Showing posts with label Russia. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Russia. Show all posts

Thursday, May 1, 2025

Tuesday, May 1, 1900. Russian rumblings.

The first mass protest of Russian workers occurred in Kharkov.

Over 200 miners were killed in the Scofield Mine disaster in Utah.

US military governance of Puerto Rico ended.

Ottoman Sultan Abdul Hamid issued an imperial edict for the construction of the Hejaz railway, to link Damascus to Mecca and Medina.

Last edition:

Monday, April 30, 1900. Casey Jones

Saturday, March 1, 2025

Wars and Rumors of War, 2025. Part 1. Nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom.

You will hear of wars and rumors of wars, but see to it that you are not alarmed. Such things must happen, but the end is still to come. Nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom.

Matthew, Chapter 24.

And so we're on to a new year.

Armenian woman kneeling beside her dead child in Syria during the Battle of Aleppo.

Heading into 2025, the big news remains the Russo Ukrainian War.  Other wars are going on, of course, including the Middle Eastern War, as we have termed it here, in which the United States is an occasional belligerent.

As the world is just a few days away from the inauguration of Donald Trump as president, there's good reason to be concerned about the impact this will have on various conflicts, the Russo Ukrainian War in particular.  Trump has long been a Putin fan boy for reasons which remain very difficult to discern.  Over the past three years Russia has proven that it is, at best, a weak regional power.  Putin is bankrupting his country and his armed forces have been reduced to such a level that he's imported North Korean forces to aid his, with North Korean being a Stalinist Clown College.

Ukraine has managed to hold on against its much larger neighbor in no small part due to largescale Western support.  Europe has actually, at this point, contributed more to Ukraine than the US has.  US leadership and support has been critical, but its often missed that the US has used the war to clear out obsolescent stocks of arms and, in fact, could do much more of this if it wished to, and should.  Trump, however, has been generally hostile to Ukraine and lovey dovey to Putin.  His relationship to the Russian head of state is so peculiar that it has long raised questions about what's behind it.

Trump, of course, who didn't serve in his nation's war when he was of military age, claims to abhor war and he may in fact have that view.  He generally doesn't like military men that much, and he's sufficiently wealth and self centered that he frankly might just not grasp that there are people who are willing to fight and die for their country.  Be that as it may, however, like many of the populist camp, quite a few of whom are strongly influenced by a certain strain of Evangelical Protestantism, he has an "Israel can do no wrong" view.  There is no reason to believe, therefore, that the incoming administration won't essentially give Israel a free hand in whatever it wants to do in the ongoing struggle in the Middle East.

The US, it might be noted, retains a small number of forces in Iraq and Syria.  Trump made sounds about pulling US forces out of Syria when he was first elected, but he didn't.  He's made some statements about the US having no role in Syria now, but the US forces in Syria aren't sufficient to impact the outcome of the war there, and are there only to address ISIL in the region.  There is, therefore, no real way to know how the change in administrations will impact that.

In terms of prognostications, its notable that Russia's 2024 effort in Ukraine have produced no real results.  That Putin isn't trying to commit larger forces to the region and is instead allowing his forces to be bled is telling.  He probably can't do more.  Ukraine, however, remains unable to push Russia out. The situation therefore depends nearly entirely on what the US and Western Europe does.

The commitment of North Korean troops was always boing to be a failure and will be.  North Korea is much more of a paper tiger than many suppose.  Mostly, a lot of North Koreans will get killed. Those who return to North Korea will have been exposed to a partially westernized Russia. Stalinist have always feared that as it means there's now a population that knows things could be much better somewhere else.  Moreover, those returning will be elite troops.  They'll be much like French Algerian troops who returned home to Algeria after fighting in Indochina, and that won't be good for the Communist Hermit Kingdom.

Right now, in regard to Syria, there's really no real reason to hope that the country breaks into a western democracy.  At least some period of internecine strife appears likely, absent a massive intervention by Turkey, which we really do not want.

January 1, 2025

Russo Ukrainian War

In a sort of odd even in the ongoing war, a deal between Ukraine and Russia which allowed for the transport of natural gas across Ukraine into Europe, in spite of the war, expired this past week and, as a result, Ukraine shut the pipelines down, which makes perfect sense.

This creates, for the most part a less dire situation than a person might suppose.  Europe receives 5% of its natural gas from Russia.  Another pipeline that does not go through Ukraine does exist.

Unless you are in Moldova.

This is the only way the breakaway Transnistria region gets gas, and the impact there has been immediate.

January 6, 2025

Russo Ukrainian War

Ukraine has launched a new offensive in Russia's Kursk Oblast.

Last edition:

In this instance, of course, the last edition was, from last year.

January 8, 2025

United States v. Panama

United States v. Denmark

Today's headline in the Tribune:

TRUMP TALKS USING MILITARY IN TAKEOVER

Trump appears to be demented, and the US acting illegally in a war against Panama and NATO Ally Denmark should be taken seriously.

January 13, 2025

Russo Ukrainian War

Donald Trump's special envoy for the Russo Ukrainian War, who of course right now is simply a private citizen and may always be, has declared that Trump will end the war within 100 days of taking office.

Originally it was within 24 hours of taking office.

After that, it was within 24 hours of being elected.

Of course, a person would have had to have drank the KoolAide to believe either of the first two, and not to heavily doubt the third.

A really interesting look at North Korean troops in the war:

Troops Captured by Ukraine Provide Rare Glimpse Into North Korea’s Military

January 15, 2025

Middle Eastern War/Hamas Israeli War

Hamas and Israel appear to have agreed to a complicated cease fire.

January 20, 2025

Middle Eastern War/Hamas Israeli War

The first prisoners and hostages were released yesterday.

No more wars?

That was the promise of the Trump campaign, along with the price of groceries going down (they won't) and the war in Ukraine ending within 24 hours after his nomination to the GOP ticket (that didn't happen).

No more wars isn't shaping up to be true either.  

Two huge stories broke yesterday on Face the Nation, but with all going on, they aren't getting that much attention.

They are, in the style of this thread:

Israel v. Iran?

Lindsey Graham was on Face the Nation yesterday begging for Israel to hit Iranian nuclear sites.  He will be "engaging" Trump on this topic.

United States v. Mexican Cartels?

Incoming National Security Advisor strongly hinted that the US will be listing two Mexican drug cartels as terrorist organizations and implied that the US will be intervening in Mexico to take them on.

I'm frankly amazed this isn't a banner headline.  

If this goes in the direction that it seems to be, one of the purposes of having Graham and Waltz on the day before the inauguration on the best of the three weekend news shows is to get the information out, in a sort of early and curve ball fashion, that we're headed into to major military actions.  We apparently are going to urge the Netanyahu administration to basically finish the Iranian regime off, or at least decapitate its nuclear potential, and we're going into Mexico with special forces and aircraft, the way we've fought in Syrian and Iraq over the past two decades, but in a much more substantial fashion.

Whatever a person thinks of these proposals, Iran is not going to go gently into the night, although you could argue, as some have, that its down on its knees and needs to be wiped out.  

Mexico, no matter what the incoming Trump administration might think, does not want troops on its soil again for the third time.  It would likely fight back against an intervention, just like it did in 1916, even when the intervention is against an internal enemy, just like it was in 1916.

At any rate, at least right now, it would appear that the incoming administration isn't really against wars.  It's just in favor of different, and bigger, wars.

January 24, 2025

Russo Ukrainian War.

North Korea is sending more cannon fodder to the war.

This won't serve to turn the tide in favor of Russia, and if it continues, it will destroy the core of the North Korean army and leave an embittered veterans class.  The real threat to Ukraine now is Donald Trump.  So far Trump seems to have assumed that his pal Putin would simply end the war because Donald was elected, or perhaps due to something in the relationship between them (Trump is undeniably a Russian asset, the question is what kind of Russian asset he is, bought and paid for or by personal inclination).  Trump's present plans in regard to his first broken campaign promise is to cause the Saudi's to lower the price of oil as that will make Russia's too expensive to buy, apparently.

January 26, 2025

Middle Eastern War

The Trump Interregnum is resuming shipments of 2,000 lbs bombs to Israel on the basis that "they bought and paid for them", reflecting his sad view of the world.

Whether a person supports Israel or not, already leopards are eating the faces of left wing pro Palestinian voters and Arab American voters in the US who didn't support Harris.  Trump will make Biden look like a peace protester as far as Israel is concerned, and the far right is packed with the element that feels Israel can do no wrong.

Trump also is proposing to Jordan and Egypt that they take in the Gazans so that Gaza can be "cleaned out".  While there is in fact some merit to the Gazans being relocated (we suggested this earlier), both countries have rejected the idea completely and Trump's phone call diplomacy is working no more successfully here than it did with his call to Denmark's leader about his bizarre demand for Greenland.

January 28, 2025

Congo

The Congo River Alliance, backed by Rwanda, entered the country and took a major city this week.  Made up of 17 parties, the principal member is the U.S. and UN sanctioned March 23 Movement.  I have no idea what they are seeking.

January 31, 2025

Congo

M23 rebels seized control of Goma and are advancing toward the South Kivu provincial capital of Bukavu. 

February 1, 2025

US v. ISIL

Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth Statement on U.S. Africa Command Strikes in Somalia

Feb. 1, 2025

Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth statement on U.S. Africa Command strikes in Somalia

At President Trump's direction and in coordination with the Federal Government of Somalia, I authorized U.S. Africa Command to conduct coordinated airstrikes today targeting ISIS-Somalia operatives in the Golis mountains.

Our initial assessment is that multiple operatives were killed in the airstrikes and no civilians were harmed. This action further degrades ISIS's ability to plot and conduct terrorist attacks threatening U.S. citizens, our partners, and innocent civilians and sends a clear signal that the United States always stands ready to find and eliminate terrorists who threaten the United States and our allies, even as we conduct robust border-protection and many other operations under President Trump's leadership.

February 6, 2025

Arab Americans For Trump has changed its name to Arab Americans for Peace following Trump's proposal to remove the Palestinians from Gaza and turn it into an American territory.

Basically, they realized they'd been dumbasses, which was plenty obvious to start with.

Israel has of course leaped right on this lunatic suggestion and instructed its military to be prepared to allow Palestinians to leave, although freedom to leave a region is generally regarded as a human right.

It should be worth noting right now that a US presence of this type guarantees death will come to Americans involved in it, and we will now be a direct combatant in a nearly 80 year old guerilla war in the region.

I'd also note that a lot of far right evangelicals have a very peculiar view of Israel, and we now have a Secretary of Defense who is all tatted up with appropriated Crusader symbols, although a Crusader coming back form the dead would regard him as a heretic.

Oh well, what could go wrong?  Leopards won't eat our faces.

February 17, 2025

Russo Ukrainian War, Taiwan and World War III.

Donald Trump, who promised to end the Russo Ukrainian War upon being nominated for the Republican ticket, and also within 24 hours of being elected, is belatedly trying to make good upon his promise. . . but on what terms.

This past week the United States has basically told its European allies that its abandoning Europe and at the same time is starting unilateral talks with Russia in Saudi Arabia.

Saudi Arabia?

Hmm. . . . 

The Saudi's likely regard Trump as an epic clown, and have no real interest in the war ending, so who knows what's up with that.

Anyhow there are widespread fears, and legitimate ones, that Trump is just out to betray Ukraine Chamberlin style.  Trump's life reduces simply to money for Trump, and he's a man with no real values, so he likely genuinely can't grasp what the war is about.  At the same time he's trying to extract an economic deal from Ukraine, as that's all he really understands.  

Not very well grasped in this is that the US is rocketing towards a world war, with Trump being too dense to grasp it.  We've been harrassing Taiwan in recent weeks while we also removed a statement from our embassy website that we don't support its independence from China. Now, we apparently don't object to that.  I'm fine with that, but what Trump doesn't grasp is the following:

We'll be in a type of world war.

And I don't mean figuratively, I mean actually.

Somewhere around here is a post that predicted, at the time it was posted, that we would be at war with China within, I thought, about five years.  We aren't at that mark yet. 

China wants Taiwan and have been openly planning to invade it for years.  The Biden Administration was fairly openly planning on the defense of Taiwan.  Japan and the Philippines expect it to occur as well.

Trump is now punishing Taiwan economically, and China is going to move to get it.  The Chinese are not dumb, and my guess is that they don't figure that Trump will be around long either.  

Trump's a demented doofus who is destroying the American government.  This would be the ideal time for China to act.  And if they do, and I think they will, North Korea will attack South Korea shortly thereafter.  Whatever has gone on or is occuring in Eastern Europe, Russia will launch a massive fully mobilized campaign against Ukraine, and maybe the Balkans and Poland.  You can easily see a scenario where China attacks Taiwan and North Korea attacks South Korea later that same week, and Russia has a major offensive occuring within a month.

Indeed, if I led China, and the morals of the Chinese leadership, I'd do it. The balance of risks is on their sides, and will even be more on their sides after Elon Musk takes the meat cleaver to the military.

What will Trump do?  Probably babble and vacillate.  He'll yap for about a week on the basis that world leaders listen to him.  After a week, the situation will be grave for Taiwan and we'll be in an all out war in South Korea.  We'll act then, but we'll have lost a week which means when we do, we're going to take a naval pounding.

Trump, it might be noted, didn't answer his country's call when it came in Vietnam.  Musk managed not to be conscripted into the South African Army by migrating to Canada.

I think our chances of winning such a war are very slim.

A war like that isn't avoidable and we'll get in it.  Probably with Vance as head of state as Trump's escorted out the door babbling.

The reason Trump can't grasp this that Trump can't grasp that not everything is for sale.  Indeed, most things aren't for sale, and in much of the world very little is for sale.  For China, bypassing taking Taiwan does not have a dollar value. For Taiwan, reuniting with China doesn't have a dollar value.

We're headed towards World War Three.

February 20, 2025

Russo Ukrainian War

There were sharp words between President Zilensky and Donald Trump yesterday in which Zilensky said the quite part out loud saying the would be was "living in a disinformation space".  Trump ironically hit back by calling Zalinsky a "dictator", a real irony for a person illegitimately gathering autocratic authority to himself.

Trump's efforts to end the Russo Ukrainian War might actually have begun to sew the seeds of his irrelevancy.  Europe is united against Trump and Russia, as Trump tries to revive an late 19th Century view of foreign policy. And Trump's legendary negotiating skills, which are really fairly thuggish, don't appear to be working outside of the world of real estate, with Trump's worldview so limited that he can't really grasp that most people don't dream of being Florida golf course owners.  The question in increasingly becoming to what extent will his interregnum damage the United States internally and globally before an actual President returns to office.

March 1, 2025

Russo Ukrainian War

Yesterday made it clear that Donald Trump is really a spoiled, and not very smart, child.

Raised with a sliver spoon up his ass, and a bully by heart, with a career of well funded bulliness, he's come to believe he's a genius, as have his largely ignorant supporters, the latter of whom are seemingly unaware that a person born into Trump's wealth could have the IQ of a houseplant and still make money.

Trump, busy trying to make a deal to extort Ukraine's mineral wealth in exchange for . . . well it's not clear, found that leaders of country's don't respect spoiled children.  This lead to a short of shouting match between Trump and President Zelenskiy in the White House.

In the past month Europe as a whole has moved away from the United States, as has Canada, and are well on their way to forming a new second power block as the United States fades into being a regional petulant power.  Tariffs next week will finish it.  Ukraine will likely turn to Europe, and the US, lead by a spoiled not very smart brat, will turn into an economically hobbled regional bully in which somewhat over half the population dislikes to outright detests its leadership

Sic Transit Gloria Mundi.



Last edition:

Wars and Rumors of War, 2024. Part 9. Closing out 2024.

Saturday, February 8, 2025

Thursday, February 8, 1725. The death of Pyotr Alexeevich Romanov.

Pyotr Alexeevich Romanov, Пётр I Алексеевич, also known as Peter the Great, Czar of all Russia, and them Emperor of All Russia, died at age 52.


He is recalled for having carried out a policy of aggressive Westernization, not all of which stuck (he attempted to introduce the Julian calendar) and expansion that transformed the Tsardom of Russia into the Russian Empire.  He regarded the Russian people, his subjects, with some degree of contempt, finding them to be rude primitives.  Born into a reign that was closely united with the Russian Orthodox Church, he had an unusual interest in Russian Quakers and Dissenters and held Orthodoxy in some degree of contempt, which showed the degree of his power in that he was able to get away with it.

He was married three times, once to Eudoxia Lopukhina, when he was only 16.  She was a wife his mother had found, in the tradition of the Romanov monarchy,  He later divorced  her, something allowed in the Orthodox faith, and forced her to join a convent, although the couple did have three children before then.  He later married Marta Helena Skowrońska, the daughter of a Polish-Lithuanian peasant, whom had been his mistress for some time prior in 1724.  She converted from Catholicism in order to marry him. He later married Catherine, who was crowned crowned as Empress.  He had a total of fifteen children.

Was he great? Well, probably.  He engaged in constant warfare but was a success in expanding the Russian Empire.

Was he admirable, not in my book.

Funny thing about him is that the people for whom he was great, he didn't particularly admire, a trait he shared with Prussian Frederick the Great.

Last edition:

Thursday, February 1, 1725. The Great East Siberian Earthquake.

Labels: 

Saturday, February 1, 2025

Thursday, February 1, 1725. The Great East Siberian Earthquake.

The Great East Siberian Earthquake occurred.  It is arguably the earliest recorded seismic event in the region.  The quake had a magnitude of at least 7, and perhaps somewhat over 8.

Last edition:

Friday, January 26, 1725. Foundation of the Institute of the Brothers of the Christian Schools.

Wednesday, January 29, 2025

Monday, January 29, 1945. Königsberg taken.

The 3d Belorussian Front attacked Königsberg, or "the Kings Mountain" in German.  The Lithuanian city is now occupied by Russia as a Baltic access enclave and called Kaliningrad.

Dresden was taken by the Red Army.

The U-763 was scuttled after being damaged in a Soviet air raid.

"Four scouts of a reconnaissance squad of the 14th Field Artillery Observation Battalion, 87th Infantry Division, 3rd U.S. Army, race through snow-covered field to avoid enemy small arms fire near Malscheid. They are headed for protection of bomb crater in the field. L to R: Tec 5 Ralph Case, Cpl. Edwin Kral, Pvt. Charles Goddard and Cpl. Richard Christensen. 29 January, 1945. Malscheid, Belgium. 87th Infantry Division."

The US 1st Army took Bullingen.

Erich von Manstein attempted to meet with Hitler, who refused to receive him.  Von Manstein was now himself part of the refugee Prussian population.

Tom Selleck was born in Detroit.

Last edition:

Sunday, January 28, 1945. Katowice and Leszno and Roza Shanina dies of her wounds.

Saturday, January 25, 2025

If Trump isn't demented, what is he?

I've consistently advocated the theory that Donald Trump has a rapidly progressing case of dementia, and I'll stand by it, even though I have no qualifications to maintain that at all.

But what if he isn't demented. How do you explain his behavior?

We'll take a look.



He's just stupid

This is a real possibility.

There's no real reason to believe that Trump is intelligent.  His success in business, which is often cited is pretty much based on his having inherited a vast amount of wealth.  As studies have shown, people who inherit a lot of money are likely remain wealthy no matter what.  It actually takes real effort for them to fall down into a lower economic class.

There's plenty of evidence that Trump is simply dumb.  He appears to say whatever floats through his head he adopts the views of people around him without thought, he asks questions of his aid that are really, well, dumb.

And really stupid people often tend to be either profoundly kind, or profoundly mean.  Trump seems to fit in to the latter category.  The nuances of morality that most people have require some degree of intelligence.  Trump simply lacks that, perhaps, so being really mean just comes naturally to him.

How then did he get to be President?

Well one thing is that people tend to assume that wealth equals smarts.  He has a lot of money, so he  must be smart, right?

Nope.

But as people tend to believe that, they tend also to fill in the blanks for the stupid person so that their support of him is rationalized.

In the past, we saw that a lot with sports.  Some sports figure may be as dumb as a box of rock, but as people want to idolize him, they make excuses for everything the person says or does.

And the entire celebrity worship thing in American culture is part of that.  People take seriously things celebrities say, as they must be smart, or they wouldn't be celebrities, right?

To add to it, the dumb int he public eye tend, normally to be protected by handlers, which Trump was up until very recently.  Now that he's not the stupidity of much of what he says and does is really coming to the forefront.

Finally, intelligence is complicated.  There are polymaths who are sort of universally intelligent, but there are also people who can excel at one thing without really being smart at anything else.  Trump clearly has skills as a salesman.  That frankly seems to be the only talent he has.

On that, I've known a few salesmen really well and often been surprised by how little interest they have in the topic of what they sell, or anything else.  An extremely successful real estate broker I know, for example surprised me when he revealed he had once been a car salesman.  They are, however, both sales.

A car salesman that I knew once surprised me in a conversation by revealing he really knew nothing about automobiles at all, and wasn't interested in them.  Cars bored him pretty clearly, but he was really good at selling them.  Selling is what interested him.

Trump may very well be like that.  He has good sales skills, which doesn't mean he's really very interested in anything he's selling.

A problem with the stupid is that they won't acknowledge it.  I don't think its true that most stupid people don't have an inkling they're dumb, but how they react to it is different.  Some simply accept it.  Others reject it.  Some seek constant affirmation that they aren't dumb.  Trump seems to fit into that category.

Aiding that, we'd note, is that he's been surrounded by people who have been telling him that he's really smart his entire life.  Everyone has witnessed something like that personally, where somebody is protected from reality until they simply don't know what it is.

There's sort of a Chauncey Gardiner element to this, we'd note.  In the film Being There, a simple minded man is mistake for a genius and becomes an advisor to the President simply because of his appearance and apparent station in life.  It's very difficult for most people to accept that somebody who has achieved apparent success isn't extremely smart.  I recall my mother, for instance, being of the view that Barrack Obama must be a genius (I'm not saying that he wasn't) because he was a lawyer.  It doesn't take smarts to become a lawyer, and one of the most successful ones I ever met with not a smart man at all.  He was just lucky.

Added to this, people, once they latch on to a figure, tend to attribute their own values to him.  We've seen this in spades with Trump. He's not a religious man, but people believe he is. There's no reason to believe he cares about most of the populist agenda, unless doing so aids him personally, but people believe he does.

The scary thing here is, unlike the first time when Trump had people to real him back in, he doesn't now.  If he's not demented, and therefore not capable of being removed, he can do pretty much any dumb thing he wants to over the next four years.

He's simply narcissistic and amoral.

Full bore narcissism and complete amorality is really rare.  Even people that most other people accuse of narcissism are capable of at least some empathy.

Likewise, complete amorality is very rare as well. Even people with loose morals usually have some.

But not always, in either case.

Indeed, it's well know that psychopaths have no empathy for other people.  And some of them, we'd note, are pretty smart.  According to some, Julius Rosenberg, the Communist spy, was an example of all we've mentioned here.  He was really smart and only cared about himself.

Trump was raised in an environment in which only success mattered and only money determined what was success. That was the Trump culture, and by all available evidence, Trump took to it and thrived in it.

Nothing other than Trump matters to Trump.  That's pretty much it. And given that, cheating on spouses, dumping associates, switching positions, lying, and screwing the entire nation are okay if it benefits his view of himself.

And that explains why he completely baffles his opponents and why his admirers admire him. Those opposed to him cannot grasp how anyone can't see through Trump.  Those who admirer him can't bring themselves to believe that he doesn't care about them whatsoever, or the country, or anything other than himself.  

Normal people don't behave like Trump to that degree. Trump's an example of what the world would really be like if John Lennon's Imagine ruled the day.

Trump sees a world in which there are no values, no religion, and nothing, other than Trump getting all he can get.

I'd note, however, that in a way, Trump, if viewed this way, is the ultimate expression of his generation, the "Me Generation".  Not everyone, or even most, in it, but the generational ethos as a whole.  What matter was "me", not much else.  Trump expresses an extreme form of that, even if he acquired it at home from a father who was definitely not part of that generation.  That also makes it easier for his acolytes to vote for him, as some of them growing up sort of viewing the world that way themselves.  Other, however, likely most, really believe that Trump cares about their cost of living, their pocketbooks, and making "American Great."

Well, as we know, Leopards won't eat my face.

He's a Goodfella

Not literally, but rather by association.

Trump developed his real estate business in New York at a time at which if you were going to get by, you were going to deal with the mob.  If he has just as big of "big brain" as he claims, then he would have picked up how mobsters work, which to some extent is on bluff and threat.

The best example is from the movie The Godfather, which was closely based on the real behavior of the New York mafia.  When they wanted Jack Wolz to do something, they put a severed horse's head, from a beloved horse, in his bed. Wolz, who wasn't harmed himself, caved to their demands.

Trump constantly makes bluffs and threats, and in fact quite often his adversaries give him what he wants.  That may be his undignified and reprehensible negotiation style.  If a person is immoral enough, and unprincipled enough, that works. . . right up until it doesn't.

There's no "art" to this deal.  It's brutish.  

And, of course, sooner or later, it doesn't work.

And when that day comes, you have no friends.

Indeed, somebody ought to give Trump the test now.  When he says "I need this" somebody ought to say, come and get it.  

Harold Hardrada asked Harold Godwinson "How much of England will you give me?".  Godwinson replied "six feet, because you are bigger than other men".   In this administration, and soon, somebody is going to tell Trump "fuck you, and the horse that you rode in on", and the whole bluff thing just goes down the tubes.  Once you can't back a bluff up, it's implodes really quickly.

And then, you have no friends at all.

Here, for example, Denmark ought to tell the US to get its Space Farce base out within a few days.  We'd have to.  And if I governed Panama, the Canal  would actually be run by the Chinese within a few days.

Whatcha Gonna About It?

Not much.

And his supporters?

They'll just all claim they were never actually for him.

That's not the only possibility.

The Kremlin Candidate

Trump is a Russian asset. The only question is, is he knowingly one, or not, and why.


It's worth noting that it would truly be a master stroke politically if you could get your man into the Oval Office, if you were one of our enemies.  And then he could go about wrecking things on your behalf, destroying alliances, the economy and even simply our place in the world.


Nobody has every proven that Trump is a knowing Russian asset.  He's definitely a Russian asset, to be sure, but it may simply be because of his view of the world and his childish admiration of strong men, and maybe his wanting to be one.  Maybe its because on the eve of his own death, he wants to be remembered for something, and the only think he can think of is to be remembered as an American Napoleon.

But his relationship with the Russians has never been explained.  Do they have something on him, and if so what?

Many have wondered about this very question, but nothing has been proven.

Still, he's successfully taken a page out of the Nazi Party's book and broad cast lies so consistently that large sections of the US population believe them.  And now he's threatening our allies, and has to be taken seriously.

If Trump is a bought and paid for Russian asset, and largely only cares for himself, he's in an ideal position to simply bring the United States down.  He can alienate our relationship with our allies, destroy our economy, leave us a wreck, and turn us against each other.

And that's the best evidence that he's a Russian asset. That's exactly what he's doing.

Soviet literacy poster.

Related threads:

Hubris and Strange Coincidence.



Monday, January 20, 2025

Tuesday, January 20, 1925. The Soviet–Japanese Basic Convention

The Soviet–Japanese Basic Convention between the Soviet Union and Japan was signed.  It provided:

JAPAN and the UNION OF SOVIET SOCIALIST REPUBLICS, desiring to promote relations of good neighbourhood and economic co-operation between them, have resolved to conclude a Convention embodying basic rules in regulation of such relations and, to that end, have appointed as their Plenipotentiaries, that is to say :

His MAJESTY THE EMPEROR OF JAPAN :

Kenkichi YOSHIZAWA, Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary to the Republic of China, Jushii, a member of the First Class of the Imperial Order of the Sacred Treasure ;

THE CENTRAL EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE OF THE UNION OF SOVIET SOCIALIST REPUBLICS :

Lev Mikhailovitch KARAKHAN, Ambassador to the Republic of China ;

Who, having communicated to each other their respective full powers, found to be in good and due form, have agreed as follows :

Article I.

The High Contracting Parties agree that, with the coming into force of the present Convention, diplomatic and consular relations shall be established between them.

Article II.

The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics agrees that the Treaty of Portsmouth of September 5th, 1905, shall remain in full force.

It is agreed that the Treaties, Conventions and Agreements, other than the said Treaty of Portsmouth, which were concluded between Japan and Russia prior to November 7, 1917, shall be re-examined at a Conference to be subsequently held between the Governments of the High Contracting Parties and are liable to revision or annulment as altered circumstances may require.

Article III.

The Governments of the High Contracting Parties agree that, upon the coming into force of the present Convention, they shall proceed to the revision of the Fishery Convention of 1907, taking into consideration such changes as may have taken place in the general conditions since the conclusion of the said Fishery Convention.

Pending the conclusion of a convention so revised, the Government of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics shall maintain the practices established in 1924 relating to the lease of fishery lots to Japanese subjects.

Article IV.

The Governments of the High Contracting Parties agree that, upon the coming into force of the present Convention, they shall proceed to the conclusion of a treaty of commerce and navigation in conformity with the principles hereunder mentioned, and that, pending the conclusion of such a treaty, the general intercourse between the two countries shall be regulated by those principles.

         (1) The subjects or citizens of each of the High Contracting Parties shall, in accordance with the laws of the country : (a) have full liberty to enter, travel and reside in the territories of the other, and (b) enjoy constant and complete protection for the safety of their lives and property.

         (2) Each of the High Contracting Parties shall, in accordance with the laws of the country, accord in its territories to the subjects or citizens of the other, to the widest possible extent and on condition of reciprocity, the right of private ownership and the liberty to engage in commerce, navigation, industries and other peaceful pursuits.

         (3) Without prejudice to the right of each Contracting Party to regulate by its own laws the system of international trade in that country, it is understood that neither Contracting Party shall apply in discrimination against the other Party any measures of prohibition, restriction or impost which may serve to hamper the growth of the intercourse, economic or otherwise, between the two countries, it being the intention of both Parties to place the commerce, navigation and industry of each country, as far as possible, on the footing of the most-favoured nation.

The Governments of the High Contracting Parties further agree that they shall enter into negotiations, from time to tune as circumstances may require, for the conclusion of special arrangements relative to commerce and navigation to adjust and to promote economic relations between the two countries.

Article V.

The High Contracting Parties solemnly affirm their desire and intention to live in peace and amity with each other, scrupulously to respect the undoubted right of a State to order its own life within its own jurisdiction in its own way, to refrain and restrain all persons in any govern mental service for them, and all organisations in receipt of any financial assistance from them, from any act overt or covert liable in any way whatever to endanger the order and security in any part of the territories of Japan or the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics.

It is further agreed that neither Contracting Party shall permit the presence in the territories under its jurisdiction :

     (a) of organisations or groups pretending to be the Government for any part of the territories of the other Party, or

      (b) of alien subjects or citizens who may be found to be actually carrying on political activities for such organisations or groups.

Article VI.

In the interest of promoting economic relations between the two countries, and taking into consideration the needs of Japan with regard to natural resources, the Government of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics is willing to grant to Japanese subjects, companies and associations concessions for the exploitation of minerals, forests and other natural resources in all the territories of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics.

Article VII.

The present Convention shall be ratified.

Such ratification by each of the High Contracting Parties shall, with as little delay as possible, be communicated, through its diplomatic representative at Peking, to the Government of the other Party, and from the date of the later of such communications this Convention shall come into full force.

The formal exchange of the ratifications shall take place at Peking as soon as possible.

In witness whereof the respective Plenipotentiaries have signed the present Convention, in duplicate in the English language, and have affixed thereto their seals.

Done at Peking, this twentieth day of January, One thousand nine-hundred and twenty-five.

                    (L. S.) K. YOSHIZAWA.

                    (L. S.) L. KARAKHAN.

Japan and Russia, and then Japan and the Soviet Union, never got along well.  They had fought the Russo Japanese War some twenty years prior, and Japan had heavily intervened in Siberia during the Russian Civil War.  There remains tension between them over the the Sakhalin.

Last edition:

I had no idea Sanka was this old.