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Here’s a decidedly different POV from Geopolitical Futures….
October 18, 2022
Still a Unipolar World
By: George Friedman
In recent weeks, Russian President Vladimir Putin has said the United States is trying to impose a new world order, one designed to control Russia, China and Europe, as well as the lesser powers of the world. It’s tempting to write it off as the ranting of a leader at war, but there’s more to it than that. Ignore the fact that Washington’s seeking a unipolar world assumes a level of planning that runs counter to the American reality. What Putin is trying to come to terms with is that in planning for war in Ukraine, Moscow completely misunderstood the nature of the world.Specifically, Russia misunderstood American subtlety. The United States did not commit major military force to block Russia’s advance, nor did it cede any part of Ukraine. The United States understood the threat posed by Russia on the border with NATO – that is, a new Cold War – and it understood Ukraine better than Russia did. So it sent massive amounts of weapons to Ukraine, the power and sophistication of which could not be matched. It struck blow after indirect blow.
Moscow also failed to understand America’s relationship with Europe. Time and again, Europeans bemoaned that Washington had abandoned its European commitments. That that was never the case didn’t stop U.S. think tanks from validating the idea, nor did it dissuade Russia from believing it. In times of peace, the U.S. could do without the prior relationship with Europe, bickering over trade rules and Russian energy dependence. But when the war broke out, the relationship rapidly transformed. Germany, for example, did not value Russian fuel as much as it valued American security guarantees. The Europeans knew that Russia could hurt them, and they did not really trust the Russians, but when push came to shove, they knew American interests lay in Europe. Putin, I think, was stunned when he learned the Germans stood with the Americans. He lacked a sophisticated understanding that there are different types of power and that the power projected by Russia was too blunt to work. Putin could not understand the power of appearing uncertain.
Still, the worst mistake Putin made concerns the U.S. relationship with China, a country in deep economic crisis. Moscow could neither hurt nor help China. The U.S. can do both – help by increasing investment and buying more goods, and hurt by blocking the sale of, say, certain microchips. China believed it did not need the United States to recover, and it convinced itself that Washington could be intimidated by naval and related power. Instead, Beijing discovered that its threats around Taiwan and other areas simply generated more vessels and weapons to be deployed against it. The utility of an alliance with Russia was shattered by the realization that the U.S. could respond militarily in Ukraine and, simultaneously, in the South China Sea.
All of this should have been obvious, and I think China was more aware of U.S. capabilities than Russia was. Chinese President Xi Jinping knew when to cut his losses. Putin kept doubling down. This seemed to be validated over the weekend by a spokesman for the 20th National Congress of the Communist Party of China, whose statements were paraphrased by China’s Global Times newspaper as follows:
“If one of the most important events in international relations in the past 50 years is the restoration and development of China-U.S. relations, which has benefited both countries and the world, then the most important thing in international relations for the next 50 years is that China and the U.S. must find the right way to get along with each other. The key for China and the U.S. to find the right way to get on with each other is mutual respect, peaceful coexistence and win-win cooperation proposed by General Secretary Xi Jinping. Common interests between China and the U.S. far outweigh differences, and a sound and stable China-U.S. relationship serves the common interests of the two peoples.”
We are used to China hurling threats at the United States. Now, it is searching for ways to accommodate the U.S. It has noted the American performance in Ukraine, both subtle and brutal, and has decided that an alliance with the U.S., however loosely defined or temporary, is far more attractive.
It’s no surprise, then, that Putin sees the U.S. as a force trying to create a unipolar world, because in some notable ways, it is a unipolar world. The U.S. is the largest economy in the world, its current problems notwithstanding. It also has a sophisticated military, able to bring overwhelming force to bear, train an army at war in new weapons, and use subtle force to shape the world. American power isn’t absolute, and it can be outstripped. But it is sufficiently mobile to act sequentially when simultaneous action is impossible. Put simply, the United States is the most powerful economic and military force in the world – when it chooses to act. Inaction can be confused by men like Putin as weakness. The U.S. has learned that with its inherent power it has time to react.
The American public often sees the United States as weak and mismanaged. There’s a tendency to label Joe Biden, Donald Trump, Barack Obama, Bill Clinton and George W. Bush as criminals or morons or both. The same charges were levied against Andrew Jackson, Abraham Lincoln and Franklin Roosevelt. Contempt for the commanders-in-chief is a prerequisite, to prevent tyranny, even if it has its drawbacks. The America First movement opposing U.S. participation in World War II interfered with Roosevelt’s ability to make decisions. It had a direct impact on Pearl Harbor and caused a painful initiation for the U.S. into war by the Japanese, which of course ended in catastrophe for them.
The perception of American weakness is a global one, shared even among Americans. Being underestimated has its uses, as does sporting a public that doesn’t trust its president. But only enormously powerful nations can afford the contempt. The past few months haven’t taught us that the United States is finagling a new world order. It’s taught us that Russia is weakening, that China is managing its relationship with the U.S. carefully, and that the international architecture created after World War II, though more complex, essentially remains in place. It is a unipolar world.
AFKTT says…
“Any action taken to reduce the speed of overheating taken at this late stage in the game will have miniscule effect: the action needed to have been taken shortly after the ‘problem’ was clearly identified, i.e. in the late 1960s.”
But as you know the actions being proposed by the consensus view of the time ( for fun let’s call it 97%) would have included covering the poles with carbon black to mitigate the foreordained approaching ice age.AFKTT
You are obviously a smart person with deep knowledge that has created strong beliefs developed decades ago and you have defended these beliefs so many times that your reactions have become little more than canned responses that require very little new thought or consideration on your part. But I wonder.
Your beliefs on CO2/AGW were formed 3,4 maybe 5 decades ago. You’re aware of wide variety of projections proposed by the leading climate scientist. You probably formed your own expectations and made your own predictions. But do you ever truly reevaluate your beliefs in light of mainstream climate science’s dismal record of correlation to empirical reality? Do you ever say to yourself ‘Ok a lot of time has gone by since I formed my beliefs on global warming cause and effect; have thing gone the way I thought they would?’
Hopefully I’m not coming across as a dick. It’s definitely not my intention. I agree with a lot of your positions on a variety of subjects but I do find your dogmatic views of all things CO2 and your intolerance and dismissiveness of alternate points of view very off-putting. Personally I tend to give people the benefit of the doubt and let their theories, models and predictions play out in real time to produce empirical evidence one way or another. As such, nothing I have seen convinces me of any climate emergency.aspnaz
The pipeline is over 900km long and in NATO controlled waters; that’s a lot of ground to cover. The Russians would have a hard time doing real time monitoring of such a large structure but I’m sure they have their suspicions. I’d bet that NATO has a much better picture of events in those waters. Crazy, crazy shit.
RIM
I have been following TAE almost daily for some time now. One thing I do every time I visit the site is to copy your art selections to my Artworks folder and I have accumulated over 1600 files in this folder. I run a background screensaver that uses this Artwork folder as a slide show and I must say that I’ve really appreciated the variety of the exposure you’ve provided over the years. I’m at a point where I can appreciate the various styles and often guess just who the artist might be. Thank you for the education!
Recently I’ve been watching a TV series called ‘Leonardo’, a fictionalized account of the life and loves of Leonardo Di Vinci. The last episode revolved around the meeting and rival interactions between Leonardo and Michelangelo. Frankly it never dawned on me that the two were contemporaries, Leonardo Di Vinci (1452-1519), Michelangelo (1475-1564).
I went to my Artworks folder to contrast the two and found, to my surprise, that I have no artwork for Michaelangelo! Now maybe I just didn’t tune in on the days you posted works from Michaelangelo but it just seemed surprising to me that you have excluded his works.Just a curious observation.
I’ve always had trouble understanding the initial Russian invasion of Ukraine. Columns of tanks hard driving straight to Kiev but very little fighting? And then after a month or so they leave as quickly as they arrived. Massive artillery in the east but few troops and massive professional troops in the south with little artillery or air support.
I recently ran across this article that made good sense to me. It might have been posted here before and if so I apologize. This article originally appeared in the Marine Corps Gazette August 2022 issue. Authored by an apparently frequent anonymous contributor (“Marinus”) to the Gazette, it has since raised quite a ruckus among the United States military community in various online debates.
“A Former US Marine Corps Officer’s Analysis of the Ukraine War”
https://www.imetatronink.com/2022/08/a-former-us-marine-corps-officers.htmlI don’t think people realize just how badly the west treated the Russian citizens after the invasion and how this treatment affected the Russian people. Banning anyone with a Russian name from competing in athlete competitions. World famous Russian composers, Russian performers, Russian artist of all types and stripes were treated with scorn and ridicule just for being Russian. Hell, they even renamed a Russian painting!
When the invasion started it was a surprise and anything but popular with the Russian people. The last thing most wanted was a war and had the collective west made some distinction between the Russian government and the Russian people I suspect thing might have progressed differently but we’ll never know. The intense Russophobia coming from the western media and the incredible level of western imposed sanctions designed to cripple all of Russia, the Russian people were overwhelmed by all that hate, realized what the west really thought of them and rallied around their leader and motherland.
Well the genie’s out of the bottle and win, lose or draw we’re at a turning point and the world will never be the same.
I would not expect any kind of coup or mass uprising in Russia anytime soon.
citizenX writes…
Chett- Open your mouth , stay on your knees, your masters have something they want to give you.
Fuck off you fucking retarded pos. Clear and vulgar enough for you?
Wow
TAE use to be such a nice neighborhood. Oh well, things change.
I suggest you switch to decaf.Willem
“The scrubbers were necessary to keep CO2 levels in the ship below 1%, and a few times when the scrubbers malfunctioned and the atmosphere on the ship approached that level, everyone started getting bad headaches. ”
Let’s put this in perspective. 1% CO2 equates to 10,000 ppm. That’s over 20X higher than today.Thumbs up to you upstateNY
However I might suggest that maybe the universe intended us to be this arrogant
AFKNTT
I don’t want to discuss model at all. As you pointedly say “There’re useless”.
But unfortunately their output of dramatically rising sea levels and temperatures serve as the basis and justification for all kinds of stupid solutions being enacted by governments all over the world.You say “climate change deniers have no consistent narratives or even any consistent -or even coherent- explanations of their own!”. But this isn’t true. Most skeptics of the CO2 hypothesis are consistent in their belief that climate change is mostly a natural phenonium in which humanity plays a minor role. Don’t get me wrong. Humanity is responsible for an incredible amount of environmental damage but environmental damage and climate change are two different subjects that are far from completely overlapping. The resources required to enact the current solutions to fight climate change might just create the most destructive environmental damage in human history.
Well I’ll try one more time…
AFKTT takes Dr D to task on the magical thinking of CO2 driven global warming and writes…This has absolutely nothing to do with models
And follows with…
The phenomenon of planetary overheating is a very clear matter of observation and the testable link between increase in atmospheric carbon dioxide and increasing temperatureHe then justifies his beliefs by referencing the 19th century scientist, Svante Arrhenius’,1896 calculations on the effect of carbon dioxide (CO2) on global warming are frequently cited by proponents of Anthropogenic Global Warming as evidence that it was known more than 100 years ago that significant or catastrophic warming would occur due to a rise in CO2. Although he conveniently ignores the seldom referenced 1906 publication by Arrhenius where he dramatically reduces his initial estimates on CO2 warming effects.
A rather simplistic view of the scientific method is as follows:
1 – Develop a hypothesis
2 – Develop an experiment or model to test the hypothesis and it’s predictions
3 – Compare the results to real world observations (empirical evidence)Well the case of the AGW thesis
1 – Hypothesis: Doubling of CO@ will increase global temperatures by 5 – 6 ℃.
2 – Create global models primarily based on various derived CO2 sensitivities (at least some 73 models exist)
3 – Compare the results to real world observations FAIL, FAIL and FAIL badlyBut what I really found entertaining was how he dismisses the absolute failure of these models and the prediction by climate experts (looking at you James Hansen, Michael Mann) by blaming these failures on the fossil fuel industry when essentially all of these models were initiated and funded by governments, institutions and green entities whose very existence rests on proving CO2 is a existential threat to the earth itself. They gave it their best shot and reality proved them wrong over and over and over.
The arrogance and continued certainty in the face of failure after failure of the simplistic CO2 hypothesis is just boundless.
AFKTT
“But this time it’s different!”
Ho hum. Millions of years of ice core data made irrelevant by those insatiable humans and their evil ways.
@Afewknowthetruth,
Reads to me that you would have preferred that the world would have been better off if it had been taken over in the 1970s by a one world government like WEF (or the Club of Rome as they were known in the ’70s). I couldn’t agree less.
Humans are clever and much more resourceful than the one world megalomaniacs give them credit.I find the sudden surge of Monkeypox infections to be quite curious. I’ve tried to find out the vaccination status of those infected but to no avail. Does anyone know if the unvaccinated are also falling prey to it?
Back in the day his forthrightness about WMD made a good impression on me but, come on, Scott (I love to masturbate in front of my webcam) Ritter is not someone I will ever quote in any discussion today.
@ Dr Day
Thanks for the followup. I guess point 5 and 6 might be the answer I’m looking for but does their definition of unvaccinated include all infected and uninfected people? It certainly seems that people with natural immunity fare better than the vaxxed but people with natural immunity have already got the virus once. I wonder how the death rate of the “never been infected” vaxxed compares to the “never been infected” unvaxxed?
It’s probably inconsequential since the number of unvaxxed and uninfected is a small, and getting smaller, percentage of the population but it is a curiosity for me.Goodnight Dave ( really showing our age here aren’t we?)
@ Dr Day
Re: Meryl Nass MD
Maybe I missed something in my skimming of your link but is this really an apple to apple comparison? While it does show that the unvaccinated with prior infections do have superior protection to the vaccinated uninfected it also seems to have a huge hole in it’s logic that excludes the death rate comparison of the unvaccinated uninfected vs the vaccinated uninfected. If I were a vax proponent (which I’m not), I’d have a serious problem with the inferred conclusions.This guy in Germany is said to have taken 90 !!! shots of vaccine. If there is any validity to the belief that these shots destroy one’s immune system then how is this guy still alive.
https://apnews.com/article/covid-health-germany-europe-document-forgery-120b2c4db8aa71ffeadf766a9829910bMichael Reid
You should consider making you Tekmar heating system a closed loop. Your HW tank looks more than big enough to allow you to put a coil of pipe inside to create the closed loop that you can fill with antifreeze.
I don’t know what you are using for a circulation pump but mine runs on 12 volt and draws 80 watts. It’s connected through a thermostat to a 12 volt battery that will keep it running for weeks if the battery charger fails.Michael Reid
My 3 season cabin has an underfloor hot water heating system. The loop is filled with anti-freeze so I don’t worry about freeze ups if I lose power.“Guess who’s back, back again
Bosco’s back, tell a friend
guess who’s back, guess who’s back, guess who’s back…..”Skimming that article on VAIDS in NZ kinda scared the shit out of me so I had to read the entire thing at “The Expose”. It’s still scary shit but the article was unconvincing. Sloppy logic, confusing math and numbers that seemed to change by orders of magnitude left me bewildered and unimpressed but I’m no expert. Maybe someone else found it more enlightening.
Thanks Raúl
This is one of those times where I wish I could click a thumbs up buttonBosco
Come on man. Did he hurt your feelings? Well maybe a time out will do you good but you know you’ll be back. You just can’t help yourself.Deflationista
These graphs you posted do look very damming for the unvaxxed. I’ll have to look deeper.
A serious question… How does one explain the numbers coming out of Scotland that basically show negative vaccine effectivity?@ phoenixvoice
Sorry. Still can’t figure out how to post pictures, oh well, trust me it’s there.
The Ziverdo Kit contains zinc acetate, doxycycline and ivermectin.Let’s try this..
Well here’s a picture of the covid kit that I believe was distributed in Utter Pradash. (hopefully I managed to post it correctly) It does indeed contain ivermectin.
I don’t understand why people are so hung up on the idea of “free energy”. Isn’t all energy free? Oil bubbles up from the ground, wood is all around us, coal is there for the picking and the sun always shines and the wind always blows. We are surrounded by free energy. The cost of using this energy has always been the price to deliver the energy to where it’s useful and to build the devices to use the energy. When people talk about how Tesla’s free energy has been suppressed by the PTBs what the hell do they mean? Would some Tesla inspired perpetual motion machine really change things?
I never would have thought that Austria might lead the revolution but who knows…
“Austria rises against “health dictatorship”
November 16, 2021- 15:33 by Emilien Lacombe
The police and the army refuse to control the health pass in the name of “freedom and human dignity”. They will join a large demonstration against compulsory confinement on November 20, 2021 in Vienna.Only a few days after Austrian Chancellor Alexander Schallenberg decided to confine unvaccinated people, politicians and unions, call for a vast uprising against this freedom-killing measure, unique in the world.
The leader of the Freedom Party (FPÖ) Herbert Kickl, called for a ” mega-demonstration” on November 20 in Vienna.
Shortly thereafter, Austrian Armed Forces Union (FGÖ) President Manfred Haidinger followed suit and joined in in a letter published on 14 November. He intends to “defend fundamental rights and freedoms”. The FGÖ specifies that “everyone” is authorized to demonstrate, even in the event of confinement!
The obligation of control imposed by the Minister of the Interior, Karl Nehammer has already been rejected by the police union. In addition, the Union of Austrian Armed Forces announces that they will participate in this great gathering in Vienna.”“On November 1st, the Rabbinical Court officially decreed that the mRNA COVID shot is “absolutely forbidden” for children, adolescents, young men & women.”
This seems like a huge deal to me but I have only found one source for this info ( Sarah Westall). Everyone else seems to be using this source. Searched CNN, FOX, fact check, etc. No corroboration whatsoever.
If I’m Jewish and looking for a religious exemption doesn’t this proclamation just about lock it in?Do you have other sources?
@Kimo
I’ve followed Chris Masterjohn for many years. He’s a PhD in Nutritional Sciences and a trusted source for all things nutritional. He has just put out an article entitled “Vitamin D and COVID-19: The Current State of the Evidence” you might find informative. He believes that these studies support maintaining vitamin D status in the 50-60 ng/mL range to achieve the lowest risk of infection, but not regarding this as any kind of panacea that can guarantee a mild or non-fatal case.
But…
“A study of hospitalized patients in Iran85 provided a vague hint that risk may actually increase when vitamin D is in the toxic range: although only seven patients had vitamin D status over 100 ng/mL, two of them died, bringing their mortality rate (29%) closer to the patients with less than 10 ng/mL (36%) than to those with 10-100 ng/mL (19%). Due to the small number of people in this range, these results are not statistically significant, but they urge caution to stay out of the toxic range, something good to do anyway.”Based on his analysis you might want to cut back on the D.
@ Eric Blair
“Discrediting Greta Thunberg (and what she stands for) because her great-grandfather “invented” (aka made it up) global warming, pushing aside with one fell swoop the almost total disappearance of Arctic ice, crumbling Antarctic ice sheets, thawing tundra, coral reef dieoffs, droughts, floods, heat waves, fires, not to mention the fact that CO2 levels are measurably up?”I believe your distain of Mark Miller conclusions and your defense of Greta and the global warming hypothesis is totally misplaced. Greta is someone to be pitied. A sensitive child who, like you, has been brainwashed by the media into believing that she has no real future and that’s it’s all the fault of greedy capitalist.
Since all of your dire perceptions are based on the work of Svante Arrhenius let’s look at some of these things you worry about:
– In 1896 Svante Arrhenius hypothesized that a doubling of CO2 would lead to a global temperature rise of 5 – 6 degrees C. This number is the basis for virtually all current models. It is seldom mentioned that in his 1906 paper Arrhenius revised his estimates for the doubling of CO2 to 1.6C. Arrhenius amended his view of how increased carbon dioxide would affect climate. He thought the effect would be much less in terms of warming, and whatever warming ensued would be beneficial.– Arctic Ice – In the 1920 and ’30 the first predictions of ice free arctic and the opening of the Northwest Passage were common headlines in all of the major newspapers around the world. By the ’60 these stories had flipped and talk of a new ice age was prevalent. Currently artic ice coverage is little changed from 100 years ago.
– Antarctic ice sheets – The big scare 30 years ago was the crumbling ice sheets or western Antarctica. In 2017 Scottish scientists have detected 91 volcanoes under a massive ice sheet in west Antarctica, potentially revealing one of the largest volcanic regions on Earth. Recent data from the rest of Antarctica reveals a falling temperature trend ( a new low temperature record) and an overall accumulation of ice.
– Thawing Tundra – some places yes, some places no. Greenland has been experiencing an overall accumulation.
– Coral reefs – A recent report citing reef population data from the Australian Institute of Marine Science (AIMS) shows corals on the Great Barrier Reef (GBR) have significantly expanded in number despite repeated bleaching events over the past decade. Scientists surveyed 127 reef sites in 2021 and found hard coral cover had increased at 69 of the 81 locations surveyed in the past two years. Coral cover is the highest it’s been since 1985.
– droughts, floods, hurricanes, heat waves, fires – Contrary to the MSN assertions even the IPCC cannot find any evidence of any long term changes in these events.
Someday the planet earth will be revered as the birthplace of humanity and will be the Mecca of the solar system that everyone will want to visit at least once in their lifetime. We need to preserve it for those future generations. Our current plans to chase away the CO@ boogeyman with windmills and solar panels will lead to unimageable environmental damage and unnatural visual blight everywhere on earth. CO2 is not the problem.
