HARPER: G-7 INCH TOWARD ECONOMIC NATO

If there was any doubt that the G-7 countries are in accord that the challenges coming from China and Russia must be addressed head-on, the outcome of the G-7 summit in Hiroshima should have put any doubts to rest. The final communique and a separate document addressing economic challenges made clear that the leading economies of North America, Western Europe, and Japan are in accord that Ukraine must be backed “for as long as it takes” to defeat the Russian invasion.

Broader and more permanent sanctions are part of the agenda. The separate document on the economic challenges ahead singled out China (without naming names) for conducting economic coercion jeopardizing the global trading system. In the same document, the G-7 countries acknowledged that they must do more to address the economic crises across the Global South, or China’s Belt and Road Initiative will overtake their too-little-too-late recognition of the challenge. Many nations in Africa, Asia, and Latin America openly say they prefer “Chinese cash to American and European lectures.”

On the eve of the summit, former British Prime Minister Liz Truss toured Asia, including a stop in Taiwan. She delivered a series of speeches urging the G-7 leaders to establish an “economic NATO”–an alliance to coordinate economic containment of China. The subject was widely discussed behind the scenes and while no such treaty agreement is under consideration, the actions taken at the summit tipped in the direction of such a future arrangement.

Indian Prime Minister Modi was feted as an invited guest and India is chairing the G-20 summit in September. Modi is flexing his muscle as a champion of the Global South, reviving images of the 1950s Non-Aligned Movement. But his presence at the G-7 has officials in Moscow and Beijing wondering whether India is inching towards closer engagement with the Western powers aligned against them.

According to some participants, the discussions in the corridors and in the more private side gatherings frequently turned to Joe Biden and concern that he is too old to run for reelection and would possibly not live through a second term. Whether this proves to be a legitimate concern or overblown, the fact that it was a frequent topic in informal talks is significant in itself.

Above all the summit showcased Japanese Prime Minister Kishida’s emergence as a global leader. While Western mainstream media covereage of the summit was spotty and selective, the Japanese media covered every moment of the summit, including the tour by all the heads of state of the Hiroshima Memorial Museum. Given the current state of warfare in Ukraine and fears of Putin using a nuclear weapon out of desperation, the visit was a stark reminder of the consequences of escalation. Japanese friends believe that Kishida has boosted his popularity and is in a stronger leadership position that most people expected after the death of Japan’s longest-serving postwar Prime Minister Abe.

Another dimension of the Kishida hosting was his bilateral meeting with President Yoon of South Korea. The two countries are moving toward resolving century-old bitter resentments, largely driven by common concerns about North Korea and China’s own rapid nuclear weapons expansion.

Boring US and European media coverage aside, it was a significant event.

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49 Responses to HARPER: G-7 INCH TOWARD ECONOMIC NATO

  1. Whitewall says:

    It would be nice to have India as an ally of the West. Due to their playing both sides during the Cold War, I wouldn’t trust them too far unless circs with China get very dire.

    • James says:

      Whitewall

      I agree that India is very much in play and is a big deal. Pro-Russian Mercouris did a video a couple of days ago talking about how Russia is accumulating large stockpiles of Rupees due to India’s oil laundering operations, and Mercouris concluded that Russia-India trade is going to take off in a way that will be highly beneficial to both parties. I don’t remember anything in my Econ 101 textbook that said that that is how beneficial trade patterns emerge.

      On the other hand – it does seem to me that BRIC could turn into a worldwide Mercosur and that could be quite beneficial to India. My impression from walking though shops in Mercosur countries is that Mercosur worked pretty well for its members.

      • Fred says:

        James,

        Oil laundering? What prevents India from buying from whomever they please? Some domestic law or international treaty they are obligated to? Or just the “rules based order” stating they can’t?

        • James says:

          Fred

          I was trying to be concise and a little bit amusing – clearly I failed. I agree with you that India has the right to buy from whoever they please.

    • Billy Roche says:

      An appeal to other correspondents pls. What, exactly what, does the G-7 (or for that matter the G-20) DO! What would happen to the world, shudder, if someone forgot to schedule a G-7 meeting in Switzerland or Tokyo some upcoming summer. They make no commitments. There are no treaties, troop deployments or legislative proposals. But yes, lets cover those G-7 meetings.

      Oh I know, the G-7 gives the plebes a sense of what the elite of the elite deem proper for the world. Anyone remember “midnight” the cat? That’s nice.

      • Billy Roche says:

        Just as I suspected. No one knows what the G-7 actually does.

        • TTG says:

          Billy Roche,

          It’s just a forum for conversation, much like a weekly gathering for tacos among a group of friends.

          • Billy Roche says:

            My point was it is covered by the press and portrayed as a momentous gathering. It is not, and I doubt
            Putin is feeling terrible ostracized b/c he wasn’t invited.

          • TTG says:

            Billy Roche,

            Sounds more like something out of “Mean Girls.” Putin is trying hard to make fetch happen.

  2. Fred says:

    “the leading economies of North America, Western Europe, and Japan are in accord that Ukraine must be backed “for as long as it takes””.

    “”Broader and more permanent sanctions are part of the agenda.””

    What are they going to do to keep Trump from being elected president as he would drop US support for all that on day one?

    • ked says:

      “What are they going to do to keep Trump from being elected president…”
      nothing. it’s already been done… by the Loser hisself. but he’s not finished… he’s got the urge.

      • Fred says:

        So you believe Biden will actual win an honest election.

        • Fourth and Long says:

          Forgot quotation marks. Hint: It’s a proper name.

          • Fred says:

            F&L,

            Thanks for self-anointed language policing. The quotations I used have nothing to do with names, nor does English use them around proper names.

          • Fourth and Long says:

            Fred,
            Sorry, I need to stop being foolish. Yes, American elections are hardly on the up and up. Example – year 2000. More recently, the case that the fbi and cia interfered to suppress knowledge of Biden family corruption from surfacing is very convincing. I personally am one of those who doesn’t think that Bush fairly defeated Kerry either in 2004. I read several books years ago that convinced me that Kennedy lost to Nixon save for intervention of organized crime elements working on behalf of his randy old bootlegger and stockfixer papa whose first name escapes me. Nixon also was railroaded out of office by entities not reported on in the media, but that wasn’t an election per se. Interference in ’68 in negotiations with NVNam, the list goes on. As George Carlin said “It’s a club, and you’re not in it.”

        • ked says:

          against Trump? are you kidding?
          he could croak the week of the election & beat him.
          Trump’s base is shrinking, & his big $ donors are shirking. the hope of the insurrectionists is … another insurrection. Trump is running to raise cash & stay out of jail – how small minded. after he won in ’16 I posted here that his hopeful followers picked the wrong horse to address the (arguably) real issues they had so much angst over. since then, he’s screwed it up for everyone.

    • Sam says:

      Ron DeSantis will announce his run for President TOMORROW on Twitter with Elon Musk: Florida Governor set to end months of speculation by confirming his 2024 White House bid to set up a mouth-watering battle with Trump

      https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12116531/Ron-DeSantis-announce-run-President-Twitter-Elon-Musk.html

      It will be interesting to see who “rigs” the Republican primary first. Maybe that’s the test – rigging ability.

  3. blue peacock says:

    BRI is in trouble as the debt resolution discussions among the recipients of the BRI lending show. Zambia being a case in point on the hole that CCP has on its balance sheet on their BRI lending. CCP will be taking a haircut and the usually corrupt politicians in the Global South (not much different than ours) will be open with sufficient financial inducement to renege on CCP’s BRI lending not just re-structure.

    • Sam says:

      “Don’t look at Guizhou’s problem in isolation. Guizhou’s problem is also a national problem. Eventually, someone must pay for it. The question is who.”

      https://twitter.com/michaelxpettis/status/1661021838577893380?s=21

      Debt is a problem everywhere. In our case most of it is borrowed from future generations. Typically government prefers to inflate away the debt pushing the burden on the weakest members of society.

  4. Fourth and Long says:

    PMCs proliferate in Russia. Poor Siberians are traded like cattle between bosses. Price per head 25,000 rubles. Roughly $300.

    https://t.me/nevoina2/74
    Military capitalism in Putin’s style

    Behind the talk about “strengthening the state” under Putin, there has always been something opposite: privatization. The economy and society were only a source of private profit or rent. In the end, this process reached the very core of the state machine – its power apparatus. Like mushrooms after rain, private military companies grow and multiply. In addition to Wagner, these are Torch, Flame, Potok, Redoubt, Patriot. As in the sphere of the civil economy, the state serves only as a terminal for transferring resources to private traders close to the regime. As a result, instead of a state in Russia, there is just a conglomerate of corporations that trade in everything – raw materials, goods, services. Ultimately, people.

    In this video, relatives of poor people from Siberia mobilized “to defend the motherland” tell how their loved ones are sold to each other by various PMCs and army generals. The market price is also known – 25,000 rubles per head. The war only formed a new market – armed serfs, which are exchanged by the “economic entities” of the invasion. This is the merciless logic of Putin-style oligarchic capitalism. It’s just that the rules and institutions created over 30 years have been transferred to new ground. And it turned out that people really are no different from oil. The same product as everyone else.
    ——————-
    China-Russia cooperation space in Far East extends far beyond Vladivostok: Global Times editorial
    https://www.globaltimes.cn/page/202305/1290769.shtml
    —————-
    The talk on Ru Telegram channels for well over a week is that the country no longer exists. It has no sovereignty, it’s an appendage of China. Vladivostok will be Chinese in several years tops. Population will surge. Buildings will rise.

    Not exciting video but he has interesting things to say about the divergence in aggressive intent between the UK and it’s Eastern European vassals on 1 hand and the US and Western Europe. The G-7 may have rendered some of it obsolete, unclear. The funny thing is how they call it “giving F-16s to Ukraine” when every expert says they will be piloted by US airmen “volunteers.” But you can’t say that. He discusses 2024 election. Very indefinite. ⬇️

    Former French Ambassador: Ukraine has revealed a new world order.
    https://youtu.be/wpiaURRWOTY
    —————————
    Putin will go down in history right next to Caligula’s horse. Madam Tussaud’s can make a statuary tryptich by adding Shoigu. I guess that’s unfair. Guess what Bill Bruckner – your record bobble no longer stands. The entire Ru revolution down the drain. Bastard cretin sambo wrestler with a 1 billion $ palace. Is Joe Rogan that rich yet? I am misbehaving. The take out food. And chopsticks. What’s not to like? Soon: Mandarin Ideograms on the road signs. Train tickets issued in three scripts Eng Mand and Ru Cyrillic. There’s nothing more revolting than a tough guy living in 5,000 BC during the 21st century, especially if he leads a country spanning 11 time zones which housed some of the finest artists, musicians, dancers, singers and scientists in history.
    I’m being unfair. Brooks Adams analysed Ru at the turn of the 19th to 20th century. He said that given the harsh climate, lack of seaports, no natural geographic borders and the sequences of historic invasion and devastation — that they were doing better than his analysis predicted. It hasn’t changed.
    https://t.me/nevoina2/76
    Translation:
    🤡 Special Ops Losers
    Every day of non-war reveals the amazing, boundless impotence of the Russian authorities. She unleashed a war of conquest, but is unable not only to win it, but even to control her old borders. “Voentorg”, which Z-patriots have been joking about since 2014, began to work in the opposite direction. Rows of concrete pyramids for 10 billion conveniently and effortlessly bypass entire enemy units with armored vehicles. The red lines are moving further and further inland. Putin is informed about the invasion, but he is in a formidable prostration.
    Looking at this, you involuntarily begin to believe that there will be no rebound. The front will roll in as routinely as planes fall.
    Not the fact that this will happen, but you begin to believe in it.
    The main core of the regime is crumbling: its myth of its own invulnerability. The country is ruled not by cruel, cynical, but cunning and invincible strategists, but by a bunch of mediocre and powerless old men. They are guaranteed to excel at any task. And this destroys the main mechanism of governing the country: hopelessness. After all, for years people “voted” for power in different ways, not because they loved it, but because it is strong. Vote, don’t vote, it won’t matter how it will be. No one resisted the brute force and the seemingly invincible will of the Kremlin: neither the oligarchs nor the beggars. And now it turns out that there is no will, and no power.
    Shit-eating losers concede goal after goal. They have NWO already in the Belgorod region. Why listen to them then? Go to the military office? Pay voluntary contributions? Execute orders? All the same, it will be as it will be: they will screw everything up.
    —————-
    Klava Koka and Liusia Chebotina: Фак ю
    https://youtu.be/B2zl1HtfZx4

    • LeaNder says:

      Absolutely fascinating interview. Not only, since rarely II listened to familiar English accents lately. Great interviewer, no doubt. I understand you label this type of stuff as not exciting. But yes, absolutely fascinating.

      Gérard Araud mirrors my own positions on Europe and Germany (…) a lot better than English Outsider’s no doubt exciting theories. In fact they puzzle me slightly. Kind of like: how can one realistically feel/think that way???? What I find interesting in the earlier parts is Araud’s awareness of public opinion, including his own to some extent dictating matters. If I understand him correctly. 😉

      Let me link to the end of the interview, which centers on Europe.
      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wpiaURRWOTY&t=2397s

      • Fourth and Long says:

        Absolutely and thanks. If it’s of serious value with actual vital information which the authorities prefer not to be aired it will always be placed near the end. (Not at the exact end because there are too many smart grownups who as smart kids learned to skip to the last paragraphs of the last chapter of assigned books in case cliffnotes was banned by the school library or the local druggist didn’t receive his relevant Classic Comics editions yet). You are worn out or impatient so you never get to the good part. The NY times is a master of the technique. Commandment Numero Uno: Thou Shalt Not Inform the Unwashed. And they get to say “but we did mention it.” I like the Unherd guy too, but he can be slippery at times. Compared to US TV interviews? (Laughter). I didn’t like Charlie Rose at all except for the fact that it was dignified and civilized (a trick to get you to admire the worst people on earth) because I know too much about PBS or think I do, but as the plan to start WW3 unfolded he was the first to go, on a tritely manufactured excuse long used by Intelligence operatives and gangsters.

        • LeaNder says:

          (a trick to get you to admire the worst people on earth)
          can’t say I was a fan of him either. Neither am I a fan of the me-too-after-decades.

          But yes, the good pyramid style of news can be misused. But, would we get any consent here in this comment section what the most inportant items/details of any news are?

          I like the Unherd guy too, but he can be slippery at times.
          I can imagine.

    • Billy Roche says:

      What does buying and selling human beings have to do w/capitalism??

      • TTG says:

        Billy Roche,

        Isn’t buying and selling what capitalism is all about? Granted it does not have to involve buying and selling human beings, but when it does, it’s capitalism.

        • Fred says:

          So those African nations selling off those they enslaved were just greedy capitalist at heart, like the Barbary Pirates and the people in Tripoli doing the same today.

          • TTG says:

            Fred,

            Along with the Brits, the Dutch, the Spaniards, and everyone in between, yes.

          • Fred says:

            TTG,

            capitalism wasn’t even a concept then. But thank goodness the doing good people (hate to tag anyone as a ‘dogooder’) have a way of retroactively applying marxist think to folks so the legacy guilt can be brought forward to beat people.

          • TTG says:

            Fred,

            Capitalism has been around since the 1700s, maybe even the 1600s.

          • blue peacock says:

            TTG

            The earliest records of joint-stock companies appear in China during the Tang and Song dynasties…..An early form of joint-stock company was the medieval commenda, although it was usually employed for a single commercial expedition.[8][9] Around 1350 in France at Toulouse, 96 shares of the Société des Moulins du Bazacle, or Bazacle Milling Company were traded at a value that depended on the profitability of the mills the society owned, making it probably the first company of its kind in history.[10][11] The Swedish company Stora has documented a stock transfer for an eighth of the company (or more specifically, the mountain in which the copper resource was available) as early as 1288…..n more recent history, the earliest joint-stock company recognized in England was the Company of Merchant Adventurers to New Lands, founded in 1551 with 240 shareholders. It became the Muscovy Company, which had a monopoly on trade between Russia and England, when royal charter was granted in 1555. The most notable joint-stock company from the British Isles was the East India Company, which was granted a royal charter by Queen Elizabeth I on December 31, 1600 with the intention of establishing trade on the Indian subcontinent. The charter effectively granted the newly formed Honourable East India Company a fifteen-year monopoly on all English trade in the East Indies.

            https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joint-stock_company

            It could be argued that Capitalism has existed for several centuries. Maybe even longer.

          • Fred says:

            TTG,

            Adam Smith “Wealth of Nations” which is a millennia or more after China was not transformed by ‘capitalism’ argued by claiming a joint stock company existed way back when. Constantine introduced the Solidus and it was the standard for currency for more than a thousand years. It was not a sign of central banking or capitalism either.

        • Billy Roche says:

          No. Trade, is simply buying and selling. In 20,000 B.C. I traded three pieces of lovely cut granite for a good looking woman from another family group. Several thousand years later Chinese traded jade, Welsh tin, Egypt cotton and wheat, Greeks olives and wine. OTOH Phoenicians produced nothing but traded throughout the Mediterranean. Trade is neither good nor bad. If you don’t like the deal, don’t do it.
          When some African tribes attacked other tribes and took prisoners for sale that was not capitalism; it was war and slavery. They did that b/f the Portugese found the Bight of Benin. Amerindians who conquered, enslaved and sold other Indians (sometimes to white people) were not capitalists; they were slavers. Absolute monarchs who stole the labor/product of serfs threatening violence/death d/n risk/invest capital to make more capital. They were thugs.
          Some say European exploration was the result of Muslim restraint of trade to Europeans seeking eastern trade. Turks and Arabs cut’em out. Muslims kept the eastern routes but the Euros learned western routes and, BTW, to trade for slaves just as well as the Muslims. The “beaver wars” b/t the Iroquois and Huron are another example of restraint of trade, war, and slavery. The Iroquois won and lots of Hurons were killed/enslaved.
          Trade can make one wealthy. One can sit on that wealth, “eat” of it, or apply some of it to make more capital by finding ways to use, risk, and expand it. Capital … ism is about using some of your capital to make more wealth. That’s why it is called capital … ism. Using money to make more money. Ultimately there will be trade. It’s the common denominator of all human commerce.
          I responded to the assertion that buying and selling humans was “military capitalism” and since buying and selling humans is bad it must be capitalism b/c capitalism is bad. Increasing your capital is good. It allows you to do more, produce more, employ more, sell more, satisfy more people’s needs, your own needs, and public taxation. There is a “woke” idea that the use of capital to expand wealth is bad. Lurking beneath is the idea that wealth is bad. I’m offended by that b/c I suspect “wokesters” are an arrogant lot who believe they will be not be among the slaves. Poverty is not noble and the state deciding who will get wealth and how much is slavery. And that puts us right back to the beginning.

          • TTG says:

            Billy Roche,

            Slavery didn’t begin as a capitalistic endeavor, but it became one. The buying and selling of slaves and the exploitation of slave labor became a lucrative form of capitalism throughout the Americas for several hundred years. That doesn’t make the whole idea of capitalism bad or evil, but that particular manifestation of capitalism was anything but good.

          • Billy Roche says:

            Slavery was not a “form” of capitalism. I write again, capitalism is using some of your earnings (Retained Earnings) to make more money. In not consuming all one’s profit, capitalist risk and forbear some profit to make more profit. Capitalism is simply money used to make more money. BTW, investors (often old people like me who are looking after their own retirement rather than expecting the state to do it) who join in also risk and accept forbearance of their capital. Making money rewards such discipline and is good. Slavery was a way of reducing labor costs and was practiced throughout the ancient world, the “Lords” of every manor in Europe, socialist in Germany (concentration camp labor), and Russia (Gulag labor). Even Plato thought the Hoi Polloi ought to be ruled by the elite “philosopher kings” who BTW, d/n do manual labor. Slavery is bad (thankfully it was largely replaced by oil which was/is good). Connecting slavery to capitalism is simplistic. It allows one to go from capitalism and profit bad, to socialism good, equality good. Which introduces another fallacy. Equality among humans is neither always fair, nor good. “Woke” manipulation of language leads to that but seventy years of socialism and the slavery it imposed on Eastern Europeans should give us pause. So no, slavery is NOT a form of capitalism. I think we all need to keep an ear out for the socialists simple characterizations. That is why the term military capitalism drew my attention.

          • TTG says:

            Billy Roche,

            So in your view, capitalism is separate from any connection to goods, services and labor. It refers purely to using money to make money. I can almost see that, but it leaves a lot out. At what point does goods, services and labor enter into the picture?

  5. SRW says:

    A bit of history for May 23rd. The 158th anniversary of the Union victory celebration parade in Washington D.C.

    The Big Parade
    When the Civil War sputtered out early in May 1865, there were two huge Union armies within a few days’ march of Washington, D.C. One was the Army of the Potomac, winner of the war in the East, commanded by Maj. Gen. George Gordon Meade. The other was the Army of the Tennessee, or the Western Army, the men who had marched through Georgia to the sea, commanded by Maj. Gen. William Tecumseh Sherman. What to do with these two very different bodies of men was a problem that vexed politicians in Washington. A Victory Parade was scheduled for Washington DC while the nation mourned Lincoln.
    May twenty-third dawned oppressively hot and dry. Clouds of choking dust filled every street as chaises and carriages and wagons carried spectators to Pennsylvania Avenue. At nine o’clock a signal gun boomed, and the Army of the Potomac headed down the wide street. It was inevitable that they would be given the privilege of marching first. This was Washington’s own army, the men who had defended the city from the oncoming Confederates in a score of desperate battles. Their commanders and many of their lesser officers were well known to every Washingtonian.
    Not a few politicians and generals hoped the Easterners would shame Sherman’s marauders with the precision of their marching and the magnificence of their uniforms. The first impression tended to fulfill this expectation. ‘The swaying of their bodies and the swinging of their arms were as measured as the vibrations of a pendulum,” wrote one eyewitness. “Their muskets shone like a wall of steel.”
    Uniforms were spotless, shoes gleamed, and every man gripped his musket with a white-gloved hand. They came down the avenue in formation, twelve men to a file, while two elaborate bands, each the size of a symphony orchestra, played “When Johnnie Comes Marching Home,” “Tramp Tramp Tramp, the Boys Are Marching,” and “The Battle Hymn of the Republic.”
    At the head of the column rode the army’s commander, Major General Meade, the hero of Gettysburg. Cheers rang out, and people pushed forward to deck garlands around the neck of his horse. Meade, known to his men as the Old Snapping Turtle, managed a frosty smile. He had had the difficult task of commanding this great army in the shadow of Gen. Ulysses S. Grant, who was its real director in the convulsive, costly battles of 1864 that had loosened Robert E. Lee’s grip on Richmond.
    Precisely at 9:00 A.M., the next day, the Army of the Tennessee rounded the corner of the Capitol and headed down Pennsylvania Avenue. The weather was not quite as warm as the day before. As for the spectators, their numbers had, if anything, grown. The New York Times man ruefully estimated them at two hundred thousand, glumly noting that “thousands left the city after the first day but their places were taken by newcomers.”
    The pundits and politicians were finding out that however much they might deprecate Sherman and his soldiers, to the public they were the supermen who had somehow marched undefeated and unsupplied through the heart of the South. The Army of the Potomac had earned their affectionate admiration. But the Army of the Tennessee had an aura that virtually compelled people to come see it.
    Sherman rode at the head of the column, wreaths of roses around his horse’s neck. His old slouch hat was in his hand, and his red hair glistened in the bright sun. Behind him came the plowboys from Ohio, Wisconsin, Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Iowa. They took furtive, astonished glances at the signs arched over the avenue: HAIL TO THE WESTERN HEROES. HAIL, CHAMPIONS OF SHILOH, VICKSBURG, CHATTANOOGA, ATLANTA, SAVANNAH, PRIDE OF THE NATION.
    The Westerners marched with a rolling, springy stride, perhaps two to four inches longer than that of the men of the East. They were “nothing but bone and muscle and skin under their tattered battle-flags,” said Brie. Gen. Carl Schurz, who had marched with them. Another man thought they marched “like the lords of the world.” The New York Tribune reporter believed their faces were “more intelligent, self reliant and determined” than those of the Army of the Potomac. The New York World’s man found them “hardier, knottier, weirder.”
    Within minutes the Westerners had won their last victory. The spectators went wild. Sobbing women held up babies; others simultaneously praised God and wept. Thousands of white handkerchiefs waved from the sidelines. Rooftops, windows, even the trees were full of cheering civilians.
    For some regiments the excitement was almost unbearable. Wild cheers burst from their throats. Hearing those yells, Sherman rode in an agony of uncertainty. He could not break his own order and look back. He could only pray his legions had not become the undisciplined mob that the Army of the Potomac considered them. Finally, as his bay horse mounted the slope before the Treasury Building, Uncle Billy could stand the suspense no longer. They were only minutes from the presidential reviewing stand. He whirled in his saddle as he reached the crest of the rise.
    What he saw made that “the happiest and most satisfactory moment” of his life. Every man was obeying the order to keep his eyes rigidly to the front. They all were marching to the same beat. “The column was compact,” he wrote in his memoirs, “and the glittering muskets looked like a solid mass of steel, moving with the regularity of a pendulum.”
    As Sherman passed the presidential reviewing stand, he raised his sword in salute. The New York World reporter said the acclamation was “without precedent.” Every man, woman, and child in the crowd shouted his lungs out “as if he had been the personal friend of each and every one of them.… Sherman was the idol of the day.” This was the same man newspapers had called a traitor only ten days before when Sherman had sat down with his fellow West Pointer, confederate general Joseph Johnson, and signed a document that endorsed the legitimacy of Southern state governments as soon as they took an oath of allegiance to the United States..following Lincoln’s policy of reconciliation.
    Behind Sherman his massed bands burst into “Marching through Georgia.” Flowers poured down like raindrops from the roofs and trees, until the street was ankle-deep in blossoms. As the XV Corps passed the reviewing stand, the officers shouted an order. They whipped off their hats and bellowed a cheer for the President. But their eyes remained locked to the front.
    For the Westerners, saluting a new President was the hardest part of the march. A boy from the 12th Wisconsin said: “We couldn’t look at the reviewing stand.” Had Lincoln been there, he added, “our line would have broken up.”
    Sherman swung his horse into the White House grounds, dismounted, and joined the dignitaries on the reviewing stand. He embraced his wife and son for the first time in eighteen months and shook hands with his father-in-law, Thomas Ewing, and with President Johnson and General Grant.
    The Army of the Tennessee continued its triumphant progress along Pennsylvania Avenue. Not only the rolling stride and the resolute frontward gaze hypnotized the spectators; equally interesting were the accouterments the men had carried with them through the South. The New York World’s reporter was intrigued by the signalmen carrying sixteen-foot staffs with mysterious flags like “talismanic banners.” Behind almost every company was a captured horse or mule loaded with cooking utensils, captured chickens, and an occasional pig on a rope. Here was the explanation of how they had marched through Georgia unsupplied except, in Grant’s words, by “sweet potatoes sprung up from the ground.”
    Behind each division came living evidence of why they fought, proof that the war had been, as Lincoln had hoped, “a new birth of freedom.” A pioneer corps of black men marched in double ranks, with picks, staves, and axes slung across their brawny shoulders. Behind them came six horse-drawn ambulances for each division, their bloodstained stretchers strapped to their sides. At the sight of them the cheers died away and a hush fell on the nearest spectators.
    To complete the unorthodox aura, riding sidesaddle beside the ambulances was the angel of the army, sunbonneted Mother Mary Anne Bickerdyke. More than once she had taken on Sherman himself to demand better food and more medicine for the wounded.
    On the reviewing stand, as the first divisions passed, the German ambassador reportedly said, “An army like that could whip all Europe.” A half-hour later he gasped, “An army like that could whip the world.” An hour later: “An army like that could whip the devil.”
    For seven and a half hours the men of the West strode down Pennsylvania Avenue on those sinewy young legs that had carried them farther than most armies had marched in the history of warfare. In the end the cheering spectators realized the aura of invincibility came from something invisible, intangible, something profoundly connected to the idea of freedom. Lincoln had summoned these grandsons of the pioneers from the nation’s heartland to settle the ancient issue between the founding sections. More than one spectator sensed it was the martyred President himself in his Western prime they saw striding past them on May 24, 1865.

    (my ggrandfather fought for the Union in the Civil War but he was not part of the parade)

    • Fred says:

      SRW,

      And 6 weeks later they were gone as the army was disbanded. Something the current warmongers won’t dare do to our MIC, which is the only thing relevant to Harper’s piece on the G-7 meeting in one of the cities in Asia that was vaporized by the “West”. Quite symbolic; but only the evil Ruskies would use such means now.

      • Fourth and Long says:

        Six of the foremost scientists who worked on the atom bomb project graduated in the same class from the same high school in Budapest. Von Neumann, Wigner, Szilard .. can’t remember the rest. Much of that is myth. Does anyone really believe that FDR approved the Manhattan project because Albert Einstein wrote him a letter? (Yes). How about Jack n the Beanstalk? The Japanese had two bomb projects. And that’s because Hirohito received in the mail a .. wait .. maybe it was a telegram.

        • Fred says:

          Does anyone remember that militarists in Japan killing political opposition candidates throughout the 1930s? I’m sure that is far more relevant to the conduct of Japan’s government prior to and during WW2 than in revisionist historians knowing better than people actually making decisions between 1942 and 1945.

    • ked says:

      excellent.
      “hardier, knottier, weirder.”
      as we well know, “when things turn weird, the weird turn pro.”
      @ war’s end, Sherman’s Army was THE pro outfit.

      • TTG says:

        ked,

        When Sherman split his army at Atlanta, he took the best for his march to the sea. Thomas was left with the sick, lame and lazy to fight Hood. Fortunately, Thomas was a master at creating armies and built a force that utterly destroyed Hood.

        • ked says:

          as I delved more into CW leadership over the decades, I’ve found the old saw, “the South’s field generals were brilliant, the North’s often useless” to be shallow. each reflected their region’s culture as well as their private backgrounds. that many overlapped at West Point & shared battle in Mexico (except Sherman!) added a European touch of class to their combat lives. a read of Groom’s Shrouds of Glory provided some balance in that comparo – coming from a Southern Author no less.
          After walking Chickamauga, I dove into The Rock to better understand his nature. Didn’t reveal much more for comparison purposes… instead that he was a man out of those times – unique, modern.

          Shrouds is a decent quick read… lotsa background to the War in the West, & a look into Hook & a not always exemplary aspect of the antebellum South’s culture as imprinted upon its generals. coming from a writer who’s heart was Southern, I found the treatment admirable.

      • LeaNder says:

        Yes, excellent writer.

        Once the South was beaten, Eastern and Western troops of the Union army resented each other so violently that some feared for the survival of the victorious government. Then the tension disappeared in one happy stroke that gave the United States its grandest pageant—and General Sherman the proudest moment of his life.

  6. Christian Chuba says:

    “singled out China (without naming names) for conducting economic coercion jeopardizing the global trading system.”

    And when has China used ‘economic coercion’?
    Economic coercion is a mainstay of U.S. policy and those who resist it are branded outlaws.

    Some examples, the U.S. and EU are trying to impose a price cap on Russian oil on OTHER countries such as India and China. We do this by going after tanker owners and insurance companies who have bank accounts in $ / Euros. ‘Do what we say or we will seize your bank accounts and impose fines on you.’

    We use identical tactics against Syria, Iran, Venezuela, and Cuba. It’s fine if we want to abstain from trading w/those countries but we coerce other countries to do the same.

    BTW no matter how awful you believe Russia’s war in Ukraine is, don’t other countries have a right to be neutral? There were a handful of countries that remained neutral in WW1 and WW2. A neutral country has a right to purchase civilian goods with warring parties.

    We are furious against China because they are the only country that is strong enough to oppose our unilateral sanctions and global trade embargoes against smaller countries.

    • James says:

      Christian Chuba

      A big part of propaganda is getting people to use different terms depending on whether we are doing it or our rivals are doing it. When we do it it’s called “sanctions” but when they do it it’s called “economic coercion”. All animals are equal. But some are more equal than others.

  7. Jim Ticehurst says:

    SRW

    Thank you For your Story It was the most interesting information I have Read and
    It Inspires continued hope for our Nation !
    JT

    • Fourth and Long says:

      It almost does inspire continuing hope, Jim. Almost. I am old and in my childhood traveled past those battlefields on trips to the southland to visit my dad’s relatives, we were northerners only geographically, many of our families friends were southern, and there was intense nostalgia on offer and resolve to overcome old wounds. SRW’s piece was moving to me not just because it was superbly composed. But those marvelous farmers and mechanics who were formed into the armies of Grant, Sherman and others – do those lads even exist today? I am reminded of the stages of the Roman republic and empire. To wit – for many years the Republic relied on yeoman farmers for their troop levy’s, troops who retired after 20 yrs with land either back home or in colonies. That disappeared with the appearance of giant industrial strength plantations owned by a fantastically wealthy class of Roman capitalists. Plantation farming by captured slaves who were simply left to die after the age of 55 – literally to starve to death in the case of Senators like Cato and his family. Eventually the fine Latin stock of the huge peninsula was unrecognizable there, there were huge population transfers into cities and the well known bread and circuses. I think we, the continental Americans, have reached an approximately similar stage. Do those lads still live? Are they become the reviled “deplorables” of Ms Clinton, obese and drug addicted as huge international agricultural corporations farm the lands – as Ukrainian farmland is also sold by Zelensky to firms like Cargill?

      Granted that’s a fuzzy sketch, but in large part I think so. It was a marvelous composition, yes. I felt almost euphoric reading it because “freedom” is so inspiring an idea, and to imagine that my countrymen participated in it’s furtherance and defence is a heady thing. The Romans also had their epics which they fondly recalled as their world changed irrevocably.

  8. jim ticehurst.. says:

    The Photo…..
    I am Guessing That is a Photo of The G 7..Taken by a UFO Photographer..?

    If So…Looks Like G 7 plus 2 ..And a Small Green Frog..Who went a Courting..
    And Deserves to Be King of The West..For Making NATO..Magnum Plus 4..

    All The Rest is Vodoo ..Whodoo…Whydoo…Whendoo…Master Crafting..IMO
    JT

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