Comments by "Major Moolah" (@majormoolah5056) on "GZERO Media"
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Very insightful as always, thank you so much. Some observations:
- Deep background for this event comes from the terror strikes during Francoise Hollande. That particular government changed the law when it came to shooting vehicles. You may remember the horrifying events when cars were driven into crowds. So this law is now showing its dark side.
- French are so tired of the violence on the streets that their sympathies currently go to the police rather than the rioters. There is an argument to be made that Macron is playing into this with his public response. He cannily made the pension protests more about the riots than the reform, which did work, but there is a shadow to that approach. I would say that after their failure with the pension reform, the French left has been weakened a good bit. Melanchon has turned to populist rhetoric partly in desperation. The French left in the parliament is very fragmented.
- Adding to the previous point, the parents of the victim were against the riots as well as Kylian Mbappe and other soccer stars with immigrant backgrounds. Also noteworthy was how the mayors protested in the streets. They tend to be the most popular French politicians.
- It was sociologically interesting, that these rioters were all very young and mostly, but not all, from the banlieue. A cynic might say that this in fact made it easier for the French society to unite against the rioting. But the political dimension of the riots was indeed not as serious as with Yellow Jackets or even the pension protests.
- Macron has spent a lot of time in Marseilles leading to this event. Improving that city has been a major domestic protest of his. Progress has been made in the banlieues but of course there is still a long way to go.
- Social media plays again a huge part. The protesters used it to organise and the far right has used it to spread their message of hate. More and more young in France also get their news from social media and not the traditional news.
- I would say Marine le Pen has not been able to capitalise to the pension protests as much as was expected. She has had a very scandalous inquiry into her connections to Putin, which weakened her. And the French government has been able to at least keep the protests from escalating in a way we have seen during Chirac or the Yellow Jackets. le Pen's polling is in the low 30's, same as Macron.
- The real danger for the next election is not le Pen. She might very well do what the far right has done in Sweden and Finland. Those parties have broadened their approach and tried to become more mainstream, while still maintaining their connections to the extremes. If le Pen finds a fresh face for the next election, there could be real trouble. On the other hand, Macron has had a solid grip on government and the criticism tends to be that he is out of touch and too strong. So do the French want to go even further and get an actual strongman? During the pension protests, le Pen failed to find a good message and tried to attack Macron for "not listening" which is weak indeed.
- But this is of course all bad and we can only debate on how bad it will ultimately be. Far right is having a moment across the Western world. Having a far-right leader in France would only be bad for Europe and the United States.
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I definitely have mixed feelings about this.
- US military has been raising concerns about the draw-down nature of this support. In essence, US has been very generous in giving materiel from their own arsenals and then the allotted money goes to replenishing these stockpiles. Since no one knew just how consuming these wars would be, Pentagon now has a very concerning backlog to get through. In particular, if US is drawn into a major land war, then this will be an actual problem.
- The REPO Act is insanity. Biden needs to block this, if no one else will. You do not want to undermine confidence in the US banking system right now. If US really does just hand over the frozen Russian money to Ukraine, then everyone from China to Morocco to Saudi Arabia will have to conclude that their deposits are not safe either. This is the most concerning part of this whole thing.
- Politically, this puts Ukraine into an absurd position. In practical terms, they are told to hold the line until the US election is over! I find this barbaric and poor strategy as well. My wish has been for a very long time that Washington takes the lead in finding a political solution to this mess, but this just digs the hole deeper.
- I do not see panic in Europe, quite the opposite in fact. The nature of this mess has made it abundantly clear that tethering your foreign policy to the whims of Washington is unwise, because Washington is moved by domestic concerns above all. That being said, I am totally against all the bellicosity coming from European leaders, Macron included.
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Though I will very much welcome Ian's analysis, I take umbrage with one thing. I know that telling the Americans "Economy perfect, military perfect, politics dysfunctional" just makes them wave their hand at the whole thing. The politics have in fact been dysfunctional for so long that people have begun to ignore them completely. The country has not fallen apart, so all must be well, right? Politics are basically imaginary and fake anyway, right? Well no. The US has a triple D-crisis: Debt, demographics, defence. These three are interwoven but if they cannot even be discussed, they do not exist. The debt problem is going to lead into a meltdown in 2030 at the latest if it is left to fester. US has a demographic problem also approaching in 2030 that is not anywhere in the conversation. When you add up Pentagon, nuclear weapons, intelligence agencies and veterans benefits, with support to foreign militaries, the sum total is a staggering $1,5 trillion! All that money has corrupted and militarised US foreign policy through and through. Yet no one wants to join the military anymore and those that do, come mainly from the old Confederate states. Does the US actually want to have a global military dominance when it is sucking blood from the homeland? And what would happen if US were to scale back this empire of 800 overseas military bases? These are the long term issues that Americans should care about, but the conversation is in different topics altogether.
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The summit was mostly pointless. There was no strategic vision from the United States, which was something that many were waiting for. Possibly Biden wants to roll out the big guns in Washington next year to coincide with his election campaign. Who knows anything at this point. Some other observations:
- Swedish accession is not yet guaranteed. The F-16 trade has to go through Congress and going through Congress can mean anything. A cynic might say that Erdogan will wait for the result first. If the Congress says no, then Erdogan will have the Turkish Parliament say no to Sweden as well. The probability may be low, but this is a strange time in world affairs.
- I can understand that the national interest of USA means that they do not want to fight Russia in Ukraine. But does that mean they will actually go to a nuclear war over Estonia, Lithuania or Finland? I do not believe they would. Article 5 does not technically mean automatic war declaration, though it is interpreted like that.
- I've said before that Ankara holds Washington in contempt and once again the weakness of American influence over Turkey was on full display. Erdogan had no right to ask for anything. Yet Sweden was forced to amend their constitution, among other things. It is fairly obvious that Washington knew about all this and told Sweden to go along.
- The purpose of NATO is to defend Europe against Russia. But now Ukraine is literally fighting Russia and in the process defending Europe. If USA really does not want to bring them in, then what is the purpose of NATO? No one was expecting immediate accession. But a strategic decision and a road map from Biden were something he needed to deliver. Instead we mostly got the reaffirmation of 2008 Bucharest.
- Again we saw how Biden and Stoltenberg want to stretch NATO to cover a Taiwan contingency. This is absolutely deplorable. Moving the goal posts of the alliance is completely out of the question.
- Biden's speech at Vilnius and his press conference in Finland were highly uncomfortable to listen. He is clearly having issues. In his recent CNN interview with Fareed Zakaria, which is the ideal environment for a world leader, he again had problems with coherence. Very unsettling.
- The German dependence on American decision-making is shocking. Merkel endured tremendous criticism for not bringing Ukraine into NATO. But now Scholz is again saying "no" together with the Americans! Considering Scholz's decisions in office, it is clear he gets his directions from Washington. Germany is a giant in many regards, but they are a foreign policy dwarf. Having transatlantic ties is a good thing, but this has gone too far.
- In the 2010s there was an intense debate about the purpose of NATO. The main criticism was that it has become a politicized organisation that USA uses to maintain their grip over the Europeans. That debate stopped last year. It may be that we need to start it again. Foreign policy aims and national interests of US, Europe and Turkey have diverged a great deal over time.
- Ukraine joining the EU is still decades away. The foundational treaties would have to be remanded. That is an old debate as well. EU has grown to the point that it needs a reform if it wants to grow more and take on new tasks as well. The other thing is of course money. They way EU payments work, if Ukraine indeed joined, the discrepancy in wealth would mean all other members would become net contributors and Ukraine would be the only beneficiary! That is clearly absurd to say the least. There are other important questions as well, including European Parliament voting and agricultural subsidies and so on. Ukraine is a very big country and making it a part of EU may not be in our interests. So it goes.
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There is literally zero chance that Trump will get a frozen conflict in Ukraine. Zero.
- Firstly, Putin and Lavrov have repeatedly said that they are not interested in freezing the conflict. If they wanted a frozen conflict, they could have gotten it two years ago. Instead they have only increased the military pressure. More recently, Putin has made it manifestly clear that he has pre-conditions for peace talks: Ukraine agrees to never join NATO and will put pen to paper to give Russians the territory they hold.
- Secondly, Trump has no leverage on EU, Ukraine or Russia. US military forces in Europe are so small that if Trump threatened to withdraw them, it would have only a symbolic effect. Europeans have already put in $40 billion into the pot on military aid for 2025. This is a done deal. Economic assistance is also there. You may recall the $50 billion US package that stalled in Congress for six months. Recently, Zelensky said that only about $5 billion reached Ukraine during 2024. So Trump cutting off Ukraine does not mean anything. Russia has already been expelled from SWIFT and US has put maximum sanctions on them. Nothing that Trump could add to that, so he has nothing but words to offer.
- Thirdly, only an absolute fool would trust any verbal agreement with the Americans. If Putin were to accept a frozen conflict, US would only start training and arming Ukraine for the next war. Back in happier times, H.W. Bush promised Gorbachev that NATO would never expand to Russia. Big, fat lie. Beyond that, if Democrats win in 2028 they will obviously cancel any agreement with Russia and go back on war footing with Russia, if there is an absence of a written agreement. Why would Putin want to deal with US over Europe anyway? Clearly, from his perspective dealing with Europe has much more promise of returning to normal relations.
Americans are living in fantasyland, in other words, where they believe that magic will bring back the status quo of US leadership in Europe. The other big takeaway from the election is that Americans gave Trump a resounding mandate. It is clear that Trump represents the United States in words and deed and that this is who the Americans are now.
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Most thinking people are more concerned about the future at this point, rather than October 7th. Because from the outside, the American strategy looks like this:
1. Unconditional support for Israel, including free weapons and amnesty for any war crimes.
2. Bully and bribe the region so Israel can work in peace.
3. Use allies and partners to clean up the mess.
Egypt and Jordan are in particular unwilling to go along, because they do not want anymore Palestinian refugees than they already have. Who can blame them? But beyond that, no one believes that US can bring about a political solution, because we have seen that Washington can bring zero pressure to bear on Israel. You could only have a two-state solution if Israel was pressured to pull out their settlers from the West Bank. Too much time has passed. Everyone believes that this "two-state solution" is just a smoke screen. How can you even combine Gaza and West Bank into one state anyway? You cannot. Beyond that, Israeli public in fact supports Netanyahu in his current course of action and has no appetite for one- or two-state solution. What Ian neglected to mention was that in Ukraine, only USA, Europe and a few like-minded democracies were ever on board. To the outside, it was obvious that pushing NATO into Ukraine was a bad idea to begin with. And now US is accelerating that development. How are you ever going to have any credibility in the Global South ever again? 10,000 civilians killed in Ukraine in this was is a crime in a way that 10,000 Palestinians are not? How does that compute? How can you say the Uighur situation is genocide or apartheid when this is not? You cannot. USA could do this because it was once so powerful it could ignore others. The other day the ambassador Chas Freeman had a good line: US has developed the Caligula foreign policy -- Let them hate us, as long as they fear us.
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Here is a bleak number for you. US took on $700 billion national debt in the last six weeks. If you annualize that, you got a $5 trillion yearly deficit! Here is another bleak number for you. In the last jobs report, US lost 35,000 manufacturing jobs, despite all the talk about "re-industrializing America." And the number of people with multiple jobs is at a record high! Between all the government hires and multiple jobs, yeah you get big job numbers but that is not the whole truth. Credit card debt is at record highs too, at $1 trillion I believe, not to mention delinquencies that are also rising. We have had during every presidential cycle since 1945 at least massive stimulus spending to make the economy look good! You can go back and check, its one of those crazy features of the US political system. And then you have high inflation rates and a recession -- but with the presidential cycle the recession is in the election year -- so Biden takes on debt and spends money, which boosts inflation! I cannot understand these political scientists who look at the GDP growth and then basically say that people are too negative to understand how great the economy is, when almost everyone is living paycheck to paycheck. I have not even gotten into the absolute monster bond auctions we need in 2024. I would be incredibly surprised if we do not have a deep recession or worse next year.
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Many of the whistleblowers of the recent years have all been concerned about the paramilitary role the CIA in particular has taken. During the War on Terror, CIA took on the role of killing people. They hired from the military but were outside the military. That is so dangerous on so many levels. CIA does not answer to the Congress in any meaningful way. Even their budget is classified! If the US President decides to use CIA to kill someone then no one will know and no one is responsible. This is, surprisingly, bad for the agency itself.
Traditionally CIA has been used in a human intelligence role, generating information for policy makers. But when their mandate was changed to include torture and murder, their culture and capabilities deteriorated. Violence dehumanizes both the victim and perpetrator, in different ways. During the War on Terror, CIA became reliant on technical sources also mentioned in the video. But US has other agencies that do that sort of thing. CIA was focused on electronic surveillance and killing people, to the point that they often had no sources inside the organisations they were supposed to fight! If you are completely reliant on eavesdropping conversations, it is very hard to understand the context and nuance.
I'm also thinking back to Nord Stream. If the US President decides that blowing up infrastructure in Europe should be done, then he can easily do it. If his reasoning is that cutting off Russian gas for good mean that US becomes the primary gas source for Europe, increasing their dependency and making US energy sector some money, without no one ever knowing, well then -- what is the harm? Giving even a democratically elected leader too much power can be very corruptive.
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- Europe wants a stable post-war Ukraine over a total military victory. There have been reports of political instability in Ukraine and their economy is of course in shambles. The sooner the peace process begins, the sooner the refugees can start moving back and the cheaper the reconstruction will be.
- USA paid for this war so they in essence own the outcome. Biden said many times he wants Ukraine to take back all their territory and that the whole "rules-based order" hinges on this war. Turns out this was a bad strategy.
- Ukraine made the future offensive into a media event over the last 8 months or so. They did it to get more material support from the west. In the process, this offensive is not only heavily telegraphed, it is basically a huge political event as well.
- Russia has of course been planning for this offensive for a long time now. Both armies have been trying to cause attrition to one another in preparation. Ukraine air defences in particular have suffered.
- If Ukraine manages to take back a city, let us say Melitopol, that will of course be a big thing. But it will cost them dearly regardless. Russians can still put on a credible defence. So after the offensive, there will be another long period of grind and Ukraine will then want more materiel for the next offensive 6-8 months after this one. The Americans in particular are not going to pay. The Europeans theoretically might give enough to keep Ukraine in the defensive game. But I doubt that as well.
- There were some voices after the two great victories that said that the negotiations need to happen now. Mark Milley and Emmanuel Macron in particular. But there was so much backlash amid the euphoria, that it went nowhere. In retrospect, we should have heard the message from Biden.
- Putin is happy to make peace if he gets to keep his territory and also give credit of the peace deal over to China... because that undermines USA.
- Going back to Macron... he had a phone call with Biden before and after his three-day meeting with Xi. After his controversial message, John Kirby was asked to respond and he only praised the bilateral relationship with France and all the security cooperation they make. There was no public backlash against Macron from any political leaders. It was all in the media and academia. Clearly there is something here. If you look at the diplomatic networks France has in the world, it is clear they are a player. They have the second largest amount of diplomats and they are heavily involved in just about all the international organisations out there. I have read some interesting essays on great power competition. Because the American slice of the pie is smaller in relation to others, we will see a rise of the middle level players. France might overreach and collapse, but they are not to be ignored as Americans tend to do.
- If it really turns out that American and NATO support does not win the war and China can come in to make peace, it will change the balance in European security. American security guarantees are not as absolute as they were in 1995. Europe wants to have a relationship with China for commercial reasons but for the Russian card as well. And of course Europeans will finally have to take their own security more seriously. We will also have to see how this peace scenario plays into the 2024 elections. American voters only care about foreign policy when it fails.
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As an European, I would certainly vote for Biden. But the big question are the swing states. If the US economy is really headed for a hard time, as US economists believe, then it looks bad. In Wisconsin, Arizona, Georgia and Pennsylvania times are tough for many. Many of those Covid programs that helped are winding down. If the prices at the pump are high and the Republicans have a good campaign, then God help us all. We also have the Ukraine War. Biden has certainly done many things right, but he never really laid out an ending for the war. In all his public statements, he has always been very gung-ho and total victory. "Putin can end this war by withdrawing all his forces" is an understandable sentiment, but not very concrete. That is very unfortunate for us Europeans.
Because it has been clear for a long time now that there needs to be a negotiated settlement with Putin. A frozen conflict or a Balkan-style failure of Ukraine would be extremely bad for us. So then we get to the unfortunate situation where Xi is the only one who can pressure Putin to a sustainable peace instead of a frozen conflict. For some reason Ukrainians have been very positive towards Xi as well. Having Xi be the mediator is a terrifying prospect, but he will probably do it just to undermine USA. But if you look at the budgetary realities, Europe cannot keep this war going in 2024 and beyond. Look at the number of refugees. United Nations Security Council continues to be paralyzed. But maybe the mediator could come from there, who knows. If Xi manages to score a peace deal before the 2024 election, then Trump will very easily play on that.
Before you go calling Macron a traitor and so on, it should be noted that for months he went to great lengths to be the mediator. But the traditional Francophobe attitudes as well as the failed Minsk agreements made that impossible. Even worse, for some reason the United States took a very strange role in their messaging. Essentially they tried to create an West-versus-East division. It is very probable that Macron's desire to create a "third superpower" led to the American desire to undermine him. I am not privy to Mr. Biden's private conversations, but I looked very many relevant press conferences and read a tremendous amount of US political press and this is my impression of it. So it goes in politics. In their desire to have a more pliable Europe as it pertains to China led to undermining Macron which then led to Macron having to extend an olive branch to Xi. Again, the EU budgetary realities are not there for a long war. But because "French are perfidious" we get this mess instead. And then we in Europe might have to deal with Trump again. I do not think this whole mess ultimately falls on Biden alone, but my concerns for the quality of American leadership these past 22 years or so are getting ever more stark.
I do understand that the prospect of Trump returning changes everyone's calculus. We all have to hedge against Trump. Ironically, this makes things harder for Biden which in turns makes it more probable for Trump to return. Biden has a very difficult situation and we do hope he navigates it to victory.
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You should listen to Jeffrey Sachs and Ray McGovern for insight into why the Ukraine War happened in the first place. They have expertise and senior level connections into the whole situation. Then, if you want deep background into American geostrategy, you should read The Grand Chessboard by Brzezinski. And if your sanity can endure, the works of Robert Kagan. Then we should also mention Madeleine Albright and her speeches and writings in the 1990s. And finish with the leaked memo "Nyet Means Nyet" by William Burns, then diplomat, now head of CIA.
Suffice to say, this war was created by 32 years of American foreign policy. Expand NATO eastwards and develop bulwarks against Russian influence in a very 19th-century way, mixed with Cold War containment. Senior American officials, Europeans, Russians and Ukrainians themselves kept saying that this is insanity. At some point expanding NATO into Ukraine will lead into war. Yet the Americans kept pressing. We have audio recordings proving that Victoria Nuland engineered the Ukrainian coup in 2014. We should also remember how the Americans funded and supported Ukrainian neo-Nazis and other far right forces. John McCain even shared a stage with them. If you know Russian politics, then you know that fascism in Eastern Europe will drive them crazy. That is very likely what the Americans intended.
Then we had the 2014 peace negotiations. Obama said "count me out" and made France and Germany the guarantors of that peace. But the then-Prime Minister of Ukraine slipped a poison pill into the accords: only after the rebels disarm and surrender, can the peace talks begin. Suffice to say, that killed the whole thing. Obama also trained Ukrainian soldiers and otherwise increased NATO presence in Ukraine. Classic Obama foreign policy: find the muddled middle. I would say that Obama realised that the peace will fail and that will then fall on Merkel and Sarkozy. And that this creates divisions inside Europe. During the early months of the war, there was a massive media blitz from the American side: East Europe was right to distrust Putin, weak Western Europe is kowtowing to tyrants.
There were in fact peace talks in March 2022. Zelensky literally came out and said that Ukraine can be neutral. These talks were guaranteed by Turkey and there was an Israeli negotiator involved. The peace agreement reached its sixth draft when the Americans threw it out. They said that there will be a military solution to this. So now here we are. USA does not have the industrial base to give the Ukrainians what they need to win. Biden cannot find a negotiated settlement, because after 32 years of NATO-related lies, Russians cannot trust anything he says. And in Vilnius it became crystal clear that Americans will never let Ukraine into NATO.
Currently 20% of Ukrainian brigades marked for the counter-offensive are lost. 40% is still engaged and another 40% in reserve. Over the last year, the Russians have retrained, reorganised and re-equipped. In the east of Ukraine, 100,000 Russian soldiers have amassed with hundreds of tanks and vehicles and so on. Russians will very likely launch an offensive of their own, once the Ukrainians have sent in and lost their strategic reserves. There have been absolutely horrifying videos from the front, where Ukrainians are given a week of training and then sent into the fight. Putin has no reason to negotiate, because at this point he might as well go in. There is nothing to lose by pressing on, but there is very much to lose by quitting. Why would he just suddenly end the war and let Ukraine enter NATO? Military experts and those with contacts into Russian elites say that Russia will very likely take all the parts of Ukraine that have an ethnic-Russian majority. Makes sense, because the ethnic hatred created in 2014 and the related violence are one key reason for this war. So this means that Russia will push forward until the Dnepr River. Then they might very well take Odessa if they can, because this will ensure that Ukraine becomes a failed state that cannot join EU or NATO.
There can be no doubt that the underlying reason for this war is NATO expansion into Ukraine. This was the American strategy, clearly laid out. The only question is, was this conflict created purposefully by the American foreign policy establishment. I believe it was. USA has a very long tradition of creating these conflicts and making regime changes. The Soviet-Afghan War was started in large part by the Islamist extreme, who the Americans were funding. We know now that they calculated that this would pull the Russians in. At no point has Biden publicly stated that he even wants to win this war and he has never given Ukraine enough to do so. Just to maintain. Ukraine winning would mean nuclear war. So why has Biden so stubbornly pushed for this? Even when he held the Ukraine portfolio during the Obama administration, he was an ultra-hawk. Smart money says that the Americans calculated that this war will weaken Russia fatally, destabilize EU with the joining of a huge and dysfunctional Ukraine, make US the energy provider of Germany and finally strengthen NATO once more. Let Europe deal with the mess. This whole thing was an American proxy war, Cold War-style, and it shows how utterly empty and violent the American foreign policy is. There is no rules-based international order because USA alone makes, enforces and breaks the rules as it sees fit. Let the horrifying parasite finally fall and die.
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With the latest aid package, Europe has now put in twice as much as US. US got great return on their investment as well. 60% of European Peace Facility money going to Ukraine went to American arms manufacturers. All those long-term, exorbitantly expensive LNG contracts are a part of the American design as well. There are now 18 countries operating the F-35, 10 of them being European. According to US Government Accountability Office as well as Pentagon, the F-35 is still too unsafe to enter mass production. All those missile defences in the European Sky Shield have success rate of 0.2, which to say they two incoming threats out of ten.
Because the European politicians were naïve enough to sign on to all this, Trump now has incredible leverage over European countries. He can afford to say what he says, because we have entered into structural dependencies. Biden knows all this. In fact, he wanted to increase European dependencies to their absolute maximum. Biden can afford to boast that he blew up the Nord Stream because that is what you get with dependencies. US has been buying Russian uranium from Rosatom all the while Germany has been in decline. United States is a parasite. They wanted the Ukraine War in part for "divide and conquer" in Europe, in part for corporate greed.
I find it fascinating how the Americans operate. They pressured Pistorius to say that the ammunition target will be unmet. Then down the way they pressured Czechs to say "we should buy outside the EU." EU did give 850,000 shells out of a target of million. That is very impressive but that is not the narrative. United States is a sclerotic parasite.
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US currently has sanctions against 3+ billion people. Billion with a B. So the Global South has a very good reason to get rid of their Dollar Overlords. There are other reasons as well: Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, Libya, Venezuela, Yemen and Ukraine. US has been the main driver for these disasters that absolutely radiate instability in their respective regions. No one benefits from US security hegemony anymore. There have been polls in South Korea and Japan where most of the young see USA as the main threat to their security and future. Who can blame them? US currently has 800 military bases across the world and these bases are absolutely being used as diplomatic leverage.
I do not think BRICS is going to create their own Euro anytime soon. But I do foresee the world getting ever more disillusioned and exhausted with the American hegemony. What will probably happen is that players like Saudi Arabia and China are gradually going to stop buying US treasury bonds. Considering the trajectory of US deficit and debt, that is going to create tremendous problems for the Americans. If you add up Pentagon budget, nuclear weapons, intelligence agencies and military aid to allies like Israel, it is around 1,5 trillion at the moment. The entire budget is close to 6 trillion with a 1,2 trillion deficit. That is completely unsustainable. BRICS and others are simply going to look at that and say "We are not going to finance this destabilizing hegemon anymore." Which is what they probably should do, from their perspective. Medicaid and Social Security will become insolvent in the 2030s. The interest payments are going to be bigger that the Pentagon budget in the 2030s as well. By some metrics 25% of Americans live in poverty and life expectancy has been dropping for 20 years as well. US is doing very badly at home. All that 30+ trillion in debt went to wars and various emergencies from 2008 to the pandemic. As a consequence the US public health, education and infrastructure are absolutely decrepit.
China does not want a war with USA because they are simply looking at the US federal budget and conclude that they are going to win economically. Which they will do. Wealth inequality in USA is far worse than in 1929 and the underlying economy is nowhere near as robust as it was then. I think 70% or so is consumer spending and 10% or so is manufacturing. European manufacturing base is stronger than the American one, in fact. Which is probably why US blew up Nord Stream and put in the IRA subsidies. They are desperate. I would call the American problem the Hegemonic Cycle. They need to maintain security hegemony to maintain dollar dominance, because otherwise their economy would collapse under the costs of maintaining dollar dominance. But that is all coming to a close. Ukraine War has really showed us how weak and chaotic the formerly all-powerful colonial overlord actually is. USA cannot defeat China because USA is too weak to defeat Russia. No one will miss American hegemony once it collapses in the 2030s.
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I have something to share about the European tech sector, courtesy of Le Monde, June 13, 2023.
"The key figures are well known: European tech is a $3 trillion industry, with an annual growth rate of 27 % since 2015. More than 300 companies valued at over $1 billion have been founded in Europe, from a diverse base of 29 countries...
The flow of emerging high-tech companies is almost equal to that in the United States. Both regions now create the same amount of new start-ups each year. Thirty per cent of all global funding for early-stage companies went to European start-ups, compared with 36% for the US. This gap has halved in five years. What's more, Europe is showing greater dynamism, with a compound annual growth rate of 24% over the last 10 years, compared with 4% in the US. At this rate, Europe will overtake the US in five years' time...
The flow of emerging high-tech companies is almost equal to that in the United States. Both regions now create the same amount of new start-ups each year. Thirty per cent of all global funding for early-stage companies went to European start-ups, compared with 36% for the US. This gap has halved in five years. What's more, Europe is showing greater dynamism, with a compound annual growth rate of 24% over the last 10 years, compared with 4% in the US. At this rate, Europe will overtake the US in five years' time...
Europe has twice as many software developers as the US, and boasts four of the world's top 10 technical universities (compared with three in the US). This provides a solid base for Europe to become a leader in artificial intelligence (AI) and other cutting-edge technologies – 18% of the world's AI research talent is in Europe, compared with 20% in the US..."
So I hope you had the chance to read that. There is a wonderful tech show in Paris called VivaTech. I highly recommend you look it up. The Eurozone crisis caused a Lost Decade in European tech, but during these last five years or so things have changed completely. I could make a separate post about the European defence industry... but if you want one example, EU shipbuilders are now the leading exporters of military vessels by a wide margin. US Navy is also buying European, by way of the Constellation-class frigate.
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There is certainly a lot to unpack.
- It seems Washington is repeating the Ukraine playbook. Keep the fighting contained and pour in money and weapons. There is no political solution anywhere in sight. Just total war until total victory. Or in the case of Ukraine, total defeat. US Senate has been totally unified in their support of the Israeli war effort. I believe it was senator Cotton who said "make the rubble bounce in Gaza."
- Hezbollah will not allow the existential destruction of Hamas. And then Iran will not allow the existential destruction of Hezbollah. It is a case of chained security guarantees, you could say. States will go to war, if the alternative is total loss of credibility. And now US is in the same problem. Because they seem to be just threatening Iran to not get involved, so now Biden has to live up to his guarantees. It is recipe for disaster.
- US sent the 101st Airbourne from Romania into Jordan. We saw during the Ukraine War that US troop deployment in Europe was too small to defeat the Russian military in a conventional scenario. And now they have moved ground forces AWAY from Europe. The two carrier strike groups cannot play a decisive role in any major ground war scenario. Besides, the potential adversaries in the area now have the tools to threaten US Navy vessels. Now that IDF called in the reservists, Israel army outnumber the US Army. Everything we see underlines the rapid decline of American hard power.
- Blinken is just as feckless as Pompeo, if less thuggish. No one in the Muslim world was interested in his tour.
- von der Leyen tried to lead Europe into total support of Israel, but attracted only controversy in return. She tried to be the leader of European foreign policy, which is clearly outside her portfolio. Borrell and Michel, who actually lead EU foreign policy, were against her as well. One of the major problems of the EU for the last 20 years have been US-sponsored candidates in major positions. Hopefully von der Leyen will be the last of her kind.
- I have no idea why Macron would talk about the ISIS-coalition as a blueprint for fighting Hamas. Maybe the impossibility of the idea is the point? Domestically, Macron is caught between Jews and Muslims so there is basically nothing he can do here. I will say that Israel has not been a good friend. To get the Abraham Accords, US recognised Moroccan sovereignty over Western Sahara. This is a frozen problem going back over 50 years. US actions have made it much more likely that Morocco and Algeria will finally turn their old, cold war into a hot one. Israel also sold the King of Morocco some Pegasus spyware, which was then used to spy on France. Moroccans and the French have deep ties on all levels, but this all has caused a major diplomatic crisis. Besides, France is an important player in the Muslim world in general. There is virtually no geopolitical upside in working with US to support Israel against the Arabs. It should also be mentioned that Israel has provided Russia the tools for their current, very advanced drone program from 2014 forwards.
- I was utterly stunned about Ian's remarks about Ukraine and NATO. For over 20 years US has maintained the goal of getting Ukraine into NATO. Just look at W. Bush in Bucharest. Russia literally said before the invasion that their goal was to keep Ukraine neutral. And US said "open door policy" and said Russia has no right to ask for anything. Absolutely stunning. Europe has always been against bringing Ukraine into NATO, in order to not provoke a war. And we saw in Vilnius the policy reversed. Only US and their pawn Scholz were against giving Ukraine a path into NATO. Lies after lies after lies. Any goodwill earned in 2022 will burn out when Israel crushes Gaza. There needs to be a peace forum with all regional players and great powers represented so we can finally find a lasting political solution. But US is saying "Israel -- right or wrong" while paying lip service to Palestinian dead. It will not fly anymore. The world has irrevocably changed.
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This is truly a layered disaster.
- Mr. Biden has apparently chosen to unconditionally support Israel in public and then privately influence them... with rhetoric only it seems. It is remarkable how he misjudged Netanyahu and the people around him. For Netanyahu, this war is existential on a personal level. He does not want to go to jail so he has nothing to lose. The people around him are violent ethno-nationalists. Various ministers have been genocidal in their pronouncements and they are allowed to stay in place. They have no reason to respond to any rhetorical pressure, considering that they want Greater Israel at any cost. Besides, Israel needs to show strength to restore deterrence and credibility. Overwhelming military force is what they have always done.
- Netanyahu could very well stay in office -- or at the very least it cannot be ruled out. Israel has been prosperous under his tenure and while the Israeli people may dislike Netanyahu's legislation, they wholeheartedly support what he does. The anti-Netanyahu protests have in fact disappeared.
- There will be no two-state solution. Israel would never create a state that could present it with a security challenge. For demographic reasons, Israel would never accept a one-state solution. Very likely Israel will continue down the current path of purging and expelling the Palestinians. Trying to get Muslim nations on board in Gaza somehow is a total fantasy. Even if they are monarchs, the Arab leaders cannot ignore popular opinion to that degree.
- Mr. Biden cannot do anything other than what he is doing. He cannot allow a ceasefire because if an attack takes place during that ceasefire, he will lose on the domestic stage. Israeli lobby is truly legendary for their ability to affect election results. Netanyahu very likely calculates that Biden is a man of the past already and that Mr. Trump will support Israel no matter what. So Netanyahu can afford to say and do whatever he wants. This is all contrary to actual US political interests. Americans are seen as genocidal for giving the weapons and impotent for the ineffectual rhetorical positioning. This will have a very significant effect on US foreign policy for a very long time.
- It remains to be seen if US can remain as the security guarantor of the region. US is trying to suppress news on the attacks on American personnel in Syria and Iraq, which again indicates weakness. There would have to be a response of some sort, a show of force. Now that de-dollarization is gaining traction, it would be good for US strategists to remind themselves of the petro-dollar.
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USA has 50,000 soldiers in Japan and 24,000 in South Korea. If USA tells these two nations, who have a complex history, to do as they are told... they will do as they are told. China is the most important trading partner for both so it would be much better to remain peaceful, even neutral, with China and cultivate economic ties. USA is more or less seen as an imperialist bully trying to contain China militarily. I would say that currently the biggest threat to world peace is the American strategy against China. Clearly USA is putting together an alliance that will trigger all the remaining US allies against China if and when a war breaks out. Europe, Canada, Australia, South Korea, Japan and maybe Singapore will be sucked in. Rest of the world thinks USA is basically a threat, which it increasingly is. Ian should sometime do a video on how US is militarizing Australia and edging them closer to a nuclear weapon base. I am willing to bet good money that even among the democratic allies, you are going to see a movement away from USA, because being dominated by USA is becoming such a liability.
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Such a tragedy. Horrifying acts by Hamas. Ironic that Ian should mention Bush and 9/11. We have learned after the fact from people like Lawrence Wilkerson, who wrote Colin Powell's infamous UN speech, that before the Al-Qaeda attack there were many senior people in the security state who in fact were planning for wars in the Middle East and were wishing for a "Pearl Harbour to galvanize the American public." Does not mean Cheney and Rumsfeld planned the attacks and carried them out, but it makes the subsequent events far more understandable. The historical moment unleashed the worst impulses of the worst people.
How does that relate to today? Well, we also know now that many current and former members of Mossad were in fact supporting the protests against Netanyahu. Ian of course mentioned that Israeli military were also striking, meaning people as high up as pilots and even Special Forces. Why? Because Netanyahu and the people in his government are not the people to lead Israel through an Intifada. There are violent extremists making decisions there. Already an Israel Army spokesman said that this will be a long, bloody conflict but Israel will prevail and Gaza will be a part of Israel in the end. Netanyahu has already claimed that a "huge price" will be exacted. We are headed for even greater tragedies. Because there is no contest between the IDF and Palestine militias. It will be a bloodbath. If this indeed is a war, shouldn't there be an official declaration of war against Palestine and then give enemy combatants the rights agreed in Geneva Accords? I very much doubt Netanyahu would ever go there. Bush decided to use the military to end terrorism, which was a terrible decision. Yet we are now repeating the mistake. I want to see proof before accusing Netanyahu for allowing these attacks to happen, but I have no doubt that he will use the patriotic moment to further his authoritarian agenda.
I rarely say this, but I have to agree with the Saudis about the Israeli policies. They have been inching ever close to apartheid. Some time ago IDF were given orders to shoot Palestinians approaching the various roadblocks in the kneecaps. Netanyahu has been brutal against the Palestinians for a very long time now. No matter how much love we have for Israel, the progress towards an apartheid state has been profoundly unwise from the political leadership. There are many, many Israelis who are tired of the violence and want to see an end to it. Besides, many Israeli citizens today are Arabs by ethnicity. When IDF inevitably kills civilians, this will cause further political rifts in the Israeli society. Terrible times ahead.
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There are five nations that still have not put forward a carbon neutral by 2050 plan. It includes places like Haiti and Yemen... and of course the United States of America. There is exactly zero chance that USA will ever regulate its own tech companies or get into a global organisation that would regulate them. Zero chance. Over the last 20 years USA has withdrawn from all nuclear weapons treaties and has indeed expanded on their nuclear arsenal. Obama put over a trillion into expanding and updating that nuclear arsenal. US defence analysts are currently talking about putting tactical nuclear weapons on Navy assets.
We also know that US Navy is currently testing automated drones in the Pacific, ones that operate in the sea. Because US military recruiting is in a historic crisis and is missing its recruitment targets by as much as 25%, Pentagon is doubling down on the automated battlefield. They should be able to take human decision out of the kill chain in the 2020s, if they have not already done so. China has more people and ships so they would be willing to regulate AI-based weapons. USA feels it needs something to even the odds and accordingly will pursue every advantage. Besides, look at all the treaties USA is not a part of. Open Skies, International Criminal Court, United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea and so on. Why would Washington go into a global regulatory body that would entail power sharing?
US strategic culture is totally opposed to international treaties and regulating the private sector. It is nice to have academic discourse, but you would have to change American political culture to get there. And that will not happen. USA wants to rule, not to lead. It is up to the Europeans to lead in ethical AI. Climate change and nuclear weapons are known quantities, yet USA fails to lead again and again. Their inability to regulate US corporations has led to massive oligopolies, especially in the tech sector. That lobbying power is a key reason why US tech regulation has never had any teeth and why it will never grow them.
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Academics love these imaginary threshold. "Last Saturday, a new era began." But we have seen the symbiotic relationship between the tech elites and political elites for decades now. Clinton slashed regulation and pumped in public money into the rising tech sector and used all his power to get them their oligopoly. Obama's security state could not have existed without the extensive support of the tech companies. And in the last 15 years, this relationship has only deepened. There was extensive social media suppression against Trump in the last election. Think what you will of Trump, that is an unhealthy relationship. But is this something new somehow? US domestic politics has been a plutocracy for decades now. Back when Clinton was working on NATO expansion, Lockheed Martin was a part of the committee! That is not a joke either, that is what literally happened. Lockheed wanted to sell weapons to the former Warsaw Pact countries and they got what they wanted. The biggest reasons for the Ukraine War was getting the Europeans to buy more US weapons and US energy and then snatch up European manufacturing when Germany in particular loses its ability to compete.
You can go even further back to Smedley Butler, the war hero who in later life became a peace activist after he realised that he had been a "a gangster for capitalism." Just look at Big Pharma and Biden. Biden is desperately trying to negotiate to get medicine prices down a bit, that is literally the extent of his power and even this is too much for him. The corporate elites want no taxes and no regulation and they want US foreign policy to advance their interests abroad. And they are getting everything they want. Big Tech is not different in any meaningful way. The mistake Ian is making that he thinks developing technology will somehow make you separate from existing culture and power structures. And that is nonsense. Big Tech leaders are part of the ruling elite and that is where they get their views from. Amazon, Uber, Facebook and others increase their profits with suppressing the labour movement and coordinating labour practices. 60% of the middle-class Americans' wages go now to rent. And why is that? Because these oligopolies are buying up all the residential real estate. Corporate profits have absolutely skyrocketed during this inflation and everything else, and even the President is helpless.
What scares me as a European is that we know full well how much USA interferes in elections and domestic policy of everyone they can. We will very likely see USA using their new AI tools and their incestuous relationship with Big Tech to replace actual democracy with US foreign policy objectives. The United States has a plutocratic domestic policy and an authoritarian foreign policy. So as the US democracy becomes more and more dysfunctional and US loses more and more of their economic and technological edge... they will increase their oppression of their remaining allies. Look at Australia and how the Taiwanese War is being sold to them. We will see more of this and even less of any regulation or even taxation of big business. God only knows why Ian is not speaking out about any of this. Maybe the Eurasia Group is financed by the same polluted money that finances all the think tanks that simply produce supremacist propaganda.
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Cohabitation would only happen if the National Rally got an outright majority in the National Assembly and Jordan Bardella would then be made prime minister. That is incredibly unlikely. First, NR would need to triple the amount of seats it now has. Second, the European Parliament election is nation-wide, has a much lower turnout than parliamentary elections and is typically a protest vote against the incumbent, as in other European countries. The chances of Le Pen getting a coalition with the other right-wing parties is also very very low.
The big thing to watch are Les Républicains. Their leader, Eric Ciotti, made a very big leap in promising a coalition with LR and NR. That did not go well with the LR leadership, at all. The two parties have very different programs and voter bases, as well as hostile histories. In effect, Ciotti went against his own for electoral reasons, which will not play well. We will see how badly LR splits. If it does in fact fall apart in two, Macron will scoop up the defectors on his side.
The left-wing coalition, NUPES, did have a good showing in 2022, but they then fell apart in the European elections and their renewed coalition (or "front") is looking very shaky in practice. There could be defectors to Macron's camp as well. The logic behind the snap election seems to be for Macron to split up both the left and the right and motivate the French to vote against Le Pen. We will see how it plays out, but it is audacious.
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Macron and Attal are going to win this thing. Here is why:
- Domestic elections are about economy. Macron is called "president of the rich" but the good side of that is that the big tycoons support him and will finance his campaign even on a short notice. Now that Les Républicains imploded, the pro-business vote in France has nowhere else to go. This alone will seal the deal.
- Attal is a very good performer and a friendly face for the pro-business, law-and-order Macronism of 2024. Even if you are centre-left, you can see Attal as the Prime Minister.
- Police unions and the military types support Macron. Darmanin is also fairly popular in these circles and the ruling party has been able to face down riots without too much violence. I would say the law-and-order types will vote for the ruling coalition. Macron is generally seen as a strong leader abroad, which the right wing types also like.
- Macron has managed to frame the election as "The far right has plunged France into danger" which is much better than, say, a vote of no confidence on the next budget.
- Not even 50% of his own coalition want to see Mélenchon as the next Prime Minister, let alone 50% of France. He is such a curse on the French Left.
- Jordan Bardell has to be the most overvalued stock in European politics. He is good on the social media with the young women, but no adult wants to see him holding the purse strings for the next three years. Whenever Bardell goes off script into adult politics, he comes off as totally ignorant. Expect him to lose to Attal in debates just as badly as in the EU elections. Bardell is a 28-year old college dropout and the French will not give the purse strings to him.
- What is Le Pen going to run on, exactly? During the pension protests she demanded Macron's resignation. Now she accepts the reform. She cannot attack Macron on immigration because she supported Macron's immigration reform, in what has to be the greatest blunder of her political career. The only avenue is the cost of living, but then she would have to convince France that her party is better for the economy than Macron. Unless she can somehow conjure a very convincing budget proposal for 2024, she is going to sink. These Le Pen speeches of "Brussels tries to tell us what to do, but we will resist!" comes off as behind the times at best.
- And finally, Les Républicains' soap opera means that most of them can only defect to Macron. Its impossible to found a new party in 20 days and then win as well.
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It seems Hezbollah has declared a ground invasion of Gaza as a red line. They have also been increasing their attacks on Israel, destroying several observation stations and such. Considering they have been escalating for a while now, the chance of getting involved seems high. The other interesting bit of news is that the Arab states are putting together some sort of a summit with China. It seems they want a political solution to this mess, once and for all. Europeans have put together a humanitarian air corridor into Gaza and have tripled the aid going there. But that shows the old problem of the situation: US is saying "Israel, wrong or right" which has meant that Europe has to go along. And that in turns makes life hard for Europeans, because they want to have good relations with the Arabs, both the regional powers as well as the immigrants living in EU. I do not think the two US aircraft carriers have any real contribution to make in any military scenario with Gaza or Hezbollah. It is a political gesture above all. Now Trump put in a military base into Israel, which goes against decades of wise policy. Because now Hezbollah or any other bad actor can send drones to strike the carriers or launch missiles to strike the US base. And that is that then. The question for the future is: now that the world is in flux and US does not run the Middle East anymore, will the Israelis finally have the political wisdom to find a political solution and give Palestinians their own state? Standing alone against the hundreds of millions of Arabs has become impossible. As to Ukraine: I have always maintained that US can simply pull the plug and change the subject and walk away from Ukraine. But this would mean that US loses their position as the security guarantor of Europe. That seems inevitable now. Recently Burrell and the EU foreign ministers had a summit in Ukraine, where plans were made to give defence aid and financial support for years. It would be unfortunate for USA to be the one to give up, but that is the trajectory.
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The other day, I was looking at a video of Rep. David Schweikert of Arizona. He was ringing the alarms on the US budget deficits in a very memorable way. The week before, US borrowing was $95,000 per second. The week he was doing his presentation, it was $96,000 per second. That trend is only going to accelerate.
You may be aware that Medicaid and Social Security are funded with trust funds. Now what the US government has done is that they borrow the money from these trust funds and put Treasury Bonds in them instead. Well, in 2030 or so these trust funds will have no more money in them. They then are not only giving more money to borrow, they need to be backfilled from the budget instead. The deficit problem is bad enough that if left unchecked, it can mean the end of US global power. Trump added $7,5 trillion into the deficit in his term. Biden's proposed budget for 2025 just so happens to be that same size! US is adding a trillion into the debt every 100 days.
The reason I am mentioning this here is that when you compare any given scandal from either candidate to the fiscal time bomb, you will see that there is no comparison. US now has the worst public health in the developed world: 60% of Americans have a chronic disease. Combine that with the most expensive health care in the world and you see the challenge. Now if all this is left to fester, the dollar is going to lose its reserve currency status and with US running a trillion-dollar trade deficits every year as well, the living standard of all Americans is going to collapse. These are the things the voters should know.
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