Friday, April 1, 2022

Is Ukraine a contest between two dangerously unstable superpowers?

 

That's what Sarah Hoyt hypothesized yesterday.  Her argument is thought-provoking.


This morning, this thread hit my mailbox from three separate sources.

<snip> ... for certain unstable regimes (or even stable ones with no effective means of resolving internal disputes peacefully, particularly the succession of power) domestic power games are far more important than anything foreign, and that foreigners are ... only symbols to use in domestic factional fights.

The need to show ideological purity & resolve – “virtue signaling” in modern terms – as a means of achieving power inside the ruling in-group becomes more important than objective reality.

Only the internal power matters ... as outside reality is merely a symbol to be used in the internal power game.

The ruling Imperial Japanese military faction of 1931 – 1945 was a classic example of this irrational regime hypothesis. </snip>

Now I want you to consider that it’s not one, but two irrational regimes, we’re dealing with.

This has been bothering the heck out of me, because it smells like they’re cooperating, only that’s not QUITE the right pattern.

None of this makes sense, unless you have TWO irrational regimes (Ours and Russia’s. China is too, but it’s another ball of wax. China doesn’t really believe other nations are real, anyway. They’re just Barbarians and China is all-under-heaven, so this is all much of a muchness on that front) that are using each other as scarecrows to quiet the opposition at home.

. . .

Why do they act like they’re simultaneously enemies and besties, and all the while are bringing us closer to nuclear war than we’ve been in 40 years?  What sense can we make of this?

This is not about Ukraine. This isn’t even a shadow war between us and Russia.

This is two, enormously unstable regimes, who don’t understand why the internals of their country aren’t conforming to their theories and things aren’t falling into place as their ideological certainty tells them they should, trying to stomp on internal enemies and keep/increase power. 

The other/opponent is just a paper target, something to focus the eye on, but it’s not really what they’re shooting at. I submit to you that Biden’s supporters really, truly thought that the “right” (for lack of a better term) would not just say “Well Putin has a point” (Which is the worst I’ve heard) but fall in, vocally, ecstatically, behind Putin.  That because they’ve been told Trump is Putin’s bud (And remember the left assumes that the right in the US goes for cult of personality as much as they do) we would all rush to vocally support Putin.

And then, as they did during the two world wars, and claim was done during the cold war (waggles hand. Sometimes. Inconsistently) they could righteously suppress the opposition as traitors in a time of war and paint them as evil to the populace.

Meanwhile Putin thought that he could have a short victorious war, start on his dream towards greater Russia, and cement the suppression of opposition, and his cult of personality at home.

Those were the actual goals, and that explains the “we wouldn’t object to a small incursion” and the crazy cakes way Putin went at the war.

It didn’t work, on either end. So now the only thing the two can do is escalate, in pursuit of their real goal: the cementing of internal support/suppression of opposition. This is the only thing that explains why Biden is still making obvious “gaffes” that take us to the brink, and why Putin, reportedly is conducting the war from a nuclear-proof bunker.

Will they go that far? I don’t know. Grandma was fond of saying “I’d not go anywhere – even to heaven – with a madman, because he might push me down.”  And we’re dealing with two insane regimes.

May G-d have mercy on our souls.


There's more at the link.

Like me, Sarah's experienced a Communist revolution, and seen the cultural, economic and political devastation it leaves in its wake.  (We can be quite the pair of downers at a gathering if we go off into a corner and start reminiscing about Communist plots we have known.  It's a depressing subject, but once you've seen it at first hand, you don't forget it.)  We've both learned the lessons of history the hard way, and wish we hadn't.  From that perspective, I think there may be something to her theory.

That's made more clear when you consider that Biden is clearly not in charge of his own administration.  He's a senile old man.  He's no longer capable of strategizing even his lunch today, or figuring out what clothes to wear.  The way he's being treated as a convenient figurehead, a political fig-leaf, by the powers behind the Oval Office is nothing more or less than elder abuse, and I hope and pray those doing it will be called to account for it one day . . . although, knowing American politics, they're probably confident they'll get away with it.  Nevertheless, it's as plain as a pikestaff that the Biden administration isn't.  It's the third Obama administration, with a healthy dose of left-wing oligarchy to boot.  It's seeing everything through ideological spectacles, not actual, factual analysis of what's really going on.  The old proverb reminds us, "There are none so blind as those who will not see" - and the ideologically bound are chronically incapable of seeing anything except what they want to believe.

The neocons on both the Left and the Right of US politics are slavering at the mouth over the Ukraine crisis, seeing it as a wonderful opportunity to "put Russia in its place".  They appear to forget that we're dealing with a failed superpower that still possesses more nuclear warheads than all the other nations on earth put together.  (For that matter, the United States is perilously close to becoming a failed superpower itself.)  If, as Sarah Hoyt posits, the Putin administration in Russia is as unstable, in its own way, as the Biden administration is in our own country, that's a recipe for potential disaster.  There's no other way to put it.  (See Peter Ziehan's views on that in yesterday's article and video discussion.  He clarifies very neatly the dilemma confronting the Putin administration in Ukraine.)

I hope Sarah's wrong . . . but I fear she may be right.  That's anything but a comforting thought.

Peter


13 comments:

  1. When I read these opinions I wonder if the authors are ignorant of what is happening in the US? Everything our empire of lies has tried to convince me about Russia for 20 years have all been lies.

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  2. Sadly, there isn't a damn thing we can do, other than stock up and 'hope' for common sense...

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  3. Russia unstable? What is she smoking? I want none of that.

    The dying gasps of an empire, these uSA's, and rotting from the inside.

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  4. "Meanwhile Putin thought that he could have a short victorious war, start on his dream towards greater Russia, and cement the suppression of opposition, and his cult of personality at home."

    How the hell would she know what Putin thought? I swear, this little Ukraine dustup has revealed so many people on the internet who can read the minds of people they've never met, and from across the globe. I wouldn't place any stock in what she's written. There is not an iota of facts in this screed of hers.

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  5. @OldNFO: Sure there's something we can do. Prep now, force the election officials to play fair in the midterms, if they don't then use force against them to ensue compliance, even if it involves having to fight through so-called law enforcement to make it happen.

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  6. This Ukrainian Russian war reminds me of two pimps fighting over a street corner;so their whores can work.

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  7. Sarah Hoyt might be a good author, but she's Hyper-Estrogenised Carny Folk, too. The constant harping about her psychosomatic issues is another tell. I wouldn't give a bucket of warm spit for her geopolitical ruminations.

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  8. Folks I read said, long before the Russian pacification of Ukraine began that Russia could do it in week's time ... if Russia did a campaign of "shock and awe" or bombing like against Serbia.
    But, in the discussions of what Russia's aims would be, that it was unlikely that Russia would go that route.
    Guess who has proven to be right?

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  9. Interesting idea the Democrats thought they could trap the Republicans on Putin.

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    1. I hadn't thought about it that way before. It makes sense if the Left believes it's own propaganda.
      It also fits with another attempt to tar Trump that fails because they don't understand their opponent.

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  10. Putin has used the war as a way to de-Westernize the Western influence in the Russian Economy. And substantially weaken the US dollar as the global reserve currency. The economic repercussions of this are huge, and have barely begun.

    The us believes it can cause regime change in Russia, and advance their Woke, Global Agenda. And they are using the Ukraine as an excuse for higher energy costs. Which helps the green agenda. And the continued kickbacks, through various channels, to the us elites helps keep us support. And the neocons believe they are on a mission to spread their us values.

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  11. All are wef compliant. What are the final goals, population reduction, green new deal? figure that out and you will know the final outcome.

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  12. Putin has done nothing to hurt the US, it is all self-inflicted. At most he is taking advantage of timing. Folks, we are beyond broke. 80% of all money has been printed in the last 2 years, but try as we might we can't inflate our way out of being broke. You think Putin is bad, wait until Xi (China) takes control of Taiwan and 90% of the semiconductor industry.

    Trump couldn't drain the swamp. I'm really surprised he didn't fire more people, he relied too heavily on experts that were swampy. While he did many good things he should have pressed more strongly to bring jobs back onshore. (he fell for the COVID nonsense too-but we all did. Lying swamp creatures everywhere).

    Bottom line, our politicians(both halves of the uni-party) have been making successful war on the middle class. The battlefield has been shaped and the first salvos are out with more on the way. Our country has been gutted by debt and inflation (the speed of money is delaying us seeing what has been done, but what is done is done). The US dollar is wrecked, but normalcy bias is hiding it. Very soon our ability to trade value will be limited to barter or using the approved digital currency-that is were TPTB (not Biden) are trying to take us.

    And many people will accept this. Want your savings back, now converted to crypto-dollars. Want your EBT or SSI, the same. Trust us-we blew up the fiat dollar but we would never screw you twice with crypto. I hope they have miscalculated and we won't go there, but sadly I'm the family crazy nut-job. People can't discuss the history of money or the dangers of fiat currency anymore, nor do they want to have that discussion. When I tell people that the best thing when 2 a@@holes fight is to get a bag a popcorn and stay out of it, I'm told we need to do something, Russia is evil. When I ask what interest we have in Ukraine to get our sons & daughters killed there I get -But Russia is evil. My mother hates the MSM and knows it is biased, but she watches it as the only news source available and thus doesn't realize how left wing her opinions have become (she thinks she is hard right).

    In any event, Putin is merely taking advantage of us hurting ourselves. I suspect the next act will see China do the same. Meanwhile the TPTB will continue to do even greater damage to us (feature, not a bug)-they want us desperate enough to accept any change in return for saving us from the problems they created - and most people can't see it or at least act as if they can not.

    Buckle up - the roller coaster ride has just started.

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