AMARYNTH—There is very little new here. The RoW faces a repeat of the previous Trump administration, because Trump is not able to understand that many of the ‘international crises’ were of his doing. I don’t see, intuit or sense a change. I don’t find an understanding that the problems are US Policy and not so much what he did, or what Biden or anyone else did. It is systemic and long term.
-
-
JOHN VAROLI—If the U.S. had an independent justice system staffed by men and women with integrity, there’d already have been a raid and search of the White House. Biden’s threatening statement is sufficient to ignite a strong reaction from law-enforcement. (And if you don’t believe me, just try making a similar threatening statement against your local Congressman or Senator).
But, the U.S. is a banana republic where the Justice Department is directly controlled by the White House, allowing it to rule the country above the law, (no matter which political party controls the presidency). The White House and the oligarchs tried to jail and bankrupt Trump, but that only made him more popular. So, they decided to physically eliminate him.
-
ALEKS—Much of what we will discuss in this article will deal with the number of Russian casualties, as alluded to in the introduction. Russia suffered a horrendous number of dead soldiers within the first few weeks of the conflict, maybe up to 10,000. That’s the price of big arrows on modern battlefields with full intelligence/information/reconnaissance/artillery/drone coverage of the battlefields.
However, (up to) 10,000 dead is still a price that would have been worth paying to achieve the goals in Ukraine without going into a full-scale war. Had there been an agreement in Istanbul that would have terminated the conflict, ensured the rights of Russians in Ukraine, and kept Ukraine out of NATO and NATO out of Ukraine, one could remotely argue that “it was worth it.”
We all know what happened instead. As with all agreements that are not guaranteed with a gun on the West’s head, the West will ignore or scrap it at will. As happened with the Istanbul agreement.
-
CAITLIN JOHNSTONE—“Russia’s missile strikes that today killed dozens of Ukrainian civilians and caused damage and casualties at Kyiv’s largest children’s hospital are a horrific reminder of Russia’s brutality,” tweeted whoever runs the US president’s Twitter account, adding, “It is critical that the world continues to stand with Ukraine at this important moment and that we not ignore Russian aggression.”
-
ALEX LO—The purest expression of this US strategy in Asia has been Australia’s costly deal for nuclear-powered submarines under the Aukus security partnership with the United Kingdom and the US.
In a new book, Australian investigative journalist Andrew Fowler has delivered the proverbial smoking gun, courtesy of David Gould, former British undersecretary for defence hired by Canberra as consultant for a programme to replace the country’s ageing submarines.
“Gould revealed for the first time what has long been suspected: one of the submarine’s most important requirements would be to work with the Americans in the South China Sea,” Fowler wrote in Nuked: The Submarine Fiasco that Sank Australia’s Sovereignty.
