Desperation Sets In.

I am not the first one who noticed this, anyone with IQ higher than room temperature could have noticed that. Difficult to miss really:

Basically, this whole panopticon is akin to asking China to influence China's crucial military ally on whom huge chunks of China's security depend to act counter to Russia and China's national interests, just because petulant and ignorant children in Foggy Bottom want it so. This, folks, is the "level" of US "diplomacy", which for the last 20+ years [or far longer] provided us with a panoply of amateurs who in a normal country wouldn't be allowed to run a 7-11 convenience store or even mow the lawns in any self-respecting middle-class Home Owners Association. Yet, here we are--the bunch of State Department chicken-hawks, war-mongers and neocons desperately trying to repeat their failed "strategy" of 2014 hoping yet again that Russia will take the bait and "go in", tying her resources in 404 which Russia doesn't want or need and thus allowing for the neocons' "plan" to deal with China without Russia to succeed. Good God, they ARE that stupid. 

Here is J.D. Vance:

Billions spent on the Kennedy school, grand strategies seminars, and the Georgetown school of foreign service has bought us an elite that’s about to blunder us into a Ukraine war. Our country is broken, especially in how it trains its leaders.

I have news for J.D. Vance--there is a whole issue with US education starting from K-12. They do not teach there, as it is done in normal countries, the relation between cause and effect. That is why the US lost all its post-WW II wars; lost its economic race with China, its arms race with Russia, and effectively produced "elites" that constantly humiliate their own country with their ignorance, incompetence and bizarre behavior. Read an acerbic piece by Fred Reed about the art of governance. They don't teach real governance in the US. Fred has a point, in fact, many of them. 

A Faintly Curmudgeonly Analysis of the Sino-Dimbulbian Clash

Well, Paul Craig Roberts notes in his latest: 

Reality is catching up with Washington. The West will have to pay for the mess it created in 404 in 2014. Russia is NOT taking this freak of a country on her balance sheet, and it was the West that precipitated Russia's ultimatum and the issue today is way bigger than just the Ukraine. It is about Russia breaking off with the West on Russia's terms. Those in the West who would have second thoughts are welcome in Moscow if they have something of substance to say. If not, too fvcking bad, it's the West's problem and they should roll back. As The Saker noted, Russians are "snow niggers" for the West and Russians, the overwhelming majority of them, are just fine with that. This is the fact the combined West should internalize. Russians don't give a damn.  Except when they do, but for that Russia has a Defense Ministry and damn good Armed Forces. 

Speaking of which, some details have been revealed about modernization of good ol' Udaloys (pr. 1155) and, as you might expect, all of them will get 3M22 Zircons in addition to other weapon systems and a full update of electronic suites (in Russian). 

Mighty Ducks.

... of coming Friday and one of the greatest songs in pop-music. Paroles, paroles...by Dalida and Alain Delon.  Just words, words, words, words... empty words.

"[To] me, tender words wrapped in sweetness. Land on my mouth, but never on my heart. Words and words and words..." (c) How appropriate.

P.S. There is an excellent piece in The Atlantic about an enormous, in fact, crushing in its power resurgence of interest in the "old music", 70s-80s and some 90s. 

Old songs now represent 70 percent of the U.S. music market. Even worse: The new-music market is actually shrinking.

I will write about it in-depth but in simple words--modern pop culture as a whole is SHIT, so is music: no melody, no musicianship, ugly beats running counter to classic Western musical tradition, ugly people who have zero talent. Simple as that. 

ANDREI MARTYANOV is an expert on Russian military and naval issues. He was born in Baku, USSR in 1963. He graduated from the Kirov Naval Red Banner Academy and served as an officer on the ships and staff position of Soviet Coast Guard through 1990. He took part in the events in the Caucasus which led to the collapse of the Soviet Union. In mid-1990s he moved to the United States where he currently works as Laboratory Director in a commercial aerospace group. He is a frequent blogger on the US Naval Institute Blog. He is author of Losing Military Supremacy, The (Real) Revolution in Military Affairs, and Disintegration: Indicators of the Coming American Collapse.