France 100% Allied With Ukraine, Must Go To “War Economy”. Francophobic, Treacherous New York Times Allies With Putin

Which side of the Ukraine war is which side of the Democratic establishment on? Well, Obama was on Putin’s side, and clearly Biden is on Zelinskyi’s side. However, the propagandist New York Times does not forget that its number one enemy is France. Let me quote: An Endgame for Ukraine, June 6, 2023:…”How should this end?

We can start by listing the ways in which it shouldn’t. The first is the one suggested last year by President Emmanuel Macron of France. “We must not humiliate Russia,” he argued, “so that the day when the fighting stops we can build an exit ramp through diplomatic means.” At the time, to “not humiliate Russia” was code for allowing Russia to preserve its ill-gotten gains while it was on the offensive.”

That’s a pack of lying shit. And the NYT did even worse, after lying about Macron, the NYT advocates that 20% of Ukraine, including Crimea, should be given to Putin:”Winning comes in two flavors. The first, and riskier, is … to push Russia out of the territories it seized in this war, to retake Crimea and the breakaway “republics” in the east. This is what Ukrainians want, and what they are morally and legally entitled to.

But retaking Crimea will be hard, and even success will come with costs, primarily in the form of populations that aren’t necessarily eager to be liberated by Kyiv. Hence the second flavor: To help Ukraine restore its pre-February 2022 borders, but no further —”

Is the NYT completely senile? It advocates doing exactly what it claims to be outraged by, and, in contradiction of evidence, what it attributes to Macron. 

Amazingly, after sitting on my comment correcting them for hours, the NYT allowed the following to be published. No NYT reader “recommended “ it:.. Showing that not only the NYT is a problem for civilization, but so is its readership, apparently made of decerebrated, angry, gullible robots.

By “not humiliating Russia“, Macron meant just that, and only that. France officially will not negotiate returning Ukraine to anything less than her pre-2014 borders. No reward for aggression. The dozens of long range, high precision, ultra mobile French CAESAR 155mm guns have proven the most useful part of Ukrainian artillery: just one of them mounted on a barge forced the Russian to surrender Snake Island. Other howitzers tend to get destroyed by counter-battery fire… while a CAESAR is gone in seconds after a volley.  

Zelinskyi was provided, during his last tour, a jumbo jet from the French Republic, and he went all the way to Japan and back with it, under french colors for the whole world to see. So definitively, Macron is in Zelinskyi’s camp. 

Putin can’t be rewarded with one centimeter of Ukrainian territory, because, if he were, all could see that aggression pays… In any case, Putin will not negotiate… because his regime would collapse if he did. 

Even if Putin’s forces were ejected from Ukraine, Putin would keep on fighting. Fighting justifies Putin’s tyranny. So the West has to get ready for a very long war, barring the miracle of Putin’s personal disappearance…. Which could well happen as units of the Russian army and Wagner PMC have started to ambush and shoot at each other…

The run-up to full world war two in 1939  started in 1931, in China, and lasted 8 years. Too few countries took it seriously (or then, like the USA, and the USSR, decided to take advantage of the increasing conflict: US plutocrats made money all over, especially from trading with fascist regimes, for example selling oil to Hitler, Mussolini and Hirohito; or developing Stalin’s oil). French president Macron has said that “France needs to go into a war economy”. Well, all the West does need to go to a war economy if it does not want the war with fascism to get way worse. Deterrence works, even during a world war! After all, the Nazis didn’t even try to use the gigantic reserves of nerve gas that they had, knowing that if they did, their population would be exterminated in return!

Patrice Ayme. 

Evil-Power, Pluto-Cracy English American Style

Evil-Power, Pluto-Cracy English American Style is the dominant form of governance nowadays, despite the Kremlin’s pathetic efforts to impose again its time tested, religiously propelled evil power. The Kremlin’s evil, triumphant mentality, and subsequently its colossal empire, arose from an opportunistic adaptation by collaborator Alexander Nevskii to the Mongol conquest. 

The American form of evil is even more primeval, therein its strength.

US plutocratic mentality also arose from somewhat similar circumstances to that of Russia: genocidally propelled continental grab. (The French, who insisted on moral standards and tender footed colonization through equitable trade, failed miserably, although France was then the dominant superpower: French evil was not up to snuff!)

In either case, conquering continents had moral consequences on the mentality of the conqueror, one of them being hypocrisy, using the Christian fable to claim one’s aspiration to sainthood, and thus one’s holiness. Nevskii is a saint of the Russian Orthodox religion… And much of US anti-intellectualism arose from a strategy of not looking too closely how and why bad things happen, and thus why they perdure. All very good to achieve the world as we know it, but in need of some tweaking looking forward… 

***

European colonists of the (London-made) “West Country men” persuasion, free ranging from a lack of adult supervision during the Seventeenth Century, established a society in America which first survived and soon thrived… but only through barbarous methods.

(We have a control experiment: the most moral and Catholic “Nouvelle France”… which failed, under English assault, from too high moral standards, lack of slavery and tobacco…)

***

As early as 1609 CE, the military establishment of (West Country Men founded) Jamestown made it clear that the Natives had to be eliminated: this was the plan all along (which unfolded in the next three centurie). In 1622, that was clear enough for the Natives around Jamestown to make a determined attempt to kill the settlers to the last.

The exasperated Americans try to eliminate Jamestown in 1622. Failed in part because of a warning by Natives who were too friendly with some of the English. However, US mentality was forged one massacre at a time…

***

Up in New England, slavery of Indians and Africans had been already engaged. by the local authorities Now of course, there had been a precedent. English indentured servants could be horribly tortured to death by their wealthy masters for hunting pigs on their own, without explicit authorization… And American white cities paying for Indian scalps was next. 

After that, it was further downhill… As new sorts of evil not seen before were successfully introduced, making the land wealthy and productive. 

Judicially justified racism, English American style, had few parallels in human history. Even when the Islamists conquered their gigantic empire in the Seventh and Eight centuries, although they treated non-Muslims very badly, and could execute them for nearly no reason, they left open the possibility of becoming Muslim. 

Not so with the color of the skin in English America. 

Indeed English American judges established that colored people were aliens, so aliens that they couldn’t hold property and, in particular, slaves. So colored people became enslaved (there were exceptions). d

US plutocracy is of a particularly vicious, highly controlling sort. It controls the legislative process, so plutocrats pay very little taxes, ensuring that their power always grows. As they control the world, including up to very recently Russia and China by extending to them the self-dealing plutocratic largesse of international trade, this is a serious worldwide problem. 

The argument can even be made that both world war one and WW2 were to a great extent US plutocracy driven (European fascists were often US financed and the Japanese invasion machine was fueled by US oil for a decade).

US plutocracy is particularly vicious, because of its origin in slavery (of blacks) and genocide (of Natives). US plutocracy has inherited and been molded by stealthily cruel ways which don’t bear the qualitatives they deserve.

Class is not just about class, just like caste is just about caste, or the sort of slavery the USA had was just about slavery. Slavery has existed in most societies, but the sort of slavery the US suffered was clearly worse than any from Greco-Roman, or for that matter, Babylonian antiquity. US slavery was anchored in skin color, and slaves were rarely freed (freed Babylonian and Roman slaves could reach the top of society). 

Where does so much cruelty come from? Ecology. Man has always culled man. Wealthy and abusive families and individuals are both the cause and consequence of human evil… And evil as an absolute good, of evil as what humanity needs to be kept in check. Hence it’s not just the pathetic spectacle of the hyper powerful not being worthy of their position, which is celebrated. It’s also the evil power, the power of evil to be the ultimate giver of all destinies.   

Hence it’s not just the pathetic spectacle of the hyper powerful not being worthy of their position, which is celebrated. Evil power is also celebrated, evil as the ultimate giver of destiny.  It would be crucial progress to recognize this. 

***

And what of the future? If the future is to be steered optimally, the past, which gives not just the instructions, but the initial conditions, must be understood as well as possible,

The USA, differently from most other countries, is driven by strong immigration (directly related to the genocide, that’s the cynical angle). Thus yesterday’s mentality does not have to lead the future without sharing. Better, and even more cynically, the reason why the supremely barbarous couple of centuries of English America achieved… supremacy… over the French precisely because barbarousness is better at war… All other things being equal. .

Politically Correct people, now called “woke”, and once “pacifists”, or “isolationists”, who sobbed at the prospect of war with Hitler, have tended to ignore the fact that brutality wins, all other things being equal. This is why free trade doesn’t work without ensuring that RIGHT IS MIGHT.

When North American Natives learned of Christianism, they laughed at the silliness of that fable. They knew better what the real world was made of: cause and effect, not effect masquerading as cause. North American evil power inherited this truth from the Natives, too, something primeval, and thus very powerful.

Evolution tells us that evil in the service of goodness is called humanity… Maybe the ends do not justify the means, but the means cause the ends… Go complain with whom created God.

Patrice Ayme 

 

 

Kremlin Rus Deplorable Mentality Is No Accident

The Ukraine invasion exhibits Russian civilization naked and for all to see. The infamy of what happened, the brutality, the cruelty, the empire-at-any-cost mentality was all over Russian literature from way back. Centuries.

This all has to do with how Kremlin Rus was created: after the Mongols seized Kyiv and killed everybody except one, the commander, the Mongols made Alexander Nevsky, head of the Kremlin and already in bed with the Mongols, Prince of Kyiv, in 1241. Yes, the founder of Kremlin Rus was made head occupier of Kyiv, by the invaders of Rus!

In the following century, Moscow was made the unique tax collector of Rus, and the money was sent to the Mongols. Finally a wealthy Kremlin was able to muster huge armies and beat the Mongols at their own game. 

This means that the Kremlin led a ferocious tyranny which was just the opposite of the Rus Kyiv had led for centuries prior, which was democratic (for the times).

The Mongols seized Kyiv again in the Fifteenth Century. In the Seventeenth Century, the Kremlin made a deal with the Zaporozhian Cossacks (the free men), which it then violated to its advantage. A century later, a German immigrant princess who led Russia after making a coup against, and killing her husband, the Tsar, Catherine, conquered Southern Ukraine outright, and with her lover Potemkin launched a policy of ethnic cleansing, complete with fake “Potemkin” villages. Putin relaunched this, in full. 

What happened to Germany was no accident, but reflected writings and ways held in high esteem for centuries, from the likes of Luther, whose anti-Jewish program Hitler copied. And also Herder, who made a religion of tribalism. When the French united Germany and freed Poland, they outlawed anti-Judaism. However, after Napoleon’s defeat, anti-Judaism was reestablished: Jews couldn’t be doctors or lawyers, for example. So Hitler was in no way an accident, but a continuation… with modern means.   

Something similar is happening with Kremlin Rus. Putin is a continuation of an empire founded on inner and outer abuse. Exterior wars were used to justify inner terror, and that policy was fully visible by the 1560s, under Ivan The Terrible.

The Kremlin Rus’ terrible way was highly successful in the sense of establishing the world’s largest land empire.

The old German mental system that culminated in Hitler was annihilated  after 1945 (although some powerful Nazis, like Marshall Von Manstein, were still all too influential after WW2… Von Manstein’s influence finally waned and the German officers who had violently opposed Hitler were finally honored as they deserved… subsequent to the death of old Nazis…)

The old Russian mental system which brought a continuous flow of tyrants for seven centuries is now culminating in Ukraine, fighting the old Ukrainian democatic spirit inherited from the Vikings and the republic Novgorod, and will be completely defeated, as deserved, hopefully. 

In 1775, the Russian Empire of Catherine II launched a military campaign against the Zaporizhian Sich, a republic of free men, centuries old, which resulted in the destruction of the Sich and the dispersal of the Cossack population. Many Cossacks fled the region, while others were incorporated into the Russian military or resettled in other parts of the empire. From the perspective of the Cossacks the Russian Empire’s invasion represented a lethal, unjust and aggressive takeover of their traditional territory and way of life. It was enabled by massacres and betrayals. The hybrid warfare of Putin and Gerasimov (the chief of staff of the Russian army) is more of the ssame that was already practiced in the eighteenth century.

Putin has invaded much of the region in similar ways and similar aims.

Potemkin village:
In sociology, politics and economics, a Potemkin village (Russian: потёмкинские деревни) is a construction (literal or figurative) whose purpose is to provide a misleading external façade to a situation, so that people would believe that the situation is better than what it really is. The concept comes from a fake portable village built by Grigory Potemkin, former lover of Empress Catherine II, solely to impress the murderous Empress during her journey to Crimea in 1787 (which she had just conquered from the Tatars). Potemkin would have erected phony portable settlements along the banks of the Dnieper River in order to impress the Russian Empress and foreign guests. The structures would be disassembled after they passed, and re-assembled farther along their route to be seen again… Making the dignitaries that the region he had just devastated had a population….

Maybe Russia can only graduated from its deplorable imperial mentality through a disastrous war? In the fullness of time, this will be interpreted as a bait and switch. Indeed, the satanism of Putin’s regime was obvious, from open sources, since 1999… So called neoliberalism, which is neither new, nor liberal played along as oligarchs then put their money as foreign direct investments with their allied western plutocrats…

Patrice Ayme

Meiji’s Wisdom On “Wild Beasts” Trampled By His Grandson And Putin

“WILD BEASTS” Of The Kremlin. Lies Foster Lies, Violence Makes Them Worse. Thus Emperor Meiji’s Order To Civilize War:

Putin, with his collaborators in the West, has instituted a culture of brutalization based on lies hidden behind the appearance of true valor. Although Putin behaved as a war criminal for the entire world to see as early as 1999, he was treated with respect by the leader of the West and made an indispensable cog to civilization itself. Now the same Western leadership has to arrest him on sight, no question asked.

The fact that Putin, an obvious war criminal, was treated with respect by the entire West has deeply confused and damaged Russian society. Violence fosters ever more violence. Violence to reason itself is the worst sort of violence.

In a typical of Putin’s pantomime, once a warrant for his arrest was issued for Putin’s crime against children was issued by the International Criminal Court, Putin went to Mariupol, where he killed at least hundreds of children, and deported thousands. A deliberate precision bombing of a theater which the entire world knew contained thousands of refugees, mostly women and children, and the deliberate precision bombing of a maternity (which Putin’s goons insisted was a military target), happened in Mariupol. Among other horrors.

We saw this descent into infamy in Japan, a century ago, when the Japanese army turned from a force exhibiting great valor and civilized behavior… to abomination. For 50 years, Japanese troops had been exemplary in highly civilized behavior, they followed Hirohito’s grandfather, emperor Meiji, who wrote in an order (“rescript“) to soldiers and sailors (1882): 

“The soldier and the sailor should esteem valor …. To be incited by mere impetuosity to violent action cannot be called true valor.  The soldier and the sailor should have sound discrimination of right and wrong, cultivate self-possession, and form their plans with deliberation.  Never to despise an inferior enemy or fear a superior, but to do one’s duty as soldier or sailor—this is true valor.  Those who thus appreciate true valor should in their daily intercourse set gentleness first and aim to win the love and esteem of others.  If you affect valor and act with violence, the world will in the end detest you and look upon you as wild beasts.  Of this you should take heed.”

However, consecutive to their occupation of Korea and violent, impulsive, rogue invasion of Manchuria in 1931, the Japanese army started to behave like “wild beasts”, nurturing a culture of savagery which could only grow (and became fully obvious with the rape of Nanjing in 1937, hundreds of thousands of civilians killed, or Manila in 1944).

Putin has instilled the same spirit of ultra violence masquerading as valor throughout Russian society which griped societies as that of Hirohito’s and Hitler’s. This, in combination with  threats against all of humankind Putin and his subordinates made, gives to the war in Ukraine an apocalyptic dimension that the Cold War never had.

Mariupol, a city of 400,000 destroyed by Putin and his “wild beasts” (as Meiji said).

Patrice Ayme

Arm Ukraine With The Best To Save Civilization From Regression

Democracy fighting back against tyranny. We all remember the few thousands Greek hoplites and 300 Spartans at Thermopylae: it was the same fight.

Democracies must provide Ukraine with the best weapons and plenty of them, because this war has to be won against crazed oligarchs brandishing nukes. This is a question of the survival of civilization. In Iran, schoolgirls are poisoned by the hundreds, simply because zealots don’t want girls to go to school. Why not? Devious religious fanatics can do it, and hatred, especially of women, is nice (to them) especially when they can do something about it. 

Tyrannies, helped by modern technology, have no limits, except those that much more democratic regimes will enforce. Yes, democracy needs to progress a lot. But first we have to make sure it does not regress. 

Thermopylae was a tactical military defeat, but a historic democratic victory. Since then, there have been quite a few desperate battles, when the forces of greater democracy had little hope, but made a stand: the US war of independence, Valmy, the Alamo, the first Battle of the Marne, Bir Hakeim. Long term, and sometimes even short term, they turned into resounding successes…

And there was no other way. Being progressively minded is one thing, a good thing. But at some point, against the forces of infamy, and the darkest instincts, those who do not want civilization to fall into the abyss, have to fight, and engage in just war. 

This is one of these cases. And this is the most dramatic case humanity has ever encountered, because of the situation that modern weapons have created. WMDs empower dictators as never before.

Ukraine fights the forces of evil with 50 year old helicopters fighting ten missions a day.

Russia’s overwhelming firepower has forced the Ukrainians to find other ways to fight.

“We are smaller, so we should use a smart approach,” said Roman, 34, one of the most experienced pilots from the 16th brigade, who has been seconded to the 18th, in an interview between combat flights. “We do the best we can.”

That has entailed retraining, constantly adapting to conditions and also some daring in their operations. The brigade keeps its helicopters in plain sight, on the wide, snow-swept steppe of eastern Ukraine, using temporary airfields, moving frequently for security.

They have developed a method of attack flying below the tree line, less than 30 feet from the ground, hugging the contours of the land at up to 150 miles per hour. The low altitude is treacherous, but avoids radar detection.

Then right at the front line they make a sudden ascent to fire a burst of 30 to 40 rockets before veering away, back the way they came.

They attack in pairs, sometimes in a pack of four. They can fire on Russian positions without flying too close to them, but it tests pilots and machines to their limits, and for dangerous seconds on the ascent exposes them to Russian anti-air defense systems.

Approaching enemy lines, Ukrainian jets and helicopters run the gamut of Russian attacks, from radio-electronic interference to antiaircraft missiles fired from jets and from the ground. Russian jets can use long range hypersonic, air to air missiles, a weapon conceived to shoot down AWACS radar plane from 400 kilometers away, flying at 6 times the speed of sound. These hypersonic weapons, without equivalanet in the West, have destroyed many Ukrainian aircrafts. They are presumably crammed with Western electronics… But the engine and aerodynamics are Russian.

“Every operation, every sortie is a heroic flight,” Oleksiy said. “Many of the militaries of other countries would not undertake these flights in the face of such countermeasures.”

A pilot from the 18th Brigade, Ivan, 31, was hit by Russian air defense just as he unleashed his payload of rockets in June last year. He recalls everything turning black, but managed to turn the helicopter around.

“You have thoughts, but you feel nothing and see nothing,” he said as he recounted his ordeal in an interview. “You understand that something is happening. I realized that, most likely, I was hit.”

He crashed in a forest that was pockmarked with craters and smoking from shell fire. His co-pilot was killed, but Ivan and the engineer were thrown through the front of the cockpit as the machine burst into flames, he said.

Badly concussed, with his head sliced open, a fractured spine and a broken leg, he managed to crawl to check on his engineer, who complained of broken collarbones. Swimming in and out of consciousness, he sent their coordinates to his brigade. Under shellfire just yards from Russian positions, they lay motionless when a reconnaissance drone passed overhead, unsure whose it was, until Ukrainian medics rescued them.

Star Wars For Real! Ukrainian combat crews fly Russian-made helicopters — mainly the Mi-8 and Mi-24 — that were designed in the Soviet Union in the 1960s and 1970s.

Patrice Ayme

Aborting World Wars: A Timely Art.

World War Three is growing, but can still be aborted with decisive, that is, military, action.

Ian Miller asks: “So the strategy for avoiding a big war is to ramp up a small war?”

Absolutely! Same idea as cutting off a limb before generalized gangrene, or same idea as vaccination, or same idea as drenching a fire when it gets started. The point is that moods propagate. When tyrants see other tyrants thrive, they do the same, and make alliances with them. That’s how the Roman civilization collapsed within a few years, bringing demographic collapse of up to 90%, and extremely lowered standards of living for survivors. 

Generally big wars start as a more tyrannical or plutocratic regime invading versus a more democratic or benevolent regime defending. Or vultures or scavenging nomads against settled civilization. Examples of this are legions in the last 5,000 years. 

The model applies even to inter-European wars of the last millennium: if one digs, one can always find bad guys or bad acts fomenting the pits. A refined example was the Pitts Prime Ministers of the UK who absolutely wanted a war with France in the Eighteenth Century. Gross examples are the Huns, Avars and Mongols invading Europe. The latter were all stopped by force (including in China, see the Ming rebellion).

If a morally-worse regime is crushed early on, it will stop. Had the US joined France in 1914, or 1939, the world wars would have probably stopped in 1915 and 1940, respectively. The Kaiser would have run out of ammunition, and Hitler out of generals.

The strategy to prevent a world war is to crush decisively attempts of tyrants to get a cascading advantage. This argument was made by Themistocles regarding Persia. Athens followed him, and Persia got crushed at Marathon, and later on during the second invasion attempt, thanks to Themistocles’ trireme fleet.

The argument that one should crush the tyrant early was repeated ad nauseam by philosopher and statesman Demosthenenes regarding Philipp of Macedonia. And it failed, by a hair… resulting in a 23 centurie eclipse of democracy. Had the Spartans been at the decisive battle, Macedonia would barely be mentioned in history books: Philipp and Alexander nearly got defeated, a few thousands Spartans would have won the battle.

Notice that in the case of Putin, “ramping up” was his work, devastating Chechnya (1999); then invading Georgia (2008)… where it was stopped by US soldiers’ presence… more than a thousand of them, advisers; then Ukraine (2014) 

Themistocles

Patrice Ayme

France Wakes Up In Ukraine Bringing Fatally Comical Kremlin’s Antics

PUTIN, TERRORIZED BY FRENCH & US ADVANCED WEAPONS, CALLS FOR A CEASEFIRE!

Abstract: Victim of its own philosophy of  hedonism, laziness, entitlement, superficialism, wokism, Politically Correct thinking and judiciary, Europe disarmed to the point that most European weapon programs were experimental and demonstrative, rather than practical and capable of fighting a serious war. Meanwhile Europe encouraged the Kremlin to believe it could get away with being a force that mattered, and still mysteriously profited from the aura of decolonization from way back in the 1950s, when the tyrannical USSR and its gigantic empire was presented as good and liberating, and democratic Europe colonizing and oppressive..

When Putin invaded in a way that couldn’t be denied anymore, European countries found themselves defenseless. This greatly explained the apparent French and German reluctance to help Ukraine: they were not ready to fight Russia, from lack of armaments. This has not changed much: building weapons takes years. But the Russian military power has been considerably degraded.

French president Macron suddenly changed his ways, deciding to send to Ukraine the world’s most sophisticated anti-ballistic … And then… tanks!

Finally!

But there may be a method to the madness: European countries, NATO, were too weak militarily to counterattack boldly. Within a day, tyrant Putin proclaimed a unilateral ceasefire!

Just as in a comic book for little kids: the Putin chicken was not playing anymore!

***.  

So the ex head of Roscosmos, the Russian NASA is a fanatic of Putin and the Kremlin Above All spirit. So Dmitry Rogozin goes to Ukraine to fight.Next he and a vast throng of Kremlin grandees gather in a hotel to celebrate Rogozin’s 59th birthday. What do you think happens? Shells fired by Ukrainians explode, the head of Roscosmos is hit in the spine. He is evacuated, operated on. He is a man of the world, he has negotiated and collaborated with NASA, ESA, and the French CNES, among others. 

The surgeons extract shrapnel from the Roscosmos chief’s spine. The Kremlin grandees thought they were too far from the front to be shelled. But not far enough for GPS guided rocket assisted shells from a French Caesar gun. 

The French shell shrapnel is identified in that Roscosmos’ spine.

The head of Roscosmos thinks of himself as smart. So he sent the shrapnel to president Macron of France, the one who provided the Caesar guns. “Please pass on the fragment cut from my spine by surgeons to Emmanuel Macron,”

What does Macron do? Well, he reacts as he should have had, from the start. With a bit of delay, Macron has become smart too. Macron may have finally discovered that talking to Putin is like talking to Hitler: no point talking to hate personified, and self-delusion of such grandeur, one can remake history as it never was.

Or maybe Macron and France, just as Scholtz and Germany, confronted to the unthinkable, Hitler reincarnated, thermonuclear version, were trying to gain time. Eastern Europe gave lots of weapons to Ukraine, but often from old Soviet procurement.

You see, unbelievably, the leaders of the West didn’t see the obvious: in a mechanism very similar to what happened with Hitler, the leaders of the West and their think tanks, or more exactly their Western oligarchs, had decided that, because Putin, like Hitler, had been enabled by them, they owned him, just as in the 1930s their predecessors thought they owned Hitler, or Mussolini, or Hirohito, or Stalin… But all they were left with was Spain’s Franco.... 

Indeed, vainglorious vengeance minded idiots like Putin and Hitler resent being owned, and they are too stupid to know their masters. 

The end result is that the West, including to some extent the US, but particularly Western Europe, was not ready for war: they thought that, since they wanted peace, they should make war impossible, by being unable to conduct it. Putin only saw he could grab the cake, and nobody could stop him. The tyrant said so explicitly in 2014: “the problem Europe has is that I can be in Kyiv in two weeks“. To appease Putin, Obama sent MREs (Meals Ready to Eat to the Ukrainians). Later, Trump would send some anti tank weapons… But then, shortly after Biden’s election, the US Democratic Congress stopped the planned delivery of those weapons. Delivery was resumed six months later, in November 2021, but by then Putin had decided to attack (because he withheld gas delivery to Europe as soon as summer 2021)

Germany was, and is, incredibly weak, Britain had no army, as usual, and France was only strong in her aviation and nuclear forces. Western European weapons were better than the Russian ones (which used crucially Western electronics, or even French military equipment)… But there were all too very few. 

Thus France and Germany had little to provide, and budget constraints. Ukrainians, though, were told to pass direct contracts with the French and German military industrial complexes. Until recently, they didn’t (I don’t know why; maybe they have no  money; US weapons are free… They just buy good will…)

In any case, Macron gets Rogozin’s shrapnel… back to the sender!

What does he do? Macron suddenly sees at last that he is confronted to madmen who feel so entitled they take for granted that them getting hurt when they invade a democracy is… An outrage! In other words Putin and his entourage are maniacs beyond belief (Macron had already said this about Putin who, Macron said, was laughing when hearing about alleged atrocities of the Russians in Ukraine: those are actors, he told Macron… who added he really didn’t know what to say, in front of such a level of lunacy…

Once I knew a mad woman, and tried to help her. I even visited her in her psychiatric asylum (she apparently became psychotic from smoking pot, by the way…) I remember listening to her. She thought the CIA was after her… They were really coming, at the door… Listening to the entourage of Putin sounds similar… 

Macron decides that France will send French made tanks to Ukraine! These are the first  Western tanks sent to Ukraine… (And from a NATO founding member!).

The French decision was “the first time a Western-designed tank will be delivered to Ukraine. Symbolically, it’s important,” said François Heisbourg, senior adviser for Europe at the International Institute for Strategic Studies.

In the following days the US and Germany decided to send armored personnel carriers (which are not tanks)… because France decided to provide tanks with powerful guns, the AMX 10. Germany and the US followed, with simple armored personnel carriers a day later. Those APCs are armed with a 26 mm gun. The AMX10 French tank can pulverize dozens of armored personnel carriers in minutes with its 105 mm gun. By comparison, the famous M4 Sherman tank of WWII had a 75 mm gun…  AMX 10 are also mounted on enormous wheels, not tracks, and this means that they can move much faster, and further, than tracked vehicles… And Ukraine favor swift advances through bewildered Russian orcs (the “orc” label to qualify savage eastern invaders is more than 1,000 years old…)

France is also sending to Ukraine ASTER 30 NT, an anti-aircraft, anti-ballistic, 60 gs acceleration (that is 600 meters per second change of speed, per second, one mile per second interceptor also known as MAMBA, or “Sea Viper” (on UK Royal Navy ships). ASTER is for AeroSpatiale TERminale.  It’s the French Patriot, but more modern.

Finally. Advanced Western heavy weapons for Ukraine.

France often congratulates herself to be the country of human rights, and rightly so… Not just for enabling the USA to win its war of independence, or for the Declaration of the Rights of Man of 1789… Or for recognizing the equal rights of gay people in the… Sixteenth Century. But also for creating England, Germany, repelling enslaving Islam from 721 CE to… much more recent times… and for outlawing the slave trade of citizens as early as the Seventh Century… And even earlier than that, by putting an end to Christian anti-heretic terror.

One must crush infamy, as Voltaire put it.

What’s more infamous than Putin?

Even Hitler didn’t threaten to extinguish all of humanity, but Putin did (and his allies, friends if not lovers like the head of Russia Today insist that Putin will engage in a nuclear world war, and believe that’s a good thing! [1]. After the war, they should all be tried for crimes against humanity.)

Suddenly, apparently struck and dumbfounded by large Western weapons coming his way, Russian Tyrant Vladimir Putin’s claim that Russian forces will conduct a 36-hour ceasefire in observance of Russian Orthodox Christmas. It is likely an information operation intended to damage Ukraine’s reputation… but it may also reflect the desperate state of the Russian Donetsk front, and an attempt to reposition and arm units damaged by Ukrainian fire.

Putin has to be relentlessly defeated. Anything less will actually augment the risk of nuclear war. By encouraging him and his helpers 

Patrice Ayme
Sent to Ukraine now: French tank AMX 10 firing its main 105 mm gun in Afghanistan [2]:

[1] Margarita Simonyan, an intimate of Putin, obviously, and one of the primary mouthpieces for the Kremlin, said: “Either we lose in Ukraine, or the Third World War starts. I think World War Three is more realistic, knowing us, knowing our Putin.

“The most incredible outcome, that all this will end with a nuclear strike, seems more probable to me than the other course of events….“This is an horror… But on the other hand, it is what it is. We will go to heaven, while they will simply croak… We’re all going to die someday.”“

(She said that as early as April 2022. Shortly afterward, RT and similar Nazi Kremlin propaganda was banned from Europe. Since then she repeated it many times. 

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[2] The French invented tanks… Actually, French tanks were the first motor vehicles on land (18th Century; just a few were made). Here’s an excerpt from a former US Marine that once served together with the French forces in Afghanistan, detailing his experience about this Armored fighting vehicle in particular.
“One giant advantage the French had over us was with their use of tanks. We maintain an armored force that’s fantastic at defeating T-80s crossing the Fulda Gap, not quite so fantastic at fighting insurgents in mountainous valleys. The French had AMX-10(RCR)s, light wheeled tanks that were perfect for counterinsurgency combat. They were a tremendous force multiplier.
One night before a major operation, I was laid out in the dirt on an outpost perimeter. I had fallen asleep at midnight. At 3 a.m. a tremendous explosion woke me. I lay still for a few moments, then asked a Marine on guard, “What the hell was that?”
He answered, “I don’t know, but something went right over our heads.”
When the sun rose, I was stunned to see an AMX-10 halfway up a mountain behind the outpost. A brave and/or stupid tank crew had rolled up a narrow trail in the dark, and hit some Taliban.
I didn’t envy the poor driver who had to negotiate that trail. Or the loader who I’m sure had to walk ahead of the tank, knowing that if he made a mistake his crew was rolling down the mountain. As a former tanker, I can tell you that driving a tank up a mountain in the dark isn’t something cowards do.” ~ Chris Hernandez, Former US Marine tanker and infantryman-turned-author.

If You Want Peace, Arm Ukraine To The Max ASAP

There is such a thing as military science, comprising, in part, the study of past wars. There are patterns.

Humanity is good and, or evil, according to prospects and circumstances. According to the law of action equals reaction, any violence will bring at least the same equal and opposite violence. One does not stop a modern military force through negotiations, but by defeating it on the battlefield. Defeat does not imply necessarily direct confrontation: McArthur, through island hopping, defeated the Japanese imperial army by circumventing its strong points and cutting it off: no food, and no fuel or ammunition. Most Japanese imperial soldiers in WWII in the Pacific theater died from starvation.

In 1931, a rogue Japanese army attacked Manchuria, seizing it from China. Tokyo was aghast. But the offensive was lightning fast, and a success, so Tokyo did nothing. In retrospect, World War Two had started: for the next ten years, the Japanese army would invade China ever more, fostering a genocide. Japanese army brutality would encourage Stalin to kill 6 million Ukrainians in 1933 (Holodomor). Hitler followed suit, making the “Axis” with Japan and fascist Italy, and invading Spain in 1936. France nearly helped the Spanish Republic… But the UK and US were opposed to it.

And Japan was fueled… by US oil. 

When France and Britain declared war to Hitler, that dictator was allied to the Kremlin (providing oil to the Reich, among other things). The US reacted by accusing France and Britain of “belligerence” and applied sanctions.

When France fell to the Nazis, the US didn’t even bark (Canada sent troops, which were beaten). Instead, FDR, having forgotten his “guarantees” to France, and after seven years of effectively pro-Nazi policies (covered up by criticism of Hitler), sent his right hand man to the junta in Vichy. The very dark deep US state, its universities, etc. had interest to see the French empire collapse: it would become part of the US empire. World government, ladies and gentlemen! 

Two to three million died in the French empire during WWII, up to 15 times US loss of lives. It’s a general feature of WWII that, so great was the destruction, including of archives, that sometimes one has no idea how many people died. Early estimates of the number of Chinese killed were from six to ten million. Most recent estimates are more than 50 million (even Japanese media now admits very high numbers)! After the war, many governments had no interest in revealing the extent of their failure to protect their own population… Or that they unconditionally, yet stealthy, surrendered to the victorious US deep state and its greedy plutocratic corporations…

In other words, WWII happened greatly because of divisions among the leading democracies and their friends… Many pursued their personal agenda. As usual, US plutocrats were allowed to run rampant, creating not just profit, but havoc by empowering dictators. 

This time, contrarily to what happened in the 1930s and early 1940s, confronted with the blatantly genocidal invasion of Ukraine, democracies have been in one block. Democracies have apparently been instructed by what happened in WWII: then, in the 1930s and early 1940s, the initial languor and disunion of democracies, and even their crass interest (not just the USA, but also Switzerland, Sweden, etc.) made the tyrannies strong. The democracies did not react properly when fascist Japan (invading China), fascist Italy (invading Ethiopia, Spain), and fascist Germany (invading the Rhineland, Spain) engaged in world war activities. Had the democracies acted in one block, early on, World War Two and its holocausts would not have happened.

So the democracies acted correctly this time: a fascist acted up, Putin, and invaded a democracy, which cried for help. The democracies passed the ammunition. In 1936, when fascist Germany organized the invasion of the Spanish Republic by a rogue army, the Spanish Republic asked the democracies for ammunition. Socialist France said yes, and then no, because the Anglo-Saxon leaders seemed to have liked what they saw, war in Europe. 

So this time the democracies are passing the ammunition. Good. But they are running out of ammunition.

At the peak of the fighting in East Ukraine’s Donbas region, Russia was using more ammunition in two days than the entire stock of the British military, according to the Royal United Services Institute, a British think tank. Europe has ideas, but no weapons. The Kremlin is the opposite: plenty of weapons, little mind. 

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It has helped this endeavor, helping Ukraine to survive, that the USA is, in the guise of reinforcing and arming Europe, has been able to extend juicy military contracts all over, turning all European powers, except France, so far, into military satellites. In particular, the US has sold F35 “stealth” fighter-bombers all over, and these are contracts meant to last 40 years… When a power agrees to buy 50 F35s, that’s 5 billion dollars, before maintenance and support, and there is no money for an equivalent European system. Now the increasing dependence of US manufacturing and military has been extended to anti-aircraft and anti-missile systems [1]. 

Negotiating with Putin is impossible: as a tyrant who has killed too many already, he has to win, or die, he and his kind. Right, the US is extending its empire, somewhat irreversibly… But, well, the Europeans made love, not war, and now that war is upon them, they are not ready physically or mentally to engage that way. Loving Putin is not an option anymore, love didn’t capture Putin and his clique, so Europeans have to let the US make war on Putin. As ancient Greeks used to say, the weak do what they must, the strong, what they can. By giving Ukraine the means to defend itself, the US incited all of Europe but France to become a US client state. This is a giant investment coup, which will profit the USA long term. The rest is creative destruction, nothing that high quality immigration can’t easily overcome.

The choice now is between the not so benign US empire of plutocracy, or thoroughly genocidal Kremlin Nazism (fake National-Socialism of real oligarchy).  

To prevent Putin’s win, all and any classical weapons should be provided to Ukraine, As Soon As Possible. Ukraine can bomb all Russian cities, just as Russia has bombed all Ukrainian cities. WWII blossomed because maximal war measures were not taken by democracies early enough.

In war, momentum is important: Ukraine has it now. If Putin can get Russia in a state of total war and total mobilization, thus total tyranny, so much the better for him, because he is the tyrant. Now if that tyrant blossoms that way, many other tyrants, or would-be tyrants, will be so inspired. This basically happened after a rogue Japanese army invaded Manchuria: tyrants, would be tyrants and their fellow travelers got inspired all over.

And history doesn’t truly repeat itself: now there are nukes. The Chinese tyranny is set on acquiring enough to destroy the world (by more than quadrupling its strategic nuclear weapons). All this will make the world ever more unstable, by switching from a two body problem (Russian tyranny + USA) to a three body problem (Russia, US, China).

In 1939, it took barely more than a week to expel Russia from the Society of Nations (UN version 1), after the Kremlin attacked Finland to invade and eradicate it. What are we waiting to expel Russia from the UN? That would solve the problem of the Russian veto at the UNSC. 

Russia should stick to culture, and sort of disarm, like the rest of Europe: here below a cathedral in Saint Petersburg… Magnificent:

[1] France has the Rafale active stealth fighter-bomber. The F35 is actually an imitation of the Rafale, but more oriented to passive stealth from the frontal aspect in some radar frequencies. The F35 would be better in some SEADs (Suppression Electronic Air Defenses). The Rafale has proven imminently capable in SEADs during a real war in Libya (F35 has barely been engaged by Israel in combat in Syria). Moreover, the Rafale is much more competent in “beast mode” (fully loaded with ammunition.

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Europe, but for France (and Italy), have opted for US anti-ballistics with Patriot… While France produces the just as competent anti-ballistic Aster (and Italy and the UK are also Aster equipped). By ordering Patriot instead of Aster, countries such as Germany and Poland ingratiate themselves to, and become clients of, the US, not France. Ordering Patriot is an application to the status of a US subsidiary state

Fire Generals Sympathetic To Fascism

The defeat of France by the Nazis in May-June 1940 could likely have been avoided by just one factor: firing the Commander In Chief, Gamelin, on the job since 1931. Several French Prime Ministers intended to do it several times, but it didn’t happen, although the reasons the PMs had to fire Gamelin were prescient. Most prominent of all reasons, Gamelin was not exhibiting enough enthusiasm in fighting fascism. Gamelin made many decisions which were ridiculous, foolhardy, catastrophic, and completely outside of millennia of military science… And Gamelin made strategic mistakes on or before 1936. In 1939-40 his errors became astronomically baffling (for example sending the French reserve as far from France as possible!) Gamelin was fired within 5 days of the all out invasion, but by then Gamelin had ordered irreparable errors.

Studying Gamelin’s horrendous ways (Gamelin used landlines or messengers, not wireless radio as the Nazis did), one comes out with the impression that Gamelin wanted the Nazis to win… And that is confirmed, when he admits in his memoirs, written after WWII, that he, Gamelin, was more worried by the Jewish Socialist French Prime Minister Blum in 1936, than by the Nazi tyrant who had invaded Spain and the Rhineland the same year!

The top US general advocates to force Ukraine to negotiate with Putin. This is more than deplorable. It is a betrayal of democracy. It’s a cause for dismissal.

Right the democracies are running out of ammunition, and the Pentagon is fetching basic artillery shells all the way to Korea. But that’s because the democracies are in denial that they are in a situation similar to 1936. Had the democracies counterattacked the fascist regimes in 1936, or stopped collaborating with them (by sending fuel to Hitler, Mussolini and Hirohito, among other things)… World War Two in its full rage and attending genocides, would have never happened. In 1936, the British and US ground forces were tiny, completely unable to fight a world war, so UK and US decided that there was no world war, and that there would be no world war, as long as they averted their eyes from genocide (having deported 40,000 Ukrainian choldren from Kherson Oblast alone, the Kremlin regime is clearly genocidal…).

The Ukrainians are well equipped, because they are defending themselves and 50 democracies provide them with weapons, and even more with other non-lethal assistance. Now, clearly the democracies had decided peace would last 1,000 years. Instead a tyrant has threatened them to be visited “with destruction as they had never seen in their history” (to use Putin’s exact expression).

So the democracies are not armed either in quality and quantity to fight the world war they find themselves engaged in.

Some will pretend that this is not a world war. Such a denial is typical. Indeed, in the 1930s, there was clearly a world war situation in 1936, by the time when Hitler helped invade Spain and occupied the Rhineland, while Italy attacked Ethiopia, and Japan pushed deeper into China. However, it took another five years for the USA to get ready to fight a world war. France and Britain, who had declared war to Hitler were themselves slack in getting enough weapons at the ready (in particular France didn’t arm hundreds of brand new fighter planes… and Britain had a tiny army) 

Ukrainians can, and will fight through the winter. Winter is a friend of armored units maneuvering on hard ground. 

Russia is a corrupt tyranny, its soldiers are ill equipped, ill trained, ill motivated and will suffer through winter. They must surrender: Putin has resurrected “blocking sections” shooting fugitives.  

That the top US general advocate negotiating with the tyrant, the first tyrant who ever threatened to annihilate humanity, is not tolerable. Fighting Putin is like fighting a rattlesnake inside one’s bed: you can’t stop and go cuddly all of a sudden, just because you are ahead at some point. Any pause in the fighting will benefit Putin, as it will give him replenishment, and the opportunity to look so terrible that his enemies have to cease-fire.

Ceasefire was what the French Republic did with the Nazis on June 23 1940. US betrayal of France was an important reason for it (US “guarantees” given by FDR were not respected. Instead FDR sent his right hand man 5 star admiral Leahy, recognizing the collaborationist Vichy junta explicitly). 

All those advocating for a cease-fire with Putin advocate for a situation similar to that with Hitler when France agreed to a cease-fire in June 1940.

Ukraine can and should fight through winter. It fights for all of us. 

 France actually had the means to keep on fighting in July 1940, by retreating to Corsica, and North Africa.  Hitler could never have got there (the French Navy and Air Force were too strong, even without counting the British air force and navy). Why this did not happen has everything to do with the USA’s cat and mouse game with Europe: the USA had given guarantees to France in helping to fight Nazism, and then defaulted spectacularly on those guarantees in 1939-40. Understandably, many French leaders did not feel like doing most of the fighting and dying as in 1914-18, just to see the US grab most of the fruits of victory!

… And the question is: are we facing something similar today? Trying to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory? Yes, production and quality of weapons has to dramatically increase in the democracies, should they want Earth not to turn into a hellscape. So what? Nothing new there. Democracy is expensive.

Patrice Ayme

***

Notes:

Context of the WWII cartoon below which is making scathing fun of US pro-Nazi policies of 1939-40: when the commanding US general finally arrived in France in 1917, after three years of the French Republic being attacked and invaded by the fascist imperial German plutocracy of the Kaiser, he said: “La Fayette we are here!”. Both in 1914-1917 and in 1939-42, US powerful US plutocrats were entangled with the fascit regimes in Germany… to the point of insuring the survival of these fascist regimes. For example in WWI, after the US finally participated in the blockade of fascist Germany, German shell production collapsed and became a tenth of French production…

Auschwitz and similar events can be traced directly to the US’s astounding betrayal of democracy in 1939-40. Not only that but there were explicit guarantees to France, and also France (in two ways) and Britain are the parents of the USA… Not just allies. That Hitler basically planned to kill all Jews, like Putin basically plans to kill all Ukrainians (what Putin and Lavrov call fighting to the last Ukrainian… accusing others of the idea, but actually promoting the notion by evoking it…) 

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ON Military Momentum During A Rout: When an army is routed, it is important to keep pushing it… That’s called a rout. World War Two showed several examples of this. Reciprocally, the Nazis, after a calamitous defeat in July-August 1944, pushed by the disembarkment in Normandy and Provence, were able to stabilize the front because of the one-bridge-too-far UK-US offensive in Belgium/Netherlands which turned into a costly semi-defeat for the democracies. The Germans actually called this miraculous stabilization the “Miracle on the Western Front“. If the bridge-too-far offensive had not been unlucky, with the presence of undetected SS armor, the Nazi Reich would have promptly collapsed in a matter of weeks, as intended.

Right now the Ukrainian are routing the Russians. That Mark Milley, the US C In C uses the occasion of a rout of Putin’s forces by the Ukrainian democracy to urge for “negotiations”, a cease-fire, that is, surrender is cause enough for dismissal. The ex C in C in France is advocating a similar surrender. One should not underestimate the “Hybrid Warfare” promoted by Gerasimov, the present Russian C In C. That includes betrayal by supposed adversaries which are actually secret allies. An excellent example is what happened with the French Communists in 1939-41, when their master in the Kremlin was allied officially with Hitler. This had dramatically adverse consequences for the military preparedness of France (planes were unarmed, less the Communists grabbed the guns…) 

US Military Dominance Brought 77 Years Of Peace. Now What? Welcome India! And Let The European Military-Industrial Complex Blossom!

The absence of new large scale war in the last 77 years was caused by US led military and diplomatic dominance of France-UK-USA (which control 2/3 of the United Nation Security Council Permanent Membership, and founded the UN, and its predecessor). The US, in particular, was the deus ex-machina of Pax Americana, having previously discreetly turned even Stalin’s USSR and China into client states (Putin and Xi were created by the established order). 

Not the sort of historical interpretation of reality that the establishment wants you to have.

The USA crucially and massively helped Stalin militarily in 1941, shortly after having refused to help the French Republic a year earlier in fighting Hitler (in spite of “guarantees” given by Roosevelt to France). According to expert Wehrmacht and Soviet generals, this US military help to Stalin saved the USSR from the Nazi onslaught. Moreover, Harriman had redeveloped Baku oil fields, offshore, insuring his colleague Stalin would have plenty of energy…

Why this apparently nonsensical behavior to those who believe the Shoah, or the Gulag, were very significant events? Because there is a deeper sense hidden below.

For the US Deep State, the French Republic was a world rival, co-leader with Britain of immense European empires. Demolish them, and the world would be an American oyster.  Stalin was just a Georgian, South Ossetian ex-bank robber, just a soldier of the US new order. So Stalin was given half of Europe at Yalta, by the US administration overruling an aghast Churchill, knowing full well that Stalin or his successors would ruin Europe and lose it and the Russian realm. As intended. 

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Then the US led the effort to develop China, followed enthusiastically by the naive Europeans, who didn’t understand that they were de-industrializing themselves… Under the pretext of “free markets”… the latter being not applied by US law to any US state business… that includes the giant US military-industrial complex… Indeed, the US was spared degenerating de-industrialization with gigantic military budgets: if you have got to have the best rockets, planes and ships, you will achieve some technical dominance where it matters most: at the edge of destruction. China, after suffering a rough millennium of successive invasions, has understood this.

***

However, the US has been too successful in its dominance. Europe has adaopted a possum strategy: behave like a stinky corpse addicted to Putin gas. The US, led by Trump, has gone MAGA… But actually never stopped being MAGA: the cynical investment in SpaceX, a sort of private NASA, was a case in point. Under Elon Musk’s exalted leadership, SpceX went right ahead, and Obama financed him. Meanwhile, Europe degenerated. Germany taught China how to make cars, France taught China how to make trains, nuclear plants, and even planes. While the US kept up with a select immigration, Europe was more into illegal destitutes, and the European school system degenerated into teaching why it was so good to be destitute, invaded and PC. 

Thus the dominance of the West has eroded, due to the relative weakening of Europe… And the rise of many powers, worldwide, irrigated by the tax mitigating, “green” promoted investment of Europe anywhere but home.

Thus one should anticipate the return of large scale war… Except of course if the Kremlin’s attempt to boldly confront democracy and decency fails. Even then, European-American dominance will have to be strongly reasserted militarily. That means much more defense spending, with a balance between the US and Europe… 

Spending more on defense inside Europe with European companies is something many Europeans do not agree with, prefering instead to become obsequious clients of the US, a behavior that is so short-sighted, that even Donald Trump correctly insisted it should be discontinued… Trump may have missed the US Deep State’s sneaky strategy of making Europeans dependent on US Defense, hence US top notch technology. Trump tried to save Europe, so some in Europe insulted him. 

***

Modi, India’s PM, said in public to Putin that he had told Vlad that this is not the age of war. However, unfortunately, as resources relatively shrink, even before sea level starts to rise in earnest, this is going to be the age of war… Except if a strong military coalition led by the less corrupt democracies can reassert itself. This is one of the reasons why a democracy like India should be vigorously encouraged to join the West in all ways. So give India the treatment which has been extended to China for decades: massive development through manufacturing.

What can be extended to India, because it’s a democracy, should be extended to Europe. Germany and other European powers have greedily bought US military systems, in the hope that US weapons make the US stakeholder in their realms. This policy would clearly backfire, if Trump returned as president. It is obviously backfiring under Biden too, but because Biden is more polite, Europeans did not notice that they are digging their own economic grave. The Germans, full of traditional Teutonic resentment, have said they will not finance French companies: they much prefer to finance US companies, even when the French firms’ products are superior to the US one. An example is the Aster/SAM T/Mamba air defense, a French interception rocket capable of 60 (sixty) gs (60 times the acceleration of gravity) maneuvering. Germany prefers US or US-Israel rockets… Which are less performing for realistic situations as encountered in Ukraine…

Why does Germany do this? Because Germany, under Prussian influence, has learned Machiavellian power politics as a morality play. It’s known under various names, such as “Realpolitik”… Which is ironic, as Germany was the most unrealistic state in the world for generations. The resulting catastrophic bouts with fascism in the Twentieth Century have not cured the German mentality completely: as it used to look up to the Kaiser, Hitler, Putin, now it wants to look up to, and take order from, and be dependent of… Trump? Is that the smart thing to do?

Germany is prostituting itself, going from Putin’s hydrocarbons to now the weapons and gas of the US of Biden (the mental contortions would be more amusing if Trump were in power). Prostitutes deoend upon pimps, and that’s not a job for the future… A future full of war, be it only against the rising ocean…

***

No weapons, and the will to use them, no democracy. The rise of democracy was directly caused by the domination of the hoplites (heavy infantry) over aristocratic cavalry. Modern equivalent is control by We The People of dual use technologies, including debating power.

Patrice Ayme

The Taj Mahal is exemplary of the cultural wealth of India. It can be viewed as a Muslim monument. Commissioned in1631 by the Mughal emperor Shah Jahan (r. 1628–1658) to house the tomb of his favourite wife, Mumtaz Mahal; it also houses the tomb of Shah Jahan himself. The tomb is the centrepiece of a 17-hectare (42-acre) complex, which includes a mosque and a guest house, and is set in formal gardens bounded on three sides by a crenellated wall.

The Mughal Empire ruled much of South Asia between the 16th and 19th centuries.For some two hundred years, the empire stretched from the outer fringes of the Indus river basin in the west, northern Afghanistan in the northwest, and Kashmir in the north, to the highlands of present-day Assam and Bangladesh in the east, and the uplands of the Deccan Plateau in South India (Kerala to the extreme south stayed independent). It was founded in 1526 by the Uzbek Babur.