Today it appears that the triumph of our adversaries ["Our adversaries' is defined as "the West", and/or the US Democrats and their friends in the CIA, NSA and other intel bureaucracies, or the incoming Biden administration and its consellation of old foreign policy hands committed to the ictory of US imperialism} is total.  I want to post this column saying that I don’t believe for one second that this is true.  All I want to do today is explain why.  Thus, just to make clear to those alternatively gifted, this is not a comprehensive analysis and I will be leaving many things out.

So, here we go:

First, notice how totally paranoid our adversaries are!  Depending on how you count and whom you ask, they had 25k to 65k folks in arms “defending” them.  Of course, the primary goal of this nonsense is to make it appear as if there was a terrible domestic terrorist force out there, ready to take over DC and open Gulags for minorities.  This, in turn, will make it easier to sell a massive crackdown on civil liberties under the guise of “protecting” the (supposed but, in reality, already defunct) “democracy”.  But the fact that they had to engage into a witch hunt even to carefully vet every national guardsman (and probably even more people) shows that they are truly afraid.  I think that they are wrong, there is no credible domestic terrorist threat in the USA, other than the government itself, of course.  But what matters here is not what I think, but what they think, and they seem to have developed a serious case of paranoia. [This in itself may be just a pose.—Ed]

Second, while I don’t believe in the existence of US domestic terrorists, I do believe that millions of US citizens are convinced that the vote was stolen.  These people are understandably disgusted and angry.  Many might be desperate or even despondent.  Let’s call them the “deplorables” and consider it a badge of honor.  Well, these deporables won’t take DC by force, but they will never trust a Dem or GOP politician again, and neither will they ever trust the corporate media.  One of the blessings in disguise of this stolen election is that the GOP and Fox News have shown their true faces, and their faces are evil, stupid and ugly.  Four years ago millions of US citizens did not so much vote for Trump as much as they voted against Hillary whom they (correctly) saw as a symbol and metaphor for the entire “deep state”, or “swamp” or “ZOG” or whatever other expression you prefer.  These deplorables first trusted Obama (“change we can believe in”) and, later, Trump (MAGA).  Now they know that both sides are equally evil and false.

In the past, both factions of the Big Money Party had safety valves (Tea Party, Occupy Wall Street, Rand Paul, Tulsi Gabbard, Bernie Sanders, etc.).  I think that now the two parties are literally standing naked and boy is that an ugly sight!

Third, and this point I primarily address to my readers in the USA and that will force me to make a sidebar primarily directed at them:

As a direct consequence of these factors, most US Americans live in a “mental space” where Zone B simply does not exist, and when if it is mentioned, it is invariable in the “same old clichés” mode.

Finally, considering all of the above, it is truly a miracle that the deplorables completely ignored a massive brainwashing campaign (waaaay worse than anything the Commies the Nazis ever came up with!) against “Trump the New Hitler” and still voted for him twice, both in 2016 and 2020!  It really goes to show that most US Americans quietly but passionately hate the regime in DC and that they use every opportunity they get to at least try to change their country and their lives by means of voting.  Makes you wonder what these “disobedient” deplorables will do the next time around now that voting became clearly a waste of time, don’t it?]

Now here is the good news: Zone B does exist!  In fact, it is huge, rich, truly diverse and it has long figured out that both the AngloZionist Empire and even the USA as we knew them have basically died, all that’s left from it is some residual momentum and many bad habits by ignorant, arrogant and delusional US politicians.

Why is that so important?

Because if we allow the Great Satan (actually a very good and exact expression, I think that it fits the new regime perfectly, I will use it more often) to convince us that reality is all contained in Zone A, we could really fall into despair.  Yeah, the USA is screwed, and so is all of the EU.  As for US colonies like AUS or NZ, not only are they screwed (say by siding with the USA against a much, MUCH more powerful China), they also seem to have a morbid desire to outstupid even the USA in terms of crazy laws and insane ideological positions (say on COVID, for example).  But all this in ONLY true inside Zone A.  Very few people in Zone B still believe that the USA matters a great deal.  Most of them already know otherwise, even if this is never reported by Zone A media.

There is even more good news: neither the (rump) AngloZionist Empire nor the (rump) USA represent any credible threat to most countries in Zone B.  Oh sure, US politicians can call Russia a “gas station masquerading as a country” or a “regional power”, the truth is that the united West has completely failed to break, or even meaningfully hurt Russia, despite 46 sanction packages (that’s just by Trump, not counting the “change we can believe in” crook).  Heck, even COVID only marginally hurt Russia (which, unlike the flag-waving pseudo-patriotic crap spewed by western politicians took COVID seriously, very seriously in fact, as early as March and prepared the country for no less than two major outbreaks, both which happened, and both which Russia successfully dealt with; this is why the EU is now in full COVID-hysteria mode, while Russia does not bother to impose any lockdowns at all!).

Now let’s place two US propaganda items side by side and take a look, ok?

1. The USA has the most powerful economy on the planet.
2. Russia is the #1 adversary of the USA (at least according to the Dems, the GOP places China as #1 and Russia only as #2)

Do you see the problem?

If the USA is so powerful, how is it that it failed to crush Russia?  What about Iran?  Or, in extremis, Venezuela?  Yet, even  the last case, the “best” this supposed World Hegemon did was send a few clueless ex-special ops to get caught and give a case of hysterical laughter to the entire Latin American continent!

And these folks want to take on China or Russia?!

Peuhleeze!

So here is the other very good news: Zone A presents no real threat to Zone B!!!

Yes, of course, the USA can still nuke China, Russia, Iran, Venezuela or some other country.  But let’s look at the consequences of such a strike:

• Against Russia: the USA simply vanishes as a country.  Completely and forever.
• Against China: the USA as a society completely collapses for a very long time.
• Against Iran: the USA gets stuck in a major regional war it can only lose with massive geostrategic consequences (still, the new regime might try to pull this one off, never say never, no matter how stupid this idea can seem to you – always remember that the ignoramuses in DC are as delusional as they are ignorant!)
• Against the DPRK: the USA gets stuck in a major regional war it can only lose with massive geostrategic consequences.
• Against Venezuela: the USA gets stuck in a counter-insurgency war it can only lose.  The comprador regime in Bogota will not survive such a war and Colombia will also “fall”.
• Against any other Zone B country: the US successfully nukes this/these country/countries only to find itself being treated like a pariah by the entire planet (including quite a few US colonies), including the real military powers.  NATO and the EU will also collapse if that happens (the US being their cornerstone).

The bottom line is that while the US triad is still fully functional and capable of waging a full-scale nuclear war against any adversary (including Russia and, even more so, China), the truth is that all this triad really achieves is making it impossible for another nuclear power to use nukes against the USA.  Which is not minor or irrelevant, the problem here being that the US nuclear triad provides with exactly zero help when trying to deal with any adversary not using nukes (either because this adversary chose not to use nukes due to the effective deterrence of the US nuclear triad or simply because it has no nukes in the first place).

As I have mentioned in the past, the US submarine force is, along with the nuclear triad, the other truly effective and powerful force which the US can count on in case of war.  However, other than launching large numbers of outdated and, therefore, easily countered cruise missiles there is little this force can do to assist a US ground (or, for that matter) air operation against anything but a very weak adversary.  The problem with so-called “sub-peer” adversaries is that they have relatively few lucrative targets to strike with cruise missiles (think Venezuela here).  Most of these subpeer adversaries do not have the air defenses needed to deal with any halfway determined US missile and bomb attack and the

Macho Hollywood icon Clint Eastwood produced and directed the 1986 action thriller Heartbreak Ridge, based on the 1983 US assault on tiny Grenada (pop. 90,000 and with no army). The movie literally invents heroics for there were none on the side of the American invaders. Eastwood, as usual, plays the hero, an aging Marine gunny sergeant. Pure fluff and propaganda, the film's appalling dishonesty did not keep Eastwood from making a pile at the box office.

US can quickly destroy whatever air defenses such “sub-peer” countries have.  So yes, I admit it.  If tomorrow the USA wants a “short and triumphant war”, say to boost morale or distract from internal problems, they could still attack countries like, say, Antigua and Barbuda or Santa Lucia, but such a farce will hardly qualify as “brilliant victory” of the “best armed forces in the galaxy”, now would it?  Or maybe it would, who knows? If the united propaganda machine wants to present that as a triumph for US forces, like they did with the Grenada invasion (one of the worst military operation in history!) they can do that, of course.  But that would only serve to further ridicule that propaganda machine since 2021 is not 1983, there are now millions of deplorables out there who will never buy this kind of silly nonsense.

Besides, considering how the joint efforts of the USA, Israel and Saudi Arabia (the “Axis of Kindness”) completely failed to deal with the Houthis, my money would not be on any US invasion force in the Caribbean (with the possible exception of a re-invasion of Haiti or the Dominican Republic, but these are already US protectorates, what would be the point?!).

Why does all that matter so much?

Because the Dems are clearly up to no good.  Next, not only will we see a wave of repression against free speech internally, but the Dems are already making noises about, you guessed it, China and Russia (again!) and, when that inevitably yields exactly zero results, they will turn to “hate on” Iran and Venezuela again.  But even these comparatively weaker countries are now very much capable of making Uncle Shmuel pay an immense price in blood and hell to pay in terms of political blowback on too many fronts to count.

The “power” of a nation (or a coalition of nations) can be measured using very many different type of metrics, but the three most common ones would probably be: economic power, military power and political power.  If we use those three to compare Zone A to Zone B, it would be reasonable to posit the following:

• Economic power: more more or less equal, with Zone A quickly going down and Zone B quickly rising.  Zone A still has A LOT of comprador regimes willing to defend it not only at the UN, but in most international bodies (including non-government ones like the IOC for example, or WADA).
• Military power: Zone A very much weaker than Zone B (just think RU+CN+IN for starters!)
• Political power: Zone A still stronger, but that is also changing fast.  You can say that most world rulers are still serfs of Zone A, but most people worldwide have long switched their support to Zone B countries.  The recent triumph of the people of Bolivia over their oppressors is a very telling sign of this trend.

And here is the key factor to keep in mind: there is nothing, absolutely nothing, the Biden/Harris Admin can do to change these trends.  It is simply too late and with the initiation of the internal collapse of the USA, these trends will only accelerate.

===>In other words, there is hope!<===

Yes, the bad guys did win, but only over Trump and his clueless pseudo-allies (did they betray him faster than he betrayed them, or was it the other way around?), but they only won one a battle against the deplorables and they have won exactly nothing against Zone B.

The Dems are now busy with vengeance in all its forms.  They also relish humiliating Trump and those who dared to support him.  This is the political equivalent of torturing people in basements, not winning glorious battles.  But they don’t realize that, they are too vain, too ideologically hateful, and too cowardly to understand that.

Still, brainwashing, like torture (including mental torture!), is real.  In this case, this is a battle for the minds of the deplorables who now have to be beaten down into a catatonic state of total submission and compliance.  The Dems are using lies, their favorite weapon, but their assault is real, nonetheless.  And this is the battle which we, those who opposed imperialism, have to fight – the battle for the minds of the people in Zone A: we need to show them that the pseudo-reality of Zone A has no real existence outside the Idiot Box and the vapid rhetoric of US decision makers.

We have to mentally prepare for a sharp increase in the amount and scope of the lies the US propaganda machine will be telling us (if you thought the last 4 years were bad, prepare for much, much worse; good example here).  And, of course, expect LOTS of false flags, especially to demonstrate the reality of the alleged danger coming from the “domestic terrorists”.  That will all go down against a background of a full-spectrum attack on free speech, dissent and any form of actual (as opposed to pretend) thought, really.

The irony is, of course, that the coming witch hunt (it will be way worse than Salem or McCarthy) will be waged in the name of diversity and ostensibly against “hate”.  In reality, of course, what the regime wants is to crush real diversity because the leaders of the US Nomenklatura absolutely hate everything besides their sorry selves.  Like all ideologues, what these folks want is 1) total power and 2) total uniformity.  All those rejecting these modern dogmas will be branded criminals, terrorists, heretics, racist and, of course, Russian and Chinese agents.

And that is why this regime will also fail.

Conclusion: diversity WILL win.  The REAL diversity, of course!

Our planet is wonderfully diverse, especially outside the uniformity sector of Zone A.  There IS a Zone B out there, and the leaders of Zone A will be defeated by our real common and shared humanity (and their hatred for us!).  Somewhere between Obama and Trump, the world has moved on, and it is now very busy dealing with the immense challenges and opportunities facing it in Zone B.  And no, neither Russia nor China is busy trying to sabotage or undermine the USA – US leaders are doing that job much better than any Russian or Chinese ever could.  So why even bother (and nevermind the risks!)?

We cannot predict what will happen next, there are simply too many variables to do that.  But what we can do is predict with a great degree of confidence that the new regime in power in DC will do no better than all the other regimes which came to power by means of color revolutions in the past couple of decades.  There is no hope left for the Empire, as for the USA, there will be plenty of hope left for them, but only after a long and painful process of collapse and rebirth (both of which are inevitable by now).  The truth is that US is not that unique as empires go, sorry, it is just your typical arrogant and narcissistic empire which will collapse just as all the other arrogant and narcissistic empires in history have collapsed, mostly under their own obscene weight.  And those poor souls who sincerely believe that China (or Russia) wanted to replace the USA simply don’t understand that these two countries already have been empires, it was a disaster, thank you very much, and they have no desire to repeat their past mistakes.  This desire for non-exceptionalism and normalcy will, with time, also become the object of a large social consensus in the USA.  And, with time, the USA will finally be welcomed into a truly free Zone B or, should I say, a Zone-free world.

—The Saker

[This column was written for the Unz Review]