require Congressional approval and, above all, the power to commit his country to war.

Given Trump’s mental condition and likely reaction to electoral defeat, the immediate future looks dark indeed, but the one certain thing is that Trump will not lift a finger to help the poor and unemployed who are struggling against the effects of the pandemic. It is recorded that in 2019 there were 34 million Americans living in poverty. There were countless millions of children actually going hungry in the world’s richest country and their lives have got immeasurably worse since the virus struck, but the bankers haven’t been suffering, any more than suppliers of nuclear weapons and associated gadgetry.

On October 14 the New York Times reported that the bank Goldman Sachs “had a significantly more profitable quarter than expected, lifted by continued strength in the trading of stocks and bonds and gains from certain investments. The bank reported earnings of $3.62 billion, far higher than Wall Street analysts had projected, and revenue of $10.78 billion for the third quarter.” Just along the road, JPMorgan Chase enjoyed third-quarter profits of $9.44 billion which was a mighty increase on its $4.76 billion last quarter and even better than the $9.08 billion it raked in the same quarter a year ago. This year in the United States, while children starve and banks are making vast profits, the nuclear arms’ industry is being given $28.9 billion for “modernisation” of its vast assets, including $7 billion for command, control and communications, $4.4 billion for Columbus Class nuclear submarines, and $2.8 billion for B-21 long range strike bombers. What is ignored by the war boys is that the $4.4 billion committed to nuclear submarines could, for example, build 40 hospitals each with 120 beds and all associated facilities.

So Trump is assured of much support from the money kings, and great approval from the military of which he is Commander-in-Chief. He behaves erratically to the point of psychosis, but has many millions of supporters who chant adulatory slogans in the middle of his unhinged diatribes.

Mitt Romney is a longtime Republican who was the party’s selection to run for president against Barack Obama in 2012. Now a Senator, he is ferociously opposed to such humanitarian schemes as Social Security and Medicare, insisting that even the poorest of the poor should pay for medical attention. He is committed to increasing military spending and opposes reform of the financial sector of the economy. In short, he is a card-carrying, ultra-rightwing authoritarian near-copy of President Trump.

But Romney has realised what is happening in America and unlike other Republicans who have similar sentiments has spoken out against its current state. On October 13 he tweeted that the country “has moved away from spirited debate to a vile, vituperative, hate-filled morass, that is unbecoming of any free nation. The world is watching America with abject horror.” He now admits that Trump has spent four years confronting and insulting fellow-Americans as well as nations that have even mildly opposed his disjointed foreign policy.

America is suffering from instability in the White House and carnage on its streets. While poverty is rife and the pandemic is killing thousands in the richest country in the world its nuclear weapons are under jurisdiction of an unhinged egotistical sociopath. Given Trump’s public pronouncements it is likely he will not accept defeat in the November 3 election. The country will then descend even further into what Romney calls a “hate-filled morass” — but the main international anxiety concerns control of nuclear weapons. Is this unstable man in the White House going to be allowed to continue to wield his present authority to start a nuclear war?

It is not surprising that the world is “watching America with abject horror”, and it must be hoped that there is planning proceeding in world capitals concerning the range of Trump intentions.

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The Double De-Coupling

The defining event of this post-Covid era (whomsoever wins in the U.S. elections), will likely be the U.S. de-coupling from China – Tech de-coupling of telecoms (from Huawei’s 5G); de-coupling from Chinese media and chat platforms; the purging of all China tech from the U.S. microchip ecosystem; the disconnecting of China from internet, from app stores, from undersea cables; and from access to U.S. cloud-based data storage systems – under Pompeo’s Clean Network programme.  This represents the first heavy artillery barrage to a prolonged, and mud-laden, trench-warfare ahead. This is not Cold War, but a reversion to an earlier era that then ended with hot war – when policy-makers (and markets) famously failed to appreciate the rising danger that was accreting during the sleepy-summer hiatus that elapsed between the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand in late June 1914, and the outbreak of the First World War, five weeks later. Diplomats of course understood that two heavily-armed alliances were on potential a collision course, but there had been episodes of sabre-rattling for several years before, whose failure to come to a head had induced a sense that the status quo would extend indefinitely. Opinion then had been influenced by Norman Angell’s 1909 best-seller, The Great Illusion, arguing that war had become impossible, because global trade and capital flows were too closely interlinked.

What they did not understand at that earlier moment was that the circumstances of mid-1914 (the Sarajevo moment) seemed so propitious both for Germany to aspire to empire, and for Britain to believe that it could quash it utterly.  Just as circumstances are believed – by some in Washington – to be serendipitous today.

Trump et al seem convinced that the U.S. can use its financial and trade muscle – whilst America still predominates – to crush China’s rise, contain Russia, and arm-twist Europe into tech vassalage.  The Balkan war in the early 20th century locked Germany’s fickle ally Austria-Hungary into Germany’s greater fight against Russia.  And today, Pompeo hopes to lock (fickle) Europe into America’s containment of Russia. The Nordstream threats and the Navalny scam are just some of Pompeo’s ‘levers’.

Pompeo’s Clean Network assault is today’s ‘Sarajevo moment’.  Policy-makers, and markets, remain blasé (as in 1914, when markets awoke to the risks, only in August, on the outbreak of war).  By late January next year, the U.S. is very likely to be paralysed in an intractable, possibly violent, constitutional crisis – and in all-out tech war with China.  By then, Europe and America are likely to be in full recession, as Coronavirus fires up for the winter.

Tech de-coupling is not explicitly military, yet nor is it system-neutral: Who it is that sucks up our data, and then mines it via algorithms, to know what we think, what we feel, and do, precisely has the power to shape our society socially and politically.  The point here is that our data – were we to remain in the U.S. digital sphere – is about to be used and shaped, in a polarized, adversarial manner.  And with the drums of war beating, inevitably comes the call for public full commitment.

It is obvious that, with the Clean ‘Fortress America’ project, Pompeo is taking Antonio Gramsci’s thesis that the cultural sphere is the most productive arena of political struggle – and is inverting it.  Thus, instead of culture being the site of revolutionary action against an élite (per Gramsci), U.S. social net-platforms, cleansed of non-western rivals, become precisely the site where the system reasserts itself – neutering the possibility of political resistance via its most powerful weapons: big platform algorithmic and MSM demonisation of China (i.e. the ‘China Plague’) and Russia (‘assassination of its dissidents’).  These can be the means by which a largely war-adverse Europe can be turned against China and Russia, in the name of advancing its ‘universal’ liberal values.

There is however, another equally significant de-coupling edging its way ahead:  “Russia has been watching with growing disquiet that Germany is in another historical transition”, Ambassador Bhadrakumar writes, “that holds disturbing parallels with the transition from Bismarck in the pre-World War 1 European setting … To illustrate the change sweeping over the German ideology, in an interview with the weekly magazine Die Zeit in July, the German Defence Minister (who is also the acting chairwoman of the ruling CDU) stressed that it is “high time” to discuss “how Germany must position itself in the world in the future”. She said, Bhadrakumar continues, that Germany is “expected to show leadership, not only as an economic power”, but also in “collective defence … it concerns a strategic view of the world, and ultimately it concerns the question of whether we want to actively shape the global order.”  “Plainly put, the German voice is no longer the voice of pacifism, the Ambassador concludes”.

Kramp-Karrenbauer said “the claim of the current Russian leadership” to advocate their interests “very aggressively” must be “confronted with a clear position: We are well-fortified, and in case of doubt, ready to defend ourselves. We see what Russia is doing and we will not let the Russian leadership get away with it”. “Suffice to say”, Bhadrakumar summarises, “seventy-five years after the end of World War 2, German imperialism is stirring — and, [its élites] once again, targeting Russia … Berlin plays a leading role in the western offensive against Russia and leads the NATO battlegroup in Lithuania. Germany and the U.S. are also working closely together on NATO moves against Russia. Germany is the most important staging area for NATO units deployed at the Eastern European border with Russia. And the German media is awash with opinion demanding that the NATO commitment should now finally be fulfilled and military spending increased to 2 percent of GDP”.

The well-connected, Carnegie Moscow bureau chief, Dmitri Trenin, writes in a similar vein: “Berlin is ending the era launched by Gorbachev of a trusting and friendly relationship with Moscow. Russia, for its part, no longer expects anything from Germany, and therefore does not feel obliged to take into account its opinion or interests … One can only imagine how Putin reacted to Merkel’s announcement that Navalny had been poisoned with the Novichok nerve agent. A stab in the back is the mildest reaction that comes to mind”. Trenin writes: “Thirty years ago, German reunification seemed to be not only a historic reconciliation, but also a guarantee of future friendly relations and close cooperation between two peoples and states. Now that, too, has become a thing of the past … Russia is also embarking on a new chapter. The situation is accordingly becoming both simpler and more risky: The Kremlin is unlikely to take any drastic action immediately, but will from now on view Germany as being controlled by the United States.  [And] as for the United States, Russia has long been engaged in a zero-sum hybrid war with it, in which there are fewer and fewer inhibitive factors left”. Merkel’s generation of German politicians are staunchly ‘Atlanticist’, but only in the ‘liberal way’ – as she herself is.  That is, they are committed to upholding the ‘universal liberal value system’. This places her, of course, at loggerheads with Trump; yet paradoxically, that makes the German leadership that much more susceptible to U.S. manipulation on China and Russia (which are now fully bi-partisan issues in Washington) – since, as Samuel Huntington noted, “universalism is the [useful] ideology of the West for confronting other cultures”.  Shades of 1914, when Austria-Hungary was locked into the greater fight with Russia, in a similar fashion! It is not hard to see the German élites’ bottom line: they are counting on a Biden win. 

Norbert Röttgen, chair of the Bundestag’s foreign affairs committee, and a candidate for the leadership of the CDU, put it this way: “Should Joe Biden win, I would expect his government to return to a partnership based on rational thinking and cooperation” i.e. the Euro-élites are counting on the return to ‘business as usual’.  It won’t be though – the ‘old normal’ is well behind us. European Council President, Charles Michel, spoke this week about how the EU can achieve ‘strategic autonomy’: The EU “wants to be stronger, more autonomous, and firmer”. The EU, Michel continued, is about to develop an “open model with greater awareness of our strength, with more realism, and perhaps less naivety. We have faith in the virtues of free and open economies, never in protectionism … But from now on, we will better enforce the level playing field, in a market open to those who respect its standards”.

Oh yes?  Well, this may be fine for minnow states to be treated as vassals seeking an opening with Empire’s good grace for its manufactures, but it won’t work for tech, the New Economy, U.S., or the China-Russia axis. (Never mind that hypocrisy that the ‘level playing field’ is not a form of EU protectionism). The U.S. is pulling the commanding heights of tech and its standards and taking them ‘back home’.  China will continue to be expelled from the western digital sphere – as far as the U.S. is able.  Wolfgang Munchau reports that the German coalition now has approved a de facto Huawei ban. It’s goal is to kill Huawei through full-force application of German bureaucracy. And Russia is de-coupling from Europe to work more closely with China, (thanks to Merkel and her cohorts).

But what then?  Europe has no substitute to Huawei. 5G networks effectively represent the nervous system connecting the political, strategic, military, informative, economic, financial, industrial and infrastructural dimensions at a personal, local, national, international and transnational level.  5G networks, together with the exponential progresses in computing power and advances in AI, are the transformative agency of the New Economy.  The point here is latency: the ability to integrate differing streams of data all together, and with virtually no delay.  It is key not just to everyday ways of life, but to defence systems too. Machine Learning is a specific subset of AI that trains machines. It trains AI to learn and adapt, and without the latency of human-driven decisions, efficiency can be at the forefront. Machine Vision: From autonomous cars and drones to robots and so much more of today’s cutting-edge technologies, they all share a dependence on machine vision. That means these machines must be able to “see” to perform their tasks in the physical world.

And all these need 5G to reduce latency. The U.S. hasn’t got it.  And China leads. It leads on Big Data and on AI. Yes, the U.S. leads on semiconductors or ‘chips’, but for how long? China simply won’t allow itself to be expelled from the global semiconductor market.  IT experts from Russia, ASEAN and Huawei are explaining, as Pepe Escobar reports, what could be described as a limitation of quantum physics is preventing a steady move from 5 nm (billionth of a metre) to 3 nm chips. This means that the next breakthroughs may come from other semiconductor materials and techniques. So China, in this aspect, is practically at the same level of research as Taiwan, South Korea and Japan. China’s breakthroughs have involved a crucial switch from silicon to carbon. Chinese research is totally invested in this switch, and is nearly ready to transpose its lab work into industrial production. To whom then is China turning for tech co-operation?  It is not Germany.  As Asia Times’ David Goldman notes, “the cumulative impact of a series of sanctions on Russia has pushed Russia toward a strategic alliance with China, including close cooperation with China on 5G telecommunications and semiconductor R&D. Russia’s economy may be the size of Italy’s, but its brain is bigger than its body: It graduates more engineers per annum than the United States, and they are very well trained”.

And so – back to our ‘Sarajevo moment’.  Pompeo has pulled the trigger on the Arch Duke. Dynamics have been set in motion. Yet we remain stuck in the interregnum waiting on the U.S. – whilst Euro-leaders count that Biden must win, and ‘normality’ be restored. In the early twentieth century, Britain’s attempt to rip-apart global supply lines – to preserve its own; and to deny Germany its external links, effectively channeled resurgent German ambitions eastwards, across the plain of Europe, and ultimately, to a drive on Russia. It ended with war and economic depression.

Today, the U.S. demands that Europe sever from Russia and China, yet America has entered into internal crisis – and even at the best of times, cannot substitute for the Asian axis in most tech spheres.  It would be hubris for Europe to imagine it can build a New Economy in rivalry to the Big Two, and absent their tech and diplomatic strategic co-operation.  For Europe to try to sit out the present ‘phony war’ like the Grand Panjandrum, waiting for tech suitors to come to it, is no strategy, but rather a receipt for Depression. It is not a great prospect … for European peoples struggling, not with the chimaera of Euro-empire, but with trying to manage their lives in difficult Corona times.  One cannot help but notice that European politics at the national level is all domestic (school openings, virus restrictions and shrinking economies), whilst far-away Brussels fantasises about building a stronger, more autonomous, European ‘empire’.

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Take Pity on Britain Because It Is Approaching Catastrophe

Countless millions in Britain are suffering economically and/or medically from the effects of the government’s erratic whack-a-mole approach to the Covid-19 crisis. On the other hand, criminal gangs and some very rich citizens have prospered greatly from the effects of the pandemic, and morally it is difficult to draw a line between these elements of the community. Scams by criminals have included fake websites offering supposed cures for the virus, and bogus claims for job support. There have been many news reports about such things but these are just the ones that have surfaced because their originators have been inefficient or unlucky. There are countless other scams out there, with evil people making a lot of money by defrauding innocent citizens. It was ever thus, but the charity Age UK has listed a number of particularly squalid con-jobs aimed specifically at cheating the old and vulnerable, and when one examines them it is difficult not to doubt that human beings are indeed far from being nature’s last word in moral development.

Which brings us to Sir Jim Ratcliffe, Britain’s richest person and a vulgar creep who was honoured by being made a knight in 2018 for “Services to Business and Investment”.

Britains honours system is discredited and devoid of utility. It is officially intended that a distinction such as a knighthood or the Order of the British Empire (patently an anachronism) is given to those who have made a “major contribution” to the nation at a national or local level. Deterioration set in during the prime ministership of David Lloyd George in the 1920s, when a series of squalid shenanigans devalued the system. A conman called Maundy Gregory sold honours, with a knighthood, for example, being available for the equivalent of half a million dollars in today’s money. Official inquiries cleared people (they always do), and the system continued, with lots of skunks being given honours for indefinable services. On 25 September it was reported that Britain’s richest person had ditched the country that had honoured him for “Services to Business” and that “Ratcliffe, a petrochemicals magnate with an estimated £17.5 billion fortune, has… changed his tax domicile from Hampshire to Monaco, the sovereign city-state that is already home to many of the UK’s richest people. It has been estimated that the move will save him £4 billion in tax payments. People who live in Monaco for at least 183 days a year do not pay any income or property taxes…”

There have been several periods when Britain was greatly in need of money for reasons of national survival, but this time the situation is desperate. The Financial Times noted the Bank of England’s “forecast that the coronavirus crisis will push the UK economy into its deepest recession in 300 years…” and it is obvious the country needs every penny it can get in order to weather the present economic typhoon and try to get back on the rails of development and progress. So it’s just the right time for Britain’s richest man to conjure up a scheme whereby he can avoid paying billions that his country so urgently needs.

The casual obscenity of this man’s greed would be entirely his own business (used in the widest sense) were it not for the fact that if he condescended to pay tax in the country that has provided him with his fortune, he would not suffer in the slightest. He would still have his bling-bling yacht and his flashy mansions confetti-scattered over England (and now Monaco). He would still have his four luxury jet aircraft, each of which cost over 50 million dollars. His lifestyle is redolent of his immense wealth and would not change in the slightest were he to live in Britain and pay his taxes, and unfortunately he exemplifies the moral tenor of the country’s rich and influential top dogs : it’s all for me and nothing for them.

Which leads to the British government, headed shakily by Boris Johnson, a cartoon figure with the morals of an alley-cat on happy pills whose accession to leadership of the Conservative Party was the result of a campaign of squalid deviousness. The Conservative Party has a majority of eighty in Parliament but is lurching from crisis to crisis because of ham-fisted management and the machinations of unelected “special advisers” (known as Spads) and other highly-placed political appointees who are paid by the taxpayer and wield power without responsibility. The antics of Johnson’s chief Spad, a repulsive scumbag called Cummings, are well documented and give a fair indication of the government’s ethos, but there are other signals that are equally alarming.

A former Australian politician, one Tony Abbott, has been appointed Britain’s international trade envoy, a post of considerable power and importance, given that he will be required to negotiate international trade agreements from the UK’s position of post-Brexit weakness. His competence to do this is open to question, but the main doubt about his selection by the British government is not his lack of technical ability but his totalitarian convictions.

It is barely credible in this time of world plague crisis that any prominent individual would declare that the media had spread “virus hysteria” and that people should be allowed to make their own decisions. Abbott regrets that governments around the world have policies designed to save “almost every life at almost any cost” because instead of trying to save lives these governments should behave “like health economists, trained to pose uncomfortable questions about a level of deaths we might have to live with.” He costed the value of life in cash terms and announced that “if the average age of those who would have died is 80, even with roughly 10 years of expected life left, that’s still $200,000 per quality life year or substantially beyond what governments are usually prepared to pay for life-saving drugs.” In other words, Abbott and his disciples believe that older people aren’t worth much and should not be protected from the Covid-19 virus and in order to save money should just be allowed to die. His pitiless stance has no doubt been welcomed by those in the British hierarchy who intend to introduce a system whereby refugees seeking asylum in the UK will be confined in processing centres “offshore” in small desolate islands or disused ferries or cruise ships (as in Australia which operates several establishments resembling the U.S. prison camp at Guantanamo Bay). The inhumanity of such a suggestion might pass belief in the minds of real people but is consistent with the convictions of many in power in Britain.

In the Covid emergency the UK has the highest number of deaths in Europe and is the worst hit of all major world economies. It is in the middle of complex Brexit negotiations with the European Union, and will suffer even more when its exit is final. As always, it will be the poorest and least technically or academically qualified who will suffer most, but, like the old people who aren’t worth much, the poor and underprivileged do not figure on the screens of the rich and influential. And they can’t go to Monaco.

Britain is on the skids, economically and morally, and is approaching catastrophe. Certainly there is blame to be allocated — but what the real people need is support and guidance from a considerate and responsible government. They won’t get it; and all we can do is pity them.

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Peace without victory

Some European nations (such as the French or the Poles) share many historical episodes with the Armenians. However, it is also possible to point to other moments from centuries ago, when the same nations had special, even allied relations with the Turks. But can this determine contemporary geopolitics? Of course not, because these are events from the past, of course, to be used for propaganda and to influence emotions, if concious European policy required them to be stimulated, whether for cooperation with Armenia or Turkey. However, such episodes must by no means determine the establishment of today's and future intrests. Sentiments are tools, not determiants of politics.

Meanwhile, in the entire Karabakh crisis, there are too many emotions, screams, and propaganda. So much that it brings to mind another state and nation, which forces obedience to its reasons by shouting and moral blackmail. Especially that while browsing the superficially excited pro-Armenian Internet, isn't it striking how similar Armenian propaganda is to the Israeli one? The same emotionality, the same tone of "historical justice", threatening with "another holocaust", and invoking "thousands years old rights to lands" (the more absurd that also thousands of years ago, Armenians left Transcaucasia, spreading over the entire ancient and medieval Middle East, and the areas of Karabakh were re-populated by them only in the 1870s, with the support of the Russian authorities, but also with the consent of Azeri and Lezgin peoples, who were then the hosts of these lands). Sure, it is interesting that someone has finally decided to plagiarize the masters of propaganda, but not yet a reason to succumb to these tricks. Both for copies and for the original.

There Are No Saints In Geopolitics. Facts defend against one-sided perception of the Armenian-Azerbaijani conflict. Let’s remember 25 February 1992, when Armenian troops encircled the town of Xocalı, where then stayed over 4,000 refugees from the rest of the Karabakh, being cleared of Azeris, Turks, and Lezgins. Although the Armenians agree to the evacuation of the city, they then attacked the refugee column. During the all-night raid organized by the Armenians, and then mass executions, 613 people were murdered, including 106 women and 83 Azerbaijani children. In fact, this war was and is terrible. And it is not true that one side was only sacred and the other only genocidal. The only way to end this nightmare is through a permanent peace based on compromise. And as it happens with compromises, both fighting nations will probably be dissatisfied with it. But thanks to this, it can and must prove to be permanent. Peace without victory. This is the only possible scenario for Karabakh and the entire South Caucasus.

Unfortunately, the de-escalation of the conflict is made more difficult by the seemingly incomprehensible actions of Armenia. The attack on Ganja is an obvious attempt to bring the conflict out of Karabakh, provoke Baku to retaliate on the territory of Armenia, and thus lead to a casus belli within the meaning of the Collective Security Treaty Organization. Yerevan plays with matches all the time, crying to the whole world that is burned. The question is what for? After all, no one is calling for a repeat of the pogroms of Armenians (or anyone else). The thing is, however, that everyone can feel sympathy for whomever they wish to, but no European interest makes us engage in this conflict at all, including on the side of Armenia. On the contrary, in the interests of Europe, for several reasons, there is rather a lasting peace in the Transcaucasia, and this is not possible without concessions from both sides, especially Yerevan/Stepanakert, which must finally withdraw from at least part of the buffer zone, and Armenians also perfectly know it.

In turn, pacification is a task that may, and even must, check the reality of the Astana triangle. Of course, it was created and worked to solve completely different issues (Syrian and more broadly Middle Eastern), but this is how it happens that life suggests new tasks for proven formats. For while Russia's leading role in the negotiation process is recognized especially by Azerbaijan, but also by Armenia (although not necessarily honestly in Yerevan…), the events of this year have confirmed that both the Kazan formula and Lavrov's plan for the region are at an impasse. And this, in turn, means that Iran, a traditional ally of Armenia, but also having more than proper relations with Azerbaijan, should get involved in solving the problem, apart from Moscow and Ankara.

The key to peace in the Transcaucasus is therefore the Armenia-Azerbaijan-Iran-Russia-Turkey format, with the rejection of American-French meddling. It is therefore also a test, especially for Russian diplomacy, with the key question whether it will be able to break away with Westernisation sentiments and the completely unnecessary, even harmful to Moscow, tendency to build some concerts of powers only with Western states. Because having the key to the peace, it is also possible to open the door to power. And its sources are in Eurasia, not Euro-Atlantis.

Flyktingströmmens off-knapp

Sedan attackerna den 11 september 2001 har USA:s krig tvingat minst 37 miljoner människor, och kanske upptill så många som 59 miljoner, på flykt. Rapporten som bekräftar dessa siffror finns i Brown Universitys Costs of War Project, har lagt fokus på de orimliga kostnaderna i form av mänskligt lidande som det "globala kriget mot terror" orsakat civila. Rapporten uppskattar att åtta av de mest våldsamma krig som USA:s regering har initierat sedan 11 september; de i Afghanistan, Irak, Libyen, Pakistan, Filippinerna, Somalia, Syrien och Jemen har förorsakat 8 miljoner flyktingar och 29 miljoner internflyktingar. De totalt 37 miljoner fördrivna är totalt mer än de som fördrivits av något annat krig sedan början av 1900-talet, utom möjligen andra världskriget. The Costs of War Project, gör en fenomenal insats i att belysa de ofta okända kostnaderna för den amerikanska regeringens 19 år långa terror mot terrorstrategi. 

Naturligtvis är det komplexa konflikter där många aktörer och i många fall inte främst amerikanska aktörer som har begått det våld som har fördrivit människor. Men den amerikanska regeringen har spelat en obestridligt systemisk roll i samtliga konflikter.  Militärt stöd, bidrag till militärt stöd och informationsstöd. Poängen med rapporten är att tiotals miljoner har fördrivits av de krig som den amerikanska regeringen har bedrivit sedan 2001; för att bekämpa terrorism, som dessutom bara växt till följd av dessa aggressioner. Bara i Afghanistan och Irak nådde det totala antalet fördrivna i befolkningen 14,5 miljoner. Tänk också 3,7 miljoner fördrivna pakistanier; 1,7 miljoner fördrivna filippinare; 4,2 miljoner fördrivna somalier; 4,4 miljoner fördrivna jemeniter; 1,2 miljoner fördrivna libyer; och 7,1 miljoner fördrivna syrier. I slutändan kan inget antal förmedla denna folkomflyttnings skada. För individer, familjer, städer, städer, regioner och hela länder har krigsflyktingarna orsakat oberäknelig skada fysiskt, socialt, emotionellt och ekonomiskt. Vi måste alltså fokusera på att avsluta kriget mot terrorn för att stoppa flyktingströmmar. 

Strategic Gallup

On September 11th, Gallup headlined “Bias in Others’ News a Greater Concern Than Bias in Own News”, and reported (based upon polling a randomized sample of 20,046 American adults) that:

“69% of Americans say they are more concerned about bias in the news other people consume than its presence in their own news (29%).” In other words: 69/29, or 2.38 times, as many Americans are closed-minded (prejudiced) regarding information-sources which don’t fit their ideology, than are not. Overwhelmingly in America, only Democratic Party information-sources are trusted by Democrats, and only Republican information-sources are trusted by Republicans. Each side distrusts the other’s information-sources. Gallup’s news-report aptly noted the important fact that “This plays into the political polarization in the U.S. national discourse.” The more prejudiced a population are, the more polarized it will be. Of course, one would expect this to be the case, but Gallup has now found striking new empirical evidence for it — that the public’s closed-mindedness is greatly increasing America’s political polarization. Each side is craving propaganda instead of truth, but each side’s voters want only the type of propaganda that is funded by the billionaires who also fund that side’s politicians and control that side’s ‘news’ media. Consequently, American politics is controlled by the conflict between liberal billionaires versus conservative billionaires — totally controlled by billionaires (instead of by the public). There is the liberal herd, and the conservative herd, but they’re both herds — not by the public in an actual democracy. And each of these two herds is controlled by its shepherd, who are its billionaires. (Here is how that’s done.) Billionaires control each Party and thereby control the Government. This is why the Government ignores the preferences of America’s public. As will be shown here, the September 11th Gallup findings help to explain how and why that results.

Neither Democrats nor Republicans can become exposed to the other side’s evidence and arguments unless they see those — the other side’s evidence and arguments, both for its own case and against the opposite side’s case (i.e., against the case that oneself believes). Not to see the opposite side’s viewpoint is to be blind to it, and thus to become locked into whatever oneself believes. This 69/29 is like a jury’s rendering its verdict and nearly three quarters of the jurors having not listened to — and thus not considered — the opposite side’s presentations. That’s a frightening situation to exist in any court of law, and it is an equally frightening situation to exist in any nation’s electorate.

As a consequence of Americans’ strong tendency to be closed-minded, America’s politics are, to a very large extent, driven more by prejudices than by the realities that the public are actually facing. Individuals are seeking for sources that will likeliest confirm what they already believe, and are seeking to avoid sources that are the likeliest to disconfirm their beliefs. This is consequently a population that’s highly vulnerable to being manipulated, by playing up to, and amplifying, the given Party’s propaganda, to which the given individual already subscribes. Republican Party billionaires (by their use of their conservative newsmedia and think tanks, etc., which they control) can easily manipulate Republican Party voters, and Democratic Party billionaires can, likewise, easily manipulate Democratic Party voters, by their liberal media, think tanks, etc. That’s billionaires, on each of the two sides, guiding each of the two Parties’ voters; and, therefore, the nation is an aristocracy — a country which is controlled by its wealthiest few — instead of an authentic democracy (which is controlled not by the numbers of dollars, but actually by the numbers of residents, each one of whom is independently and open-mindedly seeking for credibly documented facts). An aristocracy rules any such land. The public are not the rulers in such a nation. It’s not a democracy; it is a collective dictatorship, by its billionaires (its aristocracy). Both of the two Parties’ voters vote in accord with their billionaires’ agenda, but especially in accord with whatever is on the agenda that’s shared by both liberal and conservative billionaires — billionaires fund both of the national Parties: Democrats and Republicans, and thereby control both Parties. Billionaires, in each Party, have their very golden, very heavy, thumbs, pressing down hard upon the scale of any such ‘democracy’, such that regardless of which group of billionaires ends up winning any ultimate election, the public inevitably will lose, because it’s really just a contest between billionaires, who are stage-managing the nation’s entire political proceedings. This is like two boxers fighting in a ring, in which the selection-process which placed them there was corrupt; and, so, even if the ultimate winner is not equally corruptly pre-determined, the final result has nonetheless already been rigged (during the primaries). When the contenders have been selected by a corrupt process, the ultimate outcome cannot be a democracy.

This happens not only regarding elections, but regarding particular issues. For example, in 2002 and 2003, “regime-change in Iraq,” and “Saddam’s WMD,” were just as much agendas of liberal billionaires’ media and think tanks as they were of conservative billionaires’ media and think tanks (and were thoroughly based on lies); so, a closed-minded public were actually trapped, into the lies that were agreed-upon by both sides of the domestic American political spectrum — the sides that are funded and controlled by the liberal billionaires, and by the conservative billionaires. The nearly $2 trillion cost of the invasion and military occupation of that country, and the consequent destruction of that country, were done for America’s billionaires, and produced nothing for the American people except that enormous public debt and those injuries and deaths to America’s soldiers and to Iraqis. And that’s typical, nowadays, in this (just as in any) aristocracy: the aristocracy are served; the nation’s public serve to them. (In the U.S., this has caused “U.S. Satisfaction at 13%, Lowest in Nine Years”, as Gallup headlined on 4 August 2020; and it has caused Americas’ satisfaction with their Government to have ranged from its all-time low of only 7% in 2008, to its all-time high of only 45% at the very start of 2020 — well below 50%, for as long as Gallup has surveyed this.)

What all of the billionaires want is what the American public get as their Government. It’s bipartisanship amongst its billionaires. That’s what produces this Government’s policies. It’s what determines the Government that Americans get. However, what is basic in making it a dictatorship of the aristocracy-type (such as this America is) is that the population is very prejudiced, not open-minded — not each individual constantly seeking solid evidence to change one’s mind about how society works (what the reality in the nation actually is), so as for one’s view to become increasingly accurate over time. Instead, one’s myths are constantly being fed. Such a public, as this, are not individuals, in a democracy, but more like mobs, very manipulable.

Often, America’s bipartisan views are based upon lies that virtually all billionaires want the public to believe. In such cases — and these instances are frequent — the truth is being simply ignored, or else outright denied, by both sides (and by the media, for both sides). Individuals’ prejudices are thus being increased, instead of reduced, by what the public see and hear in “the news.” Everyone has prejudices, and truth can predominate only if people are constantly skeptical of the sources that they are relying upon — constantly trying to root out and replace whatever false beliefs they have. This is the essence of scientific method. Democracy depends upon it. Aristocracy requires the opposite. America has the opposite.

Change away from this present situation, to a democracy, would be difficult. On both of America’s political sides, there needs to be far less trust of the Establishment (including its politicians, its media, its think tanks, etc.), in order for any real democracy to become able to exist. It’s not even able to exist now. And, therefore, it does not exist.

But what is even more depressing is that America’s educational system, most especially its colleges and universities, are encouraging, instead of discouraging, this situation, this closed-mindedness. The more educated an American is, the more closed-minded that person becomes — as is further shown in this same September 11th Gallup news-report:

“Whereas 52% of Americans with a high school education or less are more concerned about bias in others’ news than in their own [and 45% of that minimally educated group think that the news which they are reading might be biased], the figure is 64% among those with some college education and is even higher among college graduates (73%) and those with postgraduate education (77%) [and only 22% of that maximally educated group think that the news which they are reading might be biased].” The most-educated Americans are the most-manipulable (the most closed-minded) Americans.

No finding in this Gallup report was as extreme as the finding that the more highly educated an American is, the less open that person is likely to be to changing his or her mind (outlook) about the situation. In other words: the more educated an American is, the more closed-minded that person tends to become. Higher education in America increases, instead of decreases, an individual’s closed-mindedness. However, other contrasts which were almost as extreme are:

“Those who identify as liberal (80%) are more concerned than conservatives (68%) and moderates (65%) with other people’s media bias.” In other words: liberals are 80/65 or 1.23 times as closed-minded as are moderates, and are 80/68 or 1.18 times as closed-minded as conservatives are.

“While 58% of Black adults are more concerned about bias in others’ news than in their own, fully 73% of Asian Americans and 72% of White adults say the same.” Thus, African-Americans are 58/72.5 or 80% as closed-minded as are Euro-Americans and Asian-Americans.

This is the worst combination possible: it’s a closed-minded population, which is especially closed-minded amongst its most educated segment. The leading segment is also the most closed-minded segment. These are crucial agents of the billionaires, and they crucially inculcate into the next generation of Americans the aristocracy’s values.

This means that the leaders keep themselves, conceptually, inside a cocoon. They have minimal contact with the most vulnerable members of the society, which is the less-educated members. That enhances inequality of opportunity, throughout the society. Since the most-highly-educated Americans are the group that are the most-closed to opinions which are contrary to their own, it’s easy for the most-highly-educated Americans to view individuals who disagree with those persons’ views as being simply a “basket of deplorables.” Their disagreement then becomes their contempt. ‘Facts’ about politics are — for those persons, highly educated persons — more derived from their values and priorities, than their values and priorities are derived from the political facts. Scientific epistemology is being turned upside-down, regarding political issues, in such a country. Overwhelmingly, some sort of faith, instead of any sort of science, determines what individuals in such a country believe about politics. In every aristocracy, this is the way that both conservative and liberal persons view any persons in the general public who oppose themselves: they’re viewed as being a “basket of deplorables.” It’s the very essence of elitism — on both sides. (For prominent examples of this: both Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump had contempt for each-others’ voters — blotted them out.)

The leadership’s minimal contact with the public makes exceedingly unlikely the leadership’s compassion, concern about the sufferings that they, themselves, are causing down below. Actually, though every aristocracy claims to want to improve conditions for their public, the reality is that whenever doing that would entail their own losing power, that claim becomes exposed to be sheer hypocrisy — a lie; often a self-deception, and not merely a deception against the public. Deceiving themselves about their own decency is easy, because they have minimal contact with the most vulnerable members of the society, the very people whom they claim to care the most about (and to be working in politics to help). Fakery is built into each and every aristocracy. Americans’ strong tendency to be closed-minded causes the aristocratic con to be widely accepted as if it were instead truth. (Again: the “WMD in Iraq” con was a good example of this — the aristocracy’s media just blocked-out the reality.) Scientific studies have even demonstrated that the wealthier a person is, the less compassion the individual tends to have for people who are suffering.

Furthermore, since the less-educated persons aspire to be more-educated, they are — even without knowing it — aspiring to become less open to contrary views, instead of to become more open to such views. One bad consequence of this is: it strangulates imaginativeness, openness, and creativity, in favor of being rote, rigid, and bureaucratic. Another bad consequence of it is that the authority-figures, in such a society, are, in some important ways, actually inferior to the rest of the population. Moreover, America’s colleges and universities are not increasing their students’ open-mindedness (as they should) but the exact opposite — they are reducing their students’ open-mindedness. Even if professors are teaching some truths, the professors are training their students to be authoritarian, instead of to be open to a more truthful, comprehensive, and deeper understanding, which encompasses those truths, but also many more — which the majority of professors either ignore or else deny, because such deeper understanding violates the existing Scripture, or standard viewpoint (shaped by both sides’ billionaires). At least in the United States, this is now the normal situation. That Gallup poll showed it not merely weakly, nor even only moderately, but extremely.

This is a perverse situation, which bodes ill for the future of the entire nation. Any country which is like this is not only an aristocracy instead of a democracy, but it is greatly disadvantaged, going forward. It will be disadvantaged both in the arts and in the sciences. Its future will be stultifying, instead of dynamic. Aristocracies tend to be this way. Also, because it will remain highly polarized, its internal ideological frictions will waste a large proportion of the nation’s efforts. As a nation, its forward-motion, its progress, will thus largely be crippled, by its internal discord and distrust, between the two warring factions of its aristocracy — and friction between the respective followers on each side.

During the Presidential primaries in the Democratic Party, a major point of difference between the two major candidates, Joe Biden versus Bernie Sanders, was whether billionaires are bad for the country: Biden said no; Sanders said yes. (This was a major reason why the billionaires made sure that Sanders would lose.) In any country where wealth-inequality is so extreme, there can be no authentic democracy. America’s extreme inequality of wealth makes democracy impossible in this country. America’s other problems follow from that. In reality, it’s a one-party state, and that party is controlled not actually by the counts of voters, but by the counts of dollars. It is an aristocracy; and its decline — to what has been documented here — follows from that fact. Whatever democracy America might once have had is gone now. It has become replaced by a land of mass-deceptions, which are bought and sold.

Death in the Dark.

The Washington Post was first published in 1877 and is an okay newspaper despite its swivel-eyed intolerance of all things Russian. Its admirable motto is ‘Democracy Dies in Darkness’ and it often succeeds in throwing light on domestic and international affairs that might otherwise remain shrouded in veils of official secrecy. Democracy is generally defined as “a system of government by the whole population… typically through elected representatives” and its wider effects are that national and international policies are accepted by foreign countries as reflecting the voice of the people. Now, however, the Post and other responsible media are having difficulty in coming to terms with the fact that in the United States both sagacious judgement and democracy are under severe threat, no matter what rays the media may be directing on the machinations and spine-chilling utterances of President Trump and his disciples. It is all too evident — and deplorable — that the U.S. is splitting apart. The country is unable to cope with the combined effects of the Covid-19 pandemic, nation-wide protests against police brutality and systematic racism, and, in the latest drama, political immaturity and hypocrisy in appointment of a Justice to the Supreme Court.

It is fair to say that all nations are facing an array of unprecedented problems but given the status and power of the U.S. it might be expected that Trump would be charting a way ahead, setting an example to the rest of the world as to how to cope with and overcome the crises that beset us all. Some hope.

The executive, legislative, and judicial branches of government in Washington are in lockdown. Not an anti-virus lockdown, but an ideological and practical paralysis caused in the main by presidential posturing, malevolence and ignorance. This would not be of great importance to the rest of the world were it not for the fact that the U.S. is a mighty power whose policies are felt in the farthest corners of the globe and affect billions of lives. This has long been the case, but rarely has there been such a high degree of sensitivity to Washington’s decisions and actions. The international community is apprehensive concerning what might happen next, and wonders what ripples, waves or tsunamis of Trump-engendered disruption may crash against their shores.

In the past there has generally been realization in Washington that cooperation with other nations is beneficial and that unilateral action is usually counterproductive. This has not stopped administrations from taking such action, with catastrophic consequences, as in Operation Iraqi Freedom which resulted in destabilization of the entire Middle East, with resulting alienation of allies which is a most undesirable outcome.

A new book, ‘JFK: Coming of Age in the American Century, 1917-1956’ by Fredrik Logevall (an excellent work of research, analysis and perceptive judgment) quotes a 1951 speech by then Congressman John Kennedy in which he said “I should have hoped that with our traditional concern for other peoples, our generosity, our desire to relieve poverty and inequality, we would — whatever else happened — have made friends throughout this world. It is tragic that not only have we made no new friends but have lost old ones.” But in the Trump years such regrets are a dim memory, because his venomous arrogance is such that “friends”, be they people or nations, are regarded as ephemeral accessories, mere lackeys tasked to do his bidding before being discarded when of no further use.

The most recent example of ally estrangement stems from Washington’s relentlessly belligerent stance on Iran. While Iran’s government is headed by bigoted ignoramuses whose attitude is curiously similar to that of their major opponent, they did take note of an international curb on their activities known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) which was initiated by China, France, Germany, Russia, the United Kingdom and the United States and confirmed by UN Security Council Resolution 2231 of 2015. It is designed to curb movement by Iran to develop nuclear weapons, and in April 2019 it was stated by the director-general of the International Atomic Energy Agency that “Iran is implementing its nuclear commitments.”

In spite of this, President Trump unilaterally broke the terms of the agreement and reintroduced sanctions on Iran, whose leaders are now confirmed in their belief that the West is obstinately deceitful. Then on 20 September France, Germany and the United Kingdom issued a joint statement saying that as the U.S. had ceased participation in the JCPOA it followed that its rejection of the treaty “is incapable of having legal effect.” Reluctantly but firmly, these three longtime allies of the United States vetoed one of its major policy decisions.

The tripartite position was summed up in President Macron’s statement to the UN General Assembly on September 22, when he made it clear that acceptance of the Trump stance “would undermine the unity of the Security Council and the integrity of its decisions, and it would run the risk of further aggravating tensions in the region.” Trump has succeeded in driving away his nation’s chief allies, but it is apparent he considers this unimportant. Trump has treated Germany as an inferior for years, and recently ramped up his insulting intolerance by declaring the Nord Stream pipeline to be in some fashion anti-U.S. and asked “Why is Germany spending billions and billions of dollars to Russia to get their energy from Russia, and then we’re supposed to protect Germany from Russia? What’s that all about?” It’s all about judgement and international cooperation which will make the world a better place to live in.

His statement to the UN General Assembly on 22 September was not as incoherent as his press briefings, but he savaged China which he blames for “unleashing” Covid-19, which he calls the “China virus”. His announcement that “The Chinese government and the World Health Organization, which is virtually controlled by China, falsely declared that there was no evidence of human to human transmission,” is bizarre, as is his intention to withdraw all support from the WHO at the very time that international health cooperation is so important. Prime Minister Johnson of Britain is another erratic character on the world stage but displayed good judgement by announcing a vast increase in the UK’s financial contribution to the WHO because “After nine months of fighting Covid, the very notion of the international community looks tattered. We know that we cannot continue in this way. Unless we unite and turn our fire against our common foe, we know that everyone will lose.” Indeed, we will, and it seems this state of affairs will continue until the world is rid of Trump as president. Domestically, he is destroying democracy through his support of armed action against protestors and his cynical approach to appointment of a new Supreme Court Justice (amongst many other things) and internationally he is destroying judgment, that sane, calm, considered process that is so vital to international cooperation and development. They are dying in the light, the appalling deathly rays, of the Trump administration.

USA är ett minne blott

USA kanske når sitt "Tjernobyl-ögonblick" nu när de inte lyckas leda sin land i kampen mot koronavirusepidemin. Liksom med kärnkraftsolyckan i Sovjetunionen 1986, avslöjar en katastrof alla de systemfel som redan har försvagat USA:s globala hegemoni. Oavsett resultatet av pandemin, är det ingen som i dag letar till Washington för att finna hjälp i krisen. USA:s minskade inflytande syntes tydligt på det virtuella mötet med världsledare som nyss var. Där de viktigaste amerikanska diplomatiska ansträngningarna ägnades åt ett avbrutet försök att övertyga de andra deltagarna att underteckna ett uttalande som hänvisar till ”Wuhan-viruset”, som en del av en kampanj att skylla koronavirusepidemin på Kina. Att attackera andra i syfte att avleda från ens egna brister är ett centralt inslag i president Trumps politiska taktik. Arkansas republikanska senator Tom Cotton tog vid på samma tema och sade att ”Kina släppte denna pest i världen och Kina måste hållas ansvariga”. USA:s misslyckande spänner sig långt utöver Trumps giftiga politiska stil: Amerikansk överhöghet i världen sedan andra världskriget har förankrats med hjälp av dess unika förmåga att få saker gjorda genom övertalning eller genom hot eller användning av våld. Men oförmågan hos Washington att reagera tillräckligt snabbt på Covid-19 visar att detta inte längre är fallet och befäster uppfattningen hos världssamfundet att den amerikanska militära och diplomatiska kompetensen avdunstar.

Attitydförändringen är viktig eftersom supermakter, som det brittiska imperiet, Sovjetunionen på åttiotalet eller USA i dag, beror på en viss nivå av bluff och båg. De har inte råd låta den kraftfulla självbilden testas för ofta för då ses de misslyckas: en överdriven bild av brittisk styrka; den krossades av Suezkrisen 1956, liksom Sovjetunionens krig i Afghanistan på 1980-talet. Nu faller slutligen USA till följd av Corona. Coronavirus-krisen motsvarar Suez och Afghanistan för Trumps Amerika. Inför en sådan megakris är Trump-administrationens misslyckande att leda ansvarsfullt extremt destruktiv för USA:s ställning i världen. In kliver istället de nya ledarna i en multipolär världsordning. Och EU samt Sverige bör rätta sig därefter. USA: s nedgång speglas nämligen i Kinas och Rysslands uppgång och Kina har åtminstone för tillfället framgångsrikt tagit grepp om sin egen epidemi. Det är kineserna och ryssarna som skickar ventilatorer och medicinska team till Italien och ansiktsmasker till Afrika. Italienare noterar att de andra EU-staterna ignorerar Italiens desperata vädjan efter medicinsk utrustning och att bara Ryssland, Kuba och Kina svarade. Sådana övningar med ”mjuk diplomati” kan förvisso bara ha begränsat inflytande när krisen är över men det är troligt att det kommer minnas länge av vissa mottagande länder i Väst. Budskapet är dock klart; Ryssland och Kina kan tillhandahålla viktig utrustning och expertis i ett kritiskt ögonblick och USA kan det inte. Dessa förändringar i uppfattningen av USA:s oförmåga kommer inte att försvinna över en natt. Profetior om att USA befinner sig i en dödsspiral har funnits lika länge som USA efter andra världskriget blev den största stormakten. Men skillnaden nu ör att USA inte längre dominerar världsekonomin i den grad de en gång gjorde, och har bara 800 krigsbaser runt om i världen med en tyngande militärbudget på 748 miljarder dollar. De föder inget välstånd. Eller ens militär framgång.

Minns att den amerikanska militärens oförmåga att använda sin tekniska förmåga till att faktiskt vinna krig i Somalia, Afghanistan och Irak visat hur lite det har fått tillbaka i gengäld för sina stora krigsutgifter. Trump har inte påbörjat några nya krig trots sin svulstiga retorik, men han har heller inte hindrat de gamla. Genom att införa strama ekonomiska sanktioner mot Iran och hota andra länder med ekonomisk krigföring har han visat i vilken utsträckning USA desperat försöker kontrollerar världens finansiella system för att förbli relevant som stormakt. USA som en ekonomisk och militär makt är gårdagen. Det mycket uppenbara slutet för USA som en global makt, som exemplifieras av coronavirus-pandemikrisen, har mindre att göra med vapen och pengar än många antar, och mycket mer att göra med Trump själv, både symptom och orsak. Enkelt uttryckt är att USA inte längre är ett land som resten av världen vill efterlikna eller, om de vill det, är de främst auktoritära nativistiska demagoger eller förrätter i Ungern eller Brasilien. Dessa och  andra länders beundran välkomnas emellertid varmt: bevittnat har vi alla Trumps omfamning av den hinduistiska nationalistiska indiska premiärministern Narendra Modi och hans utveckling av den yngre generationen tyranner som Kim Jung-un i Nordkorea och kronprins Mohammed bin Salman i Saudiarabien. Demokratiska och despotiska härskare kommer åtminstone till en början att stärkas av pandemin, eftersom människor i akuta kriser vill se sina regeringar som räddare som vet vad de gör. Men demagoger som Trump och hans ekvivalenter runt om i världen är sällan bra på att hantera verkliga kriser, eftersom de har tagit sig till makten genom att utnyttja etniskt och sekteriskt hat, syndabockstänk i förhållande till sina motståndare samt genom propaganda. Ett exempel på detta är Brasiliens Bolsonaro, som anklagar sina motståndare och media för att ”lura” brasilianare om farorna med coronavirus. Trump har alltid utmärkt sig med förmågan att utnyttja och förvärra splittringar i det amerikanska samhället och framställa enkla lösningar på uppdiktade kriser, som att bygga den berömda muren för att stoppa begynnelsen på centralamerikanska migranter till USA. Men nu står han inför en verklig kris, han låter förespegla att den kommer att vara av kort och mindre allvarlig än de flesta experter förutspår.

Undersökningar visar att hans popularitet har ökat, antagligen för att rädda människor föredrar att höra goda nyheter snarare än dåliga. Hittills har de värsta utbrotten av sjukdomen varit i New York, Boston och andra städer där Trump aldrig haft mycket stöd. Om det sprids med samma intensitet till Texas och Florida, kan till och med Trumps kärnsupportrar lojalitet förångas. Anledningen till att USA är svagare som land i kris är för att det är starkt uppdelat och dessa klyftor kommer att bli djupare så länge Trump sitter vid makten. Hittills har han undvikit att provocera fram allvarliga kriser och hans misslyckande i den pågående coronavirusepidemin visar att det varit tur för honom. Han polariserar ett redan uppdelat land och detta är den verkliga anledningen till USA: s nedgång. Och ett skäl till att Sverige måste hitta nya allierade i främst Ryssland.

The Ancient Origin of Coronaviruses

19 new hospitals in Wuhan. Why? An interpretation of current Corona events is the following. (Remember; I’m a lawyer and historian but working with the medical profession gives you insights.) Is it minor event? It is possible that "the Wuhan disease" (a.k.a. COVID-19 etc. etc.) is only a minor event in the history of mankind. It could be like a bad case of global influenza. Maybe we will have a new vaccine within 3 months or so. That is possible. I am not arguing against an easy and swift solution to this problem.

But: An alternative. And more worrisome. I am thinking that we might be facing something new. Why? Let us look at the biology of the various forms of coronaviruses. The coronavirus from Wuhan is supposed to have come from bats. It has been discussed if the new coronavirus has also interacted with reptiles or pangolins. Bats have been around for about 50 million years. It has also been found that an individual bat can carry about 500 different types of coronaviruses. A group of 1 000 bats can thus be considered to carry about 50 000 different types of coronaviruses. However, the genetic age of known coronaviruses is about 10 000 years old according to the genetic-molecular clock. It seems as if the first coronavirus appeared on Earth at about the same time as Mankind entered the Neolithic period.

Perhaps the first human farmers began to collect their grain in store rooms (or primitive granaries), which attracted rodents - such as mice and rats - and bats so "a line of interaction" appeared between humans and bats, with rodents and other animals as intermediaries. Since bats are about 50 million years old, and the coronaviruses are about 10 000 years old, it is likely that the various lines of coronaviruses spread from humans, from the first farmers, to bats. And then back again. An elliptic cycle of interaction began between humans and bats, or more precisely, between humans and coronaviruses, with bats as neutral reservoirs for the latter.

A preliminary conclusion is that the modern coronaviruses appeared as a parasitic line among the early Neolithic farmers, and that these farmers became perfect hosts for the evolution of the coronaviruses, as the early farmers lived in packed urban communities in caves and stone houses in the northern Middle East. (So expect Turkey to blame the Kurds for Corona within a month.)
 The coronaviruses have thus evolved in cooperation with humans for about 10 000 years. Human farmers and coronaviruses are locked with each other "in a co-evolutionary dance". However, within the medical profession they have also argued that the different coronaviruses may instead be about 50 million years old, if the genetic-molecular clock is wrongly interpreted. I do not think that the technical age of the coronaviruses as such is very important. Maybe a prototype of the modern coronaviruses existed some 50 million years ago? And then a new version of the prototype took off some 10 000 years ago? It does not really matter. However, it is of extreme importance that the coronaviruses may have interacted with humans for about 10 000 years. If so, we have a case of "co-evolution" between humans and coronaviruses since the days of the first human agriculture on Earth.
It is also possible that it was the domestication of the first household animals that led to the proposed co-evolution between humans and coronaviruses.

If you’re interested; Wertheim et al. can be read: here.

So today we may have a Betacoronavirus. Let us also consider the question "what a virus is?" Is it a life-form? Or is it a non-living entity, that can reproduce itself, with the help of a host body? Like a Republican senator? Ultimately the question of "life" or "living" is a matter of where we draw the artificial line for our subjective idea of "life". (I would myself argue that "anything that can reproduce itself - even if it is with aid or with some kind of host as a supportive element - deserves in my view to be called "alive", even if it does not have an internally active system of digestion for the creation of new energy, or of physical movement.)

It is today clear that - for some reason, be it an accident or by intention - some humans were infected by a line of betacoronavirus sometime in the latter half of 2019. And it seems to be clear that it happened in China. The key question has to do with how we interpret this event. Is it an infection? Or is it a colonization? I believe that it is a colonization. It is a completely different event compared to a normal infection.

The human immune system would normally counter-attack and kill a random enemy like this new line of coronavirus. And this would happen because the virus would attack the human host in a very aggressive manner. The human immune system would be alerted in an early phase. And it would retaliate and kill the invading virus.

But, for whatever reason, this line of coronavirus is different. It interacts with the human immune system. It is perhaps not so aggressive. It tries not to wreak havoc within the body of the human host that is being colonized.
(Alarming change number 1.)

And it can also hide itself in the human host. Maybe in the brain-fluid? Or somewhere else? And the human immune system has a problem with the situation. "We have a Trojan horse somewhere within the city walls, but we do not know where it is! Anybody got a clue? Guys? Hello???"
(Alarming change number 2.)

What is happening is, of sorts, that humans are turning into a new kind of "host animal" for this new line of coronavirus. We are being colonised. It is not a regular infection. We have a "species-jump" from bats to humans. We are being used as an external digestive system for this peculiar life-form. (If a virus can be called a "life-form".) We have as a species been accidentally chosen by the coronavirus as an upgraded version of the ordinary bat.

The coronavirus does not have a brain, so it does not think. But it acts as if it was thinking, because of the evolutionary pressure it exerts in the reproductive process of the human species. When the coronavirus interacts with the human immune system "in a mild way" - when it is not getting slaughtered by the human host - it can reproduce itself and then stay hidden for some time. So, the human host is essentially being used as a system for the creation of new energy for the coronavirus. It is not a normal infection. This interaction between the human and the coronavirus will create a "domesticating force" on the collective of all humans as a species. What is best for the coronavirus? Should a human have big lungs or small lungs? Should the lungs be wet or dry? Should the lungs be warm or cold? Whatever situation that is best for the coronavirus will lead to the creation of an evolutionary pressure - much like a physical force - which will act upon all humans. In the end we will change as a species.

The evolutionary fitness of the individual human host will depend on his ability to tolerate the colonisation of the coronavirus. If he has a problem with his unwanted guest - and if his immune system kicks in - he will start getting very sick. If he does not have a problem - and if his immune system allows the coronavirus to spread, and to hide within his body - he will not become visibly affected (id est: "visibly infected").

If the condition for the coronavirus is not favorable, the interaction between the human immune system and the coronavirus will most likely lead to the death of the human host. So, all problematic humans will be subjected to negative evolutionary pressure. They will tend to die and to disappear from the genetic flow of the human species.

This will lead to a transformation of the human species as such. A new kind of human race will evolve. It will be a human race which can interact - without being negatively influenced - with the colonizing coronavirus. The new human race will begin forming immediately, but it will take many generations before it becomes stable as a natural form of new humanity.

We can call this new (and "pressure-cooked") race for "Homo Sapiens Coronensis".
But how many humans need to be killed off in the early stages of the co-evolutionary process to transform and domesticate the human race into a favorable host for the new coronavirus? Well, maybe it is only 2% at the bottom of the interactive relationship. But it could also be about 20%. Or it could be as much as 99,5% of the present human population. We do not know. Time will tell.

On the individual level it would be preferable if the evolutionary pressure from the new coronavirus was mild, and that a very low number of the human host individuals died in the encounter. But we do not know how bad the interaction will become. Maybe the coronavirus will have to "shave off" 99,99% of all humans in each and every one of the first 10 generations of humans in this co-evolutionary process? If so, we will have massive numbers of dead and dying for many years ahead, and we will be very close to an "extinction of the species-event". In absolute terms it will be a global disaster. It will be a threat to the survival of humans, and of our closely aligned and domesticated species (dogs, sheep, goats, cattle, horses, cats etc.).

If I’m right? How to act?
To begin with, we must divide all humans into two different groups.

A1; This group is composed of those humans that are "untouched" or "uncolonised" by the new coronavirus.

A2; This group is composed of those humans who are "invaded and colonized" by the new coronavirus. They are all carriers and must be treated as such for the rest of their natural lives.
(Or - at least - "until further notice". Maybe we can kill off all hidden coronaviruses in a human host body, if a medicine can be created at some time in the future. But that is not something that we can be sure of now.)

A2-I. An infected person is a "carrier".

A2-S. A sick person is a "carrier".

A2-D. A dead person is a "carrier".

A2-R. A recovered person is a "carrier".

R2-D", A droid.

All A2-persons, even if they have recovered (or especially so if they have recovered and would like to start kissing and hugging all their healthy family members) must live in separate "leper camps" or "leper cities", which we will call "a designated A2-camp" or "a designated A2-city".

The national state will have to designate all such communities for all recovered persons. They will not be prisoners locked in on the inside of their own homes, but they will be forced to carry GPS-devices.

The A2-persons will be free to move around within their designated A2-communities. If the coronavirus spreads too fast within some national states, the entire national state will have to be declared as an "A2-country". All external borders to an A2-country will have to be forcefully guarded by the neighboring A1-countries until further notice. By completely separating all A1-persons from all A2-persons we will will be able to buy time for the necessary scientific research to be performed within the upcoming 18 to 24 months.

How to go about?

(I.) No infected person can presently be declared as "free from the coronavirus". All humans are either A2 or A1, "touched" or "untouched", by the new coronavirus.

(II.) Martial law may have to be introduced for the foreseeable future in many countries of the world.

(III.) Private property may have to be sequestrated to perform necessary functions of the individual national states.

(IV.) Human rights may have to be subject to temporary restrictions or temporary reductions in situations of extreme emergency.

(V.) The human race is presently fighting a war against a relentless enemy that is trying to colonize and domesticate humanity and to turn it into a "host animal" for the beneficial use of the enemy.
Most - if not all - of the defensive measures of the individual national states are to be considered as acceptable from a moral point of view.

Once again; I could be wrong. If so I’ll happily dance around screaming I was wrong. Do with this information what you want. My recommendation is to try all further information against this theory. If the pieces start to fit; Get out of Dodge.