Week-end Wrap – Political Economy – February 26, 2023

Week-end Wrap – Political Economy – February 26, 2023

by Tony Wikrent

War

How The U.S. (And UK) Sabotaged Peace In Ukraine

[Moon of Alabama, via Naked Capitalism 2-23-2023]

In an interview with an Israeli outlet (vid), former prime minister of Israel Naftali Bennett, who was personally deeply involved in the negotiation process, also alleged that the 'West' blocked them:

“Reports at the time reflect Bennet’s comments and said Russia and Ukraine were softening their positions. Citing Israeli officials, Axios reported on March 8 that Putin’s “proposal is difficult for Zelensky to accept but not as extreme as they anticipated. They said the proposal doesn’t include regime change in Kyiv and allows Ukraine to keep its sovereignty.”

“Discussing how Western leaders felt about his mediation efforts, Bennett said then-British Prime Minister Boris Johnson took an “aggressive line” while French President Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz were more “pragmatic.” Bennett said President Biden adopted “both” positions.

“But ultimately, the Western leaders opposed Bennet’s efforts. “I’ll say this in the broad sense. I think there was a legitimate decision by the West to keep striking Putin and not [negotiate],” Bennett said.

“When asked if the Western powers “blocked” the mediation efforts, Bennet said,

“ "Basically, yes. They blocked it, and I thought they were wrong." “

Recognizing The War Is Lost The ‘West’ Seeks An Exit 

[Moon of Alabama, via Naked Capitalism 2-21-2023]

President Vladimir Putin’s State of the Nation address, 21 February 2023 

Gilbert Doctorow [via Naked Capitalism 2-25-2023]

The State Duma has just approved a law sent to it by the President declaring the suspension of Russian participation in the New Start treaty. There is now no remaining convention limiting the nuclear arsenals of the nuclear superpowers.

The constellation of treaties that was developed starting in the 1970s was important not only for setting down numbers and kinds of systems that were permitted to the signatories. Still more important were the verification procedures which were ongoing. They involved regular meetings of high officials from both sides and served to establish some kind of mutual respect and trust.  As I noted from the opening remarks of Vladimir Putin in his address, there is now zero mutual trust and the guard rails protecting us from nuclear holocaust have been removed.

A Fight for Survival: What Victory Looks Like to Putin 

[Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, via Naked Capitalism 2-24-2023]

Putin’s state of the nation address effectively suggests that in the growing confrontation with the West, Russia will rely on one sole argument: the nuclear option. In this respect, suspending the New START treaty also sends a warning to non-Western countries of the consequences for the entire world of the West’s anti-Russian policies. Moscow is presenting the global community with a choice between Russia or descending into a nuclear disaster.

Week-end Wrap – Political Economy – February 19, 2023

Week-end Wrap – Political Economy – February 19, 2023

by Tony Wikrent

War

“The Sy Hersh effect: killing the messenger, ignoring the message”

[Responsible Statecraft, via Naked Capitalism Water Cooler 2-16-2023]

“Absolute crickets. That is the sound in the major mainstream media — both foreign and domestic — following the charges by veteran investigative journalist Seymour Hersh that the United States led a covert operation to blow up the Nord Stream pipelines in September 2022…. Second, they point to what appears to be “single sourcing” in Hersh’s Substack report (though he is much more ambiguous about this in his interview with Radio War Nerd this week). Additionally, Twitter and Substack sleuths, using OSINT (open source intelligence,) say they’ve found holes in the details (like the class of minesweeper ship involved and where it was located the day Hersh claims the explosives were planted) that cast doubt on his entire story. But the questions raised about Hersh and his reporting (appropriate or not) do not explain the lack of mainstream coverage of his extremely detailed, 5300-word article, which under any other circumstances should have opened the floodgates of journalistic inquiry. … Media critic, author, and podcaster Robert Wright suggests the media blackout is part of an ongoing trend of one-sided and incurious Ukraine War coverage. He pointed to explosive, yet little-reported claims by former Israeli prime minister Neftali Bennett earlier this month that the West had killed a tentative peace deal between Russia and Ukraine last March. ‘In some ways I think MSM’s more or less ignoring Naftali Bennett’s comments on aborted early-March Ukraine negotiations is even less excusable than ignoring the Hersh story,’ Wright said in an email exchange with RS. ‘MSM can always say Hersh is now just a freelancer and was relying basically on a single anonymous source, etc — but Bennett is an eyewitness to what he’s describing, and he’s the former prime minister of Israel!'”

NATO Turning to Target China? Western Alliance Developing Plan For Multiple Simultaneous Conflicts 

[Military Watch Headlines, via Mike Norman Economics 2-15-2023]

On February 14 a high ranking NATO source, cited by Bloomberg, warned that NATO members were preparing plans for the alliance to involve itself in multiple conflicts simultaneously - including conflicts beyond its traditional areas of responsibility. During meetings in Brussels on February 14-15 NATO Defence Ministers will sign a classified guidebook containing plans of action for "high intensity" conflicts and conflicts "beyond the area of responsibility" of the alliance, which will include requirements for NATO members’ military investments. Members will additionally be directed to redirect investments to the sectors seen as most important for collective security - whether it be tank forces or missile defences - to strengthen the military bloc’s collective warfighting capabilities. The report comes as NATO members have not only increasingly involved themselves in the ongoing Russian-Ukrainian War, whether by dispatching hundreds of Marines to the battlefield as in Britain’s case, or providing even larger personnel contributions through private military contractor groups as was done by Poland among others. As Western intervention in the conflict has continued to increase, NATO members have also expanded their military footprints in the East Asia aimed at China - most recently in the form of aerial warfare drills involving the U.S., Britain and Australia.…

Ukraine is burning through ammunition faster than the US and NATO can produce it. Inside the Pentagon’s plan to close the gap 

[CNN, via Naked Capitalism 2-17-2023]

Week-end Wrap – Political Economy – February 12, 2023

Week-end Wrap – Political Economy – February 12, 2023

by Tony Wikrent

War

Seymour Hersh: Navy Divers + Spooks + Norway Took Out Nord Stream 2 on Biden’s Orders, Using Timer

[Naked Capitalism, 2-8-2023]

How America Took Out The Nord Stream Pipeline

Seymour Hersh, February 8, 2023

The U.S. Navy’s Diving and Salvage Center…. has been training highly skilled deep-water divers for decades….

Last June, the Navy divers, operating under the cover of a widely publicized mid-summer NATO exercise known as BALTOPS 22, planted the remotely triggered explosives that, three months later, destroyed three of the four Nord Stream pipelines, according to a source with direct knowledge of the operational planning….

There was a vital bureaucratic reason for relying on the graduates of the center’s hardcore diving school in Panama City. The divers were Navy only, and not members of America’s Special Operations Command, whose covert operations must be reported to Congress and briefed in advance to the Senate and House leadership—the so-called Gang of Eight. The Biden Administration was doing everything possible to avoid leaks as the planning took place late in 2021 and into the first months of 2022.

Sources say 

[Washington Examiner, via Naked Capitalism, 2-10-2023]

Hersh's story — all 5,000-plus words of it — is based entirely on a lone anonymous source "with direct knowledge of the operational planning." That's it. Hersh supplies no further evidence proving unequivocally the United States planned and executed what would be rightly viewed as an "act of war."

WHAT’S WRONG WITH THE HERSH REPORT ON THE NORD STREAM ATTACKS 

John Helmer [Dances with Bears, via Naked Capitalism, 2-11-2023]

The Top Five Lessons from Year One of Ukraine’s War 

Stephen Walt (Professor of International relations at the Harvard Kennedy School) [Foreign Policy, via Naked Capitalism, 2-10-2023]

Week-end Wrap – Political Economy – February 5, 2023

Week-end Wrap – Political Economy – February 5, 2023

by Tony Wikrent

War

Russian Foreign Ministry Rejects Blinken and Nuland Proposals, Condemns Scholz for Reviving Hitler’s Plan to Destroy Russia 

John Helmer [Dances with Bears, via Naked Capitalism 1-29-2023]

The Russian Foreign Ministry has dismissed proposals issued this week in Washington by US Secretary of State Antony Blinken and his Under Secretary, Victoria Nuland. Ministry spokesman Maria Zakharova has confirmed that Russia’s military plan for the Ukraine will not be interrupted or delayed.

“It is not necessary to talk about what will happen if someone does something [in the Ukraine],” Zakharova said. “There is a situation on the ground that we are solving. Everything. This is not a question of guesswork, but of our assessment of what is happening. This is based on the situation on the ground and direct political statements by Western politicians. Given that all negotiations have been terminated by Ukraine, this issue will be resolved on the ground. Under pressure or on its own, Kiev has banned any negotiations with Russia at the government level. So that’s it. The rest is for the military experts.”

Russia has also dismissed German Chancellor Olaf Scholz as the successor of the Nazi Wehrmacht and the puppet of the US Government. Scholz, according to Zakharova,  is one of the Germans who “lack[s] the spirit to make the right choice, not to repeat the mistakes of their ancestors, for which the people of Germany, among others, paid a huge price… We remember well what German tanks are. These are machines which have become a symbol,  not just of death and deadly ideology, but of hatred of humanity — a global, existential threat to the entire planet…

[TW: Not the language of diplomacy. At all.]

Sanctions and Geography are Replacing the Russian Oligarchy With State Planning, Producing a Better Growth Rate than the US, Germany

John Helmer [Dances with Bears 1-31-2023]

There is nothing like facing the gun muzzles of the Germans, British and Americans to teach Russians what to do to correct their past mistakes.  The International Monetary Fund (IMF) would be the last US bank in the world to admit as much.

Nor would the IMF concede that everything it bribed the Kremlin to accept, when Boris Yeltsin was president and Anatoly Chubais and Alexei Kudrin were his economic ministers,  is now being reversed – at a speed unmatched since Joseph Stalin directed the relocation of heavy industry out of reach of German guns between August and December of 1941.  

This time round, the IMF is reporting that after Russia recorded a 2.2% drop in real Gross Domestic Product (GDP) measurement in 2022 – 35% less than the IMF had been forecasting – by 2024, the second and third years of the war, the Russian growth rate will be more than double the US, British and Japanese rates; 33% better than Germany’s; 24% better than France; 29% better than Canada.    

This is the first official acknowledgement by the US and international banks that the long war against Russia is being lost.