If people often ignore the economic basis of war, it is often because the media teach them Western Wars are ‘just wars” defending “democracy” against “autocracy”. That has never been the case. At the start of WWI, The Kaiser’s Germany was in many respects arguably more democratic than the UK, certainly not less than the US.
The Empire can’t do anything right recently—NATO, MI6, the CIA, and of course, their Nazi gang in Kiev could turn gold to shit just by looking at it.
One way or another, they are making things easier for the Russians to achieve their various goals— not just in the Ukraine—but at home rebuilding Russia as a nation— and abroad establishing a new multipolar world order, a kind of international democracy governed by law and reason.
Ukraine is just a linchpin— albeit an important one— keeping in mind that its Nazis are proxies for the West and everything they do is indicative of imperial decay. The difference between Ukrainian Nazis and Westerners is not so much ideology but really just the tattoos.
Western Ukraine’s mistakes amount to uicidal “self-demilitarization” and makes things so much easier for the Russians.
Kherson and Kharkov
Take the failed offensive in Kherson, where the Ukrainians came out of their “Maginot Grid” hideaways in the woods and townships to attack across an open steppe without air cover.
Then came Kharkov where the UAF assembled an army to attack towns and villages which the RF had mostly left invitingly with skeleton defenses. Once again, the UAF had to venture out in the open, exposing their forces to attack from the air and taking casualties from Russian artillery and aviation, who minimized their own losses by avoiding battlefield combat. Not only hapless Ukrainian conscripts died but NATO mercenaries operating the UAF’s newly acquired but unfamiliar equipment. A victory like Gallipoli.
Economics and Democracy
The Kharkov offensive allowed the Russians to redeploy to more strategic positions in the South while at the same time conducting referenda to include former Ukrainian oblasts responsible for up to 90% of the country’s GDP in the Russian Federation.
People sometimes forget that Western Ukraine is poor and it was always Eastern Ukraine that drove the economy, responsible some say for as much as 90% of the GDP.
This war began therefore as a civil war with economic roots.
Money and resources matter.
In Germany, the Nazis didn’t like the Jews because they had money and were productive. In Ukraine, Galician-Ruthenian Western Ukraianian Nazis didn’t like ethnic Russians for the same reasons. Envy. Greed. The Seven Deadly Sins.
Solution? Kill them all.
The Nazis coveted Russia’s resources. Now it is the US’s turn. Behind every war is Greed. But the Nazis failed in their war and the US will in theirs.
If people often ignore the economic basis of war, it is often because the media teach them Western Wars are ‘just wars” defending “democracy” against “autocracy”. That has never been the case. At the star of WWI, The Kaiser’s Germany was in many respects arguabley more democratic than the UK, certainly not less than the US.
Today, the Western media usually protray Russia as an “autocracy” and Putin as a dictator But it is instead a vibrant democarcy with an active and opinionated electorate. Its democracy is more recent than most others,but also hard-won, and Russians value their principles.
The Ukraine, of course, is not a democracy at all.
The referenda, now passed—democratically— allow the Federation to legally deploy Russian regulars for combat instead of contract soldiers, tripling, perhaps quadrupling firepower. Each new attack by the West energizes the Russian people.
Nordstream II
The attack on Nordstream II, apparently orchestrated by the British, helped build lalready burgeoning support at home in Russia.
Of course, it did the reverse in Europe — -- underminiing support for elected governments there with the threat of a very cold winter, if not economic, social and political disaster.
Reading the signs, European companies such as BMW are relocating factories to China as well as to other countries in Asia, in what is increasingly a Chinese sphere of influence. The East rises as the West falls —just as happened with Rome—whose Empire relocated to Asia.
Sadly, the Americans believe their own bullshit.
The Propaganda Raspberry
For example, the Empire claims the Russians sabotaged their own pipelines.
But this story line—that the Russians just like to hurt themselves -- wins yet another Propaganda Raspberry Award for the not-so-creative Teams in London and Washington.
Previous awards were for things like stories of Russian atrocities against their own people in the Donbass and Lugansk and, of course, in Bucha where the dead mostly had white armbands, indicating Russian sympathizers.
Then there were the Russian strikes on the Russian held nuclear plant in Zaporozhe. Why waste an expensive missile when you could just set off some dynamite and blame Ukie sabotage? Because Russians are EVIL, of course!
If this were a TV series, it would be cancelled after the first two episodes.
Audiences are forgiving of plot holes only if the CGG are good and there’s lots of blood . Kiev is trying to supply that. Still, interest is waning fast. Same old, same old.
The fact that this series has not been cancelled is simply that the Sponsors are the US and UK governments.
Still, ordinary people increasingly notice discrepancies—-maybe because they are so many.
The Western news will tell you that the Kiev are successfully shooting down Russian drones and missiles over their cities. leaving out the many civilian casualties from AA debris . What goes up, must come down.
Most recently they claimed to have shot down all but 5 missiles in one attack. Then they moaned about 18 or more destroyed power facilities. OK, so the New York time’s editors failed second grade math. But Joe Doe, helping his kid do homework, likely not.
And “success” does not mean a.) protecting vital infrastructure b.) protecing civilian life from “friendly fire”.
Kerch
The attack on the Kerch Bridge was apparently an MI6 operation at first touted as a huge “victory”.
However, it just closed a lane to traffic for a day or two and its principal benefit seems to have been to give the Ukrainians a neat postage stamp showing a bridge blowing up.
However, it also supplied the Russians with a really, really good excuse to ramp up attacks on Western Ukrainian energy infrastructure, now degraded to between 20% and 50% of capacity depending on the time of day and location. Winter in Kiev will be very dark; very cold.
The UAF responded by doubling down on futile attacks in Kharkov and Kherson, with the weather rendering the ground muddy and hard for tracked vehicles to navigate in the south or even for infantry to move around. More dead conscripts.
And then, in apparent desperation, MI6 orchestrated a drone attack on Sevastopol, apparently using materials smuggled in on grain ships.
This allowed the Russians to withdraw from the grain agreement which was supposed to help starving people in the Global South but really just makes fat Europeans fatter and keeps McDonalds in business. What’s a Big Mac without a bun?
Just 3.4% of the grain was going to the Global South. About 34% of the grain goes to Turkey, the rest largely to Europe. But the Russians have said they are considering destroying terminal facilities in Odessa — which will stop that completely.
The Turks are therefore unlikely to dock any of their ships there in the meantime.
The Russians say the drone attack was defeated with minimal damage.
Of course, they had anti-torpedo nets which could handle the underwater drones which had smaller warheads than regular torpedoes. And the aerial drones were all shot down. One minesweeper outside the nets was slightly damaged.
Internet chatter suggests greater damage to the Russian fleet but the MoD is not saying, rather as they did with the Moskva, which was crippled by a fire— likely accidental due to the age of the ship. By not saying anything, the MoD stokes the fires of existential threat at home, motivating nationalistic support for an always skeptical Russian population.
As it turns out, the Internet chatter which claimed that a Russian frigate was severely damaged, if not sunk. It looked just fine the next day. No matter — the rumors fueled Russian patriotism
So, the drone attack was in fact very useful to the Russians—not only in terms of gaining support at home, but in providing an excuse to wipe out the British intelligence base in Ochakiv. And they followed by launching even bigger attacks on the Western Ukrainian power grid.
What next?
Russian forces have been bolstered in the Ukraine by over 80,000 – almost equal to their original fighting force.
They have another couple of hundred thousand coming and in their efficient methodical way are setting things up for some real war in late November when the ground freezes in the South and their tanks can move. At the same time, they are degrading Western Ukraine’s energy capacity.
The cities of Nikolayev and Odessa are fortresses and since the RF wants to preserve civilian infrastructure, avoiding the devastation that the Ukrainians caused in Mariupol, they will be simply isolated while UAF/ NATO army is destroyed, Western Ukraine freezes and massive emigration and civil unrest lead to the collapse of the Zelensky regime.
Western Ukraine is already a “rump state”. It is not ‘if’ it will collapse – but ‘when’. And the “when” will be soon as part of a lot of changes worldwide.
The MidTerms in the US
As i have said, the Ukraine is a proxy war. This is usually understood as a proxy war against Russia.
Russia didn’t start it. But now that is ongoing, it is now a proxy war against the West, including the US.
Russian success and American failure will play a part in the New American Civil War, between Blue and Red Americas.
The Republicans will certain take the House and probably the Senate. Trump is definitely back. SCOTUS is weakening the federal state in favor of the individual states. Even the ruling oligarchy seems to divided . Predatory capitalism is about predators. When there is no prey, the predators turn on each other. The Un-United States of America has no future—on division and strife.
BRICS
Another factor changing the world is the strengthening of BRICS, and therefore of multipolarity -- especially in Central Asia but also now in Africa and especially in Latin America with the election of Lula.
Lula managed to win the election by a narrow margin anyway despite widespread dirty tricks of all kinds, including vote rigging and disinformation has his problems. He did not run “left” but to the center, which accounts for Biden sending him congratulations on his win, although the US would much rather see him in prison.
But Lula knows that BRICS+ can generate cash flow to Brazil’s greedy power brokers, who control Congress and the richest states in Brazil as the American Empire declines. By pretending to play along with a failing Europe and US, he can suck up investment, co-opting the Brazilian Right.
This time round, Lula has surely learned from his time in prison.
Conclusion
Goodbye USA. Good riddance.
https://julianmacfarlane.substack.com/p/russia-is-on-a-roll?utm_medium=email