“Up until Russia’s invasion of Ukraine…there was something called the ‘rules-based order’ promoted mainly by the US but also supported directly by the European Union and the [UK monarchy and countries of the British] Commonwealth….“It beggared belief listening to the nauseating virtue signaling of US ‘diplomats’ who refused to engage Russia’s concerns in even a half-serious manner.… Subhumans are not allowed to talk or even be a part of the conversation. And in the world of diplomacy as practiced by the collective West, the Russians are definitely subhuman.”…US taxpayers are also subhuman to the entire US political class, so I very much identify with Russia’s experience and wish them all the best in whatever they choose to do….“Putin’s attack on Ukraine has shattered the West’s certainties [ie, the certainty that the 75 year bondage of US taxpayers to keeping “European order” would be permanent].…2/24/22, “Address by the President of the Russian Federation – February 24, 2022,” the saker, “President of Russia Vladimir Putin”
2/25/22, “Putin Ushers in the New Geopolitical Game Board,” Tom Luongo
“Up until February 23rd, 2022, the powerful countries of the world played a very rarified game….
Up until Russia’s invasion of Ukraine (and yes, it is an invasion, justifiable or otherwise) there was something called the ‘rules-based order’ promoted mainly by the US but also supported directly by the European Union and the [UK monarchy and countries of the British] Commonwealth.
[NATO’s British roots: “There are demonstrably now, just as there have been since 1776, TWO opposing dynamics operating within America, where only one is in alignment of the ideals of the Constitution and Declaration of independence while the other is entirely in alignment with the ideals of the British Empire and hereditary institutions from which it supposedly broke away. One America has been defended by great leaders who are too often identified by their untimely deaths while in office, who consistently advanced anti-colonial visions for a world of sovereign nations, win-win cooperation, and the extension of constitutional rights to all classes and races both within America and abroad. The other America has sought only to enmesh itself with the British Empire’s global regime of finance, exploitation, population control and never-ending wars.“…6/28/2020, “The Age of Chatham House and the British Roots of NATO,” Matthew Ehret]
(continuing): “The rules of the ‘rules-based order’ were simple.
We make the rules, you follow them.
We reserve the right to change the rules whenever we want to suit our purpose.
It was the geopolitical equivalent…of ‘anarcho-tyranny,’ which boils down to, “rules for thee, but not for me.”
[12/17/2016, UK Conservative MP Dominic Grieve said, “After the heady days of post-Cold War and the belief that we were moving the Russians into a rules-based international system, we seem to be going very rapidly in the opposite direction.”...12/17/2016, Mention in UK Telegraph chatty article about Russiagate names, “Cambridge spy seminars hit by whispers of Russian links as three intelligence experts resign,” by Lydia Willgress, Luke Heighton]
(continuing): “We’ve heard the Russian diplomats [and US taxpayers] complain about this for years. Why have these rules if they are not ever enforced?…
We have these rules because only others’ hypocrisy counts. Subhumans are not allowed to talk or even be a part of the conversation.
And in the world of diplomacy as practiced by the collective West, the Russians are definitely subhuman, just like the unvaxxed, anyone to the immediate right of Karl Marx and who isn’t a furry.
All that changed when Russian tanks crossed the border, stand off missiles hit anti-aircraft and artillery batteries, and marines came onshore in Ukraine.
For months we’ve been treated to the dumbest and most infuriating facsimile of diplomacy I’ve ever witnessed. It beggared belief listening to the nauseating virtue signaling of US ‘diplomats’ who refused to engage Russia’s concerns in even a half-serious manner while blaming them for every issue on the planet….
It was clear that Putin and his staff would be given this ultimate option, invade Ukraine and face global opprobrium or kneel before Zod.
Their miscalculation was in thinking that Russia actually cares one whit about that global opprobrium at this point. By their actions in Ukraine this week, it is clear they do not.
They weren’t afraid of NATO’s posturing, Biden’s threats of sanctions or of Liz Truss’s difficulties with basic geography. The longer this standoff over Ukraine went on the more it was clear that most of the people in positions of power and their support staff have less than zero understanding of the parameters of their jobs.
Because of this their constant invocation of the ‘rules-based order’ rang more and more hollow since they were simply acting like a precocious six-year oldboy playing with his stuffed tiger.
Pronouncements of consequences and ‘sanctions from hell’ and threats of holding our breath until we pass out were rightly ignored by Putin and his staff.
For decades NATO enjoyed the luxury, thanks to [unlimited US tax dollars] US military primacy, of
making up the rules and forcing everyone else to react to them.
It goes back to the statement, most likely made by then Vice-President Dick Cheney, on the ‘reality-based community,’
they will dictate the time, place and parameters
for any and all confrontations.
However, the longer this went on the more it was clear that Putin and his foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, were inching towards that moment where they would change the rules. I wrote back in March 2018 that Putin’s State of the Union address where he unveiled new weapon systems was a major turning point.
For the next four years we have seen a steady escalation of neoconservative insanity in a vain attempt to push US missile systems closer to Moscow, contra to all signed international agreements, UN resolutions about resolving the breakaway republics of Ukraine
After a 2021 where things in Ukraine kept getting hotter and hotter, Putin and Lavrov, having backed Biden down over the summer with June 16th’s summit, knew the time had come to change the rules of the game.
If they didn’t Russia would cease to be.
The old game entered its spiral towards conclusion when Russia sent and published publicly its draft proposals for a new security architecture concerning Russia and NATO’s relationship in Eastern Europe.
Russia acted, setting the operational tempo from that moment forward. It forced the US and Europe to react to them as they created
a new reality, set new rules.
The US was now the rule-taker rather than the rule-maker.You knew this because it prompted multiple rounds of scurrying to Moscow by officials from all over the West trying to talk the Russians off their new game.
To zero avail.
As The Saker pointed out in his initial thoughts on Russia’s recognition of the breakaway republics of the Donbass, this operation in Ukraine was a long time in the planning. This was not an action that was taken lightly.
“Again, I will repeat here what I wrote above: this recognition should NOT, repeat, NOT, be seen in isolation. It is just ONE PHASE in a PROCESS which began at least a year ago, or more, and there is much more to come.”
Truer words and all that.
For months I’ve been telling you that Nordstream 2 would eventually be turned on and that Russia would not be kicked out of the SWIFT telecommunications network regardless of what happened.
The former is still on the table, as Germany was the most vocal about not doing the latter.
Even I missed that Russia was planning to change the game this radically, thinking there was always a Davos-approved solution which didn’t involve extensive use of the Russian military, but still ended with the US looking foolish.
In retrospect, it was obvious we were always headed to this end-game because Russia saw the opportunity to change the rules.
Less than a day after Russia wiped out both Ukraine’s military power and political architecture, President Sundowner confirmed that all the West’s threats were as empty as the heads of the Millennials running the propaganda desk at the State Dept.
After months of threatening Russia with expulsion from the SWIFT financial messaging system, Europe complained and someone finally showed some sense.
Cutting Russia out of SWIFT would mean the end of the EU as anyone has known it or wishes it could be in the future. It would mean the end of the petrodollar system.
Russia is too systemically important to the global commodity trade that goes far beyond energy. It supplies not only the marginal barrel of oil and BTU of natural gas, but pound of nickel, palladium, titanium, enriched uranium and tungsten. It’s a major supplier of ammonium nitrate fertilizer, potash, and urea.
Do this and Europe not only freezes to death with their three days of gas reserves but starves once the global food supply is disrupted. Do this and Biden enters the mid-terms with $8/gallon gas, and 20% real inflation.
The Fed raising rates will be the least of anyone’s worries.
Russia held all the cards in the negotiations over Ukraine and we [the US] recklessly pursued a policy of insults and amateurish propaganda, refusing to believe Russia wouldn’t make her final stand.
By putting boots on the ground, planes in the air and missiles up the ass of every Ukrainian military installation across the country, Russia turned the ‘might makes right’ argument of the US and Europe on its head.
The game has changed because the rules have changed. It’s no longer a game of rhetorical chicken and virtue signaling.
Realpolitik doesn’t matter a bit when missiles are in the air. This is the point that was lost on so many in the professional commentariat for the past few months. They’ve never contemplated the idea that someone could do this, no less did it.
They are now confused and angry, working through their ‘cope’ in public. If it wasn’t so pathetic it would almost be hilarious.
For nearly a decade the West poured billions [of US tax dollars] into Ukraine to arm it and prepare it for this week. Those billions were essentially wiped out in a matter of hours. It took a day to expose all of NATO’s posturing as nothing but that, posturing.
We now have to come to terms with this new game. It’s a game where the rules will be far more equitable because the unthinkable alternatives are no longer theoretical, they are real.
It’s real because the threats to Russia posed by NATO’s designs on Ukraine were always real no matter what was said.
So Biden and Davos got the war in Ukraine they’ve been begging Russia for. The problem for them now is Russia isn’t playing their game anymore and they are wholly unprepared for the next one.”
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Added: Yes!!! Exactly the point. 75 years of "order" provided by US taxpayers must end: “The entire post-World War II order across Europe“…“It threatens our entire post-war order.”
“Germany on Saturday reversed a historic policy of never sending weapons to conflict zones, saying the Russian invasion of Ukraine was an epochal moment that imperiled the entire post-World War II order across Europe.”…
2/26/22, “Germany to send Ukraine weapons in historic shift on military aid,” Politico
“Germany on Saturday reversed a historic policy of never sending weapons to conflict zones, saying the Russian invasion of Ukraine was an epochal moment that imperiled the entire post-World War II order across Europe.
The decision was an abrupt change in course, coming after Berlin clung to its initial position for weeks despite the rising Russian [so-called] menace and pressure from EU and NATO allies. On Saturday, Berlin finally bowed to that pressure, and to the reality that Russia is encircling Ukrainian cities and threatening to topple the government in Kyiv.
From its own stockpile, the German government will send 1,000 anti-tank weapons and 500 Stinger anti-aircraft defense systems to Ukraine. The government has also authorized the Netherlands to send Ukraine 400 rocket-propelled grenade launchers and told Estonia it ship over send nine howitzers.
“The Russian invasion of Ukraine marks a turning point,” German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said in a statement.
“It threatens our entire post-war order.
In this situation, it is our duty to do our utmost to support Ukraine in defending itself against Vladimir Putin’s invading army. Germany stands closely by Ukraine’s side.”
A government spokesperson said the weapons will be delivered “as soon as possible.””…
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