Bearing in mind that the first casualty of war is the truth, we can safely assume that many of the images and stories, elicting both admiration and outrage, that we see coming out of Ukraine may be fake or doctored or just incomplete.
We’ve discovered that the ‘Snake Island 13’ who told a Russian warship to GFY before being killed are, in fact, alive.
Troops who swore at Russian warship defending Snake Island are alive, says Ukraine https://t.co/71pnOCxFSH
— BBC News (World) (@BBCWorld) February 28, 2022
Some of the stories gaining traction are being spread by people who should know better. Some are being spread by people who have positions of incredible influence but seem to be at the bottom of the intelligence barrel. Here for instance is US rep, Adam Kinzinger, losing the ability to divine reality from a poorly photo shopped meme.
Tom Woods on Twitter: “This @AdamKinzinger bills himself as a slayer of conspiracy theories, and is so determined to spread the Establishment line that he fell for a MF’ing Sam Hyde meme https://t.co/LyM63GuVoZ” / Twitter
This @AdamKinzinger bills himself as a slayer of conspiracy theories, and is so determined to spread the Establishment line that he fell for a MF'ing Sam Hyde meme pic.twitter.com/LyM63GuVoZ
— Tom Woods (@ThomasEWoods) February 27, 2022
So almost 6 days in (at time of writing) what do we know?
Who for instance are the protagonists? Is it Russia against the world?
A UN security council resolution on Friday calling on Russia to withdraw from the Ukraine, was blocked by Russia. No surprise there, but India, China, and the UAE also abstained.
Interestingly, despite pressure by the US to increase oil production, the Persian Gulf states have refused to increase their output. Qatar, one of the most corrupt nations on earth who always have a price tag, has refused to increase their Liquified Natural Gas output.
India and China, then, have tacitly given their support to Russia through their silence.
This is all very interesting. as it suggests that the world is not unanimous in its will to either condemn or sanction Russia. It appears that the Western world – mainly Europe and the anglosphere – are strongly opposed to Russia, but that the rest of the world have different views or at least different priorities.
Biden and his European counterparts, against the advice of the European and Wall Street bankers, have reached for their trump card and have gone for financial sanctions against Russian banks, and the exclusion of Russia from the SWIFT system of financial transfers. This might prove to be a disastrous overplaying of their hand, a hand that is based primarily on the global dominance of the dollar.
The global financial markets are actually mostly Western markets, and they are primarily controlled by the dollar. That is the way it is for now anyway.
SWIFT tracks money flows, and to exclude Russia from this means losing track of what money is doing around the world. Russia is not Iran, it is a much bigger and technologically more advanced economy, and it is connected to markets that need its resources. China and India do not look to the USA for permission to trade with Russia.
The effect of enforcing these financial sanctions against Russia might be a fragmentation of the global financial system, and the establishment of parallel financial systems. It might result in parallel currency systems, and parallel markets.
If this move against the Russian banks and their exclusion from the system of money flow in the markets is circumvented, the resultant parallel financial system could knock the dollar off of its globally-dominant position. That would mean no more indiscriminate money printing for the American Federal Reserve, and could show up modern monetary theory for the crock it actually is.
There is talk of an Indian Rupee-based money transfer rival to SWIFT. The rupee wouldn’t need to replace the dollar to topple its dominant position, rather it could just be part of a viable parallel system.
The collective West are supporting sanctions, but the West is not the industrial powerhouse it was in the post WWII era. Under globalisation the Western economies have off-shored great heaps of production to the developing world. China produces half of the goods on American shelves, and a whole lot of Western cash is tied up in China’s economy.
A lot of the raw resources, in particular energy, that feed into western economies come from countries who are avoiding sanctions of Russia.
The Western reaction has been emotional and sometimes jingoistic, and the immediate reaching for financial sanctions looks poorly thought through. Europeans are taking a huge risk because they rely more on a global system than Russia do. These sanctions could force a fragmentation of global markets. That will hurt Russia short term but it may have much more serious long-term consequences for globalism, with Europe possibly suffering the most harmful decline.
It might be the beginning of the end for SWIFT, the western dominated global financial markets, globalism, and NATO.
It seems that the leaders of the West have not realised that they no longer have real global power, because they no longer control resources or production. We saw how panicked people got because we were not producing PPE, now think of the effect of not being able to keep the lights on because we can’t guarantee energy.
What the recent Afghan debacle hints at also is that America is no longer the world dominant military powerhouse it once was.
On the ground in Ukraine some things seem to be confirmed by both sides. Russia’s advances in Ukraine, it seems, have been better than is being reported by the western media. Russian soldiers, who seem to be using old machinery, are advancing rapidly to the outskirts of the cities and are surrounding them in pincer movements. They are not fighting in the cities.
The response of Ukraine’s President Zelensky has sometimes been ill-advised. Handing out guns to anyone who will stand and defend the country is not a good idea. One outcome from action may be an opportunistic reign of terror by local criminal gangs.
Conscripting every man between the age of 18 and 60 also seems a reckless and futile gamble. At times it feels as if he is following some Hollywood script.
In the Ukraine, reports are coming that Russian forces are surrounding the cities. That advance has been extraordinarily rapid. More rapid for instance, than the American advance on Bagdad in 2003. There are small engagements on the city outskirts, but the Russians seem more intent on surrounding the cities and just holding up. The same tactic seems to be applied across the country.
Twitter seems delusional about what is happening, with contrary stories and propaganda abounding.
Why have the Russians stopped at the outskirts of the cities? Many have observed that the equipment being used by the Russians is old and that the soldiers are green regiments. These are not the same standard of soldier or equipment that were deployed in Syria or Georgia. Some reports suggest that the regiments include separatists from the eastern breakaway regions.
Are these green units and old equipment cannon fodder? Once the cities are encircled will the Russians bring in elite units, trained in urban fighting, to take the cities? That would be one way to achieve a quick and decisive victory with minimal civilian casualties. Who has judged the geopolitical and local circumstances better, the leaders of the West or Putin? Only time will tell.