PUTIN VALDAI SPEECH. Eng, Rus. I would say that the principal theme – but read it yourself, it’s an important speech (I’m almost tempted to say valedictory) – is that the West is going down. Russia, thanks to its historical experience, has lived the experience from start to finish – twice. As Putin pointed out there was plenty of “human engineering” in the early Soviet days; the USSR failed at imposing its system. Russians know that exceptionalism doesn’t work; not because they’re wiser but because they’ve lived the failure. “These examples from our history allow us to say that revolutions are not a way to settle a crisis but a way to aggravate it. No revolution was worth the damage it did to the human potential.” Russia, says he, has an advantage in these times when the geopolitical tectonic plates are shaking: “our society has developed what they now refer to as herd immunity to extremism that paves the way to upheavals and socioeconomic cataclysms”.
CONSERVATISM. “This conservative approach is not about an ignorant traditionalism, a fear of change or a restraining game, much less about withdrawing into our own shell. It is primarily about reliance on a time-tested tradition, the preservation and growth of the population, a realistic assessment of oneself and others, a precise alignment of priorities, a correlation of necessity and possibility, a prudent formulation of goals, and a fundamental rejection of extremism as a method.” He mentions Berdyaev several times. Paul Robinson, who knows a lot about Russian conservatism, takes this further: the conservatism that Putin is talking about is derived from a realisation that Western “liberalism” is no longer liberal; it has become a species of totalitarianism.
ARMAGEDDON. Big but: “Arguably, political history has no examples of a stable world order being established without a big war.” If it should happen, Russia is well-positioned: lots of land, lots of water, lots of energy, self-sufficient in food, a conventional military strong enough to defeat any invader and a continually-tested nuclear arsenal for deterrence. Putin said that reducing poverty was his greatest achievement but I think that that is.
FOOD. Doctorow on the revolution in food production. Little covered in the West but very important.
NAVAL ADVENTURES. A US ship was pushed out of Peter the Great Bay. A Russian-Chinese flotilla sailed through the Tsugaru Strait (international waters because Washington made Tokyo make it so).
NO US TROOPS say Kyrgyz Republic and Uzbekistan. Meanwhile a big exercise, in Tajikistan, involving elements from Russia, Belarus, Tajikistan and Kazakhstan concludes.
COVID. Moscow and St Petersburg have declared a partial lockdown.
COVID ORIGIN. Oh oh. So Fauci’s organisation was funding GoF experiments on bat coronaviruses in Wuhan after all. But just a teensy-weensy bit. Move along folks, nothing to see here.
NATO. Moscow breaks relations with NATO: waste of time from start to finish, despite some hopes back then. Meanwhile, now it’s forbidden to use the word “Afghanistan”, NATO emits something.
GUNS. RT gets excited about the Hunter RPV and NATO worries. A modernised White Swan takes a test flight. Another failed US hypersonic test.
GAS. Putin has instructed Gazprom to start filling storage facilities in Germany and Austria when Russian ones are full (in about a week). Europeans ought to reflect on the fact that Russia has better markets to the east where the customer doesn’t whine and sanction. Meanwhile, in a Ukrainian MP has suggested that Ukrainians start saving manure. He had earlier said Moscow was waging hybrid war on Ukraine by selling cheap electricity.
THOSE PESKY RUSSIANS. “Russian ‘blackmail’ of causing high energy prices across Europe“; “Russia Wants Gas Price 60% Lower to Keep Energy Grip on Europe“. They gotcha coming and going.
THE DEATH OF IRONY. US official urges Russia to supply more gas to Europe; “should do it quickly“. We’re supposed to forget Washington’s years of blocking Nordstream.
TURKISH DRONES. Turkey sold some of its Bayraktar RPVs to Ukraine which promptly used them to attack the Donbass (and not very competently). (Or maybe not.) This won’t last long: Moscow will put its thumb on the scale and either supply AD or EW to stop them.
GOLD HEIST. Amsterdam court rules Scythian gold should go to Kiev. Where it will, no doubt, mysteriously disappear.
AFGHANISTAN. Another “Moscow Format” discussion about Afghanistan attended by Taliban.
© Patrick Armstrong Analysis, Canada Russia Observer
Re: Covid. Yes, Dr. Dog Killer appears to fund everything under the sun, excluding things that might actually be helpful to humans. We should gut the damn organization by about 60% by cutting their funding and then audit everything they’ve funded over the past decade. First though, fire Fauci.
“For instance, earlier this year, the Russian military undertook a series of exercises close to its Western borders.”
Wow, the Russians conducted military exercises within their own national borders! Unlike the US, which goes 3,000 miles away from home to conduct exercises to defend those people buying electricity and gas from Russia. You know, our ‘allies’. Including the one who helped put the Steele dossier together to undermine the president of the US. That would be the same country that is cutting the size of its military. Wonderful allies America has there.
Fred – UK defence policy is a puzzle.
1. I don’t believe the Russians are planning on crashing through the Suwalki Gap.
2. If they were it’d only be the Americans who’d stop them. European NATO in itself is inadequate.
3. UK armed forces have been cut to the bone and more. But what we have is mainly put to the service of the Europeans. With whom we do not have a neighbourly relationship.
A real puzzle. It first struck me when I happened to see a recent MSC. There was Tony Blair, giving a side lecture, saying honestly that the Americans were the only effective force in Europe. At the same time saying that it’d be better not to let the British Public know just at the moment how integrated we were becoming with European defence. Didn’t seem quite so honest, that.
Gavin Williamson, at the main event, echoing much the same line..
https://www.gov.uk/government/speeches/the-munich-security-conference
It’s the line HMG is still holding to. Rather more so. The French Air Force and ours are getting together as well.
Seems HMG is trying to have it both ways. Probably because they want to stay on board with EU defence contracts. I suspect that that, rather more than a coherent defence policy, is what is in the forefront of their minds.
Bit of a puzzle when it comes to your country too. The American President and his Secretary of State are militantly pro-EU on some issues but full steam ahead with the “Special Relationship” on others. Very special, when one thinks of the Steele affair you mention.
Either the Great and the Good of the West are brain dead the lot them or they’re weaving a web we ordinary mortals can’t see. From what I’ve seen of Macron and Johnson and your President the former looks like the best working hypothesis.
EO,
We should have removed the majority, if not all, of our forces from Europe with the collapse of the USSR. Bureaucratic inertia, a lack of vision, and the immense amount of money spent on all aspects of the continued deployments were all involved in not doing so.
Should there be a war against Russia, the so-called Sulwaki Gap will be the quietest place on the front.
Right! The Russians has said that, in the case of “hostilities” , they would deal with the provocateurs behind the lines along with those provoked. I hope this will happen. It is high time those instigating violence partook of their own dish.
The Ukrainian Bayraktar usage is going to be interesting. ODATV, a Turkish media outlet, says that the Russians have asked for a statement from tayyip. No response so far.
Ishmael Zechariah
Yes, but that’s the Russian defence policy. It’s based on defence if we attack them.
European defence policy is based on what I believe to be an entirely false premise. That we must defend ourselves against the Russians attacking us.
I suppose they might, if we poke the Bear hard enough. But aside from that I can see no profit in it for them. Lavrov’s recent statements show that he’s prepared to just wash his hands of the Europeans.
I don’t think those are just words. We in Europe, including the UK, have been unable since the ’90’s to decide whether we want to help loot the Russians or trade with them. A particularly difficult decision for the Germans, the only power in Europe with significant economic clout.
I don’t believe Mrs Merkel’s policy, of going with both approaches until she saw which way the cat jumped, will long survive her. The Russians seem to have got bored with waiting for her to make up her mind.
Dr. Dog Killer appears to fund everything under the sun, excluding things that might actually be helpful to humans. We should gut the damn organization by about 60% by cutting their funding and then audit everything they’ve funded over the past decade. First though, fire Fauci.
Dr. Dog Killer appears to be a criminally insane psychopath. In addition to abuse of medical authority, he appears to have committed treason, collaborated with Communist China, and conspired to profiteer by forcing people to take poisons on which he holds patents. I don’t think “fire” is the correct verb. I think he should be facing whatever sort of process is appropriate for those accused of treason. Some anonymous writers have suggested that a civilian trial would not be appropriate for traitors; they say that traitors must face “tribunals” with different operating procedures. Overall, the situation reminds me of 1989.
On Christmas Day, 25 December 1989, the Ceaușescus were tried before a court …. They faced charges including illegal gathering of wealth and genocide. Ceaușescu repeatedly denied the court’s authority to try him, and asserted he was still legally the President of Romania. At the end of the trial, the Ceaușescus were found guilty and sentenced to death. A soldier standing guard in the proceedings was ordered to take the Ceaușescus outside one by one and shoot them, but the Ceaușescus demanded to die together. The soldiers agreed to this and began to tie their hands behind their backs, which the Ceaușescus protested against, but were powerless to prevent….Before his sentence was carried out, Nicolae Ceaușescu sang “The Internationale” whilst being led up against the wall. The firing squad began shooting as soon as the two were in position against a wall. …Later that day, the execution was also shown on Romanian television…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicolae_Ceau%C8%99escu#Death
Re: NO US TROOPS say Kyrgyz Republic and Uzbekistan
I _certainly_ remember how here on turcopolier there were comments from people with certain experience, that, actually, there were US troops there (special forces) and that the change of needs and circumstances would command to have permanents bases there.
Any comments?
Lytenbutgh
Time moves on and history with it. The feckless ineptitude of the Biden Administration has ruined many possibilities.
Sounds like Putin was channeling Donald J. Trump. Or lasciviously contemplating $200 a barrel oil pricing.
Biden has saved the Russian governments oil revenues. I wonder if Hunter managed to sell any art or if this was just a gift.
On Death of Irony, apparently Russia is only filling Gazprom’s European storage, which is very small, once Russian storage is filled.
http://en.kremlin.ru/events/president/news/67016
And the US is shocked shocked shocked that Russia is increasing gas sales eastwards while the US sells gas eastwards where the price is higher.
https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2021/10/27/business/asia-us-gas-import-rush/
So the US is crying elephant tears for Europe as we sell our gas at higher price to Asia. Of course the EU shot itself in the foot by insisting on short-term contracts for the gas market, which investment timescales are decades.
—–
I also applaud Russia and China NOT attending COP26 as it brings the hypocrisy into the open – the US is begging the Saudi’s to pump more oil as we speak, while today’s diplomacy involves insulting China and Russia and then expecting cooperation.
The reality is the global warming is all to Russia’s benefit – relative and absolute in many many ways – My knowledge of the East Siberian Arctic Sea geology suggests Russia has several Saudi Arabia’s of oil, which will become accessible in a warmer world.
ISL,
“The reality is the global warming …”
The reality is the policy decisions of the West made in the name of “global warming” under all of its disguises are disasters for the majority of the people living in those countries. But it does provide career security to thousands and further enriches a few; and virtue, oh so much virtue, to the elitists and their acolytes.
Yes Fred, in true groundhog day style, the west never lets a disaster go to waste when it could enrich the masters (of the universe) while also failing to respond to the disaster. Pick your disaster.
e.g., Macron and the start of the yellow vest protests (not sure if the French are virtue signaling).
This all seems typical of declining empires – Rome and Epstein come to mind regarding virtue and when different oligarchic factions fight over the spoils with their “courtiers” virtue signaling to their patron faction.
– – – – –
In any case, my point was that Russia would surely welcome global warming – it will greatly grow their economy and geo-political power.
So it is hard to see why insulting and sanctioning Russia will succeed at convincing them to act against their interest in accord with US policy goals.
ISL,
There is no disaster regarding CO2 or any of the other factors the EU claims are causing ‘global warming/climate change’ to utilize to regulate the energy sectors. The regulations created the energy sector disaster they will experience this winter. Please see Al Gore’s “Inconveninet Truth” and let me know which of his warnings came to pass. I believe they are all a decade overdue.
I first heard these doom and gloom warnings in my high school forestry class in the early 1960’s in California – a classroom move claimed if we continued to use XYZ resources at the same rate we were using them in the 1960s, …….we were all gonna die.
Since then the world exploded to 7 plus billion people? But the only thing we ran out of was common sense and critical thinking.
So maybe we are all …gonna die after all. And California exploded from 20 million to 40 million during the same time period. Yet only 5% of the total state land mass is “urbanized”.
I wonder now, who was behind that movie in the 1960’s. Was it the early days of the Sierra Club?
Deap,
Rachel Carson was one of the firsts frauds to get pushed on us all. Overhyping Ralph Nader’s justafiable concern gave us an NHTSA that is trying real hard to be as controlling as Fauci’s NIH.
https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/diplomat-found-dead-outside-berlin-embassy-believed-be-russian-intelligence-agent
Diplomat Found Dead Outside Berlin Embassy Believed To Be Russian Intelligence Agent
Colonel,
Wonder how this one is faring on the other side.
https://apnews.com/article/coronavirus-pandemic-health-national-security-intelligence-agencies-chris-stewart-bfff7fc2f8ee0635dd4ae3411c9047eb?utm_campaign=SocialFlow&utm_medium=AP&utm_source=Twitter
Vaccine refusals in intelligence agencies raise GOP concerns
Things international:
More about Italy revising “covid deaths” down to miniscule numbers once they stopped listing “with covid” as covid deaths. Details about the numbers with serious co-morbidities, in those previously listed in Italy as “covid” deaths:
https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2021/11/when_will_the_cdc_correct_its_covid_death_counts_as_italy_just_did.html