Ukrainian (Western-backed) drone terrorism in my southeastern Moscow district
Eva Bartlett | September 13, 2024
Starting early Tuesday, September 10, Russian air defense shot down 144 Ukrainian drones in 9 regions, including 72 drones above Bryansk Region and 20 above Moscow Region, according to the Ministry of Defence.
Three drones managed to hit three different apartment buildings in the Ramenskoe district, one impact tragically killing a 46 year old woman and injuring at least three other civilians. These were completely civilian, residential, areas. Ukraine sending drones to strike there was pure terrorism.
Just over one week prior, on September 1, Russian air defense shot down or intercepted 158 drones, some of those again in the Ramenskoe region.
From my nearby district just after 2:15am Tuesday, I heard the first air defense blasts targeting drones, followed by several more until daylight.
On Wednesday, I went to the area within Ramenskoe district where the drones impacted. Irina Medvedeva, a friend’s sister, was in an apartment next to one of the buildings struck. She witnessed the first explosion which killed Zinaida Akhmetovna.
While there, we met a man who had come from Kursk (which Ukraine started attacking last month) for a week of quiet. He said he would go back to Kursk, in spite of Ukraine’s continued (failed) attacks on the city, spoke of how the people there support their army and said Russia would defeat the Ukrainian terrorism.
Related links here: https://t.me/Reality_Theories/20594
Russian ‘Force Majeure’ on Resource Exports Could Clobber Western Economies: Here’s Why
By Ilya Tsukanov – Sputnik – 12.09.2024
President Putin has asked the government to consider restrictions on the export of strategic materials like nickel, titanium and uranium in response to unfriendly countries’ actions. Sputnik asked investment experts specializing in resource markets how these restrictions would impact the world economy. In short: it wouldn’t be pretty for the West.
Investors and market experts are buzzing over the Russian president’s instructions to Prime Minister Mishustin to whip up a report on measures Russia could take to limit the export of certain strategic minerals in response to Western sanctions policy, with uranium stocks enjoying an immediate price surge, and observers warning of shortages and hefty price increases for strategic metals if were to Moscow move forward with restrictions.
Along with nickel, titanium and uranium, Putin hinted that “other” resources may be affected, while emphasizing that restrictions should be considered so long as “this does not harm us.”
A resource superpower, Russia is endowed with substantial reserves of virtually all the primary commodities required to keep a modern economy functioning.
- The country possesses up to 12% of the world’s oil reserves, 32% of its natural gas, 8% of all untapped uranium, and 11% of the planet’s coal.
- Russia accounts for 25% of global iron reserves, 33% of nickel, 15% of zinc and titanium, 11% of tin, 10% of lead and rhodium, 8% of chromium, 7% of copper, 3% of cobalt, 2% of bauxite and about 1% of gallium, plus substantial amounts of beryllium, bismuth, and mercury. Russia also has about 12% of global potash (used in an array of areas, from agriculture and industrial chemicals to pharmaceuticals).
- Up to 23% of the world’s gold, 12% of silver, up to a fifth of platinum group metals, and as much as 55% of diamonds are buried under Russia’s soil.
- Russia is also a potential world leader in the production of rare earth minerals (which are used in an array of modern high-tech devices, communications systems and advanced weaponry). While it only accounts for about 2% of rare earths production today, Russia has the second-largest reserves, constituting up to 28.7 million metric tons, and has committed to major investments in production and processing. Known rare earths possessed by Russia include samarium, europium, gadolinium, lanthanum, neodymium, promethium, and cerium.
World’s Dependence on Russian Resources
Russia’s detractors have often played up its resource exports as a sign of the country’s lagging development or low place in the global hierarchy of ‘developed vs. underdeveloped’ nations. However, the partial breakdown in ties with Western countries after 2022 showed that while Russia can definitely survive without Western technological and consumer goods, the same cannot be said of the West when it comes to Russian oil, gas, uranium, fertilizers and other materials.
The US, for instance, continues to rely on Russian uranium to fuel its nuclear power plants, vowing to wean itself off its dependency only by 2028. Europe, having largely cut itself off from Russia’s cheap and dependable pipeline-delivered natural gas, is currently buying record volumes of Russian LNG amid shortages of US and Gulf-sourced supplies. Furthermore, major Western agricultural producers including the US, Germany, France and Poland have carved out special exceptions for themselves to allow the continued purchase of Russia’s world-class nitrogen fertilizers, which are energy-intensive to produce.
“The pain” of a Russian freeze on strategic resource exports “would be felt by both the US and the EU, and all countries listed as ‘unfriendly’ to Russia, as they would have to source the required elements from third country suppliers, and that would entail an appreciable price increase for the commodity, and the extended supply chain costs that entails,” Paul Goncharoff, general director of consulting firm Goncharoff LCC, told Sputnik, commenting on Putin’s proposal.
“In this case, most if not all alternative suppliers would be countries listed as ‘friendly’ to Russia. This is a value-added benefit for those countries,” Goncharoff added.
“In every instance the end user pays this mandatory unlegislated tax bill in the form of even higher inflation,” Goncharoff said, hinting that the higher commodity prices would add to the pain already being experienced by producers and consumers in many Western countries as a consequence of the two-and-a-half-year-old hybrid war against Russia.
The US and Europe should expect a 15-20% bump in the costs of its strategic resource imports if Moscow moves ahead with the restrictions, especially since Russia is in a unique position globally in the production of high-quality nickel, aviation-grade titanium, and enriched uranium, says Maxim Khudalov, chief strategist at Vector X, a Moscow-based investment and brokerage firm.
For instance, while Russia today accounts for ‘only’ about 8% of total global nickel output, it accounts for about 20% of the production of “high-grade nickel used to produce high-quality stainless steel and nickel-containing alloys, which are needed for space, aviation and defense technologies,” Khudalov explained.
The same goes for high quality titanium, Khudalov said, pointing out Russia’s titanium giant VSMPO-AVISMA in Sverdlovsk region is “unique in the world” as far as its ability to produce vast amounts of aviation-grade titanium is concerned.
Finding a replacement supplier would take time, including running a gauntlet of quality and safety testing and recertification which could take years, and in the case of aviation-grade titanium be required to meet strict temperature, bending, pressure load and other requirements, the expert noted.
“In an airplane, you can’t just say ‘well, I don’t like this supplier of an element used for the wing, I’ll take it from somewhere else.’ Nothing of the kind. If you replace the element used in the wing, you change the airplane, and have to retest it, because it’s no longer safe for civilian use,” Khudalov explained. “The conclusion here is that it is very difficult to replace Russian supplies in the aviation industry, requiring significant recertification efforts.”
If Europe loses access to Russian aviation-grade titanium, that would add to Airbus’s production costs, affecting the aviation giant considerably in its high-stakes rivalry with Boeing.
Meanwhile, higher nickel costs would mean higher prices for virtually all of Europe’s high-tech products, from electronics to specialized mechanical engineering products, Khudalov said, emphasizing that “all of this will become more expensive in Europe and again allow their American ‘friends’ to grab the remainder of their markets.”
“In this sense, Europe is more vulnerable than the US, because the US, with all its capabilities, can afford to increase production costs, at least because their energy is cheap. Europe cannot afford any increase in production costs and will objectively lose,” Khudalov said.
In the case of enriched uranium, the situation is even more complex, according to Khudalov, because it is a restricted resource typically exported to a specific customer for a specific use, and planning for the replacement of suppliers is a long and painstaking process, since nuclear power plants can’t simply be turned on and off at will.
“The French are the second player after Russia in uranium enrichment, but Russian enrichment technology is head and shoulders above anyone else in the world, and our enrichment costs are 35-40% cheaper than anywhere in the world. So if a country is forced to switch to French-sourced material, it will have to pay a very hefty premium,” Khudalov emphasized.
In that sense, France could meet increased US demand over time, but not overnight, since it would have to ramp up its own enrichment capacity.
“The US themselves were planning on disconnecting from our uranium starting in 2028. Well, we could ‘help them’, so to speak, to implement their decision by making deliveries more regulated,” Khudalov suggested.
Short-Term Losses, Long-Term Win
Russia, over the short term, could lose a bit of its export revenues if resource exports to the West were suddenly curtailed, Khudalov noted.
“But on the other hand, what do we need export revenues for? Generally speaking, the whole point of international trade for us is to sell raw materials in exchange for technology. Western countries have refused to supply us with technology basically going back to 2014. Then the question is: why do we continue to supply them with strategic raw materials? To get some green pieces of paper which they then seize from us? This is a rather strange position. Therefore, here it is turning out that since they limit our access to technology, we are starting to limit their access to raw materials,” Khudalov said.
“It can’t be said that all these possible restrictions on the Americans and the Europeans are critical and would kill their industry. It won’t. But it will add very serious difficulties, first and foremost of an organizational nature, because they would have to look for a supplier of comparable quality, and of course, pay a price they’re not accustomed to paying. Because when a force majeure occurs on the market, and for them this would constitute a force majeure, any normal businessman will be obliged to take advantage of their status as an alternative supplier. Most of the alternative suppliers are located in China, with whom the Americans are in the process of kicking off a global trade war,” the observer stressed.
“The cherry on the cake is that the president’s proposal sounded like a proposal to limit the supply of strategic metals to unfriendly countries, but probably implies no restrictions for friendly countries. In that case, we would deliver a nice pass to China, whose entire industry is aimed at producing high-tech equipment, and would effectively get a 15-20% advantage on the cost of strategic materials over Western competitors,” benefiting Beijing in its push to put “pressure on Europe and the US in all markets” globally, Khudalov said.
Russia, meanwhile, will be able to reorient its strategic metals exports to other major alternative markets as well, including India, according to the expert.
Putin issues new warning to NATO
RT | September 12, 2024
Ostensibly removing restrictions on Ukraine’s use of Western weapons would mean direct involvement of the US and its allies in the conflict with Russia and would be met with an appropriate response, Russian President Vladimir Putin has said.
The West has sent Ukraine long-range missiles such as Storm Shadows and ATACMS, which Kiev has so far used against Crimea and Donbass.
In the past several days, however, the US and UK have suggested they might allow these weapons to be deployed deep in Russian territory.
“We are not talking about allowing or prohibiting the Kiev regime from striking Russian territory,” Putin said on Thursday. “It is doing so already, with unmanned aerial vehicles and other means.”
Ukraine lacks the capability to use Western-provided long-range systems, Putin added, noting that targeting for such strikes requires intelligence from NATO satellites, while firing solutions can “only be entered by NATO military personnel.”
“This will mean that NATO countries, the US, European countries are fighting against Russia.”
“If this decision is made, it will mean nothing less than the direct participation of NATO countries, the US and European countries, in the conflict in Ukraine,” the Russian president said. “Their direct participation, of course, significantly changes the very essence, the very nature of the conflict.”
With that in mind, Putin added, Russia will “make the appropriate decisions based on the threats facing us.”
Some limitations on the use of Western-supplied weapons were originally put in place to allow the US and its allies to claim they were not directly involved in the conflict with Russia, while arming Ukraine to the tune of $200 billion. Kiev has been clamoring for the restrictions to be lifted since May.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken and British Foreign Secretary David Lammy have hinted that the restrictions might be lifted this week, citing the alleged delivery of Iranian ballistic missiles to Russia as the pretext. Iran has denied sending any missiles to Russia, calling the accusations “psychological warfare” by countries heavily involved in arming Ukraine.
Putin has previously warned NATO members to be aware of “what they are playing with” when discussing plans to allow Kiev to strike deep inside Russian territory using weapons provided by the West. Speaking with major news agencies on the sidelines of the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum (SPIEF) in June, the Russian president said Russia would respond by shooting down the weapons in question and then retaliating against those responsible.
One of the possible responses Putin mentioned at the time was arming Western enemies with long-range precision weapons.
Will ‘Insane’ Biden Provoke World War III Before November Election?
By John Miles – Sputnik – 12.09.2024
The last several years have brought the United States closer to conflict with a nuclear-armed power than any time since the 1960s, one former CIA analyst claimed.
Lasting from the end of World War II until the early 1990s, the Cold War saw the United States and the USSR locked in a global competition for power and influence. Although the two superpowers never went to war directly, the 45-year period was marked by two proxy conflicts in Vietnam and Korea and a constant fear that a third World War was not far away.
Tensions were heightened by the fact that both the United States and the Soviet Union possessed nuclear weapons, dramatically raising the stakes of global conflict.
Both countries nearly saw their worst fears realized during the Cuban Missile Crisis, when it appeared the US and USSR were unwilling to back down over the issue of nuclear missiles being placed just miles from each country’s border in Cuba and Turkey. The incident led to the establishment of a special hotline for US and Soviet leaders to communicate directly, and caused US President John F. Kennedy to remark that tensions between nuclear powers must never again rise to such a level.
For decades, Kennedy’s maxim was dutifully observed as both countries worked to improve relations, finally culminating in the end of the Cold War.
The prospect for nuclear confrontation was avoided until recent years, claimed former CIA analyst Ray McGovern, when the United States rejected Russian overtures for a new European security architecture and stubbornly insisted Ukraine’s coup regime would be granted entry into NATO. The analyst joined Sputnik’s The Critical Hour program Wednesday to consider whether US President Joe Biden is willing to risk global conflict to reverse Kiev’s flagging fortunes on the battlefield.
“They want to provoke Putin [into] doing something really drastic before the election, before the [presidential] election here on November 5th,” suggested McGovern, a critic of neoconservative US foreign policy.
“They’re losing in Kursk [region],” he noted, referring to Ukraine’s stalled incursion into Russian territory. “What were they trying to do? They were trying to get the Russians to react in such a way as to bring the US in with both feet militarily.”
“What’s this business about [Ukraine] begging for longer range missiles?” McGovern continued. “Same objective.”
Ukraine’s Western sponsors have repeatedly escalated the country’s conflict with Russia, gradually providing Kiev with more powerful weapons and granting it permission to strike within Russian territory. This has increasingly culminated in attacks on Russian civilians; perhaps most provocatively a strike on a beach in the city of Sevastopol that injured 124 people, including 27 children, and killed three people, including two children.
Some 500 Russian civilians have been killed by the Ukrainian regime in 2024 alone as the country continues to rely on the support of neo-Nazi formations such as the notorious Azov Battalion*. Kiev’s provocative attacks seem tailor-maid to produce a harsh response, but Russian President Vladimir Putin has so far sought to avoid any attack likely to draw the United States or Ukraine’s European allies directly into the conflict.
“My fear is that [the United States] will try something really drastic like a false flag attack or maybe even a mini nuke,” said McGovern, concerned that the US could fabricate an episode such as the Gulf of Tonkin incident that drew the country into the Vietnam War. “Let’s see what happens the next couple of weeks. I think Putin is right. It’s only the smart thing to see who wins on the 5th of November. Till then, I’m still holding my breath.”
But McGovern warned that the consequences of the United States’ strategy in Ukraine could fall not on the US itself, but on its European allies.
“It’s really hard to know what Biden and [National Security Advisor Jake] Sullivan, who are running things, really think,” he claimed. “Some of my best friends and analysts think they’re insane. And it’s really, really hard to predict what they’re going to do if they’re insane.”
“The Europeans are being told by the Russians, ‘look, if Biden, Blinken and Sullivan opt for a tactical nuclear weapon, for God’s sake, please, please remember we got them too. And where will we use them? We’ll use them in Europe,’” McGovern said, summarizing Russia’s possible response.
“So I think when this is directed at the Europeans, saying, ‘look at what happened to your fellow country in Europe, Ukraine. You want the same thing to happen to you? So, please, rein these guys in.’”
NATO Risks Hot War With Russia as Biden Mulls Stepping on Ukraine Long-Range Missile Tripwire
By Ilya Tsukanov – Sputnik – 11.09.2024
The Biden administration is mulling formally greenlighting Ukraine’s use of its NATO-gifted long-range strike systems to attack targets deep inside Russia. The scenario is fraught with risks, not least of which is turning the Russia-NATO proxy conflict into a hot war that drags the US in, says former CIA analyst Larry Johnson.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov stated Wednesday that there was a “high degree of probability” that a decision approving the use of US long-range strike systems by Ukraine has already been taken, and that the Biden administration is simply trying to “formalize” the measure using an information campaign through the media.
That was Moscow’s reaction to President Biden’s comments earlier in the week that Washington was in the process of ‘working out’ whether to lift restrictions on Ukraine’s use of its US-made long-range weapons to attack targets deep inside Russia.
Long-range US weapons already delivered to Kiev (or reportedly under deliberation) include:
- ATACMS: The US ‘Army TACtical Missile System’, which has a range of up to 300 km, and can be fired by tracked M270 and wheeled M142 HIMARS self-propelled multiple launch rocket systems, which have been delivered to Kiev in large numbers. Russia has found the systems’ weak spots, destroying scores of launchers and incoming fired rockets. Nevertheless, the launchers and their payload (a single 214 kg warhead or cluster bomblets) remain dangerous due to their shoot-and-scoot ability. The Pentagon began the delivery of ATACMS to Kiev last October, but apparently not in numbers Volodymyr Zelensky would prefer. Last week, Zelensky complained about a “shortage of missiles and cooperation” with NATO countries.
- JDAM-ER: The ‘Joint Direct Attack Munition-Extended Range’ is a guidance and wing kit converting ‘dumb’ munitions weighing between 230-910 kg into guided smart munitions and delivering them to targets over 70 km away. The weapons are air-launched, meaning Ukrainian aircraft must stay far enough away to avoid dense Russian air defenses while firing them.
- ADM-160 MALD: The ‘Miniature Air-Launched Decoy’ is a decoy missile designed to distract air defenses while real threats make their way toward their targets. Thanks to their lack of warhead, these missiles can fly up to 930 km. Deployable aboard a broad array of American aircraft and drones, Ukraine probably fires these weapons from its dwindling fleet of Soviet-era MiG-29 jets.
- AGM-88 HARM: The ‘High-speed Anti-Radiation Missile’ is an air-to-ground missile with passive, GPS and millimeter-wave active radar homing, has a range of between 25 and 300 km, depending on variant, and a 68 kg warhead. Adding to the threat is the missile’s flight speed – up to Mach 2.9. The US began deploying these weapons to Kiev in 2022, and, in addition to modifications to allow Ukraine’s jets to fire them, reportedly provided their client with intelligence to enable attacks against Russian radar systems.
- Not yet known to have been delivered but widely discussed in recent days is the AGM-158 JASSM (‘Joint Air-to-Surface Standoff Missile’) – a long-range cruise missile with a 450 kg penetrator warhead that can hit targets up to 925 km away (or 370 km in the case of standard range variants). These missiles can be fired from Ukraine’s recently arrived F-16 jets.
Russian officials have warned repeatedly of the consequences of providing long-range missiles to Ukraine to attack Russia. President Putin warned last year that “the more long-range Western systems arrive in Ukraine, the further we will be forced to push the threat away from our borders” via a security “buffer zone.” In June, Putin warned that Moscow might respond in kind to NATO’s actions, supplying Russian long-range weapons to regions of the world that send missiles to Ukraine to attack Russia.
Long-Range Missile Threat: Quickest Way to NATO-Russia Hot War
“Biden has shifted every single position that he said was a red line, so I don’t see why he’s not going to violate this one as well,” retired CIA analyst and counterterrorism expert-turned whistleblower Larry Johnson told Sputnik, commenting on Washington’s threats to lift its missile restrictions.
The Biden administration “can’t afford a defeat” in Ukraine before the November vote, and thinks that if it takes the “incredibly dangerous and foolish” step of just okaying the missiles’ delivery and use, that will somehow help Ukraine, Johnson believes.
“I appreciate President Putin’s desire to show restraint and keep this as a special military operation. But the West is at war with Russia, and I don’t think people are getting their brains around that. We keep dancing around the edges pretending that this is not going to happen. It’s going to happen. And it’s not going to change the military situation as far as what Ukraine is facing. Ukraine is facing defeat. They will be defeated. But it gets more to the point that the West, instead of seeking a peaceful way out and talking to Russia, is preferring confrontation,” Johnson warned.
Another question is whether Ukraine even has the relevant long-range missiles left, and whether the US is in a state to supply them, according to the observer.
“Because if the United States moves to supply a missile that’s frankly bigger than the ATACMS or if they offer up an ATACMS or a JASSM that has an extended range capability, then I think it’s going to raise the real possibility that the logistics hubs that are outside of Ukraine that are being used to provide these missiles could become targets. Which then is this is going to expand the war,” Johnson warned.
In that sense, while the Biden administration may believe the move to free Kiev’s hand on the use of NATO missiles to attack the Russian interior could stave off the Zelensky regime’s defeat, “it may actually have the opposite effect of causing this war to expand and expand in a way that will get the United States involved. And then we’re into some very new and dangerous territory,” Johnson summed up.
Putin: Russia May Restrict Export of Strategic Materials in Response to Unfriendly Powers’ Actions
By Ilya Tsukanov – Sputnik – 11.09.2024
Despite slapping Moscow with an unprecedented sanctions regime in 2022, European countries and the United States continue to rely on vast quantities of Russian energy and strategic materials, including gas and uranium, importing them to prevent spiking prices and shortages from wrecking their economies.
Russia is a world leader in the production of an array of strategic minerals, from natural gas, gold and diamonds to uranium, titanium and nickel, and should “think about” whether it’s possible to reduce the export of the latter three resources in response to unfriendly countries’ actions against Russia, President Vladimir Putin has said.
Speaking at a meeting with government ministers on Wednesday, Putin asked Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin to look into the idea and report back, stressing that any proposed restrictions should not be “to one’s own detriment.”
“Mikhail Vladimirovich, I have a request for you: please look at some types of goods that we supply in large quantities to the world market – the supply of a number of goods to us is being restricted. Well, perhaps we should also think about certain restrictions – on uranium, titanium, nickel,” Putin said.
“In some countries, strategic reserves are being created, and some other measures are being taken. In general, if this does not harm us, we should think…about certain restrictions on supplies to the foreign market,” he added.
“I am not saying this needs to be done tomorrow, but we could think about certain restrictions on supplies to the foreign market not only of the goods I mentioned, but also of some others,” Putin said.
The ongoing NATO-Russia proxy war in Ukraine has reduced, but not fully stopped, economic exchange between Russia and Western countries, with the US continuing the purchase of Russian uranium for its vast network of nuclear power plants, and gas continuing to flow via a pipeline in Ukraine to customers in Hungary and Slovakia, and shipped west aboard tankers in the form of LNG. Concurrently, a number of Western companies have refused to leave the Russian market, continuing to sell their wares to Russians despite sanctions and other restrictions put in place by their own governments. Some Russian observers have suggested that it’s long past time for Russia to halt economic cooperation with countries fueling the proxy war in Ukraine, in favor of ramped up trade ties with the BRICS bloc and other friendly countries in the Global South.
US has ‘new tool’ for Georgian elections – Russian spy agency
RT | September 11, 2024
The US wants to use a European election monitor to kickstart mass protests in Georgia after the upcoming parliamentary election, the Russian Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR) has claimed.
Washington is seeking to oust the ruling Georgian Dream party and is using the Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR) of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) in its plan, the Russian agency stated on Tuesday.
One of ODIHR’s key activities is monitoring elections, and it intends to do this during voting in the former Soviet republic, when Georgians will choose a new parliament on October 26. An advance team visited Tbilisi in May to assess the situation.
The SVR expects the body to release a critical preliminary report ten to 20 days prior to the vote, in which the ODIHR will declare that there are “no conditions in the country to hold free and fair elections.”
“After the first results of the ballot are published, it would issue a statement to declare the electoral process not to be up to democratic norms,” the Russian agency claims.
The US Department of State sees the ODIHR as “a tool” and has pre-arranged the content of its statements, the SVR claimed. Georgian opposition forces will cite its criticism to justify “mass protests aimed at seizing power in the country,” the message predicted. The purported arrangement clearly violates the OSCE’s stated mission, the Russian agency added.
”Under the circumstances, the reduction of Russian funding for the OSCE in a bid to at least weaken the destructive activities of this formerly respectable international structure appears justified,” the SVR suggested.
The Georgian government and its ruling party came into Washington’s crosshairs earlier this year due to the passage of a law, which required political and media organizations that receive foreign funding to publicly declare their affiliations. Tbilisi says the legislation was modeled on a similar American law, the 1938 Foreign Agents Registration Act.
US officials have stated that Georgia is walking down “the wrong path,” and that Washington is preparing sanctions against people whom it deems responsible for that.
The SVR previously warned that the Georgian government was facing a “color revolution” similar to the one that brought former president Mikhail Saakasvili to power in the early 2000s, or a violent coup, similar to what happened in Ukraine in 2014.
Germany’s Neglect of National Interests & a Pending Nationalist Backlash
By Glenn Diesen | September 10, 2024
Security competition is the main source of conflict in the international system, as states pursuing national interests and security for themselves often undermine the security of other states. The ability to transcend nationalism by pursuing a more cosmopolitan world order is thus an attractive proposition. For Germany, with its destructive history of radical ethno-nationalism and fascism, idealist internationalism has an immense appeal.
However, is it possible to transcend power competition when the state is the highest sovereign? Should aggressive power politics be addressed by ignoring national interests or managing competing national interests? Cosmopolitanism and liberal idealism do not transcend power politics and create a global village, rather it results in the neglect of national interests and subordination to foreign powers. Aggressive nationalism will likely be the predictable backlash to ignoring national interests.
In the early 19th century, Germans fell under the lure of international idealism and failed to defend national interests. Cultural nationalism and economic nationalism became instruments for the Germans to balance the French and restore dignity and national interests. Two centuries later, Germany is yet again not capable of pursuing national interests until it decouples from American cosmopolitanism, universalism and hegemony. It seems likely, that history will repeat itself as Germany will return to cultural and economic nationalism or be condemned to vassalage and irrelevance.
German Subordination to France
In the late 18th and early 19th century, France represented a cosmopolitan universal civilisation in which development meant becoming more like France. Napoleon could thus find some people willing to support him in all countries, although internationalist initiatives usually served a French national cause.
When Napoleon invaded in the early 19th century, some German princes surrendered their sovereignty and national interests to the French with great enthusiasm. In what became known as the “shame of the princes”, many German rulers welcomed Napoleon’s annexation of the West bank of the Rhine. A combination of receiving economic compensation and fawning over France resulted in the German princes abandoning national interests and their dignity.
The Germans and other Europeans became increasingly concerned about France and the obedience demanded by allies under the Napoleonic Continental System. Under the guise of internationalism and cosmopolitanism, a system developed that was primarily for the benefit of French manufacturers. The cultural fawning over France resulted in Germans failing to further develop their own culture. While the French had promised peace under its leadership, the Europeans instead had constant war as they became instruments of war to be used against the British.
What was the solution? Germany began to pursue cultural sovereignty and economic sovereignty as conditions to restore dignity, national interests, and political sovereignty. The cosmopolitan philosophy of Voltaire and a common path to cosmopolitanism and universal civilisation were challenged by the philosophy of Johann Gottfried Herder, who argued that cultural differences should be preserved to contribute to the richness of humanity.[1] Culture is a specific link between a distinctive people required for social cohesion and societal dignity. Herder cautioned that imitation of foreign cultures made the people shallow, artificial, and weak. In Russia, there were similar concerns that imitating French culture undermined Russia’s unique development and its ability to contribute something new to the world.
Economic sovereignty was also a requirement, as Friedrich List recognised that excessive economic dependence also undermined political sovereignty:
“As long as the division of the human race into independent nations exists, political economy will as often be at variance with cosmopolitan principles… a nation would act unwisely to endeavour to promote the welfare of the whole human race at the expense of its particular strength, welfare and independence”.[2]
German Subordination to the US
Following the Second World War, the pendulum swung in the opposing direction as German national power had to be dressed up in internationalist initiatives. As Chancellor Helmut Schmidt argued in 1978, it was:
“German foreign policy rests on two great pillars: the European Community and the North Atlantic Alliance… It is all the more necessary for us to clothe ourselves in this European mantle. We need this mantle not only to cover our foreign policy nakednesses, like Berlin or Auschwitz, but we need it also to cover these ever-increasing relative strengths, economic, political, military, of the German Federal Republic within the West”.[3]
The pillars of German development were also a prison to ensure its subordination to the US. In the words of Lord Hastings Lionel Ismay, NATO’s first Secretary General, acknowledged that NATO was created to “keep the Soviet Union out, the Americans in, and the Germans down”.[4] The historical role of Britain and the US had always been to prevent Germany and Russia from getting too close as it would form a centre of power capable of challenging the dominance of the maritime hegemon at the periphery. Peacetime alliances that contain and perpetuate the weakness of adversaries also ensure the dependence and obedience of allies. Much like its French predecessor, the US appeals to cosmopolitanism and universalism to manage an international system that upholds a US national cause.
Germany in Decline
Until recently, Germany had become known as the industrial engine that was driving European economies forward, while it had seemingly learned from its history by attempting to elevate liberal democratic principles above power politics.
This era is seemingly over as Germany has transformed itself in a remarkably short period of time. Germany fails to defend its basic national interests, its economy is deindustrialising, society becomes more pessimistic, the political leadership has rediscovered enthusiasm for war, German tanks are yet again burning in Kursk, there are some signs of political violence to come, the freedom of expression is undermined, and the political upheaval opens the door to political alternatives that the government rejects.
The German economic model has been broken as Germany cut itself off from Russia as a source of cheap energy and a huge export market for manufactured goods. Washington is also increasingly pressuring Germany to sever its economic ties with China as well, resulting in a less competitive economy and excessive reliance on the US. Germany’s submissiveness was demonstrated by the deafening silence when its key energy infrastructure was destroyed by allies (the US and Ukraine), while European allies such as the Czech Republic referred to the attack as legitimate and Poland told Germany to stay quiet and apologise for having built the pipeline. As Germany deindustrialises and its economy declines, the US has responded by offering subsidies to German industries that will move across the Atlantic to the US.
At the heart of the problem is that Germany no longer sufficiently defends its national interests. As the public flees to alternative media and new political parties, the government does not know how to respond. Police appear on the doorsteps of journalists, and protesters are beaten by the police for protesting a genocide in Palestine that Germany has supported with arms shipments. German Foreign Minister felt comfortable declaring that Ukraine will continue to receive support “no matter what my German voters think”. The media is dismissive of political violence against Sahra Wagenknecht on the political left, which is to some extent justified by arguing she is actually on the political right. On the actual political right, the AfD is surging to fill the vacuum left behind by an incompetent government without a plan, and the political-media elites have responded to the surge by discussing whether this opposition party should be banned. The rise of the AfD is compared to the rise of Hitler, yet the AfD is pushing for a negotiated peace in Ukraine while the government has backed military solutions.
The EU is also acting deeply irrationally in the Ukraine War. The Europeans used to recognise that the American ambition to pull Ukraine into the orbit of NATO would result in another European war. In 2008 the Europeans attempted to oppose NATO membership for Ukraine for this reason. In the words of Angela Merkel, Moscow would interpret the attempt to bring Ukraine into NATO as “a declaration of war”. Yet, they went ahead with the promise of future membership in 2008 to appease Washington. After destabilising the Ukrainian government, the Europeans were guarantors for a unity government in Kiev in 2014, but then betrayed this agreement for stability as the US pushed for a coup instead. After a war broke out in Donbas as a direct result of the coup, the Germans and French negotiated the Minsk Peace Agreement but then later admitted it was only to buy time to arm Ukraine. When Russia invaded in 2022, the Europeans were yet again silent as the US and Britain sabotaged the Istanbul Peace Agreement and instead pushed for war.
Even as Ukraine is losing the war, the Europeans do not want to discuss restoring Ukraine’s neutrality. Instead, the incoming EU foreign policy chief argues there should not be any diplomacy with Russia as Putin is a “war criminal”, and she has defined victory as breaking up Russia into many smaller nations. Hungary has attempted to restore diplomacy and negotiations and Orban travelled to Kiev, Moscow and Beijing. The EU responded by punishing Hungary. Subsequently, the EU has limited itself to the unachievable objective of defeating the world’s largest nuclear power and a vital trading partner, while rejecting any diplomatic solutions.
Resolving the problems of Germany and the EU requires some reflection on the European security architecture that was built over the past 30 years. The decision to redivide Europe and incrementally move these dividing lines to the East was a recipe for collective hegemony – not peace or stability. In the words of President Bill Clinton in January 1994, we cannot afford “to draw a new line between East and West that could create a self-fulfilling prophecy of future confrontation”.[5] Expanding NATO triggered a new Cold War over where the new dividing lines should be drawn in Europe. This has nothing to do with liberal democracy, and everything to do with advancing a unipolar world order that has now come to an end. Continuing down this path ensures that Europe will transition from a subject of security to an object of security. Reversing the path to irrelevance requires admitting the mistakes made over the past 30 years that were celebrated as virtuous politics. Without any correction, the EU will tear itself apart and Germany will continue declining in relevance.
A Nationalist Backlash to Come?
The failure to defend national interests leaves a vacuum for nationalist political forces. Nationalism can be a movement for national liberation, sovereignty, freedom and prosperity in the spirit of Johann Gottfried Herder. However, times of crisis can also produce uglier forms of nationalism. Either way, a political correction (or over-correction) will eventually come.
[1] .G. Herder book in 1784 “Ideas of the Philosophy of the History of Mankind”.
[2] List, F. 1827. Outlines of American Political Economy, in a Series of Letters. Samuel Parker, Philadelphia, p.30.
[3] Bundesbank. ‘EMS: Bundesbank Council meeting with Chancellor Schmidt (assurances on operation of EMS) [declassified 2008],’ Bundesbank Archives, N2/267, 30 November 1978.
[4] https://www.nato.int/cps/en/natohq/declassified_137930.htm
Typhon Missile Deployment is Part of US Plans to Maintain ‘Primacy Over the Planet’
Sputnik -10.09.2024
Having previously deployed the medium-range Typhon missile systems – a weapon banned under the now-obsolete INF Treaty – in the Philippines, the United States now moves to station them in Japan in relatively close proximity to China and North Korea.
Washington’s plans to deploy these weapons in Asia are “part of a much wider long-running US strategy to encircle and contain China,” with this move itself being “part of a global post-Cold War strategy to eliminate any peer or near-peer competitor and maintain US primacy over the planet,” geopolitical analyst and former US Marine Brian Berletic tells Sputnik.
The US plans to deploy Typhon missile systems in Europe are also “part of a wider strategy to encircle and contain Russia,” Berletic adds.
According to him, the deployment of these weapons “reveals several important factors regarding US foreign, policy including continuity of agenda.”
For one, Berletic notes, the US pulled out from the INF Treaty during Donald Trump’s presidency, but the deployment of the Typhon missiles in various corners of the globe takes place with Joe Biden at the helm.
“The process of withdrawing from a treaty, developing, and then deploying such systems took place over the course of two presidential administrations, serving one single agenda, regardless of who sat in the White House,” he says.
“The Typhon’s deployment also reveals the true nature of US foreign policy and its disruptive nature for supposed US ‘allies’,” Berletic remarks.
Though both the Philippines and Japan “count China as their largest trade partner,” they both end up hosting US missiles aimed squarely at Beijing, which does little to improve their relations.
“This is just the latest in a long line of provocations complicating what would otherwise be increasingly constructive relations with China,” Berletic explains, arguing that the Philippines and Japan’s willingness to enable such US provocations “reveals the absence of agency in terms of either nations’ foreign policy.”
“It is very clear that this policy of hosting US forces seeking to encircle and contain China is a policy determined in Washington, not Manila or Tokyo, and is a policy serving US interests at the expense of the Philippines and Japan,” he states.
Berletic also deemed ironic the fact that the United States claims that its deployment of weapon systems around the world “is necessary to ensure global peace and stability,” even as the US “consistently demonstrates that it itself is the greatest threat to both.”
Kiev Uses Israeli, Turkish Cluster Munitions Against Russia – Cluster Munition Coalition
Sputnik – 10.09.2024
MOSCOW – The Ukrainian armed forces use cluster munitions from Turkiye and Israel in conflict with Russia, according to the 2024 report released by the Cluster Munition Coalition on Monday.
“Israeli-made or copied M971 120mm cluster munition mortar projectiles were photographed in the possession of the Ukrainian Armed Forces in December 2022. Israel originally produced this type of cluster munition, but it is not known how or from whom Ukraine acquired it,” the report said.
It is added that Turkish and Ukrainian high ranking government officials had denied US media reports of January 2023 stating that Turkiye had transferred cluster munitions to Ukraine in November 2022.
However, a photo posted on social media in August 2023 showed the 155mm M483A1 dual-purpose improved conventional munitions produced by Turkiye being used in Ukraine, the report said, adding that Turkish officials denied providing cluster munitions to Ukraine.
Ukraine might also use cluster munitions from Poland, the coalition added.
International Campaign to Ban Landmines – Cluster Munition Coalition (ICBL-CMC) is a global network of non-governmental organizations (NGOs) based in Geneva, Switzerland, that promotes adherence to and implementation of the treaties banning landmines and cluster munition.
Germany and the EU Abandon Reason
Michael von der Schulenburg, Alexander Mercouris & Glenn Diesen
Odysee
Glenn Diesen | September 9, 2024
We had a discussion with Michael von der Schulenburg – a German top diplomat with the OSCE and 34 years in the United Nations. The topic of discussion was the transformation of Germany and the war in Ukraine. Michael von der Schulenburg argues the EU must change course on Ukraine or risk tearing itself apart.
Michael von der Schulenburg and Harald Kujat (the former head of the German Bundeswehr and former chairman of the NATO Military Committee) criticised NATO for provoking the war and sabotaging the peace agreement to use Ukrainians to fight and weaken a strategic rival. Germany is now de-industrialising, the political elites have rediscovered enthusiasm for war, the US and Ukraine attacked Germany’s critical energy infrastructure which EU partners consider to be legitimate, society is growing more pessimistic, freedom of speech is undermined, there are signs of political violence, and new political alternatives are emerging that are not acceptable to the government. Michael von der Schulenburg argues the EU no longer behaves as a rational actor. Where did it all go wrong?
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From the Archives
Should Europeans ‘Thank’ the Americans for Destroying Nord Stream?
By Robert Bridge | Strategic Culture Foundation | September 29, 2022
With an investigation continuing into the destruction of the Nord Stream gas pipeline that provided energy supplies to Europe from Russia, there appears to be just one prime suspect, and that should surprise nobody.
Following the sabotage of the Nord Stream 1 and 2 gas pipelines, former Polish Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski already seemed to know the identity of the perpetrator when he tweeted out: “Thank you, USA.”
At first glance, it seemed that Sikorski was speaking sarcastically, berating Washington for carrying out an attack that will have severe repercussions for the people of Europe. After all, how could anyone see any good coming from the termination of Europe’s primary source of gas reserves with winter just around the corner? It was Sikorski’s homeland of Poland, after all, that urged its citizens to collect firewood in the face of dwindling gas reserves.
In fact, the Polish diplomat was speaking one-hundred percent literally… continue
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