Comments by "Major Moolah" (@majormoolah5056) on "GZERO Media" channel.

  1. If Russian victory in Ukraine means the end of NATO, then why wouldn't Russia pursue a victory? They hold all the cards on the battlefield. Americans would love a stalemate that allows them to drop the issue and move on. Problem is, that Europeans and Russians all understand that this is the American intention and that a forever war in Ukraine is not good for either party. Ukraine is only kept in the war by Zelensky at this point. If Americans were statesmen, they would seek a political solution. Not a forever war and a stalemate but a sustainable peace. On the current trajectory we are going to see the end of NATO before 2030.
    48
  2. The Foreign Minister of Lebanon came out recently with a revelation. Before his death, Nasrallah had agreed to the Franco-American proposal of a 21-day ceasefire. What happened instead was that Israel dropped 1,500 tons of American ordnance on his bunker. It is a good guess that Israel did this on purpose, to lure Nasrallah and his top lieutenants into one place for the bombing. It makes no sense whatsoever to claim that the Americans did not know this would happen. So if you are keeping score, it is once again a case of US betraying and undermining its allies for tactical gains. Disgusting.
    22
  3. Few days ago, Blinken and Stoltenberg held a press conference. US has given Ukraine $75 billion in aid, Europe has given $115 billion. European countries have also made contracts to buy American weapons totalling about a $120 billion. Also, US sent three brigade combat teams into Europe as an emergency deterrence. One CBT has about 4,500 soldiers. If you understand military matters then you know that this force is totally insignificant in great power conflict. It would disappear in less than a month at the casualty rates we see in Ukraine. So the Americans are weak, much too weak to defend even Finland, let alone Germany. Also, the magical Two Percent you always hear about was simply used to get Europeans to spend more and then buy American weapons. Which is based on the lie that Americans would defend them. The Ukraine War has broadcast to the entire world how weak American security guarantees are when it really comes down to fighting and winning. So I think NATO is going to dissolve in the 2020s, because Europeans would much rather build their own defence according to their own needs and have the foreign policy influence that this brings.
    14
  4. Total disaster. We still have the Chinese situation as well. The other day an American B-52 was flying close to Chinese territorial waters and a Chinese fighter jet flew within 10 feet I believe. These provocative incidents have been quite common under Biden. Chinese officials visited US the other day as well but there were no deliverables. Xi will most likely not come to the Asia summit in US either. Clearly there needs to be an international peace conference about the Middle East. Considering the region's importance for the global energy markets, it would be prudent to get everyone from France to Russia to Brazil to China in the same conference hall. We are seeing the opposite. The US military buildup is truly remarkable. A quarter of US ground-based missile defences are being sent into the region. US Special Forces could already be fighting in Gaza according to some estimates. What American fail to appreciate is that this deterrence does not deter. We all know that US foreign policy elites have long wanted to knock out Iran. Security analysts for the "other team" have to take this into consideration. To them, it looks like Israel and America now have their chance to settle a decades-old grudge. Even if Washington does not want this, they have to take this fear into account. The European response has also been interesting. It only took 5 hours to reach a conclusion and that insisted on a cease-fire and a peace conference. Some of the conversation was about the folly of entrusting the Israel-Palestine peace process to the Americans, with the Abraham Accords attracting the most bile. There was even talk of the need of isolating US diplomatically (!) at least to the degree that they understand to reduce the regional pressure. And of course a number of State Department officials resigned in protest of the "moribund policy" that is leading us to war. Disaster piled on disaster. Europeans are beginning to think that US cannot guarantee access to oil anymore and EU needs its own policy for the region. President Macron has said in public many times that an invasion of Gaza puts Israel itself into mortal peril. During Desert Storm, US had isolated Saddam on the international stage and had gathered an overwhelming force for a limited mission. Now it is USA that is isolated. And the American military is not what it was 30 years ago. The long-brewing recruitment crisis has went into overdrive. US Army is expecting to fall short of its 65,000 recruitment target by a staggering 15,000 recruits! It also has to be said the targets have been lower and lower for years and the quality of recruits has also lowered. The reason why there is extremism in the ranks is because there is such a shortage of qualified candidates. The Israel war has not even begun and it is already wildly unpopular. People will not line up to kill and die in Gaza. Before this crisis I was scared to death that if Biden refuses to negotiate a settlement in Ukraine, then Ukrainian military will collapse and Biden might be crazy enough to get involved. God in heaven only knows how close we are to nuclear war right now. Biden does not seem healthy enough to get through a press conference, let alone a possible three-front situation that could escalate into nuclear war. God save us.
    11
  5. The French AI company Mistral released their " Mistral Large 2" model a few months back. Its about the third of the size of ChatGPT with equal performance. Being that it is much smaller, the next version will undoubtedly be much more sophisticated, whereas ChatGPT is having difficulties growing their model going forward. The Chinese breakthrough will also be a boost for Mistral. So America is looking like the bronze medalist right now.
    7
  6. What Carl Bildt should have commented on was the purported G7 loan to Ukraine that US was pressing for. What happened in the end was that EU was left holding the bag by itself. Using the interest payments on the frozen Russian funds to repay the loan is against the basic principles of banking. So US utterly and completely betrayed Europe. The transatlantic bond is poison in our veins.
    6
  7. I have been quite critical of the media's role in the Gaza War. I have also been sometimes critical of Fareed Zakaria. So it is good to see that Fareed has been interviewing the Iranian leadership. We need more interviews from the other side in this world of conflict we have.
    6
  8. I would say that Russian positions on the Dnipro have been flooded. We do not know the extent of it. I would also say that some of the details about the incident still need to be investigated. But blaming Zelensky makes no sense. Even if he were a thoroughly callous individual, which he is not, doing this just to flood the Russian trenches and drive their artillery back for a few kilometers... that would be incredibly, incredibly brazen. If he did it and was found out, it would have tremendous consequences for the war effort and him personally. It does not add up.
    6
  9. 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.
    6
  10. 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.
    5
  11. Launching an air strike on a foreign embassy is crazy, no matter who does it to who. If we are serious about the "rule-based order" then we should be serious about international law. Because if and when Iran retaliates, they are within their legal right to do so. An embassy is sovereign territory. Are we really going to say that friends of the West can do whatever they want to countries outside the Western Club? Its not about Iran, its about law.
    4
  12. 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.
    4
  13. US is set to borrow $3 trillion per annum. That means borrowing 10% of the entire economy in one year! That is insane. And once you count in "discouraged workers" to that low number, actual unemployment is 23%. Consumer debt is at record high, savings rate historically low. People with multiple jobs is at record highs as well. We all know that American voters are not too complex to figure out: they always vote with their pockets. The reason Trump's message resonates is that the economy is weak under these impressive numbers. Of course, Trump does not have the tools to fix any of these problems. Trump blew up the deficits and printed piles of money, which contributes the most to all this inflation.
    4
  14. Blinken went to Turkey. Turkish officials did not greet him in airport. Blinken did not get to meet Erdogan. There was no press conference and no deliverables. Iranian Foreign Minister got the opposite treatment. He got to smile to the cameras with Erdogan too. The real story here is the collapse of American influence in the Middle East. Iran gets to mend fences with all the important regional players. I think that is much more important to them than war. And they can get that too. I had to do a double take when Karim said "Iran thrives in chaos" and listed the countries. Because USA is behind all those problems! Washington supporting the Saudis in Yemen is sheer evil. It is true that US bases in Syria and Iraq have been hit. But this shows the Iranians what Europeans already know: US no longer has the ground forces to do much of anything. So from the Iranian perspective, they are calculating that US power is going downhill so fast anyway that there is little reason to start a risky war.
    4
  15.  @italian1anywhere1  US led NATO into a military defeat and US does not have the forces in Europe to fight anyone. There is a Heritage Foundation report on this subject. US forces in Europe are insignificant. It makes much more sense for Europe to defend Europe without the bungling Americans.
    4
  16. Considering the size and scope of the criminal case in Georgia, it will not go to trial before the 2024 election. This is a RICO case and those are insanely complex affairs. Then we have the number of defendants who all appeal and make their case and so forth. The whole mess might very well go to the federal level, because nothing like this has indeed been seen in American legal and political history. And of course there is already a federal case with plenty of overlap and the courts do not want the two cases going on at the same time. Like I said: this case has zero chance of going to trial before the election.
    3
  17. We should be willing to hear what our rivals and adversaries have to say. Now, some of the things they say may well be propaganda but we should listen to them regardless. If they are being propagandistic or irrational, then it is good for our propaganda. But we may also glean insights and maybe even advance peace.
    3
  18. So this is what worries me: a US economic disaster before the election. One year ago in March there was a very serious banking crisis in America. The Fed took on all the bad debt as collateral and gave 100 cents on the dollar to the banks. Now, that debt is bad because it was made during the no-inflation no-interest rates anomalous decade. All those banks are even deeper underwater now. Because all the mega-banks are deemed systemically important, they have insured deposits from the government. That means that depositors are much more likely to put their money in mega-banks. It is hard to see how the regional banks could survive once the bailout expires in March. If the banks take all the bad debt back, the crisis from year ago resumes with a vengeance. What will probably happen is that the Fed starts printing money to keep the banking sector from collapsing. They already did this in 2020, which expanded the money supply by 120% or so. People talking about deflation do not understand how little the money supply has shrunk since that explosion. US inflation now is the same as it was in the summer and once the printing resumes, we will see much higher inflation. And that is not even the full picture on how serious things are. GDP grew, as we all know. However, gross domestic income was in the negative. Look at the data on private sector earnings in 2023, its all just as negative as in Germany for example. This is the largest disparity between GDP and GDI on record. The second largest disparity was in 2007 and that gap meant the Great Recession was about to arrive. The US national debt grows about a trillion per quarter now and that has to be monetized as well. Every single meter we have tells us that something terrible is brewing.
    3
  19. Well, if there are peace talks then there is the question of giving the Russians things that they want. There are three items on the table: 1. Crimea is a part of Russia. 2. Ukraine is militarily neutral and will not join NATO. 3. The ethnically Russian part of Ukraine needs partial autonomy at the very least. If Russia does not get these things then there will be no peace talks. And that means fighting to the bitter end. We are very likely going to have a situation where American moral sensibilities prevent talks over the three things. We have been in that situation for years so that is why I know. Instead we are going to feed Ukraine enough weapons to fight but not enough to win. We are going to have a situation in the 2020s where it becomes evident that USA will not and can not provide a military, political or economic answers to the Ukraine crisis. European interests are not getting anything out of this war, but we have to go along because we are in NATO. I would be incredibly surprised if NATO survives to 2030. It is time to let NATO go.
    3
  20. Beginning in 2014-2015 USA has definitely started a gradually escalating trade war with China. So let us at least be honest about this. Then there has been the militarization of the Pacific. As an example, Australia is the most important iron ore exporter to China. And then USA is heavily militarizing Australia and the war drum beats daily in the Australian media. Part of the current situation is definitely Xi. But another part is a backlash to the aggressive American policy, sad to say.
    3
  21. Lest we Europeans get too smug about the Trump situation... it is good to remember Jacques Chirac, Nicholas Sarkozy, Silvio Berlusconi and Boris Johnson -- among others. We have a long list of heads of state who have gotten themselves convicted. The lesson has been that these convictions have in fact been beneficial for our democratic institutions. So maybe Trump getting convicted is be what the American politics needs?
    3
  22. Yesterday I saw a short interview with an Israeli government spokesman. He said the Israeli government's intention is to push Hezbollah north of the Litani River, diplomatically if possible, militarily if not. I believe him.
    3
  23. There is lots of debate about Mearsheimer and his theory of realism. But there are instances where he has a point. If Canada or Mexico entered a strategic military alliance with China and/or Russia and there were Chinese troops based in either one, US would go ballistic. There is a certain liberal blindness to us in the West, where we are the only ones with legitimate security interests, because we live in liberal democracies. Now liberal democracy is a good thing, but we tend to get in these foreign policy disasters and then be surprised that they happened.
    2
  24. I find it fascinating that Biden, who very clearly has dementia, orders US missile strikes into Russia and Americans just take this in stride.
    2
  25. Last December, the merchandise trade deficit for US was a staggering $122 billion. This is totally unsustainable so in that sense Trump has a point. The bad news is that these tariffs will not bring manufacturing back to America.
    2
  26. I have been forecasting that US would not pass this package, but in this case I am very happy to be wrong!
    2
  27.  @jmhorange  US has been giving materiel from their own stockpiles. The money the Congress then passes goes to fill these stockpiles. US industrial base is much weaker than anyone could have imagined and they have had very serious difficulties filling their stockpiles. Now, with the Gaza War, the problems are even more acute. So that was behind my forecast. That and the domestic political situation in the US. Republican voters are against supporting Ukraine. They feel the money should go to help domestic problems.
    2
  28. This is not directly linked to Mexico, but your comments got me to thinking about India and Europe as well. Biden came out big with Modi about contracts in jet engines, clean energy and space flight. Any France-watcher can tell you that France and India have a strategic partnership on this things as well, predating the Americans by some 20 years or so. France was planning to co-develop a new jet engine with India for the Indian fighter program. I am not privy to the details, but it does seem that Biden chose to undercut the French. We should remember here the Aukus submarine debacle as well. One thing the smaller European nations are struggling with is the Inflation Reduction Act and the state subsidies within. Small democracies have zero chance to compete with the United States in a subsidy race. There was the proposal for shared EU debt and a sovereign fund that would help everyone develop their green industry in a more equal manner. However, shared EU debt is highly controversial topic in Northern and Eastern Europe, in part due to the memory of the Eurozone Crisis. So the sovereign debt fund did not really go anywhere in Brussels. The big EU powers did get a period of relaxed rules concerning state subsidies. So they are racing ahead in a manner the small nations cannot. It is also good to remember here how expensive the Ukraine War and all its economic consequences have been for East Europe and the Baltics. I can understand the strategic reasons why USA is in a trade war with China. But the consequences for "Bidenomics" for US foreign policy are potentially disastrous. It looks like the Americans are providing security guarantees, but the price is that they are siphoning business and investment away from their democratic allies. Historically speaking, USA has always been the champion of free trade and has ridiculed the French "dirigisme." But now USA is going way beyond France that makes one wonder how the Americans are these days.
    2
  29. Happy new year to Ian and his GZero Media crew! I am very much looking forwards to your coverage of 2024, much more than the actual year itself, at least in geopolitics. I was reading Fareed Zakaria's recent column in Foreign Affairs, about how US is doing so much better than people believe. This is the wrong approach to the coming elections. If you tell the American voters that GDP is booming and the stock market is better than ever, he will become more likely to vote for Trump. Because looking at the sociological indicators, the average American is hurting. What they care about is the price of groceries, transportation and living. They are in a situation where they simply aim to get by without a crisis. Think back to school about Maslow's hierarchy of needs. Voters will care much more about the basics than they do about soaring rhetoric at Valley Forge. The other problem with Mr. Zakaria's approach is that it prevents discussion on actual, important topics. US has a population of 335 million and change. US workforce is 162 million and income taxpayers are at 129 million. You tally in the cost of US healthcare -- twice that of France -- and an aging population and you begin to see the real issues. US fertility rate is 1.7 compared to 1.5 in EU. Living expectancy in US has been dropping for close to 20 years now so the needs of the elderly will be great indeed. US median age is 38.1 compared with 44.9 in the super-aged Germany. Per capita immigration into US is about the same as in Western Europe. So US literally has the same demographic bomb as Europe. Now in US you still have the broken immigration laws passed back in the Clinton era, coupled with the 9/11 draconian measures. This is something that can and should be addressed in political discourse. Say what you will about the state of democracy in Italy and Poland, but demographics have been campaign issues in both.
    2
  30. The other day I was looking at Congressional reports that are available to public, though a bit hidden out of the way on US government websites. US Navy has 11 aircraft carriers. 4 of those are operational. USS Gerald Ford, the newest, recently left the area. Due to the endemic recruitment shortage US has, Ford never had a full crew compliment. And one of those 4 operational carriers is treaty bound to be in Japan for their defence. US is in no shape to fight a war in the Middle East. No shape. But because of their strategic drift, they seem headed in that direction regardless. US federal debt is now 120% of GDP and is projected to hit 150% in 2028 or so. That is so much debt that it cannot be sold on the market but needs to be monetized instead. Why on Earth would you but US treasury bonds in these circumstances? US inflation is sticky as it is and the money printing necessary will be gasoline on the inflation fire. Only a crazy person would trust any long-yield US Treasury bonds anymore. Hopefully these matters are discussed in Davos.
    2
  31. 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.
    2
  32.  @augustuslxiii  We are headed for the Regional Planet. Mercosur, Arab League, African Union and other such regional orders are going to increase in importance. European Union will be seen as the model for this order.
    2
  33. Problem with the grain deal was that Russia had demands and these demands were not accepted by the Western powers. Things that would have also facilitated Russian grain and fertilizer exports. Wrong or right, that was the ask. So a peace agreement is not likely in the foreseeable future. There is no meaningful diplomacy between Washington and Moscow at the moment.
    2
  34. By and large I would agree with Ian on his points. But the Russians have been able to have high recruitment results so that is why there has been no mobilization. They have 300,000 or so fresh troops in the Eastern parts of Ukraine. NATO at first assessed Russian yearly tank production at 100 units. Now I hear from the UK Admiral Radakin and others that the actual number is at 200 units per year. Artillery shell production is at 2 million per year. The sustained Russian air campaign against Ukrainian cities has also attritted the Ukrainian air defence to an alarming degree. And finally, the Russians have underwent a significant reorganisation. At the beginning, they had so-called "Battalion Tactical Groups" which means smaller ad-hoc formations. But now they have reorganised into divisions, which means that you have more and better organised combat power. Ukrainians burned through a lot of their Western-trained forces and mechanised reserves in the failed counter-offensive. So there is potential for disaster here. 10% of the Ukrainian population is now involved in their military. It is almost impossible to find fresh recruits anymore, so Kiev has lowered their standards. Now various mental health problems and even Hepatitis and HIV are no longer disqualifying factors. I am extremely worried where this is going. There is the possibility that Russia calculates that they can achieve victory on the battlefield. Clearly there needs to be negotiations, but Putin may very well say that he would only accept capitulation from Zelensky.
    2
  35. 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.
    2
  36.  @poulha  B-52 is a strategic bomber that can carry nuclear weapons and cruise missiles. China was in cruise missile range, certainly. Suppose Chinese bombers were flying around Hawaii in missile range?
    2
  37. I implore you to read the original Les Echos interview. It gives a much different view on the matters discussed.
    2
  38. It is certainly a strategic disaster for US as well, for Turkish reasons. Erdogan is openly supporting Hamas both financially and politically. Hamas has a quite sophisticated economical structure and it is in fact located in Istanbul. Erdogan is very understandably upset that Boris Johnson sunk the Turkey-mediated peace talks in the early parts of the Ukraine War. Ukraine has of course done its part to scupper the Turkish grain deal as well. Then we have the Swedish issue as well. I remember when Mr. Blinken went to Turkey after the earthquake to talk about letting Sweden join NATO. The Turkish foreign minister said during the press conference that this visit changed nothing, addressing Mr. Blinken in front of the cameras. Things have only went downhill from there. I do not think that Turkey is in fact a reliable NATO member at all. Erdogan is arming Azerbaijan, Macron is arming Armenia. I would not be surprised in the least if Turkey left NATO in the 2020s.
    2
  39. 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.
    2
  40. US provides the missiles, targets, flight paths and then the people who use the weapons. They only launch them from the Ukrainian soil. Russia knows this too. So we are on the very last threshold of nuclear war.
    1
  41. 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.
    1
  42. You laid out the situation with remarkable lucidity. Very hard to disagree. I would like to add one problem here, that of political gravity. Because many of us dislike Trump and do not want to see him return, we are basically Biden supporters through tactical voting. This is not good for democracy. Cornel West is raising some legitimate points but he is being called dangerous for splitting the vote. Very problematic. There is definitely a debate to be had about Biden's foreign policy as well. Under his term, USA has apparently been moving towards a First Use stance when it comes to nuclear weapons. There should also be more scrutiny as it pertains to Hunter Biden's activities in Ukraine. It would seem Hunter made millions by not doing anything much for Ukrainian energy companies. Apparently the son suggested to the Ukrainians that he has influence with the father. Considering the apocalyptic nature of the Ukraine War, this should be investigated heavily. But instead we are being quiet, because we do not want to give points to Trump! This kind of confirmation bias is exceedingly dangerous.
    1
  43. On your recent newsletter, you claimed that Greece was on the taking side against Turkey, when using French Mirage 2000 jets. The opposite is true. On the very incident you referenced, a Greek-operated Mirage shot down a Turkish-operated F-16.
    1
  44. USA is so lost when it comes to AI regulation. The voluntary rules from the Biden administration to the tech giants are so transparently weak that ridiculing them would be superfluous. Recently USA tried to put their own woman in an EU top job, setting tech regulations. Obviously this woman had deep ties to US tech giants. What was less obvious was the massive and unanimous backlash from the European Parliament that led to her being sacked before taking office. You just have to love the cynicism of it all. We are living in an upside-down world where China is making more responsible AI regulation than the US. As for the media landscape itself, corporate consolidation is a big reason why no one trusts the mainstream media. You definitely see this in Europe, Germany in particular. DW News has American anchors and American owners. This goes for Politico, Die Zeit and other media outlets. Consequently, you see American foreign policy interests being pushed very aggressively. American-owned media hammers every day how weak Europe is and how much we need US leadership. But then you go listen to people with actual expertise and connections, it is a very different story.
    1
  45. Strange thing about Musk is SpaceX and NASA. The Americans used to use Russian launchers but now they are dependent on Musk for, well, getting into space. Giving that much power to one man is mega dangerous, even if that man were more stable than Musk. And that is not even getting into his social media power. Good video regardless :)
    1
  46. 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.
    1
  47. This seems to have been basically the same proposal that Hamas made earlier. Very strange. Also, I have to wonder why Biden would go in person to face the cameras with the specific proposal like this, when the parties have not agreed to the proposal. Looks more like campaign season tactics than actual diplomacy. But even from that perspective, how will it benefit Biden to make proposals that Israelis the proceed to ignore?
    1
  48.  @michaelwellen2866  Mistral is a wind.
    1
  49. There is a very amusing anecdote from the Munich Security Conference. von der Leyen was a in a panel and one of the first things she did was to declare: "I am a convinced trans-atlanticist." Only after a pause did she think to add: "But I also want to build a stronger Europe." That is von der Leyen. If you look at how she first became the Commission President, despite her total lack of experience and popularity or even a network in Brussels, and then you look at the series of corruption, scandals and failure that she has created, you have to ask why she is running again. And looks like to win, to boot. It is because the Americans own von der Leyen, body and soul. They corrupted the electoral process to install a puppet. If that does not make you question your trans-atlanticism, nothing will. Merkel abstained rather than vote for von der Leyen. Merkel knew what was happening.
    1
  50. Seeing Mr. Bildt made me wonder about the European artillery shell production. US currently has a yearly shell production of 336,000 and they are aiming to top a million in late 2025. European shell production is currently at 1 million, before the investment into additional capacity have even kicked in. So why is media so full of nonsense about European weakness? Why is no one bothering to look at the actual statistics?
    1