{"id":181548,"date":"2019-01-04T07:29:28","date_gmt":"2019-01-04T07:29:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/?p=181548"},"modified":"2019-01-08T06:25:49","modified_gmt":"2019-01-08T06:25:49","slug":"from-2018-to-2019-a-quick-survey-of-a-few-trends","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/?p=181548","title":{"rendered":"From 2018 to 2019 \u2013 a quick survey of a few trends"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Saker — The Saker.is Jan 3, 2019<\/h1>\n
\"\u0410\u0440\u043c\u0438\u044f-\u0420\u043e\u0441\u0441\u0438\u0438-864x400_c\"<\/a>

Click to enlarge<\/p><\/div>\n

[This analysis was written for the Unz Review]<\/span><\/p>\n

The year 2018 will go down in history as a turning point in the evolution of the geostrategic environment of our planet.\u00a0 There are many reasons for that and I won\u2019t list them all, but here are some of the ones which I personally consider the most important ones:<\/span><\/p>\n

The Empire blinked.\u00a0 Several times.<\/h2>\n

This is probably the single most important development of the year: the AngloZionist Empire issued all sorts of scary threats, and took some even scarier actual steps, but eventually it had to back down.\u00a0 In fact, the Empire is in retreat on many fronts, but I will only list a few crucial ones:<\/span><\/p>\n

    \n
  1. The DPRK: remember all the grandiose threats made by Trump and his Neocon handlers?\u00a0 The Administration went as far as announcing that it would send as many as THREE(!) nuclear aircraft carrier strike groups to the waters off the DRPK<\/a><\/strong><\/span> while Trump threatened to \u201ctotally destroy\u201d North Korea<\/a><\/strong><\/span>.\u00a0 Eventually, the South Koreans decided to take matters in their own hands, they opened a direct channel of communications with the North, and all the US sabre-rattling turned into nothing more than hot air.<\/span><\/li>\n
  2. Syria in April: that was the time when the US, France and the UK decided to attack Syria with cruise missiles to \u201cpunish\u201d the Syrians for allegedly using chemical weapons (a theory too stupid to be even worth discussing).\u00a0 Of 103 detected missiles, 71 were shot down by the Syrian<\/strong><\/span>s<\/a>.\u00a0 The White House and the Pentagon, along with their trusted Ziomedia, declared the strike a great success, but then, they also did that during the invasion of Grenada (one of the worst assault operation in military history) or after the humiliating defeat of Israel by Hezbollah in 2006, so this really means very little.\u00a0 The truth is that this operation was a total military failure and that it has not been followed up by anything (at least for now).<\/span><\/li>\n
  3. The Ukraine: we spend almost all of 2018 waiting for an Ukronazi attack on the Donbass which never happened.\u00a0 Now, I am quite sure that some will argue that the Nazi junta in Kiev never had any such intentions, but anybody with even a basic knowledge of what took place in the Ukraine this year knows that this is pure bull: the junta did pretty much everything to execute an attack except the very last step: to actually order it.\u00a0 Putin\u2019s open threat that any such attack would have \u201cgrave consequences for Ukraine\u2019s statehood as such<\/em>\u201d probably played a key role in deterring the Empire.\u00a0 Oh sure, the Ukronazis might well attack in January or any time after that, but the fact is that in 2018 they did not dare do so.\u00a0 Yet again, the Empire (and its minions) had to back down.<\/span><\/li>\n
  4. Syria in September: this time, it was the Israeli hypostasis of the Empire which triggered a massive crisis when the Israelis hid their strike aircraft behind a Russian Il-20 large turboprop airliner resulting in the loss of the aircraft and crew.\u00a0 After giving the Israelis a chance to come clean (which, predictably, they didn\u2019t \u2013 they are, after all, Israelis), the Russians got fed up and delivered advanced air defense, electronic warfare and battle management systems to the Syrians.\u00a0 In response the Israelis (who had issued many threats about immediately destroying any S-300 delivered to the Syrians) had to basically stop their air strikes against Syria (well, not quite, they did execute two such strikes: one totally ineffective one and one in which the Zionist crazies again hid behind an aircraft, but in this case, no one but TWO civilian aircraft<\/a><\/strong><\/span> (more about this latest ziocrazy stunt further below).\u00a0 The Empire backed down again.<\/span><\/li>\n
  5. Syria in December: apparently fed up with all the infighting amongst his advisors, Trump eventually ordered a full US withdrawal from Syria.\u00a0 Now, of course, since this is the USA, we have to wait and see what actually happens.\u00a0 There is also a very complex kabuki dance being executed by Russia, Turkey, the US, Israel, Iran, the Kurds and the Syrians to stabilize the situation following a full US withdrawal.\u00a0 After all the years of huffing and puffing about how \u201cAssad The Monster must go\u201d it is quite amusing to see how the western powers are throwing in towels one after the other.\u00a0 This also begs the obvious question: if \u201cThe City On The Hill And Sole Superpower On The Planet, The Leader Of The Free World and the Indispensable Nation\u201d can\u2019t even deal with a weakened Syrian government and military, what can this military successfully do (besides provide Hollywood blockbusters to a gullible US public)?<\/span><\/li>\n
  6. Various smaller defeats: too many to count, but they include the Khashoggi fiasco, the failure of the war in Yemen, the failure of the war in Afghanistan,\u00a0the failure of the war in Iraq, the failure to remove Maduro from power in Venezuela, and the gradual loss of control over an increasing number of EU countries (Italy), Nikki Haley\u2019s ridiculous antics at the UNSC, the inability to gather up the intellectual resources needed to have a real, productive, meeting with Vladimir Putin, the disastrous commercial war with China, etc.\u00a0 What all these events have in common is that they are a result of the inability of the US to get anything done, truly done.\u00a0 Far from being a real superpower, the USA is in a full-spectrum decline and the main thing which still gives it its superpower status are its nuclear weapons, just like Russia in the 1990s.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    \"\" All the internal problems resulting from the infighting of the US elites (roughly: the Clinton gang vs Trump and his Deplorables) only make things worse.\u00a0 Just the apparently never ending sequence of resignations and\/or firing from the Trump Administration is a very important sign of the advanced state of collapse of the US polity.\u00a0 Elites don\u2019t fight each other when all goes well, they do so when everything goes south.\u00a0 The saying \u201cvictory has many fathers but defeat is an orphan<\/em>\u201d reminds us that when a gang of thugs begins to lose control of a situation, it rapidly turns into an \u201cevery man for himself\u201d, everybody blames everybody for the problems and nobody wants to stay anywhere near those who will go down in history as the pathetic losers who screwed everything up.<\/span><\/p>\n

    As for the US armed forces, they have been tremendously successful in killing a very large amount of people, as always, mostly civilians, but they failed to get anything actually done, at least not if one understands that the purpose of war is not just to kill people, but is the \u201ccontinuation of politics by other means<\/em>\u201c.\u00a0 Let\u2019s compare and contrast what Russia and the US did in Syria.<\/span><\/p>\n

    On October 11th<\/sup>, Putin declared the following in an interview with Vladimir Soloviev on the TV channel Russia 1<\/a>: \u201cOur objective is to stabilize the legitimate authority and create conditions for a political compromise<\/em>\u201c.\u00a0 That\u2019s it. He did not say that Russia would single-handedly change the course of the war, much less so win the war.\u00a0 The (very small<\/em><\/strong>!) Russian task force in Syria achieved these original objectives in just a few months<\/em><\/strong>, something which the Axis-of-Kindness could not achieve in years (and the Russians did that with a small fraction of the military capabilities available to the US\/NATO\/EU\/CENTCOM\/Israel in the region.\u00a0 In fact, the Russians even had to quickly create a resupply system which they did not have because of the purely defensive Russian military posture (Russian power projection is mostly limited under 500-1000km from the Russian border).<\/span><\/p>\n

    In comparison, the USA has been fighting a so-called GWOT (Global War on Terror) since 2001 and all it can show is that the terrorists (of various demonstrations) only got stronger, took control of more land, murdered more people, and generally seemed to show a remarkable ability to survive and even grow in spite of (or thanks to) the GWOT.\u00a0 As Putin would say, what would you expect from \u201cpeople who don\u2019t know the difference between Austria and Australia<\/em>\u201c?<\/span><\/p>\n

    Personally, I would expect them to take full credit for the victory and leave.<\/span><\/p>\n

    Which is exactly what the USA has done.<\/span><\/p>\n

    At least that is what they are saying now.\u00a0 This could change 180 degree again.<\/span><\/p>\n

    As for Afghanistan, the USA spent more time there than the Soviets did.\u00a0 Does that not strongly suggest that the US leaders are *even more* incompetent than the \u201cstagnation\u201d era Soviet gerontocrats<\/em><\/strong>?<\/span><\/p>\n

    The failure to subdue or even contain Russia<\/h2>\n

    Putin\u2019s speech on March 1st to the Russian Federal Assembly<\/a><\/strong><\/span> was truly a historical moment: for the first time since the Empire decided to wage war on Russia (a war which is roughly 80% informational, 15% economic and only 5% kinetic but which can turn 95% kinetic in one hour or so!) the Russians decided to openly warn the USA that their strategy has been comprehensively defeated.\u00a0 You think that this is hyperbole?\u00a0 Think again.\u00a0 What is US military power based on?\u00a0 What are it\u2019s main components?<\/span><\/p>\n