My Cope is that nuclear war won't happen because our elite are evil, but not insane. They themselves don't want to live in a nuclear wasteland and lose all of their power, so nuclear war won't happen. But that is just a cope, and I am beginning to think more and more that our elite actually are genuinely insane, as well as evil.
I'm starting to think the unthinkable. That our "elites", and by that I mean the faces we can recognise and name, just maybe aren't really in control of anything.
What is it then? Momentum? I certainly felt momentum accounted for a fair bit of the Covid stuff. Diversity too. Once the Karens were programmed they couldn't be stopped from enthusiastically replacing the population. No coercion required. It just took on a life of its own.
They’re also cowardly, which makes nuclear war less likely. They’re like a pack of posturing Gamma males who talked a dumb jock into a fistfight with a bigger jock they hate… but honestly and openly fighting the bigger jock themselves never occurs to them.
The delusion bubble our elites inhabit touches everything. What is a woman. The people are "far right", with "extremism" now applying to a large plurality of the populace. We can run the power grid on sunshine and unicorn farts.
Those who the gods would destroy they first drive mad. The only question is whether or not these madmen can be removed from power before they destroy the world with them.
Bah, wake me up when one of these loudmouths actually declare on Russia! It's all talk!
Western idiots operate on public consent narratives. They think they can spin the population into a war without giving anything in return.
Putin operates on the factual reality that there is a social contract in Russia, and it works quite well. The State looks after people; i.e you won't find foreigners raping girls in Moscow. In return he asks for men to fight, and they do so gladly.
Putin may not be a good person, but he deals with reality as it is.
Whilst multiple plates of reality have been spinning before our very eyes for a long time, the plate spinner can no longer keep up and the audience is noticing. The plates of geopolitics, finance and internal cohesion are going to fall and smash all over the stage soon.
There is no negotiation possible here. Russia has all the cards. Only massive Western conscription might stop them conventionally and that will lead to unimaginable civil unrest. Even if the West cobbles together a conscripted coalition, Putin would likely use tactical nukes or hit our infrastructure. God knows where it would go from there.
The only off ramp is complete Western humiliation.
Can you imagine a "colourblind" conscripted army from the Western nations? Would it be a fair ballot? Would this be a way to finish off young Whites? In which case, would Muslims, blacks, Indians, various hispanics, Chinese, Vietnamese and all the gazillion foreigners in the West get conscripted to go fight overseas somewhere? It just seems muddled up and idiotic.
They will, as others have stated, temporarily 'put awat the woke' in an attempt to get white males to join up. I doubt it will work. No one wants to die so that hostile foreign migrantscan take away their country and continue living while they are rotting corpses in a slit trench.
Unfortunately I feel that an attempted draft for a war with Russia combined with a devastating economic collapse maybe the only way of waking up the masses and saving our people from gradual demographic genocide. But of course that is literally Russia roulette given nuclear arsenal's are involved.
Another very perceptive piece Morgoth. The madmen truly are in charge and in the case of that tweet by Paul Niland, personally invested it seems. I just want all this to end. Sadly I believe that the west , especially the US, has so much debt that war is the only option. These creatures egos would never admit defeat through bankruptcy or any other means. They would much rather propagandise us into a deadly conflict.
I am definitely a fan of Putin, because he is a judo master, much more intelligent than any leader in the West, and has four younger kids with a beautiful, former Olympic gymnast..A definite Alpha or Sigma leader.....He also pursues peace, and is a skilled diplomat..If Medvedev were President, Ukraine would have been flattened already, so the West should be happy that he isn't...
I think it's important to remember another geopolitical reality that is often obscured or lain by the wayside in conversations like these. It is evident to the strategic heads of the opposition to the Russian invasion that Putin does not intend to merely stop at Ukraine.
His efforts in Ukraine do not exist in a vacuume and are instead a part of a larger strategic gambit to close every geostrategic gap into the north eastern European and Eurasian plain before the demographic and state collapse of Russia (which is all but guaranteed at this point) make the defence of said plain possible. It's why he invaded Crimea in 2014. It's why they were involved in the Georgian Civil War and later invaded Georgia.
It is very critical to understand that Ukraine is not one of these geostragic gaps, it is a part of the wide open and difficult to defend Russian plain. The reason they are invading it is because it is in the way to the geostrategic gaps they are actually angling for, Romania and Poland. As you may know both of these nations are (at this point) relatively long standing members of NATO and are thus subject to article 5 which governs the rules for nuclear exchange in the case of invasion.
For the people writing these stupid blustering articles about how "Putin is the biggest meanie ever to be mean and we have to stop him by teaming up avengers style" this geostrategic campaign (decades in the making) probably doesn't factor into their thinking. But it almost certainly factors into the thinking of the people actually giving these pundits marching orders.
For the people thinking about the strategic reality of this situation, we either stop Russia in Ukraine by any means necessary or we risk a NATO Russian war. For me this brings the question of whether or not we should be supporting Ukraine into a whole new light. Whatever you think of the morality of NATO expansion we cannot dismantle its structure overnight (even if the likes of Poland and Romania wanted to (and they almost certainly dont))
To me the saddest part is how we cannot be open and honest about this state of affairs in elite-public communications. If the narrative wasn't so marvelized there could actually be serious political action to remove the people in charge of creating this clusterfuck.
I agree with this. As I discussed with Frodi Midjord, it all makes more sense if we view it through a lens of Heartland Theory. But as you say, these types of discussions are simply not permitted within the Western mainstream, and most people are too stupid to compute what is being said anyway.
I think a West essentially booted from the Eurasian landmass will be epoch defining.
"The reason they are invading it is because it is in the way to the geostrategic gaps they are actually angling for, Romania and Poland."
Delusional.
I have listened to Frodi's bluster become more and more extreme over the last year as he tries not to defend but to shout down anyone who questions this kind of absurd idea. Meanwhile even Mark Weber has moved on.
I mean you can say "delulu" all you want it's not really an argument. If you think they're invading for some kind of national pride or to rebuild some kind of empire then you've abandoned one kind of propaganda matrix for another. Not really much else to say to you.
You sound just like Frodi and strawman just like he does. I accept Mearsheymer's analysis that the invasion is the Russian response to Western encroachment on the Russian border, which they see as ethnically Russian lands, which has been going on since the Maidan Uprising, and which the Russians consider an existential threat. Many analysts also take this view. Putin has also stated this himself. According to Frodi, all these people are retarded, insane, idiots. I find this kind of hysterical bluster evidence in itself that Frodi has backed himself into a corner he can't now get out of without making himself look ridiculous. I am just disappointed he's now apparently succeeding in getting the generally infallible Morgoth to go along with him.
I interpret Russia as actually recovering from liberalism, while Ukraine and the rest of the Butthurt Belt went in for a hard second round of it, apparently in denial that Communism was simply a weaker form of it.
A couple of factors. First of all, TFRs between Ukraine on one hand, and Russia and Belarus on the other, started diverging after the Maidan coup, and quite sharply in fact. (I bring up Belarus because it’s a proxy for what Russia would look like without Muslims.) Secondly, TFRs have a weakness of not taking the age distribution of women of childbearing age into account.
You'll need to elaborate for your argument to make sense I'm afraid. The demographic crisis is a pretty specific issue. I'm not quite sure what the coup has to do with a long standing trend in the prolonged and spiraling downfall of birthrates. The brunt of the crisis is not how many child rearing women are available. If that were the case then the crisis could be solved yesterday.
The crisis primarily pivots around the inability to produce sustainable family structures en mass and a general collapse in a real and foundational culture which would have facilitated such stable family structures in the past. This is also combined with the development and proliferation of reliable birth control and the effects of urbanization on the psychological health of populations. For Russia in particular you also have to factor in rampant and degenerate drug and alcohol use as well as the governments tolerance of criminal enterprise which has not helped the situation in the slightest.
These problems span much further than any single coup or even any single nation and Russia is not alone or overly unique in any sense when discussing the demographic collapse as a phenomenon. None of what you referenced refutes any of these long standing and deeply structural issues as far as I'm concerned.
The logistics of controlling a rump Ukrainian state after the war would expand such a crazy amount of resources it would be economically disastrous, let alone Poland.
The American empire is having a hard time with the Houthis, let alone a modern army. The Euros are entering a probably centuries long decline. There is no benefit that is worth the risk, and the Russians know it.
The invasion and the consequences of cutting themselves off from the global economic system have been more than disastrous but they went ahead and did it anyway knowing on some level that that would happen. So that argument doesn't really make any sense.
"His efforts in Ukraine do not exist in a vacuume and are instead a part of a larger strategic gambit to close every geostrategic gap into the north eastern European and Eurasian plain before the demographic and state collapse of Russia (which is all but guaranteed at this point)"
The thing I feel Zeihan needs to explain here, is why the Russian Demographic collapse is such a given?
The Russian TFR, of 1,5 is certainly below replacement, but that is true for all industrialized countries.
The current TFR would lead to Russia having about 85 million people by the year 2100.
Not trying to insinuate or be insulting but what is your understanding of demographics and the demographic collapse? (kind of hard to explain in a succinct way if I don't know where to start)
Substack deleted my response so I'll have to be succinct.
Russia is very easy to invade by fast moving aggressors, there are examples all throughout history. In recent history, the Germans. In contemporary history Napoleon. In ancient history the Mongols. There are others but those are the most obvious. Unless you have enough bodys for human tsunami tactics defending the wide open Russian plain is all but impossible.
The only point in history where Russia was fully secure and defensible by anything less than legions upon legions upon legions of hoof/tank tred fodder was during the soviet empire which had all of the geostrategic gaps into the Russian plain secure.
The second point of contention is the collapse of the Soviet education system that was never replaced after the collapse. The Russians who managed to become educated, trained, and hard working enough to be of use to the modern Russian state post collapse of the education system have mostly fled for greener pastures. The ones who were trained and educated pre soviet collapse were in their 20s and 30s and 40s when the collapse hit and while they did stick around to help rebuild and maintain the Russian federation post soviet collapse the average Russian life expectancy is in the mid 60s (if you're being generous).
We just past the 30th anniversary of the collapse of the Berlin wall. The men who are responsible for maintaining Russia as a modern technologically capable state are dropping off like flies and will continue to do so as time goes on with no replacement.
If you're paying attention to these problems and understand Russian history (Putin has illustrated he does) and have an awareness of the intractable and long standing problems then the only way to guarantee Russia as a state past the brunt of the demographic collapse (after which there won't be anywhere near enough people to defend the Russian plain) is to secure the geostrategic gaps once held by the soviet union which require minimal manpower to effectively protect.
The whole mainstream narrative is so absurd that I for one cannot see how anyone among the politicians could believe it. Which then begs the question whether there is not a hidden play here. But what could it be? If anyone can figure that out, it is Morgoth.
I think it makes us feel better to assume that they must be privy to some grand plan that we don't know, which accounts for what would otherwise seem to be acts of suicide or utter stupidity. However after Covid I've come to realize that we are truly being ruled by fucking morons.
One of my work colleagues is an ex-army officer having experience in the southern region of Iraq. When Russia invaded he said to me that the Ukrainians should not be underestimated because the type of war and terrain did not lend itself to the Russian army. The Ukrainians have not completely collapsed and have shown great resilience, albeit with substantial support from other counties.
If the Western powers can come out of this without losing too much face, it will be used to further bolster their current debauched liberal and rainbow values. This will be used triumphantly and rubbed in our faces.
Most sane people just want the death of young men to stop, but nobody with power has ever cared about what the sane people think or want.
The clarity of all this is that both sides embrace the same concept: if we win, it's because of "me" and if we lose, it's because "they" are all not worthy and deserve their fate. There is no failure that any player here can conceive as having anything to do with them. If one accepts this concept, the mushroom cloud ending is as probable as anything approaching "peace."
Quite the sober summary of The Clusterfuck mate. Thankyou for sharing. It's all becoming quite surreal in a fairly unpleasant and shit kind of way. Keep up the fire man
I have to ask: what are our options? Do we allow Russia to steam roll Ukraine, occupy it, and then invade Poland and Romania? Let Russia take the Baltics? Do nothing and let NATO dissolve?
Well, if Russia invaded NATO members it'd be war regardless.
If I were ruling the West, as if playing a game of Civilisation, I'd be looking for any sort of off-ramp from the Ukraine situation then set about consolidating the West into a cohesive block, culturally as well as demographically. The U.S Empire has clearly overeached due its expansive liberal ideology trying to plant itself everywhere, I would throw that out entirely and replace it with a conservative, in old sense, doctrine of moderation.
From there we could begin to look for strategic partners such as India. Alternatively, have more isolationist policies.
Some of the decisions, such as kneecapping the German economy with Nordstream, are simply mind-boggling stupid and self-defeating.
There is no reason to believe that Russia wants the Baltics, or even western Ukraine where the population is anti-Russian. The areas of Ukraine that Russia has annexed (and Crimea, as well) are historically Russian area with a population that is mostly ethnic Russians. This idea that Russia wants to keep moving west and reconstitute the Soviet Union is just a narrative to keep the war going to hopefully weaken Russia, as is openly stated by Western "elites". The reality is that they are weakening themselves but this is something that cannot be admitted as it goes counter to the narrative they are pushing.
Alice Springs in central Australia has long been plagued by crime, destruction and violence. Tourists are advised to stay in at night, not visit the casinos. An alcohol curfew was mulled (racist). After a brief period of publicity when things were very bad, any talk / criticism / exposure seemed to fade away. Because the elected officials and media fretted it was racist. Recently the Alice Springs local Council announced a multi million dollar campaign to improve the Alice's image. Why not improve the reality? This is where the good ship The West hits the iceberg Racism. If only "global" warming would melt the icebergs or can we dare hope reality can be faced with courage?
This isn't 'Risk' or 'Civilisation' or any other game. Nobody has 'the correct facts' on their side to be making predictions about anything. This isn't about pet theories and dugeons and dragons rulebooks. Men like Putin have been through the KGB, Soviet Union and he has probably been through + done things we could never even imagine...and that will shape how he thinks. He is certainly closer to a soldier than I am and a million miles away from your average moronic low IQ western politician. From what I have researched and based on all current verifiable evidence (on both sides)..ALL of the objectives within the Ukraine are ETHNOCENTRIC...which is an irony given this essay!! I have spoken with several people from the Ukraine, Poland and Russia...'borders' mean absolutely nothing to them...it is ALL about ethinic identity. The areas being taken are areas of land that have historically always been considered by the natives and the Russians as 'Russian' regardless of geography. Eastern european are not steeped in the post WW2 superficial western demarcation of culture and identity....surely the previous Balkan conflicts have not illustrated that!! This is just the best objective analysis of the information to hand that I can come up with. I honestly do not believe for a second that Putin is recreating the Soviet Union...INVADING the west..that is just silly!! Evidence suggests he wants Russian ethnostates located in Ukraine that have always been consider Russian. This is a truly, horrible meatgrinder and needs to end immediately... wargaming this shit using theories is not helping...it is not a game and there are NO rulebooks...but honestly
I don't care what happens between Ukraine (really US neocons and neolibs) and Russia. They can make peace (great) or fight each other forever (sad) - either way, it's none of our people's business.
On reflection, I agree with you that a Russia win will have that incrementally beneficial effect.
For what it's worth, the Russian Federation will win, simply because logistics win wars of attrition, and this became a war of attrition from the moment the RF forces withdrew to consolidate and prepare for such a mode of warfare, and the RF has the overwhelming logistical advantage.
My Cope is that nuclear war won't happen because our elite are evil, but not insane. They themselves don't want to live in a nuclear wasteland and lose all of their power, so nuclear war won't happen. But that is just a cope, and I am beginning to think more and more that our elite actually are genuinely insane, as well as evil.
Or just stupid.
That too, lol.
I'm starting to think the unthinkable. That our "elites", and by that I mean the faces we can recognise and name, just maybe aren't really in control of anything.
What is it then? Momentum? I certainly felt momentum accounted for a fair bit of the Covid stuff. Diversity too. Once the Karens were programmed they couldn't be stopped from enthusiastically replacing the population. No coercion required. It just took on a life of its own.
Are they just cowards, unable to face reality? The elaborate schemes they concoct to coerce things to fit a preferred image is doomed, really.
They’re also cowardly, which makes nuclear war less likely. They’re like a pack of posturing Gamma males who talked a dumb jock into a fistfight with a bigger jock they hate… but honestly and openly fighting the bigger jock themselves never occurs to them.
Nukes are also a threat to the valuation of the elite's real estate portfolios.
The delusion bubble our elites inhabit touches everything. What is a woman. The people are "far right", with "extremism" now applying to a large plurality of the populace. We can run the power grid on sunshine and unicorn farts.
Those who the gods would destroy they first drive mad. The only question is whether or not these madmen can be removed from power before they destroy the world with them.
I think they have become so incompetent it is probably just a waiting game now.
Bah, wake me up when one of these loudmouths actually declare on Russia! It's all talk!
Western idiots operate on public consent narratives. They think they can spin the population into a war without giving anything in return.
Putin operates on the factual reality that there is a social contract in Russia, and it works quite well. The State looks after people; i.e you won't find foreigners raping girls in Moscow. In return he asks for men to fight, and they do so gladly.
Putin may not be a good person, but he deals with reality as it is.
Whilst multiple plates of reality have been spinning before our very eyes for a long time, the plate spinner can no longer keep up and the audience is noticing. The plates of geopolitics, finance and internal cohesion are going to fall and smash all over the stage soon.
There is no negotiation possible here. Russia has all the cards. Only massive Western conscription might stop them conventionally and that will lead to unimaginable civil unrest. Even if the West cobbles together a conscripted coalition, Putin would likely use tactical nukes or hit our infrastructure. God knows where it would go from there.
The only off ramp is complete Western humiliation.
Buckle up folks!
Can you imagine a "colourblind" conscripted army from the Western nations? Would it be a fair ballot? Would this be a way to finish off young Whites? In which case, would Muslims, blacks, Indians, various hispanics, Chinese, Vietnamese and all the gazillion foreigners in the West get conscripted to go fight overseas somewhere? It just seems muddled up and idiotic.
They will, as others have stated, temporarily 'put awat the woke' in an attempt to get white males to join up. I doubt it will work. No one wants to die so that hostile foreign migrantscan take away their country and continue living while they are rotting corpses in a slit trench.
I fully expect civil war to erupt across Western countries; followed by Chinese and Russian escalation.
Unfortunately I feel that an attempted draft for a war with Russia combined with a devastating economic collapse maybe the only way of waking up the masses and saving our people from gradual demographic genocide. But of course that is literally Russia roulette given nuclear arsenal's are involved.
Another very perceptive piece Morgoth. The madmen truly are in charge and in the case of that tweet by Paul Niland, personally invested it seems. I just want all this to end. Sadly I believe that the west , especially the US, has so much debt that war is the only option. These creatures egos would never admit defeat through bankruptcy or any other means. They would much rather propagandise us into a deadly conflict.
I am definitely a fan of Putin, because he is a judo master, much more intelligent than any leader in the West, and has four younger kids with a beautiful, former Olympic gymnast..A definite Alpha or Sigma leader.....He also pursues peace, and is a skilled diplomat..If Medvedev were President, Ukraine would have been flattened already, so the West should be happy that he isn't...
I think it's important to remember another geopolitical reality that is often obscured or lain by the wayside in conversations like these. It is evident to the strategic heads of the opposition to the Russian invasion that Putin does not intend to merely stop at Ukraine.
His efforts in Ukraine do not exist in a vacuume and are instead a part of a larger strategic gambit to close every geostrategic gap into the north eastern European and Eurasian plain before the demographic and state collapse of Russia (which is all but guaranteed at this point) make the defence of said plain possible. It's why he invaded Crimea in 2014. It's why they were involved in the Georgian Civil War and later invaded Georgia.
It is very critical to understand that Ukraine is not one of these geostragic gaps, it is a part of the wide open and difficult to defend Russian plain. The reason they are invading it is because it is in the way to the geostrategic gaps they are actually angling for, Romania and Poland. As you may know both of these nations are (at this point) relatively long standing members of NATO and are thus subject to article 5 which governs the rules for nuclear exchange in the case of invasion.
For the people writing these stupid blustering articles about how "Putin is the biggest meanie ever to be mean and we have to stop him by teaming up avengers style" this geostrategic campaign (decades in the making) probably doesn't factor into their thinking. But it almost certainly factors into the thinking of the people actually giving these pundits marching orders.
For the people thinking about the strategic reality of this situation, we either stop Russia in Ukraine by any means necessary or we risk a NATO Russian war. For me this brings the question of whether or not we should be supporting Ukraine into a whole new light. Whatever you think of the morality of NATO expansion we cannot dismantle its structure overnight (even if the likes of Poland and Romania wanted to (and they almost certainly dont))
To me the saddest part is how we cannot be open and honest about this state of affairs in elite-public communications. If the narrative wasn't so marvelized there could actually be serious political action to remove the people in charge of creating this clusterfuck.
I agree with this. As I discussed with Frodi Midjord, it all makes more sense if we view it through a lens of Heartland Theory. But as you say, these types of discussions are simply not permitted within the Western mainstream, and most people are too stupid to compute what is being said anyway.
I think a West essentially booted from the Eurasian landmass will be epoch defining.
You should also give https://open.substack.com/pub/slavlandchronicles?utm_source=share&utm_medium=android&r=ga0u4 a read, he's been covering inside information regarding Russia since the start of the SMO. Very intriguing stuff as well as having his predictions come true as well.
"The reason they are invading it is because it is in the way to the geostrategic gaps they are actually angling for, Romania and Poland."
Delusional.
I have listened to Frodi's bluster become more and more extreme over the last year as he tries not to defend but to shout down anyone who questions this kind of absurd idea. Meanwhile even Mark Weber has moved on.
I mean you can say "delulu" all you want it's not really an argument. If you think they're invading for some kind of national pride or to rebuild some kind of empire then you've abandoned one kind of propaganda matrix for another. Not really much else to say to you.
You sound just like Frodi and strawman just like he does. I accept Mearsheymer's analysis that the invasion is the Russian response to Western encroachment on the Russian border, which they see as ethnically Russian lands, which has been going on since the Maidan Uprising, and which the Russians consider an existential threat. Many analysts also take this view. Putin has also stated this himself. According to Frodi, all these people are retarded, insane, idiots. I find this kind of hysterical bluster evidence in itself that Frodi has backed himself into a corner he can't now get out of without making himself look ridiculous. I am just disappointed he's now apparently succeeding in getting the generally infallible Morgoth to go along with him.
Alright.
Russia is not going to demographically implode.
In this article describing how liberalism works like a virus that populations gain resistance to:
https://imperiumpress.substack.com/p/the-third-world-is-going-to-cop-it-b9e
I interpret Russia as actually recovering from liberalism, while Ukraine and the rest of the Butthurt Belt went in for a hard second round of it, apparently in denial that Communism was simply a weaker form of it.
Sounds like cope to me tbh, but you do you. All will be lain bear with time.
Cope is based on emotion. I’m basing my statement on actual evidence.
What evidence?
A couple of factors. First of all, TFRs between Ukraine on one hand, and Russia and Belarus on the other, started diverging after the Maidan coup, and quite sharply in fact. (I bring up Belarus because it’s a proxy for what Russia would look like without Muslims.) Secondly, TFRs have a weakness of not taking the age distribution of women of childbearing age into account.
You'll need to elaborate for your argument to make sense I'm afraid. The demographic crisis is a pretty specific issue. I'm not quite sure what the coup has to do with a long standing trend in the prolonged and spiraling downfall of birthrates. The brunt of the crisis is not how many child rearing women are available. If that were the case then the crisis could be solved yesterday.
The crisis primarily pivots around the inability to produce sustainable family structures en mass and a general collapse in a real and foundational culture which would have facilitated such stable family structures in the past. This is also combined with the development and proliferation of reliable birth control and the effects of urbanization on the psychological health of populations. For Russia in particular you also have to factor in rampant and degenerate drug and alcohol use as well as the governments tolerance of criminal enterprise which has not helped the situation in the slightest.
These problems span much further than any single coup or even any single nation and Russia is not alone or overly unique in any sense when discussing the demographic collapse as a phenomenon. None of what you referenced refutes any of these long standing and deeply structural issues as far as I'm concerned.
The logistics of controlling a rump Ukrainian state after the war would expand such a crazy amount of resources it would be economically disastrous, let alone Poland.
The American empire is having a hard time with the Houthis, let alone a modern army. The Euros are entering a probably centuries long decline. There is no benefit that is worth the risk, and the Russians know it.
The invasion and the consequences of cutting themselves off from the global economic system have been more than disastrous but they went ahead and did it anyway knowing on some level that that would happen. So that argument doesn't really make any sense.
It hasn't though.
It hasn't what? Russia invaded despite the disasterous consequences. It's not doing well in any sense economically or domestically.
It hasn't been disastrous for Russia. Western military aid and economic warfare has not done it's expected damage. Not even close.
If you say so.
"His efforts in Ukraine do not exist in a vacuume and are instead a part of a larger strategic gambit to close every geostrategic gap into the north eastern European and Eurasian plain before the demographic and state collapse of Russia (which is all but guaranteed at this point)"
The thing I feel Zeihan needs to explain here, is why the Russian Demographic collapse is such a given?
The Russian TFR, of 1,5 is certainly below replacement, but that is true for all industrialized countries.
The current TFR would lead to Russia having about 85 million people by the year 2100.
II think collapse is a big word here.
Not trying to insinuate or be insulting but what is your understanding of demographics and the demographic collapse? (kind of hard to explain in a succinct way if I don't know where to start)
I know a sub replacement fertility rate, leads to an aging and declined population.
The further below raplacement the faster this happenes.
Russia appears to be in much the same spot other developed economies are.
I just don't see why the apocalyptic language is justified for Russia specifically?
Substack deleted my response so I'll have to be succinct.
Russia is very easy to invade by fast moving aggressors, there are examples all throughout history. In recent history, the Germans. In contemporary history Napoleon. In ancient history the Mongols. There are others but those are the most obvious. Unless you have enough bodys for human tsunami tactics defending the wide open Russian plain is all but impossible.
The only point in history where Russia was fully secure and defensible by anything less than legions upon legions upon legions of hoof/tank tred fodder was during the soviet empire which had all of the geostrategic gaps into the Russian plain secure.
The second point of contention is the collapse of the Soviet education system that was never replaced after the collapse. The Russians who managed to become educated, trained, and hard working enough to be of use to the modern Russian state post collapse of the education system have mostly fled for greener pastures. The ones who were trained and educated pre soviet collapse were in their 20s and 30s and 40s when the collapse hit and while they did stick around to help rebuild and maintain the Russian federation post soviet collapse the average Russian life expectancy is in the mid 60s (if you're being generous).
We just past the 30th anniversary of the collapse of the Berlin wall. The men who are responsible for maintaining Russia as a modern technologically capable state are dropping off like flies and will continue to do so as time goes on with no replacement.
If you're paying attention to these problems and understand Russian history (Putin has illustrated he does) and have an awareness of the intractable and long standing problems then the only way to guarantee Russia as a state past the brunt of the demographic collapse (after which there won't be anywhere near enough people to defend the Russian plain) is to secure the geostrategic gaps once held by the soviet union which require minimal manpower to effectively protect.
I hope this clears things up somewhat.
You just created two premises and ignored the obvious one.
Ok.
Was just thinking that The Big Man's been quiet for a while, then......he drops one.
The whole mainstream narrative is so absurd that I for one cannot see how anyone among the politicians could believe it. Which then begs the question whether there is not a hidden play here. But what could it be? If anyone can figure that out, it is Morgoth.
I think it makes us feel better to assume that they must be privy to some grand plan that we don't know, which accounts for what would otherwise seem to be acts of suicide or utter stupidity. However after Covid I've come to realize that we are truly being ruled by fucking morons.
I felt the same way about the Covid narrative. But I think most of them did believe it. Same for this. The walls of their bubble are thick.
One of my work colleagues is an ex-army officer having experience in the southern region of Iraq. When Russia invaded he said to me that the Ukrainians should not be underestimated because the type of war and terrain did not lend itself to the Russian army. The Ukrainians have not completely collapsed and have shown great resilience, albeit with substantial support from other counties.
If the Western powers can come out of this without losing too much face, it will be used to further bolster their current debauched liberal and rainbow values. This will be used triumphantly and rubbed in our faces.
Most sane people just want the death of young men to stop, but nobody with power has ever cared about what the sane people think or want.
The Ukrainians do seem to have fought like lions.
The clarity of all this is that both sides embrace the same concept: if we win, it's because of "me" and if we lose, it's because "they" are all not worthy and deserve their fate. There is no failure that any player here can conceive as having anything to do with them. If one accepts this concept, the mushroom cloud ending is as probable as anything approaching "peace."
Quite the sober summary of The Clusterfuck mate. Thankyou for sharing. It's all becoming quite surreal in a fairly unpleasant and shit kind of way. Keep up the fire man
I have to ask: what are our options? Do we allow Russia to steam roll Ukraine, occupy it, and then invade Poland and Romania? Let Russia take the Baltics? Do nothing and let NATO dissolve?
Well, if Russia invaded NATO members it'd be war regardless.
If I were ruling the West, as if playing a game of Civilisation, I'd be looking for any sort of off-ramp from the Ukraine situation then set about consolidating the West into a cohesive block, culturally as well as demographically. The U.S Empire has clearly overeached due its expansive liberal ideology trying to plant itself everywhere, I would throw that out entirely and replace it with a conservative, in old sense, doctrine of moderation.
From there we could begin to look for strategic partners such as India. Alternatively, have more isolationist policies.
Some of the decisions, such as kneecapping the German economy with Nordstream, are simply mind-boggling stupid and self-defeating.
There is no reason to believe that Russia wants the Baltics, or even western Ukraine where the population is anti-Russian. The areas of Ukraine that Russia has annexed (and Crimea, as well) are historically Russian area with a population that is mostly ethnic Russians. This idea that Russia wants to keep moving west and reconstitute the Soviet Union is just a narrative to keep the war going to hopefully weaken Russia, as is openly stated by Western "elites". The reality is that they are weakening themselves but this is something that cannot be admitted as it goes counter to the narrative they are pushing.
Alice Springs in central Australia has long been plagued by crime, destruction and violence. Tourists are advised to stay in at night, not visit the casinos. An alcohol curfew was mulled (racist). After a brief period of publicity when things were very bad, any talk / criticism / exposure seemed to fade away. Because the elected officials and media fretted it was racist. Recently the Alice Springs local Council announced a multi million dollar campaign to improve the Alice's image. Why not improve the reality? This is where the good ship The West hits the iceberg Racism. If only "global" warming would melt the icebergs or can we dare hope reality can be faced with courage?
This isn't 'Risk' or 'Civilisation' or any other game. Nobody has 'the correct facts' on their side to be making predictions about anything. This isn't about pet theories and dugeons and dragons rulebooks. Men like Putin have been through the KGB, Soviet Union and he has probably been through + done things we could never even imagine...and that will shape how he thinks. He is certainly closer to a soldier than I am and a million miles away from your average moronic low IQ western politician. From what I have researched and based on all current verifiable evidence (on both sides)..ALL of the objectives within the Ukraine are ETHNOCENTRIC...which is an irony given this essay!! I have spoken with several people from the Ukraine, Poland and Russia...'borders' mean absolutely nothing to them...it is ALL about ethinic identity. The areas being taken are areas of land that have historically always been considered by the natives and the Russians as 'Russian' regardless of geography. Eastern european are not steeped in the post WW2 superficial western demarcation of culture and identity....surely the previous Balkan conflicts have not illustrated that!! This is just the best objective analysis of the information to hand that I can come up with. I honestly do not believe for a second that Putin is recreating the Soviet Union...INVADING the west..that is just silly!! Evidence suggests he wants Russian ethnostates located in Ukraine that have always been consider Russian. This is a truly, horrible meatgrinder and needs to end immediately... wargaming this shit using theories is not helping...it is not a game and there are NO rulebooks...but honestly
I don't care what happens between Ukraine (really US neocons and neolibs) and Russia. They can make peace (great) or fight each other forever (sad) - either way, it's none of our people's business.
Russia wins - we are losing our homeland.
Ukraine wins - we are losing our homeland.
Russia winning has at least a chance at rocking the Western establishment and jogging it loose from its throne.
Ukraine winning would only cement it in place more firmly.
Good point well made.
On reflection, I agree with you that a Russia win will have that incrementally beneficial effect.
For what it's worth, the Russian Federation will win, simply because logistics win wars of attrition, and this became a war of attrition from the moment the RF forces withdrew to consolidate and prepare for such a mode of warfare, and the RF has the overwhelming logistical advantage.