Podcasts about atlanticists

This week, it's a double header of audio essays on Europe's elite power-plays. One From Andrew Collingwood - on the Atlanticists and the Autonomists taking their battle for supremacy into the new EU administration. And another from Philip Pilkington setting out how a new kind of Trussification may be coming for the states within the ECB… Is Le Pen mightier than La Banque? ***It's premium week, so if you're not already a subscriber, head over to Patreon where for five pounds, Euros or dollars a month, you can get access to this, and all our previous premium episodes. Cancel any time.

The Atlanticists versus the Autonomists - the European civil war coming soon to a bureaucracy near you. It's long been a theme of this show that the continent is being slowly capsized by its long term problems, related to energy and productivity. We'll be picking through three news items that tell the short term story of the continent's woes. Terrible producer confidence numbers out of Germany, oil prices back to a fresh spike even in the teeth of an incipient recession, and Poland's Donald Tusk softening the rhetorical ground for continental conscription. Then, we'll be panning back.To look at the dilemma Europe now faces. That between the Atlantacists - who want to shelter under America's aegis, but thereby have to toe the party line on geopolitics; and the autonomists - who want to break for something genuinely multipolar, gaining their energy independence, but at sea in an increasingly dangerous world. The war now spans the continent. And it cuts both ways. In Germany, the AfD and Sahra Wagenknecht are rising from either side of the political aisle, but both promising to overturn the Atlantacist geopolitical settlement. Meanwhile, as she gets closer to the French Presidency, Marine Le Pen is kowtowing to the NATO line. And Georgia Meloni's promised populist rule has been set back onto the Atlantacists straight and narrow by the Italian presidency. With constant talk of remilitarising while the continent is broke, are we doomed to spend the next decade stuck in a world where all European citizens are compelled to pretend that our dear leaders are building an army that doesn't actually exist? Of course, this is the Premium Week, so we'll be prancing through this dog and pony show for free for fifteen of those 65 minutes. After that, you're welcome to sign up on our patreon. Five dollars, pounds or Euros, cancel any time. *** PATREON LINK: https://www.patreon.com/multipolarity

A version of this essay has been published by firstpost.com at https://www.firstpost.com/opinion/shadow-warrior-mr-modi-goes-to-washington-deja-vu-all-over-again-12750892.htmlConsidering that India and the US are my two favorite countries, it is odd that I get nervous whenever there is a summit between the two. I am reminded inevitably of the Frank Capra film “Mr Smith goes to Washington” (1939), where James Stewart plays Mr Smith, a naive idealist, who goes to the corrupt company town Washington DC and is bullied and humiliated. In the end (this being fiction) Mr Smith wins a famous victory for democracy and the power of the people.In real life, things are different. Mr Modi is not naive, and he is a pragmatist (though there is a wee bit of an idealist in him), and he is quite aware of the Deep State and its regime-change agendas (e.g. they just did one in Brazil, defenestrating Bolsonaro, although it didn't quite work with Hungary's Orban). Besides, I am sure that the PM remembers the same Democrats giving him the dubious distinction of being the only person ever denied a visa on the grounds of “severe violation of religious freedom”, purportedly for the Gujarat riots in 2002. Yes, along the same lines as the absurd USCIRF.When Democrats are in power, things simply don't seem to go well for Indo-US relations. There are many reasons: one is that Democrats on average seem to prefer autocrats and uniformed caudillos because hey, they get things done; another is that many are Atlanticists, and quite a few are of Eastern European origin (eg Brzezinski, Albright, Nuland, Blinken) with scant regard for Indo-Pacific issues; a third is that they tend to be woke (trans-gender bathrooms, yeah!). The Clinton Administration and especially the Obama Administration were unpleasant to India, in keeping with the above tendencies Democrats exhibit. Manmohan Singh was, with much hoopla, given the “first state dinner” by Obama, which so far as I can tell meant nothing whatsoever. It was an empty gesture. In fact, I have been underwhelmed by various US shows of bonhomie. I panned the Obama state visit in 2010. To be honest, I have not been an admirer of Obama from day one, and the current Biden Administration seems to be, for all practical purposes, Obama 3.0: same ruinous economic and foreign policies, mostly the same tired faces, the same wokeness. Even though I am Republican-leaning, I was not all that impressed by Narendra Modi's interaction with Trump in 2017 either. Certainly, Trump was a lot better than the Democrats, but then I expected Trump to look out, correctly, for US interests, rather than do anything for India, even though Republicans understand the China threat better. Earlier, I thought the entire full-court-press and hard-sell on the 2008 ‘nuclear deal' simply indicated that it was a good deal for the US, and not so good for India. In the event, India's nuclear power production capacity did not go up dramatically, India became a much bigger buyer of US military hardware, and there were surely (non-public) limitations placed on India's nuclear weapons programs. I guess I suffer from the soft bigotry of low expectations. I think this is a selling job on the part of the Americans, and that ill-prepared Indians will be taken in by flattery. Therefore I continue to be skeptical about the real value of the current tour by Modi to meet Biden, and have a ‘state dinner' with him. In fact, I do hope Modi will take his own chef with him. Let's be careful remembering (God forbid) what happened to Lal Bahadur Shastri. I get particularly suspicious when The Economist magazine, which is the voice of the Deep State, starts waxing eloquent about something. Apart from the fact that they are generally wrong about all their geopolitical forecasts, being unvarnished imperialists, I am reminded of Kissinger's dictum: “It is dangerous to be America's enemy, but fatal to be America's friend”. I tried to get Microsoft Bing and DALL-E to get me an AI-generated image of the great mans' quote, but I was warned sternly that such a query was “against content rules” (whatever they are) and that I would be kicked off the platform! So I am satisfying myself with this Economist cover story, which apparently is a parody of some Netflix show. Prospects are actually worse for Indo-American rapport today than they have been for years, although it should be the opposite, given rampaging China. The principal reason is Democrat antipathy: for instance Biden's staff explicitly hurt India in the past with the so-called Biden Amendment that set India's space program back by 19 years by pressing the Russians to cancel the transfer of cryogenic engines, as seen in the brilliant “Rocketry: the Nambi Effect”.On top of this, the US has hurt itself in the last few years through disastrous policies, allowing others to gain power in relative terms. So when Modi goes to Washington, it would be appropriate to revisit the old story about the emperor, the vassal king and his court bard, who wrote a new poem extolling the emperor as “the full moon”, and the king as “the new moon”. Upon being berated by the king for diminishing him, the bard explained: “The full moon is waning, and the new moon is waxing.” This mollified the king, presumably saving the bard from having his head separated from his body. India is on a trajectory to achieve economic (and military) power, but then it may or may not be in the US's interests to accommodate India. The on-again, off-again US approach to the Quad (eg the AUKUS diversion) signals that the US is not serious about India's concerns regarding China's hegemonic ambitions. Not only US politicians, but the steady stream of Wall Street and business honchos making a beeline for China suggests that even for the money folks, despite calls for ‘de-coupling' or ‘de-risking', China is very much a factor in their future plans. The US has made several strategic, even existential, blunders in the recent past, and again I think the Democrats are mostly to blame:* The US actively collaborated in the rise of China by allowing it to be a principal manufacturing partner. People such as Henry Kissinger and several POTUSes wittingly or unwittingly helped in a process where China effectively de-industrialized the US. As the realist foreign policy analyst John Mearsheimer suggests, this may be the worst example ever of a major power paving the way for its own eclipse. * The unnecessary Ukraine war, with the singular goal of humiliating and possibly balkanizing Russia, has already had disastrous consequences for Western Europe. Russia is a demographically declining power, and it will eventually fade away on its own; wasting enormous amounts of money and effort on ‘punishing' it is a folly, as was the peremptory, headlong abandonment of Afghanistan to the Taliban. By pushing Russia into China's dhritharashtra embrace, the Ukraine war is counterproductive strategically.* The emerging facts about the Covid pandemic suggest that Anthony Fauci and others were working with the Wuhan Institute of Virology on ‘gain-of-function', in direct contravention of US law. In addition, the poorly handled fiscal and monetary policies in relation to the pandemic have imposed pain, including high inflation, on the US. * The awful culture wars and the focus on gender issues, diversity, equity, climate change and other divisive issues have been tearing the US apart since Obama's time. Objectively speaking, some of these are manufactured issues. In addition, there is clear deterioration in the system, where now we have the unedifying spectacle of an ex-President indicted on mishandling classified documents, and the sitting President is accused of the same, as well as of relatives doing influence peddling. None of this is a good look. The US is in trouble. Which it pains me to say, because I think the ideals of the ‘City on a hill' that animate the spirit of the US Constitution still resonate after all these years. It is hard to think that the US is being overtaken by an authoritarian China. Anyway, I think the general idea from the Biden Administration's point of view is to get India into its orbit as a vassal, just like most of Western Europe, Japan, Australia, etc. The nastiness at the time India stoutly refused to toe the US/NATO line on Ukraine is a signal about this. People like the Portuguese Bruno Macaes and Duleep Singh, the architect of the Russia sanctions, chided India severely; the official US stance was that India somehow betrayed their trust. They couldn't accept that India has no dog in this very European/Western fight. I suspect a big part of the backroom negotiations on the PM's trip will be to get India to toe the line on Ukraine. There will be various sticks and carrots dangled, such as technology transfers (which is actually an oxymoron, as nobody in their right mind transfers technology; the only way it happens is if you steal it, like China does). Then there is the GE fighter aircraft engine under discussion, and vague talk about quantum computing and other exotic stuff.There will be more efforts to wean India away from Russian arms imports, and to sell lots of US hardware. There are expensive drones being discussed. An expert told me that if these are Reaper-class Sea Guardians, they may be a good buy, as they can be paired with the submarine hunter-killer surveillance craft, the P8i Poseidon, to help patrol the Indian Ocean.All in all, the prospects for a mutually beneficial outcome seem bleak. Let us just hope that the Indians don't come back with a whole lot of lemons, having been bamboozled. Again. 1473 words, June 15th 2023, updated June 17th This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit rajeevsrinivasan.substack.com

We are headed towards a worldwide Civil War. Patriots vs Infiltrators, Agitators, and Subversives. Every nation's sovereignty vs the global rainbow cabal. America's regime has sided with China in order to stop Eurasia from decimating the Atlanticists. Will Vlad lead off with a UK Nuke? If he wants to win, yes he will.

A version of this essay was published by Swarajya magazine at https://swarajyamag.com/world/the-quad-will-china-dominate-the-indo-pacific-as-the-us-reverts-to-atlanticism-what-can-india-doA lot has happened in the last week or two: POTUS Biden’s visit to Japan for a Quad summit and related economic moves; China’s outreach to Pacific Islanders for security pacts; and the World Economic Forum pow-wow in Davos. In some sense, the Ukraine war and related disruptions have taken a back seat, even though related inflation and shortages are a long-term story. In my opinion, the Biden Administration is pursuing self-defeating policies as far as the Indo-Pacific is concerned. On the one hand, it may be because (as is the norm in India) one political party wants to undo whatever their rival had done when they were in power. On the other hand, there is a curious lack of historical memory about great-power games: the US seems to be either blase about, or reconciled to, Chinese domination of Asia/the Indo-Pacific. None of this is good as far as India is concerned. In a harsh analysis of India’s clashes on the Kashmir/Tibet border with China, two anonymous but trenchant critics suggest India has been defeated already: “China-India Border Crisis Has Quietly Resulted in Victory For Beijing’, based on the fact that the Chinese military buildup is well-nigh impossible for India to overcome.Thanks for reading Shadow Warrior! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work.Meanwhile, there is increasing criticism of American involvement in – indeed responsibility for – prolonging the Ukraine war, surprisingly from the pro-Democrat, pro-war pages of the New York Times: “The War in Ukraine May Be Impossible to Stop. And the US Deserves Most of the Blame.” A slightly dated (April 1) article on “The Military Situation in Ukraine” had already given a cogent explanation of how reality on the ground was vastly different from the narrative.What I fear is that Ukraine will become a quagmire for not only Russia, but also the US. As the NYT op-ed said, it’s not much of a leap from a proxy war to a secret war. The US is rather good at getting into unfortunate messes like this, and then having to declare victory and run like hell: see Vietnam or Afghanistan. Two brutal articles from Tablet magazine, “Three Big Questions That the American Establishment Got Wrong” and “Wingnuts vs. Factions: The two theories of American government—one fantasy, one reality” purport to show how making bad, often really bad, decisions is par for the course for US administrations, in particular Democrats. All this presages the possibility that Ukraine will be a tar baby for the US and its NATO allies, and a drain on their national treasuries. It also means that their national attention will be riveted on Russia and Ukraine for the foreseeable future, leaving China free to run rampant in Asia. Democratic Party power brokers are anyway Atlanticists fighting the Cold War all over again. Let us, therefore, consider the Indo-Pacific from a perspective where the US is increasingly hors de combat. There is this theory of the “three island chains” in the Pacific as first propounded by American John Foster Dulles, according to CSIS.org, which further states that today we have to add two more island chains in the Indian Ocean. John Foster Dulles is attributed with designating the islands stretching from the Kurils, the Japanese home islands, and the Ryukyus to Taiwan, the Philippines, and Indonesia as the “first island chain” in the 1950s. The second chain stretches from Japan through the Marianas and Micronesia, and the third is centered on Hawaii...The addition of a fourth and fifth chain in the Indian Ocean would better describe emerging Chinese maritime strategy. Chinese naval planners hope to deny adversaries the ability to operate within the first island chain during a conflict, contest control of the second island chain, and operate as a blue water navy within the third island chain. A new fourth island chain through the middle of the Indian Ocean would reflect China’s ability to challenge its geostrategic neighbor India with dual-use facilities in Gwadar, Pakistan, and Hambantota, Sri Lanka. A fifth island Chain, originating from China’s base at Doraleh, Djibouti, would reflect Beijing’s ability to pursue its developing commitments afar, such as harnessing economic resources, conducting anti-piracy operations, and protecting Chinese living abroad. [emphasis added]This is alarming, as the ‘fourth island chain’ is basically the ‘String of Pearls’ intended to strangle India and tie it down in the so-called ‘South Asia’, by negating its undoubted geographic advantage of straddling the sea lanes in the Indian Ocean. The Chinese submarine pen at Hainan in the South China Sea, with easy access to the Indian Ocean via the Straits of Malacca, is already a threat to Indian interests and blue-water navy aspirations. In addition, China is currently in the middle of a furious ship-building frenzy, so they will also have surface ships, including aircraft carriers, capable of projecting force a long way into the Indian Ocean. Just as they have done in the Himalayas, and the South China Sea, China is using ‘below-the-threshold of war’ tactics to build up its capability until one day its foes are forced to submit. Degringolade.POTUS Biden has made it clear that his administration has very little interest in Asia. He made three trips to Europe before his very first trip to Asia: a quick visit to Japan (and South Korea), where he attended a meeting of the Quad and a coming-out party for the newest American-mooted economic proposal, the Indo-Pacific Economic Framework. This seems to be too little, too late, after the US exited the Trans-Pacific Partnership.The IPEF also seems like a face-saving measure, and it is increasingly evident that Biden’s alleged new enthusiasm for Asia is as empty as earlier POTUS Obama’s botched ‘pivot to Asia’, which was a lot of hot air with no substance. I also remember with fury Obama’s granting of hegemony over ‘South Asia’ to China: like the Pope once divided the world between Portugal and Spain. As though Obama were dispensing papal bulls. As Indian geostrategist Brahma Chellaney suggests on Nikkei Asia in “Biden’s empty Taiwan rhetoric reveals Quad’s core weakness”, Biden’s statement about US military support for Taiwan in case of a Chinese invasion may be mere bravado. There are two reasons. The first is that, as Biden’s minions clarified after his alleged gaffe, US military involvement is not within the scope of US agreements with Taiwan and/or China, which maintain the fiction of “One China”. The second is that, given its diminished industrial capacity (China has hollowed it out), the US cannot fight two major wars at once: Ukraine and Taiwan. To emphasize their disdain for the alleged ‘pivot’, the Chinese sent strategic nuclear bombers towards Japan while Biden was there, accompanied by Russian bombers. As I write this, China has just sent 30 warplanes into Taiwan’s air defense zone. The signals are clear: they threaten to invade Taiwan. Thank you for reading Shadow Warrior. This post is public so feel free to share it.In the meantime, China is attempting to expand its footprint in the Indo-Pacific. It scored a coup with the Solomon Islands where it signed a wide-ranging agreement. According to a podcast from The Economist, a leaked draft shows that the agreement allows Chinese police and soldiers to be deployed in the Solomons for a broad range of reasons. It stops short of setting up a military base, but only just.Beyond this, Chinese FM Wang Yi had a blitzkrieg in the Pacific, visiting 8 island nations over 10 days, and on May 30th, he signed agreements in Fiji with a consortium of 10 of them. A draft talked about trade, tourism, security, training of police, forensic labs, and cyber-security, according to The Economist podcast Base Motives? China in the Pacific.The entire Belt and Road Initiative was a covert effort to gain access to ports, and turn them into Chinese military bases (although it has stalled a little now because of its predatory debt-trap diplomacy side-effects, as best seen in Sri Lanka). Beyond Djibouti in 2017, Gwadar and Hambantota, there are others like Cambodia’s Ream military base where China has facilities.China is also quite likely causing the sharp spike in global food prices. Economist Shamika Ravi tweeted as follows, and this is a good reason why India did a U-turn on wheat exports: instead of enabling Chinese proxies to buy it up, India will only do government to government deals. Thus the picture is of a diffident America shuffling off into Atlanticist and Anglosphere dead-ends like AUKUS (Britain brings almost nothing to the picture in the Indo-Pacific), while a more confident China is expanding its reach. Its saber rattling threatens Taiwan immediately, and India, Japan and South Korea more indirectly. The context of the Quad is also a far cry from what Abe Shinzo first envisaged as a tight military and economic alliance. It is pretty much a mere talking-shop. For instance, it is clear that none of Australia, Japan, or the US will send a single soldier to fight China on India’s behalf on the Kashmir/Tibet border. The creation of AUKUS (there are rumors about JAUKUS with Japan and CAUKUS with Canada as well) basically means India is being left out in the cold. Again. It has to depend on itself. Atmnirbharata. There is talk of a Quad-Plus, including South Korea and New Zealand. But not Vietnam and Indonesia, which are more significant? New Zealand, especially under woke Jacinda Ardern, is marginal; in fact Australia is also of little interest in the Indian Ocean. There is also political instability in Australia: Scott Morrison was replaced by Anthony Albanese overnight.I can remember at least five-six Australian PMs in the recent past, including die-hard Sinophile Kevin Rudd. How can you have continuity in such a situation? How can anybody depend on Australia to deliver on Quad? Similarly, Japanese PM Kishida Fumio is a far cry from the sensibly militaristic and nationalist Abe Shinzo. In the US, the switch from Donald Trump to Joe Biden has meant chaos regarding the Indo-Pacific. And after this November’s elections, it is likely that Biden will be a lame duck: his approval numbers keep hitting new lows, and hostile Republicans are likely to take over the Senate, leading to a war of attrition: bad news for foreign policy.In the middle of all this political turmoil, it is hard to imagine that the Quad is going to get better.Meanwhile, the developed nations of the West are merrily carrying on with their old agenda as in the Davos shindig, as though there is no end in sight for the party. Rana Foroohar of the Financial Times sounded a warning, as if one were necessary in the wake of the carnage of stock market crashes and soaring inflation. But no, laissez les bon temps rouler! Let the good times roll!And that’s exactly what India is up against. The rest of the world (with the possible exception of Japan) does not care. India has to assume it can only depend on itself, Quad or no Quad. It has to build up its military and economic muscle, and industrialize while keeping a low profile. The Thucydides Trap is a likely scenario, and presumably it will exhaust both the protagonists, leaving the door open for India to ascend to the G3 and then to the G1.1850 words, June 1, 2022 This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit rajeevsrinivasan.substack.com

If there's one thing that is guaranteed to bring warring Atlanticists and pan-Eurasianists together, it's the dehumanization of white people. In the West, whites are being blamed when blacks are priced out of the housing market as a result of money printing. Most whites don't own money printers, but it's still our fault because... gentrification. In the East, religious and political leaders are justifying the murder of white ethnic Ukrainians on the basis of Ukrainian attitudes toward homosexuality, even in spite of the fact that homosexuality is equally unpopular in both Ukraine and Russia. I've got the latest! This is EPISODE 876 of So to Speak w/ Jared Howe!

The Eurasianist cries out accusations of xenophobia as he wages ethnic cleansing against you. That appears to be the new strategy of Putin's paid apologists. If you're not on board with his "anti-fascist limited military action against neo-Nazis", you're essentially just a xenophobic bigot. Sound familiar? You might be forgiven though if you do some e-cheerleading for Putin's decision to kill thousands and displace millions of white people. That'll really stick it to globohomo and show them that Atlanticists are the REAL racists... You gotta LOVE how this conflict has degenerated into a pissing contest over who is more anti-white... This is EPISODE 872 of So to Speak w/ Jared Howe!

A version of this essay was published on firstpost.com at https://www.firstpost.com/world/the-meta-narrative-about-indias-non-involvement-in-the-ukraine-imbroglio-10403761.htmlDisclaimer: Russia invaded Ukraine on Feb 24. This was written just before that happened.The ongoing shadow-boxing between US President Biden and Russian President Putin over Ukraine has captured a lot of media attention. I was going to say “world attention”, but not really. It is a European problem, and those in the Indo-Pacific really don’t care much about it. Old-guard Atlanticists are bellyaching as though it were the end of the world, but it isn’t. And that is the first thing to note: Euro-centrism has had its day, and Europe matters less and less every day. All of the dramatis personae have not-so-hidden agendas that they bring to the party. In the end, as far as the impartial observer is concerned, this is not likely to lead to World War III despite all the blood-curdling rhetoric; the problem for disinterested parties is that oil prices are zooming in anticipation of war, or biting sanctions. Oil at $100 is good for Putin, and probably for Biden’s shale warriors, but developing nations will be hurt. Said developing countries are uninterested in the finer points of European nationalism, and would prefer that everybody make nice and go home. They really would prefer no war. This European hissy-fit is not their problem. Thanks for reading Shadow Warrior! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work.There is a Malayalam proverb that goes: “whether the thorn lands on the leaf, or the leaf lands on the thorn, it is the leaf that is hurt”. That is the exact situation developing countries, already devastated by the covid pandemic, face. They don’t really care about the wounded pride of Putin or Biden or whoever, but would rather oil prices were back in the $50-$60 range, so they don’t face another extortionate transfer of wealth.Of course the sentiments of Ukrainians have to be considered. My first exposure to this was in the late 1970s when I was a graduate student in computer science, and my study group partner was a pretty blonde Ukrainian-American. I casually referred to her as Russian, because at that time the Soviet Union was still going strong, and Ukraine was a part of it. She flared up, and gave me an earful about how Ukrainians were not Russians, but oppressed by Russians. Clearly, there is a lot of bad blood between the old subjects of the Soviet Empire and the colonial masters, the Russians. In fact Indians can quite relate to this, because our colonial masters, the British, were absolute monsters. So yes, I am sympathetic to the struggles of Ukrainians to assert their cultural and territorial independence. But then, I am also sympathetic to the Chagos Islanders, who were evicted by the colonial Brits, so that America’s Diego Garcia naval base could be built. Courts have ruled that the islands belong to Mauritius, not Britain, but none of those bleating about Ukraine’s ‘territorial integrity’ seem to be in a hurry to eject Brits from the Chagos islands. Ah, so that’s different. Thank you for reading Shadow Warrior. This post is public so feel free to share it.Obviously morality and rule of law is not the issue here. I was listening to a talk by John Mearsheimer, a respected geo-strategist, and he said candidly that the problem was the fault of the Americans. Just as much as the Monroe Doctrine creates a sphere of influence for the US in its backyard, it is only reasonable that in the post-Soviet era, the succeeding power Russia would like to maintain a sphere of influence in its backyard. At least, they would not want NATO to nibble at their periphery and expand itself, thus causing the Russians to feel vulnerable militarily. But the Democratic party appears to be chock-full of Atlanticists – possibly because their leaders are mostly from their East Coast, including Biden – and apparently they and the US Deep State are fighting the Cold War all over again. This is ridiculous because (checks notes) they won that war. But then generals are always fighting the last war again, because, well, that’s what generals do. This is also counter-productive, because they are simply driving the Russians into the dhritarashtra alinganam of the Chinese. A Eurasian heartland that is controlled by a Sino-Russian alliance is not in the interests of the Americans or their allies in Europe. In fact, a Huntingtonian view would suggest that Western Europeans and Americans should ally themselves with the Russians to form a united white Christian alliance against the Chinese. As Brahma Chellaney keeps saying, Western Europeans and Americans are fighting the wrong enemy. This creeping NATO-ization is a distraction when they should be worrying about China. Strangely, this does not seem to occur to them, and there are many possible reasons: Democrats are still fighting Donald Trump, and they think the Russiagate angle is a winning tactic against the resurgent Republicans; there was a lot of hanky-panky done in Ukraine by Hunter Biden, Joe Biden’s son (you might remember his laptop, whose motley contents were a story buried by the complicit media); and there are untouchable US assets and interests in China (especially those of Wall Street), so China can do no wrong.And that brings me to the distinctly intriguing reactions of certain strategic analysts with a degree of exposure to India: Bruno Macaes, Derek Grossman, Jeff Smith and the folks over at Foreign Affairs. All of them, it appears, were distressed and/or surprised that India did not throw in its lot with the anti-Russia diplomatic initiative because, well, the US is an important ally to India, see Quad.That, in fact, is the interesting meta-narrative. Nelson Mandela once told off a hectoring American journalist, who was chiding him for meeting with Colonel Gaddafi and Saddam Hussain, by pointing out that “you’d like us to pretend that your enemies are our enemies”. Precisely. You have a beef with Russia, fine, but that doesn’t mean India must, too. India’s and the US’ interests coincide on many things, but not on pissing off Russia, which, among other things, is supplying India with S-400 anti-missile systems, for which Americans have been threatening to impose CAATSA sanctions against India; but these are important deterrents to possible Chinese and Pakistani aggression. Interestingly, India just put on hold an order for 30 US Predator drones. The timing is, well, suggestive. Here’s Bruno Macaes’ tweet:I had email discussions with Macaes some time ago, when he reached out to me, and there were three points where I disagreed with him, although his biases were understandable because he was a Portuguese Foreign Minister, his wife is a Turk, and he and his daughter were living in China for a while. In my opinion, he:Overestimates the coherence of the EU, which is full of squabbling neighbors, and therefore punches below its weight in foreign policyOverestimates the strategic power of Russia, which has fewer people than Pakistan and is shrinking, and has a GDP lower than India, despite its nukes and gas depositsUnderestimates India’s ambitions for a G3, where a rapidly growing India will not be seeking to align with the Americans or the Chinese, but be itself a third pole.I am pretty sure the other analysts suffer from versions of these flaws, although I only know them by what they say on Twitter. Here’s Foreign Affairs’ take:But did you, Foreign Affairs, consider whether India has skin in this game, whether any of its national interests are at stake? You assume India wants to put pressure on Moscow. Not really. I am reminded of a VP at a company I worked at in Boston, who told a whining operations manager: “But Dave, you must be confusing me with someone who gives a damn (about your problems)”. What if India doesn’t give a damn?Derek Grossman is a generally sympathetic analyst, but he cannot hide his disappointment with India in the current context. But Derek, the ‘bad look’ was the deafening silence from the West when Chinese killed unarmed Indian soldiers in the Galwan Valley. Jeff Smith is another analyst who seems to have grasped the Indian reaction better than others:Yes, Jeff. India ain’t got no dog in this here fight. India doesn’t see any value in tying itself to either the US or Russia, because it’s perfectly clear that India will be on its own. India is painfully  aware that no white guy is going to die in the Himalayas fighting China for India’s benefit. So make India an offer it can’t refuse, like sanctioning China on India’s behalf. This, I am told, is realpolitik. India intends to stick to its interests. No, it’s not that fraud called. non-alignment. This is multi-alignment, and India will seek Chanakya’s wise counsel. What is admirable, though, is the consistency with which these strategic analysts approach the problem, which boils down to a few simple axioms:India is part of the Quad, therefore it is a US ally ‘by other means’Therefore India has no agency and has to toe the US and EU line on all mattersBut the US and the EU are under no reciprocal obligation to worry about India’s own interests, even when 200,000 Chinese troops are massed on the Indo-Tibet border.There are a few flaws here. First, the Quad is an Indo-Pacific security agreement, not a marriage. Second, I’ve been dying to use the ‘woke’ term ‘agency’, and yes, they view India as a vassal state that has to go by US/EU agendas: some kind of patsy, in the Kissingerian view of India. That was true of Nehruvian India, but this is a New India. As they said in the memorable US car ad, “This isn’t your father’s Oldsmobile”. Deal with it. Cope. And third, Indians are asking the US and EU that famous American question: “So what have you done for us lately?”. Not much, actually. Then they should expect the same in return.1620 words, 23 Feb 2022. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit rajeevsrinivasan.substack.com

DU 1/3/22: As Putin reiterated his warnings to the U.S. and NATO to not cross the clear "red lines" he has drawn, he said this is not an "ultimatum", but a necessary defense of Russia's national security. Are his American and NATO "partners" listening? Putin said there are "certain signals" that a diplomatic resolution is possible, and Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov affirmed that discussions will take place in the new year. Yet NATO, and especially the British, are continuing to move forces to the Russian border, leading to concerns that an attack into eastern Ukraine by Kiev neo-nazi units could provoke a Russian invasion. At the same time, energy prices in Europe are spiking, as part of an inflationary spiral which will only worsen, as the global Green New Deal is imposed -- though the Atlanticists will blame Russia for energy shortages and blackouts. There are real solutions, beginning with signing the treaties proposed by Putin; dismantle NATO; and adopt Lyndon LaRouche's economic program, which could turn 2022 into an excellent year!

Welcome back to Geopolitics Rundown! We're wrapping up the holiday season with a far-ranging discussion on the future of the European-American relationship. Joe Biden's pick for Secretary of State, Antony "Tony" Blinken, will have to thread the needle amid an intense debate in Europe about strategic autonomy. As the debate unfolds, the old divide between the Gaullists and the Atlanticists rears its head.

An unusual solo show this week. We have an introduction from me and then it's a recording of a classic Michael Parenti lecture, Conspiracy and Class Power, which you can also find in the show notes. Speaking of show notes, they're rather extensive everywhere but YouTube, and best found at the actual post page. Show Notes Firstly, the rest of the 'series' in which this show would reside, were it a post. How you play is what you win. Hypostasis of the farmers. The nightingale of eternal meaning. Alien invasion as self care. Medicine songs. Talking The Invisibles. Secondly, the Parenti lecture, its inspiring TMBS clip, and a bit from Ben Burgis on populism and liberal scolds: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jsua0m6GreY&feature=emb_title   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K8OeVaydBJQ   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6EEP7hsrC58   Next is a quotation from the blog draft that won't see the light of day, followed by links to what I consider three very useful posts from the rebooted archonology series a few years back: Jupiter is still in Capricorn. One way of being with this is to see him as a teacher of hard truths. The other side of that is that you are or should be learning just what it takes to run the world. To administer the physical plane. To see how the sausages are made and what they are made of. The great teacher has shined a light and I worry that some of you shut your eyes. Open them, please. This is very serious now. If you would like to understand who is 'behind' this in large part. Call them the Anglo-Americans, the Atlanticists, the dollar syndicate, Mr Global. Who cares? It is the interlocked shelob's web of supranational organisations and think tanks that evolved out of the Round Table model. Call them the Davos class. Then you need to understand both how and why they run the world the way they do. And that's here with Miles Copeland. And finally -doing triple duty as a Rune Soup recommendation by also being a limited hangout, and written by a shaman- you need to see how the syndicate uses economics to have entire countries do what they say. (This is the system Russia and China are doing their best to extricate themselves from for obvious reasons.) Next is Charles Eisenstein, and an excerpt from his conspiracy essay. “Conspiracy theory” has become a term of political invective, used to disparage any view that diverges from mainstream beliefs. Basically, any critique of dominant institutions can be smeared as conspiracy theory. There is actually a perverse truth in this smear. For example, if you believe that glyphosate is actually dangerous to human and ecological health, then you also must, if you are logical, believe that Bayer/Monsanto is suppressing or ignoring that information, and you must also believe that the government, media, and scientific establishment are to some extent complicit in that suppression. Otherwise, why are we not seeing NYT headlines like, “Monsanto whistleblower reveals dangers of glyphosate”? Information suppression can happen without deliberate orchestration. Throughout history, hysterias, intellectual fads, and mass delusions have come and gone spontaneously. This is more mysterious than the easy conspiracy explanation admits. An unconscious coordination of action can look very much like a conspiracy, and the boundary between the two is blurry. Consider the weapons of mass destruction (WMD) fraud that served as a pretext for the invasion of Iraq. Maybe there were people in the Bush administration who knowingly used the phony “yellowcake” document to call for war; maybe they just wanted very much to believe the documents were genuine, or maybe they thought, “Well, this is questionable but Saddam must have WMD, and even if he doesn’t, he wants them, so the document is basically true…” People easily believe what serves their interests or fits their existing worldview. In a similar vein, the media needed little encouragement to start beating the war drums. They knew what to do already, without having to receive instructions. I don’t think very many journalists actually believed the WMD lie. They pretended to believe, because subconsciously, they knew that was the establishment narrative. That was what would get them recognized as serious journalists. That’s what would give them access to power. That is what would allow them to keep their jobs and advance their careers. But most of all, they pretended to believe because everyone else was pretending to believe. It is hard to go against the zeitgeist. The British scientist Rupert Sheldrake told me about a talk he gave to a group of scientists who were working on animal behaviour at a prestigious British University. He was talking about his research on dogs that know when their owners are coming home, and other telepathic phenomena in domestic animals. The talk was received with a kind of polite silence. But in the following tea break all six of the senior scientists who were present at the seminar came to him one by one, and when they were sure that no one else was listening told him they had had experiences of this kind with their own animals, or that they were convinced that telepathy is a real phenomenon, but that they could not talk to their colleagues about this because they were all so straight. When Sheldrake realised that all six had told him much the same thing, he said to them, “Why don’t you guys come out? You’d all have so much more fun!” He says that when he gives a talk at a scientific institution there are nearly always scientists who approach him afterwards telling him they’ve had personal experiences that convince them of the reality of psychic or spiritual phenomena but that they can’t discuss them with their colleagues for fear of being thought weird. This is not a deliberate conspiracy to suppress psychic phenomena. Those six scientists didn’t convene beforehand and decide to suppress information they knew was real. They keep their opinions to themselves because of the norms of their subculture, the basic paradigms that delimit science, and the very real threat of damage to their careers. The persecution and calumny directed at Sheldrake himself demonstrates what happens to a scientist who is outspoken in his dissent from official scientific reality. So, we might still say that a conspiracy is afoot, but its perpetrator is a culture, a system, and a story. The Conspiracy Myth - Charles Eisenstein Lastly but the opposite of leastly, is Whitney Webb talking about the next three or four months. (And if you are a premium member, this goes well with yesterday's Q&A with Alison McDowell.) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1SU7VuX-Ip8

The Arktos crew talks geopolitics with the immensely knowledgeable Jay Dyer of jaysanalysis.com. From Syria to Russia, from Europe to America, from the identitarians to the Atlanticists, join us as we investigate the real powers that are vying for control in the global chessgame today.0:24 Introductions0:54 Jay Dyer Interview1:06 Background and works2:55 Syria (Geopolitical aspects)10:50 White helmets and war propaganda17:22 Colour revolutions and anti-Russian propaganda27:25 Spykman’s Plan30:11 Israel as an Atlanticist Outpost35:53 The Globalist Book series43:33 The Cosmopolitan Marketplace, Identity & Truth55:17 Anti-Globalist Fifth Columns1:02:24 Closing AdviceJaysanalysis.comJay Dyer on YouTubeJay Dyer on Facebook

In the fourth episode of Out of Order, having discussed the roles of Germany, China, and whether other international actors can fill the void left in the international system, this episode focuses on the country that supposedly is leaving this void: the United States. Hosts Rachel Tausendfreund and Peter Sparding talk with GMF Senior Fellow and Director of the Asia and Future of Geopolitics programs Jamie Fly, a long-time Republican foreign policy hand, about U.S. foreign policy in the unpredictable first year of the Trump presidency. Fly argues that Trump’s foreign policy has been relatively conventional, if not too conventional — when you set asides his tweets and some erratic statements. He goes on to contend that U.S. foreign policy thus far has actually continued the trend of the previous democratic administration by stepping even further back from a position of leadership in the world order we’ve come to know. Yet, at the same time, recent domestic political developments and behaviors of the Trump administration are definitely worrying and could irreversibly hurt U.S. standing in the world going forward. The discussion also dives into the questions of whether it is possible to (and if we should) separate tweets and statements from policy, and whether the increasing discrepancy between rhetoric and actions will be impossible to keep up? What are the long-term consequences of this for U.S. alliances and the international order? Is the U.S. public turning away from international engagement due to the failure of previous U.S. foreign policy or due to other factors like rising nationalist sentiment and a feeling of displacement in a fast-changing world? Things to make you THINK: Rachel recommends Masha Gessen’s essay in The New York Review of Books, “To Be or Not to Be,” that explores all different sides of ones identity as an international immigrant. It begins, “Thirty-nine years ago my parents took a package of documents to an office in Moscow. This was our application for an exit visa to leave the Soviet Union. More than two years would pass before the visa was granted, but from that day on I have felt a sense of precariousness wherever I have been, along with a sense of opportunity. They are a pair.” Link: http://www.nybooks.com/articles/2018/02/08/to-be-or-not-to-be/ Given the focus of this episode is on the future of U.S. global leadership, Peter suggests also digging into the similar debate happening on the other side of the pond around the future of EU global leadership and more specifically Germany’s role in it. He recommends starting with a recent policy essay by Hans Kundnani and Jana Puglierin entitled, “Atlanticist and ‘Post-Atlanticist’ Wishful Thinking,” which argues that those in favor of maintaining the status-quo in the transatlantic relationship are underestimating the current crises and “although it is true that Trump is not America, neither is the foreign policy establishment, as the Atlanticists seem to suggest.” Link: http://www.gmfus.org/publications/atlanticist-and-post-atlanticist-wishful-thinking And Jamie, as a former Capitol Hill staffer and lifelong Republican, points to President Trump’s first State of the Union address as a window into the “powerhouse presidency that might have been.” Link: https://www.c-span.org/video/?439496-1/president-trump-delivers-state-union-address Go In-depth… If you enjoyed this episode and want to learn more, we would recommend these pieces to start you off: One Year of President Trump: Views from Around the World: http://www.gmfus.org/publications/one-year-president-trump-views-around-world The Contested Global Landscape in Trump’s New Security Strategy: http://www.gmfus.org/blog/2017/12/20/contested-global-landscape-trumps-new-security-strategy The U.S.–France Special Relationship after a Year of Trump: http://www.gmfus.org/publications/us-france-special-relationship-after-year-trump

Jay Dyer returns to Our Interesting Times to discuss his third lecture on Carroll Quigley's Tragedy and Hope. We talk about the banker-financed Bolshevik Revolution, Stalinism, the rise of the Third Reich, power blocs, why Russia and Germany were problems for the Atlanticists, and why both continental powers needed to by destroyed. We also talk about the philosophical corruption that has taken over Western thought since the Enlightenment and how the hardcore Marxist model of the Communist East and Fabian model of the Capitalist West were designed by the Bankers to take humanity to the same dismal destination.

Lecture 3 of my series on the entirety of Quigley's Tragedy and Hope takes us into the period of the Bolshevik Revolution and the rise of Stalinism, as well as the rise of Hitler and the Nazis. In this talk, I cover Quigley's thesis, as well as my own insights about the occult dimensions of these buildups (he leaves out). Compared to Kerry Bolton's essay, we can understand how Russia and Germany were both Imperial problems for the Atlanticists, and how both needed to be destroyed for the success of the Western shadow empire, an occult empire.