1) The Bradley is a piece of shit. You still haven't watched "The Pentagon Wars". It points out all its deficiences, more or less unmitigated to this day.
2) You're singing my tune about the West's inability to sustain war. They expect years to be able to turn up their production. They won't get that.
I'd like to see a Bradley versus a Terminator go at it, but that shas probably been done on video games. I'd hate to be in a Bradley when they burn up. But in a sense, neither Terminator or Bradley can do much in mine fields, against artillery, or gators, and they are both vulnerable to drones. Neither will win the war. Insurrection and rebellion might, and we need to win some elections.
I cannot believe my fellow Americans (many of them are capable of critical thinking EXCEPT when it comes to elections. The system is rigged and has been for some time. President Trump won only because ALL of the DC swamp believed their own media hype. They were caught totally by surprise. Since then we have seen just how much they locked in the ability to manipulate and control outcomes. All the so called "battleground" States have kept unlimited, unverified, mail in ballots for everyone. I live in Pennsylvania it is a joke, I sold my house and moved into an apartment. I registered as Republican from Libertarian so I could vote in R primaries. I never asked for a mail in ballot, but I receive 3 ballots every election all sent to democrats who used to live in my apartment going back over 10 years. I could fill them out and send them in, they must be counted and the signature cannot be verified.
I live in a Closed Primary State. The Republican primary is in April and Democrat primary is in August. I'm registered R and will vote in the R Primary. Immediately after I change my registration to D and vote in the D Primary in August. Now I feel I'm only validating the corrupt system.
For the first time in my life and henceforth I'm done with voting and preparing for the Second American Revolution! FUKIT!
The US has never been a democracy.. The elections are a sham to keep the flock believing that the land of milk of honey is just around the corner when there is nothing but an endless desert..
I meant elections in Europe, ME, and Taiwan more than in the US which seems the most rigged because the US is the mainstream source. But we hope people are waking up. At least we are waking up to the idea that elections are rigged and wars are run for the banks and to prop up the dollar.
There was a recent video of what appeared to be a Bradley going at it with a BMP-1/2 (difficult to tell precisely at the distance). The Bradley was raking it as the BMP retreated. However most AFU Bradleys appear to be loaded with M792 incendiary rather than standard AP (armor piercing) and the rounds *appeared* to not be doing much to the BMP which seemed to get away.
The BMP, whether due to worse optics or some other exigency we're not aware of, was not shooting back. However everyone knows if a BMP shot its 30mm at the Bradley it would be game over vs. the Bradley's relatively puny 25mm.
But one of the reasons I've gained a newfound respect for the Bradley in this conflict is its famed Bushmaster gun has proven quite accurate--as it's known to be, far more accurate than equivalent BMP guns.
But there's a trade off: first rate accuracy but weak fire power and RPM vs. less accuracy and heavy punch and high rate of fire.
But the tie breaker lies in durability , and prompt serviceability . I take the BMP. function , instead of fancy , but unproven on the long run . ( weather , terrain , etc.)
But for parade , front of the waving crowds I would pick a Bradley .
The first is in production and getting fielded to units as of last year, the second is likely to get caught in programmatic hell. The Bradleys are likely to exit the force in the not too distant future.
I don't doubt that the Bradley has flaws, and the BMP is superior. However, from watching frontline footage, it seems that the AFU has made effective use of Bradleys, that the soldiers even prefer them to tanks due to maneuverability, and it's useful in extracting them from dangerous situations. At the very least, they have greater integrity than US elections.
They have aluminum armor, they are over 10' tall and they look like a tank. Oh, and they weigh 33 tons, and would weigh 40 if it weren't for the Al armor. Al burns when hit by incendiaries. The original M2 was supposed to hold 11 soldiers, it holds 6 instead. The TOWs are not reloadable except by getting outside. They can only fire the TOWs when stationary. Not to even count the shitty counter-IED stuff.
Someone needs to hit one with an RPG or something.
Well if they wanted a light tank they should have designed one instead of this shoehorned monstrosity called the Bradley. The indictment here is the developmental process. The Bradley was concocted mid-Vietnam, in 1965 and really only hit the force in the late 1980s. It's not suited to any actual purpose - it's a crappy vehicle for carrying soldiers in and it's not a good light tank. And the light is in question here at 33 tons. For that, you'd get a whole T34-85 with 20-90mm of armor vs the 14.5mm on the Bradley. Oh, and an 85mm gun vs a 25mm chain gun. No aluminum to burn, either.
There is another fin stabilized tungsten rod version of the APFSDS (can't recall a #) as well as an older, spin stabilized tungsten projectile round, the
M791 APDST (Armor-Piercing Discarding Sabot with Tracer).
So, dedicated non explosive kinetic AP rounds could be either DU or tungsten.
Additionally, there are "dual purpose" chemical energy Semi AP rounds with some capability against light armor, as PGU-32/U SAPHEI-T
An explosive round like a HEAT is what is needed for the Bradley, even though the reactive armor kits are often applied to Uke vehicles and make this more difficult to use.
A 25mm round really does not have the volume/diameter for much of a shaped charge + standoff + tail fuse system, plus projectiles from a rifled barrel sacrifice a lot of penetration from shaped charge effect, centrifugal forces cut way down on penetration. One of the reasons modern(ish) MBT main guns are mostly smooth bore these days.
BMP2's gun bounces all over the place when it shoots, and consequently precision goes out the window at high rate of fire. Longer barrel with same thickness = more range but less stiff. BMP3 stiffens the barrel by strapping it to the 100mm gun next to it. Most BMP/IFV's designed today have some kind of stiffening mechanism, to get both range/power and precision in automatic.
Also I suspect, like tanks, that BMP's mostly don't seek out random duels with other BMP's. Machines of same class are perfectly capable of killing each other, and a 50/50 confrontation is not ideal, when a drone or atgm can safely eliminate the opponent with less risk.
Exactly. Tank vs tank and bmp vs bmp fights all over the place is movie thinking syndrome. usually those things avoiding each other and prefer to destroy enemy armor with artillery, atgms and kamikaze drones
And when you have thrown a track trying to diagonally traverse a steep muddy slope? Never try to ford a 4' deep river going more than a couple miles an hour. The entry splash will crack the Bradley manifold.
Ukrainians say that Bradley is a much more robust vehicle than in a BMP-1/2 and your chances of surviving inside when infantry fighting vehicle is hit by something are much higher in a Bradley.
Since Bradley weighs about twice as much as the old Soviet BMP-1/2, I can believe it.
ofc its more robust and has more armor. no dout about that but if your bradley is hit by atgm or artillery of another tank/armor you are done
bmp 1-2 isnt protected much at all. but if you consider EVERYTHING from producing to maintance to operating etc etc i prefer bmp 2 over bradley cause you can have like 4-5 bmp2 for 1 bradley at same price.
if you want to compare 1 bradley vs 1 bmp2 in a vacuum so yes bradley is ok or better in some enviroments (for example deserts or plains). but combined arms operations is very all round connected thing and you have to consider entire army configuration and military doctrine.
bradley isnt that bad as people say IMO, problem its not as good as some people think.. its OKish armor vehicle with cons and pros. i wouldnt refer to it as a falure vehicle. no, its not falure.
You can't seriously compare a BMP-1/2 weighing 13-15 tons and a Bradley weighing 22-34 tons. It's like comparing Sherman and Tiger 2. Different categories.
I think Bradley is too heavy, big and expensive for his capabilities. It's a pretty archaic vehicle. Considering that the Yankees are returning, in fact, to the M113 at the modern level, it seems that this is not only my opinion. The level of Bradley protection can be called acceptable for IFV.
I'm assuming you're not taking your information on US weapons development from a 90s Hollywood comedy flick, you're just saying that the memoir which the movie was based on is representative of what happened at the trials.
So I'll just post here what the critics of that line of reasoning say:
The "whistleblower" whose memoir the film was based upon was not a soldier, nor had any experience testing, designing, or operating armoured vehicles of any kind, as he was an lieutenant colonel in the Air Force. His claim to fame was that he participated in the F15 development program. And so what he did when he "uncovered the fatal flaw" of the Bradley was essentially propose a bunch of survivability tests that the Bradley was not designed to withstand and then when it did fail, he claimed that the entire Bradley project was just the misguided and corrupt "Old guard" pressing their ideas through despite objections from weapons design geniouses like him.
They're basically claiming that what Burton did was akin to firing a 120 mm APFSDS penetrator from an Abrams at a BMP-3, and then claim the BMP-3 is a "death trap". Of course the BMP gets penetrated, it was not designed to be taking shots from a main battle tank.
Attack Burton all you want - ad hominem demonstrates a weak argument.
I work in the space. The movie is more or less accurate. I got referred to the movie by a program manager in charge of a $2 billion program. Aluminum armor on a fighting vehicle? Come on... 10' high APC with a tank turret? If we had been fighting peer enemies all these years we'd have paid a high price for this.
Knowing the difference between an OT and a DT (developmental test) is the technical issue. The stuff depicted in the movie were all DTs conducted by the proponent. Like firing the defective Romanian RPG rounds at the Bradley that didn't detonate. They are always bullshit propaganda. "Look, we passed this hobbled test with flying colors" Exactly as stated in the movie. Also, precisely as stated in the movie, no one wants to be the one who says the materiel in question is a piece of shit. It destroys careers.
OTs (operational tests) are different and conducted by a testing agency. They tend to expose actual issues. To see what a properly conducted OT can do, take a look at the IVAS program using Microsoft Hololens. Sample link below. Note this is a program that the DoD did not want, so it's getting savaged via testing.
The Bradley is indefensible - the development process should have resulted in a much better and more survivable vehicle. The AMPV is an attempt to restore it to the original intent, though it still has that broke ass Al armor. I've seen worse programs, but the Bradley is a piece of shit by any measure.
I pretty much agree with what you've said about the Bradley -- but there's two comments I would make to 'qualify' your criticism and be a bit kinder to the Bradley (and yes, I've served in them).
The first is that the Bradley (like most weapon systems today and since at least the end of WW1) were developed during times of peer-to-peer 'peace' and rapid technology innovation. In some ways, the Germans in the 1930's 'guessed right' (or were just 'lucky') and had a large, relatively advantage over their peers in 1939-1940 (e.g. radios in tanks, multi-person tank turrets, better optics, more mobile vehicles, etc.). That 'German Experience' left a big mark on Western equipment designers, and it seems like every peer military has been trying to 'swing for the fences' and 'guess right' on the next 'secret to success' in armored vehicles (and other platforms) ever since. The Bradley exhibits many of these 'guesses'. It has more speed than the 113 it replaced -- in part because the M1 had more speed than the M60 it replaced and for some reason, that 'speed' was seen as 'critical' (whether it really was or not is still kind of an open question, at least to me). The Bradley has better protection than the 113 (because the US was taking too many losses in Vietnam with 113's and similarly armored vehicles) -- but still not enough protection to maybe matter (which goes back to the speed and armor and layout issue). It had 'gun ports' (which are really pretty stupid) and a more powerful main gun -- but it had those in part because the early Marder and BMP's had them as well -- and hey, the Germans and Russians know armor so maybe they know something we don't Lots of what the Bradley had designed into it -- that made it 'bad' was based on what the 'big brains' (in the Army community, in industry, in think tanks) thought was going to be needed. This constant 'trying to get a leg up on the competition by foreseeing an unforeseeable future' is a big part of the Bradley (and other weapon system's problems). So, it's more of an endemic disease than a Bradley specific problem. It's probably rare that these 'guesses' are really game changers, many of those guesses are probably not useful for the reasons envisioned (but can be made to work somehow in some other context), and probably a handful of those guesses are just 'bad' (as in deadly) or just 'stupid' or 'wasteful' in the extreme.
The other comment that mitigates the Bradley faults, to an extent, is the 'ok' side of bureaucratic inertia. The 'bad' side of inertia is that we have a program or product, it sucks in certain ways, we know it sucks, but it would be embarassing or dangerous to admit we have the problem so let's stay with what we've got. Clearly, that is 'bad'. But there is a related part which is 'ok' -- and it comes back again to the 'uncertainty'. There were lots of weapon systems that 'guessed wrong' about what what needed for the future -- but once in actual combat, had other features that worked out well, or at least 'good enough'. The P39 Aerocobra was pre WW2 design that was a 'failure' in its intended role of a high altitude interceptor in WW2 (but turned out to be a kick ass low level fighter and air-to-ground platform for the Soviets in their type of combat on the eastern front). The Army Air Corps didn't want the P39 (but took them anyway because they were better than what they had and weren't too sure that something better would be coming around in 1940 that would be developed or funded). But it worked out (both at Guadalcanal in 1942 and later when got something better and gave them to the Soviets). Another example is the lowly 113 -- first used in South Vietnam and has MAJOR survivability issues -- was still providing service in Ukraine in 2023. It has advantages: cheap, relatively easy to fix, light, holds a lot of things, has lots of uses -- but it has many many disadvantages, and I would prefer not to have to sit in one if I had a choice in combat.
So, even when there is a problem, there is often a 'who knows whether it is really a dog when it matters' kind of wisdom there as well. Some products are totally crap and it is obvious -- I'd wouldn't put the Bradley in that bucket. It's probably like 'most' military products since WW2 --- questionable, full of bad design choices and program mismanagement, too expensive for what it promised to deliver, a mix of obsolete and/or never-ready-for-prime time technology, etc. But before the test of combat, it's really a crap-shoot, I'd say and a bird in a hand ....
I object mainly to the inability of the DoD to say "we want X" and actually deliver X. I cited the OMFV spec elsewhere. If this spec actually carried through and wasn't mutable by the program staff, i'd feel better about the whole thing. Having worked a number of programs, I believe the modifications made by the staff - people like me - is a net negative. It doesn't improve the solution.
Now, I admit, the engineering offered by the MIC vendors - the Northrop Grummans, GDs, etc of the world is often lacking. Most programmatic hell situations are caused by program staff that care too much going head to head with MIC vendor engineers. These programs are un-cancellable. The reason why is that to senators and congresspeople, these programs are district jobs that assist in electoral politics. They are not about procuring the best weapons. This is why I say the entire process is really a jobs program.
If you wanted a more perfect world, you'd let the MIC vendors produce a limited quantity based on a firm spec that some general couldn't modify on a whim, test the crap out of them, and if they couldn't fix within certain time and cost guidelines, cancel the whole thing and start over, rather than trying to negotiate out compromises that suck with the program staff, which ironically often ends up writing the TRADOC documentation for the system that specifies it...on the fly.
I would also add that one big reason why the AMPV is what it is (a Bradley chassis with no turret) is because there was only one existing vendor with a line set up to make vehicles. Not very surprisingly, the same line that produces Bradleys.
Also keep in mind that no metal is bent, generally, until the downselections have gone to one vendor. So you don't know the engineering compromises until you have no choice.
Totally agree -- the whole military product development process is in a hysteresis loop -- it just keeps getting worse and worse every single time it cycles. Bradley was bad -- and everything bad about the Bradley process is still around today and new, additional dysfunctions have been added. I don't know how it gets 'better'.
As a side (and crazy) thought -- I am beginning to wonder if the viewpoint of 1948 may be coming around the corner. Back in 1948, we had senior 'combat veterans' speculating that we would no longer need a sea going navy, or a significant standing army, or a marine corps -- that it would be power projection from afar pretty much all the way. Back then, it was based on belief in the utility of air power and atomic weapons. Messy realities like the Berlin crises, the Soviet army in Europe, and the Korean War put a stop to all that and 'interventions' like Vietnam called for 'real' weapons, doctrines, and training in the tactical space to take the place of all that 'nukes' for all wars big and small.
But what about now? Europe is now disarmed (and hopelessly unable to rearm for a whole slew of reasons). The USA is not as bad but maybe even it can't even replace what it has in stock right now --- product development is total disaster, recruitment is ridiculous, funding (mid and longer term) may not even be feasible. Sure, the 'people in charge' want to start another war, deploy another assets, etc every day: there is no war or conflict that they are not eager to start or join -- but there is huge and growing amount of daylight between those 'leaders' and the country that pays the bills and mans the ships. Plus, drones and cyber and other forms of shadow war may be the real engagement area (not armored vehicles or carriers at sea). Sure, intervening in the Middle East, or 'protecting' the sea lanes, etc require 'hard assets' (like since 1948) -- but for the first time since 1945, I am beginning to see both the futility of trying to 'Cold War' it and the possibility that certain 'policies' may be 'war' by other means. The blockage of the Red Sea is a big problem for lots of folks -- but not necessarily the US of A. And yes, 'letting go' may be expensive -- but maybe cheaper than 'staying in' the game. If we don't change our attitudes -- all of the stuff we have today must be replaced and upgraded --- but with the changes in certain key 'attitudes' -- a lot of stuff would not be needed. Just thinking ....
First, you're right about the hysteresis loop. I just thought unrelatedly about my insulin dosing being very similar and got a laugh out of that.
The cure for all product development problems in the military is war. From late 2001 through mid-2003, the DoD actually worked ...quickly. There were GWOT dollars flowing and people who got in the way got fired. The last Vietnam-era leftovers retired about then. Programs that sucked had their funds reallocated to programs that didn't. Mobs of contractors were sent into theater to get shit done in ways the soldiers and govvies couldn't. Crash programs that resulted in communications equipment and new vehicles were started up. The MRAPs, Strykers, M-ATVs, WIN-T Inc1, all descend from this time, amongst other things.
The problem is that in 2001-2003, you got a bunch of Guard formations from around the country filled up with American youth. I remember landing in Baghdad on Christmas Day 2007 (it had snowed...) and seeing all the fresh faces looking very confused. Again, just like in Vietnam, they refused to call up the reserves, preserving them for some reason. Of course now the reserves are depleted anyway, same as the Guard and the active duty component. I will venture a slightly political statement here - after a decade or more of moral decay, I can't imagine pulling it off again. The ready force is just not there anymore.
That said, the liberal hegemon fear is that if they back off, some other nation will seize the position. They need to get over that. They squandered their inheritance, and will have to get comfortable with the world they made.
"he Germans in the 1930's 'guessed right' (or were just 'lucky') and had a large, relatively advantage over their peers in 1939-1940"
Disagree. Red Army had better tanks entire war. t 34 didnt have any competitor at start and IS1-2 were much better than tigers and panteras 1-2.
problem is pro german war propaganda like 1 tiger kick ass of shermans or t 34s created this myth of german superiority. but they never show how t 34 kick ass of p3-4 or how company of IS 2s litterally obliterated company of Pantera 2s (best german tank ever) in head to head fight. germans called IS2 as Stalins hammers and didnt want to deal with it at all. But because of anti russia anti ussr propaganda you can have absolutely absurd notion that german's army armor was better and red army won using body waves and other retarded propaganda..
another thing is where im agreed and i said before here, that bradley is OK vehicle its not falure IMO. it has own cons and pros. actually only 1 real pro - better armor. and some variants has good electronics+optics (but it is not pro of Bradly its pro of US army in general, US army has good advanced elecronics and optics in many things).
Some of the very early Soviet tanks were .... crap .... and unfortunately these were the tanks that hit the pre-war German designs in 1941. Subsequent Soviet tanks -- the T34 in particular -- were a lot better than the 1935-1940 Soviet designs and often better, in a lot of ways (but not all ways) to German tanks.
More importantly to this argument, I was not trying to claim that German tanks were 'great' and superior overall or throughout the war -- I was talking about how German designs of 1935-1940 compared to Allied / Soviet tanks in the 'first look' at war after decades of peace. The factors I cited: radios in tanks, two or three man turrets, better optics (which enabled a better 'first look, first kill' capability etc )were really good 'investments' and a lot better than pre-war designs Britain, France, the Soviet Union, and the US had to come up with and funded. Subsequent US and British and Soviet tanks caught-up (and in many ways surpassed) the German designs on these specifics (and even more so overall as a 'package'). So, my argument is not about who had the 'better tanks' -- it is about how sometimes (for whatever reason) one side 'figures out' what will matter in the next 'peer-to-peer' war better than the other side during the preceding years of peace -- and how that 'damn, how is it that they got there and we did not' kind of moment shapes subsequent military product development doctrine.
So, for the record, I am not a German tank fan-boy -- and by the end of the war, overall, both the Allied (British and US) and Soviet tanks were 'better' overall (as a comprehensive combat system of numbers, complexity, reliability, technology, reliance on supporting combat systems, etc.) than the Germans -- so, I largely agree with your comments (I just think that you missed my point).
I once wrote a paper arguing that Germany in 1939 didn’t necessarily have better tech than the allies, but how Germany used the available technology was initially decisive. Using radios to allow for and support very deep operations rather than the radios or the tanks themselves was the revolutionary part. Of course Germany always knew that it needed to win its campaigns quickly, so it developed a doctrine that accentuated its strengths and utilized novel applications of technology.
Invading the USSR, however, was beyond the limits of the doctrine because it was simply too big. And it was defended by Russians. Who were more competent from day one than later histories gave them credit for.
The T-34 had a couple of flaws that had little directly to do with its survivability and hitting power. One was the one-man turrret. The other was the lack of radios. Only unit commanders generally had them. These were made right eventually in later models. But it does a lot to explain superior armor tactics being employed against qualitatively superior Soviet armor.
"Arestovich continues to go “full Monty” in his quest to rebrand himself as Ukraine’s savior. Now he says smart Ukrainians are turning into Russians." Insurrection! Rebellion!
I think it is funny they don't want to draft young people, under 27, their base - just the old dudes.
I can't tell if NATO will double down (false flag) or cut loses. Depends too much on who is talking. Why is Washington Post featuring Lindsay Graham?
You know, when the Ukrainians hit something with a storm shadow or scalp or something, the Russians don't seem to have any qualms with publishing photos, videos, analysis and so on. Even if it is embarrassing or draws criticism
The Ukrainians have much tighter information security. But what's the point of these lies? Plus if they were true, wouldn't we be seeing endless circle-jerk military worship puff pieces in the likes of the WSJ and NYT about how American kit is taking down Russian stuff?
I can tell that you've never watched Ukrainian TV :))) It's quite a goofy charade, in its own way.
Ukraininan news programming is basically a fictional sitcom in which illiterate orcs armed only with shovels are always emerging from their filthy trenches in endless meat waves, only to be shot down singlehandedly by heroic blonde supersoldiers with glistening Western-supplied guns.
But in seriousness, early on we had a lot of footage of Russian tanks getting hit by javelin and NLAW and so on, and the consequent pieces in MSM news.
If there was a real hit on Russian missiles, they'd have filmed it, published it, broadcast to the world. The propaganda value would be immense. They've claimed hundreds of intercepts...
“Seizing the assets has raised worries about the consequences for the financial system, namely that some countries such as China might come to fear that reserves held in euros or dollars were no longer safe. But they shouldn’t. If countries don’t illegally invade other countries, their money is quite safe. “
The problem the FT faces is that compensation is paid by losers to winners or on behalf of winners
Given that even the FT realises that the ‘west’ is unlikely to win, & hopes there will be no peace treaty imposed by RF, it follows
‘ a peace settlement does not seem likely with the current political regime in Moscow, which makes confiscation a good solution.”
Bingo!
No mention of possible counter measures taken by RF leaving the west worser off, as per sanctions
?It is a policy statement to proclaim to RoW that when the west enacts an illegal by their own laws confiscation ‘you should’nt worry’?
‘China’s advanced machine tool exports to Russia soar after Ukraine invasion’
After crowing that China had be proven an untrusty partner to Russia, and after the various attempts at secondary China sanctions, and the manifest backfire of the direct US sanctions against China….
…..The answer to all our problems is once again….’more sanctions!’
This is the FT on autoglide or AI – even the most lumpenbusinessclass grunts must suspect they are being slipped a fony take
Medvedev said Russia has 2 Trillion in Western Assets they can seize in a tit for tat and I'm sure they are drooling at the prospect once West makes this fatal mistake which will destroy trust in West. Not only that 404 is worth tens of trillions. So 300B is noise level for Russia.
Going forward, how damaged west will be by this seizure will depend on how many join the BRICS or neutral but distrustful and how many stay Western vassals. If West only retains Europe, USA OZ Japan SK and Philippines, all with little resources, it will be the greatest financial suicide in history. Dubai will probably become the new Switzerland and trade, loans, investment will just circulate within the global 80% all emerging while West obviously in mass debt and sinking.
What Dr. Hudson says is that the purpose for Washington saying (Dec. 28, 2023) that Europe should confiscate the already-frozen $ 300 Billion of Russian money, is to throw fear in the Saudi leaders that their trillions of dollars parked in the US could be confiscated if Saudi Arabia does not do what Washington demands. He goes on to say that the bug issue of 2024 will whether Saudi Arabia and others (BRICS, IIRC) can deal with this economic blackmail. Well, I'm surprised because I didn't think this issue could be dealt with in a single year. Dr. Hudson is 100% honest and never exaggerates. So he may well be right about 2024 being the big year of decision.
I was surprised when Dr. Hudson said that countries would stop paying their debts to the US, because the US is being at war with them, proxy or direct. Makes sense.
I think that the scenario Dr Hudson describes is one potential (extreme) outcome.
That doesn't mean that it won't occur (or that it isn't a 'preferred option' for some advisors / leaders in the West) -- it is just high risk option for the West and there are alternate ways of 'bringing about the outcomes they seek'. For example, as an alternative, the 'West' could try to engineer a coup against the current Saudi leadership to bring them more 'in line' with Western interests -- in fact you could argue that this has already been tried -- but that doesn't rule out repeat attempts again in the future. Another option would be 'Bribing' the current Saudi leadership (with 'no string attached' nuclear technology -- i.e. turning a blind eye to the building of a nuclear device) -- such an offer was just reportedly made by the Biden/Blinken administration to Saudi Arabia (and rejected). Anther option would be 'waiting things out' or just 'surrendering to reality' and not doing much of anything (because the costs of doing something outweigh the benefits). Bottomline, there are many paths forward for the West (aside from asset freezing or seizure) and everyone can place their own bets on how likely such and such course of action might be -- but nothing is 'certain'.
As for seizing those assets themselves, it's not as easy as it sounds.
Seizing the 'assets' of 'pariah' states (like Iran or Cuba or North Korea or Venezuela) happened decades ago in part because Russia, China, India, and others were willing to go along with those sanctions at that time for various reasons. Furthermore, the freezing and seizing was possible because none of these states being targeted were really part of the Western financial system at the time they were targeted (Cuba and North Korea were always very much outside of the system from the beginning. Iran was cut off in 1979 and Venezuela 'collapsed' itself and was 'thrown out' slowly starting in the 1990's). Burma and Sudan started out as 'cut out' but were then reintegrated partly (and then isolated again). Point being -- 'successful' sanctions and seizures by the West in the past have mostly been limited to a bunch of 'special cases' historically (small, weak, isolated).
Seizing the assets of Russia was a bit different than these past special cases and shows some of the larger risks associated with trying something similar with Saudi Arabia (or others). Russia was a lot larger and much more self-reliant economically and financially than the special cases of the past -- that gave it 'powers of resistance' to the isolation and helped to limit the effectiveness of such seizing and freezing. Furthermore, Russia had many things that others actually depended on (a lot) -- energy, raw materials, food, etc. This gave Russia economic power to 'strike back' and it helped it to have many friends and allies (and even many so-called 'antagonists' willing to 'turn a blind eye' against such self-defeating policies in the West). Thus the 'case of Russia' shows that there are real practical limits in imposing the 'freeze and seize' regime on the 'powerful'.
This 'case of powerfulr' also applies to China or Saudi Arabia. In fact, both China and Saudi Arabia may have more power to fight back economically against the West than Russia itself. Cutting yourself off of Russia oil and gas is bad (stupid really), but eliminating the rest of your imported energy supply by demonizing Saudi Arabia (or your Chinese imported consumer, drug, building material, and component flow) would be stupid squared.
And these are just the economic arguments against freezing and seizing -- there are also equally powerful financial ones. Saudi Arabia is fully integrated into the Western financial system. India is less so. China less so than India. Russia is less so than China. Economically punishing Russia (and Russia punishing the West in turn) hurt the West economically -- it just didn't have a huge impact on financial markets (I am referring to the the flow of credit across markets to support lending and economic growth -- not stock prices. Russia didn't have a lot of foreign loans in its wholesale or retail economy and therefore its isolation had a relatively little impact on the Western lending market). Seizing and freezing China would have a massive financial impact on the West. Both China and Saudi Arabia are central to how global funds circulate throughout the globe (and I am referring not to country to country lending at a nationstate level but the daily business-business-bank credit flows that lubricate global finance and trade both nationally and internationally). In fact, you could argue that seizing and freezing Saudi Arabia's 'foreign assets' would hurt the West financially much more than economically (losing yet more energy sources is a price-increasing supply shock, collapsing your banking system and plunging your economy into an economic depression is an order of magnitude worse -- although a deep economic depression does help with your energy import deficit because no one will be able to afford to run their factories or drive their cars or pay for those energy consuming things even if they have the funds).
In short, seizing and freezing with regard to China or Saudi Arabia is probably a 'mutually assured destructive' event financially (and perhaps economically) even if there is no kinetic military action (which is also possible). Thus seizing Russia assets is certainly a 'signal' to the Saudis (and China and others) but it is not something the US or the West can do without serious consequence to itself or likely worldwide political, military, economic, financial escalation.
Your comments are very welcome and informative and over a wide range of subjects, I thank you for the time and effort you give to explain subjects, especially financial, which are among the most difficult and obscured aspects of this war
I find convincing and pertinent your descriptions of how and why US threats of asset confiscations, as M Hudson surmises intended to warn the Saudis, are empty or if not will be disastrous for the system which enables the US to make such
And obviously there are many more in the US bag of tricks as you outline
1-The current CBR confiscation drama is a threat to every country, veiled, but in this case specifically directed against the EU and their best interests
It is well known that the RF has long ‘written off’ these assets (so that seizure will not faze); that there is a comparable amount of ‘western’ assets in RF that may be nationalised, mostly belonging to EU companies; and that when RF prevails in Ukraine these assets will be high on the list of reparations to be paid to RF
In which case best to steal them now ‘on behalf of, at the bidding of, Uk’ , send some part to Uk , let the Ukraine take responsibility, pay the reparations
2-Given the complete assimilation of the EU governing class into the US governing class, this threat can be considered actionable – it may well be that the EU execute, and suffer the consequences, which will hardly touch the US, but which will produce emigration to US of remaining EU viable financial and industrial infrastructure skilled personnel and investments (short as opposed to long term benefits to US), along of course with large numbers of the current politico/business classes
(It’s remarkable how many of these EU types have assets in the US (!) and green cards/citizenship (!))
The US has long expressed the requirement that European members of NATO pay their way, and recently have shown via Congress that US financial contributions to the Ukraine will fall off
CBR soap opera is a way of making this quite clear to the EU – not that to revive EU contributions, e.g. the famous E60B that Hungary blocked, will do the trick, all E300B odd is required
The destruction or considerable degradation of the EU economy is not in the long term national economic interests of the US, but….never underestimate US ruling class capability/capacity to take actions contrary to US national interests, and apparently contrary to their own interests: they are confident they are in better shape than anyone to weather whatever storm they brew
-The US likes to behave like a mad dog biting it’s own tail when none others will do (Gaza)
Of course Russia will not give back any of the assets it seizes in Ukraine - including gas and coal fields, industrial plant, natural resources and farm land. Nor will pay any attention to Blackrock's and others "title" to such assets, nor will it repay any of the debt incurred by the Ukraine regime or secured on such assets. $300B is small change in these circumstances.
Blackrock can take Elon's advice given to Eisner. Besides taking the 300 billion.confirms what is known, the collective west/US are a bunch of thieves and deadbeats. They change the rules on a whim and will renege on debts. My guess the US game plan is to retreat into a closed loop of vassal states.
I disagree, Russia didn’t seize public assets but they were obtained in legal ways: the security agreement with the regions that declared themselves independent based on UN article 51 and the right of self determination; the referendums and the decision of the regions to join Russia.
The ‘West’, mainly the US, is barking about confiscation of CBR assets – mainly to threaten RoW (as M Hudson explains) but mostly to threaten the EU, and to so destroy a lucrative financial industry, and to downgrade the Euro
These are sovereign assets, usually/always considered untouchable- the US has invented various empty arguments, of the you have no reason to worry variety, but since the intention is clearly to threaten the less convincing the legality the better
There are other western assets in Russia, outside of the DPR LPR etc, those of Western companies and banks which continue, despite their home countries' sanctions, to operate: then there are various frozen assets, then some confiscations (nationalisations) of company assets involved in the Arctic, German and Austrian, in retaliation for German nationalisations of Gazprom subsidiaries and of the Rosneft majority share of the Schwedt oil refinery
There have been other confiscations – but many western companies have chosen more or less willingly to continue their operations
A glimmer of hope ….some saner of the westies recognise the dangers of illegal confiscations and the FT is prepared to give them a platform
Even if the author pays bended knee to the dominant US ‘narrative’, he describes the ongoing dissolution of distinctions between war and peace operated by his government, hence this facile recourse, attributes the root cause lying in US lack of political will to put their money where their mouth is
“Besides these political, legal and diplomatic problems, the best argument against a confiscation is that it is economically unnecessary. US and EU aid to Ukraine, military and economic, has so far amounted to significantly more than $100bn per year. This sum is easily sustainable for the transatlantic economy. A less risky approach would involve funding Ukraine with the several billion euros in annual profits accruing from Russian assets. As this would redirect income streams rather than touch the principal, international legal ramifications would be milder.
Helping Kyiv ward off Russian aggression defends national sovereignty and territorial integrity. But advocates of a rules-based order demolish their credibility if they respond to Moscow’s criminality with illegal measures of their own. Such conduct will accelerate the dissolution of the boundary between war and peace, alienate many states outside the sanctions coalition and dismantle a building block of the world they claim to defend.”
Thank you. Interesting information. It’s mind boggling the self destruction of the EU by the political class. I lost hope they come to their senses. It’s clear the USA wants to bring the EU on its knees. Not that they have to put in a lot of effort as many nations in the EU like to please their master more than their neighbors in the expectation that the master likes them more. It’s pathetic.
Btw what does RoW stand for? Tried to look it up myself but wasn’t successful in the time that I spent sofar
I subscribed to the FT for half the time from 1974 to 2012. Eventually, their Zionist blather got too much to stomach. I cancelled my subscription.
At one time, the FT was publishing my "letters to the editor". On one notable occasion, the scumbag Gideon Rachman criticised my remarks while using a pseudonym. I guess my letter must have burnt his arse. A bit later, they blocked my online comments.
I cancelled my subscription to the FT in May, 2003. No because I had finally woken up and realized the FT didn't have any real news. I wasn't that smart yet. But it published some major fresh (fresh, I tell ya) "breaking" "news" that I had seen 9 months earlier. I kept my clippings, which I went through years later and finally realized it was minor news at best and misleading at worst. One clipping was about the massive time-bomb of financial derivatives (which will 10,000% destroy the entire Western financial system - if it ever gets activated), with the FT saying, "Nothing to see here, move along now," and I didn't catch the drift. Evans-Pritchard used to be worth reading, maybe still is, but there are better voices out there. Gideon Rachman never was any good but he also never hid his Zionism.
Really, every British newspaper stinks and is filled with lies. Mostly bald lies.
“Seizing the assets has raised worries about the consequences for the financial system, namely that some countries such as China might come to fear that reserves held in euros or dollars were no longer safe. But they shouldn’t. If countries don’t illegally invade other countries, their money is quite safe."
Who says they will limit it to that? No sane country that has a possibility of getting on the US' bad side should ever keep their money in the US or the UK or maybe even the EU period.
It appears that the ROW has been backing away slowly from the USA and the financial system. Confiscate assets, and there will be massive pushback if for no other reason than the veil is lifted and sets off a mad scramble.
Actually, Russian invasion to Ukraine is legal according to international law. But western propaganda talking only about those parts of international laws which fits their narrative and absolutely ignoring all other aspects.
Robert -- what I am about to say to you in response to this is relatively controversial, but I have been researching the topic of foreign reserves, dollar hegemony, etc and I'll like to offer a few qualifiers to what you wrote (i.e. I agree, 'who would want to keep their reserves in USD' -- but there are difficult to get around 'reasons').
The first 'reason' why staying is USD is hard to get around is because of how global trade and lending works. Most international trade is conducted in USD. The parts that aren't done in USD is done outside of USD for very special reasons (e.g. there is no reason for German and French 'international' trade to occur via USD because both Germany and France are part of the euro system. Similarly, 'enough' foreign trade occurs between France and the UK on a routine basis that trading 'bilaterally' between euros and pounds won't be a problem). Keeping a certain stock of USD, or euros, or pounds, or Yuan, at country's money center banks or that country's central bank just 'makes sense' because they are always in use (kinda like you may have a small amount in a local bank account just to receive your salary and pay routine bills even though most of your 'assets' are stored somewhere else or maybe even stored 'in' something else). More and more countries are starting to use something other than the dollar for certain bi-lateral trade transactions (e.g. Yuan for oil or Rupees for oil) -- but that only 'goes so far' and is a) happening on only a very small percentage of world trade right now (beyond the exceptions noted above) and b) progressing very very slowly. For that kind of bilateral trade to work there has to be sufficient use for both currencies in the countries doing the trade (e.g. Russia has been trading oil to India for Rupees but now has a problem in that India has practically unlimited demand for Russia oil but Russia has relatively little demand for Indian goods and services). Thus, it would take a long time to really dispose the USD from world trade (even if the US become Uber-rapacious and does even 'worst' things). Thus, a certain amount of USD 'reserves' are needed just to run world trade. and make currency exchange function.
The second reasons it is 'hard' to get away from the USD is because it acts as a 'reserve asset' at these banks: it accumulates over time due to trading profits and trade 'surpluses'. You might ask that 'If these 'countries' are holding USD as a 'store of value' or as 'investments', why would they continue to hold these USD assets if the US just starts to 'go rogue'? Just 'sell those USD assets and hold something else?"
The best reasons why they would continue to hold these assets, even if the US 'goes rogue' is that they really 'cant'' get out of them. So why 'can't they get out of them? The first reasons is that you have to assume that they (the country's government or central bank) actually have 'control' of them. And it kind of turns out that they sort of 'don't' have (enough) control of them, don't have alternatives to invest in, and can't afford to sell them even if they could.
The first point I just raised is whether or not those countries really have effective 'control' of those assets. Our view that a country has 'control' of its USD assets rests on our knowledge of the so call petro-dollar and Saudi Arabia back in the early 1970's. After the 1973-74 Arab oil embargo, Gulf petro-states suddenly were making huge profits exporting oil to the West, and thanks to the 'petro-dollar', these states agreed to sell this oil for USD -- which resulted in huge USD denominated 'profits' reinvested in USD treasuries (and other securities) in the US markets. But keep in mind, this was a one-time huge windfall, accruing to state-owned oil firms, that were controlled by those Arab governments. These government -- at least theoretically -- could have invested these surpluses in gold or the pound or Deutsch Mark -- but they didn't. But this kind of a special case -- suddenly the stuff you (the monarch and state oil company) were selling is worth multiples of what it was worth just the year before (with no increase in your costs), so you (the ruler) get to decide what to do with this new found wealth. But most 'trade surpluses' don't come about in this way (and are not controlled by a relatively narrow elite at that country -- and even the Gulf States are not like this any more).
In most countries at most times, USD trade surpluses are the result of millions of transactions by specific individuals and businesses that collectively accumulate over time. These accumulations of USD 'profits' are mostly (but not entirely) turned into home country currency to pay local wages, local suppliers, local taxes, etc and the countries big banks and central banks end up with theses USD because the Central Banks and local big banks are the ones are trading the local currency with theses companies for their USD. So the first difference with the Saudi 1974 model is that there are lots of individual decision makers making choices about how much USD to convert to local currency -- not just the state technocratic elite.
The second problem with the Saudi 1974 model is that in almost all cases all of these companies had to 'import' either supplies or investment funding from overseas in USD to generate those exports and generate USD profits. So while USD are flowing into these countries to pay for exports and offer credit, USD are also flowing out to pay for supplies and service USD denominated loans. And since pretty much everything that is made, shipped, purchased, sold, etc involves credit in today's economy, there is no avoiding 'financing' -- no country (or even individual) operates on a purely 'cash' basis - there is credit everywhere. And almost all of this credit is in USD (outside of the Eurozone or UK etc). Even in countries with 'developed' local banks, companies and individuals will 'borrow' in USD (because funds are so widely available at much better rates than in the local or other currencies). Countries like Turkey or Brazil or even China may have great export industries, favorable balances of trade and USD 'reserves' -- but they are still very dependent on USD denominated financing and credit to make all of this happen.
In short, the dollar's role in 'trade' is big -- but the dollars role in financing trade is enormous. Even central banks with lots of USD reserves can't finance their country's USD finance needs with just their 'reserves' -- in some cases because those reserves are just too small but mostly because they, as centralized institutions just can't do the job that a decentralized globalized banking system working in USD can do. Government centralized planners just can't replicate what the has emerged via the decentralized, pretty-much-unregulated 'free market'. The problem is that this 'free market' in finance is all built around the infrastructure of the USD system.
So, then why not just have the Central Banks 'sell their excess' reserves and prevent any 'build up' in the USD denominated assets beyond the bare minimum? The problem is that there really isn't any other 'asset' outside of the USD big enough to 'absorb' those 'excess' reserves. The gold market is tiny in comparison to world trade (one estimate is that gold would have to be revalued at something like 50k dollars per ounce vs 2k dollars today) to even get close to a level that could hold those reserves. And trading in physical gold across companies and countries is a lot more complicated logistically than trading virtual electronic USD across computer screens. Furthermore, currencies like euros and Yuan are both not big enough or safe enough and something new like a BRICS currency really needs a lot more time to develop and prove itself out.
The finally issue is what would happen if those banks 'sold' those 'excess' US assets -- selling those assets quickly would temporarily 'flood' the market with those securities and result in 'getting out' at a firesafe price (say 10 cents on the dollar)and temporarily lowering the price of the USD on currency markets (and raise the exchange rate of the home currency selling the reserves) and thus crush exports and the economy. Selling slowly over time is an option - but once again, it takes time and needs an alternative 'home' for those 'liberated assets'.
All this is not to say that your sentiment 'they will want to get out of the USD' is not true -- it is. They will want to get out and will try, slowly, through all kinds of ways to get out -- but it is not easy. Russia had 8 years since 2014 to 'prepare' for a dollar break - and it spent that time making plans so that it could survive getting shut out of Western currencies and the USD. Plus Russia is largely self-sufficient in resources and investment and a natural resource exporting giant. That won't work for Brazil (which is not self-sufficient in many things and needs external finance and loans) or for China (which is still focused on exporting products to Western countries with lots of imported content and a surprising amount of USD denominated 'cheap' finance). It's all pretty complicated.
Hi, thank you very much for this. What I meant though was why do people keep their money in dollars in US, UK, or EU banks where it can be so easily confiscated or frozen? Do you have an answer to that one too. It just seems so stupid.
There are a couple of different issues going on with your question. The first issue is that companies (and countries) don't really keep 'banks accounts' like you and I do -- they use them in a very different and non-optional kind of way.
For example, you and I earn income somehow and pay expenses and keep the remainder in 'a bank' to manage the inflow / outflow of these funds and, if we are lucky, save up a few 'pennies' along the way (which we then 'store' in a 'bank'). Banks, in that sense, are incidental to what we do.
The larger the company, however, the more 'essential' are the banks to our actually 'earning' the income in the first place. Without a bank(s) constantly extending credit, the company's 'product' that they sell doesn't get moved by a trucking company, or purchased and stored by a wholesaler, or bought and shipped and kept in inventory by a retailer, or purchased (via some electronic banking system like a credit card, debit card, PayPal, etc) and shipped to an end customer, etc.). Every step in the supply chain for a good or service pretty much involves the extension of 'credit' in order to occur. Back in the 1920's, Henry Ford owned his own steel plants and rubber plantations -- in part because he wanted control, felt he could better control his costs and guarantee supply etc -- but also because he could 'fund' all of these supply chain credit transactions himself (from his cash flows) and not rely on a global banking system (that didn't really exist yet). Over centuries, the global banking system has developed that would make all of these supply chain credit extension efforts seamless to us (and provide the credit services Henry Ford provided himself more cheaply and efficiently than he ever could). That is why you don't see that kind of vertical economic integration today (the decentralized system provided by competitive banking system is just, in a word, superior).
You and I may not 'need' a bank and credit to earn money as a plumber -- but most companies do. So, the first response to your question is that 'some kind of bank' is needed (unless we want to go back to a cash currency, local area economy like around 1900).
The second issue is then 'why a use Western bank' -- just use a local Indonesian or Brazilian one instead. To some extent, this is possible (although, like in the first response it because more difficult the bigger and more international the company is). But there are also 'big problems' with local banks. The first is that they are often 'not big enough' -- not big enough in terms of being able to afford the technologies and the locations and develop the credit products etc but often not big enough in terms of balance sheet capacity and sheer 'banking size'. The economies that they are trying to serve are need more credit than they can possibly create.
This is a by-product of globalization and the rapid increase in living standards and productive capacity world-wide (i.e. the developing world is a victim of its own success). Part of the reason why the developing worlds' economy has grown so rapidly in such a short time (the last 200 years) is because of Western credit and banks. In some ways, global growth and prosperity is like an exotic house plant growing in your sun room in large part because you are carefully watering it and fertilizing it and giving it extra light and heat in order to make it bloom. If you took away that 'unnatural' fertilizer, light, water, etc the plant will suffer (maybe even die) -- because it does not have the 'natural' supporting environment it would need to flourish naturally (e.g. a jungle rainforest in the middle of Ohio). So, in general, right now the local banking systems are not 'big enough' to support their local economy 'bloom'.
Over time, it is possible that this home-grown banking system could 'catch-up' to the plant's current 'growth state' -- it is just that this largely never happens (for good reasons). Partly, this is because the 'soil & fertilzier' in this example is not inert -- the banking system is sort of 'alive' and it is constantly seeking out 'plants' to stimulate -- so this out-of-country, Western fertilizer (the banks) is actively trying to out-compete the local banks to provide this support to local country business. And since these Western banks are bigger, more experienced, better capitalized, have better technology, have the better skilled people, etc they almost always dominate the local banks. It is very difficult for a local bank to grow big and sophisticated enough to out-compete these Western banks. Head-to-head free market competition gives the big Western banks too many advantages and local government support usually leads to local cronyism, corruption, and centralized planning disaster. So, it is really hard to have a viable alternative to Western banks in most places.
So, if you put it all together (along with my original comments to you) you get the following:
-- these individuals and companies in the non-western world need banks to support foreign (and even local) trade and modern prosperity
-- the local banks can't provide what the Western banks can provide in many respects (and if they do, they face very tough competition)
- Even when the local banks do provide such services, it will usually be much more expensive (to the individuals and companies) or complicatedt to source all of these services from local banks (and therefore the Western banks outcompete the local ones)
-- the local banks themselves (like the local economies they are part of) are also usually 'too big for their home markets' (in the sense that their lending portfolios are too large for their underlying base of domestic deposits) and are thus operating at a scale larger than they naturally would because they are getting 'wholesale' bank money lent to them from the Western banks. These means that the local banks are only able to make the local loans they do in part because Western banks are lending them the money they themselves lend out into the local market. Thus, if the Western banks disappeared from their economies these local banks would likely disappear or shrink dramatically as well).
-- most individual and companies are making decisions in a de-centralized manner. They are deciding to transact and take loans in USD (not local currency) and they are re-investing their savings in USD assets because individually it makes most sense for them (even if in aggregate it may not be great for the country as a whole).
-- most individuals and companies (even if they wanted to only use local banks and bank products) are using Western banks behind the scenes (because that is how the plumbing of the modern worldwide banking system works).
Seen in this light, you have to see the problem of how you just can't decide to not 'use' or 'keep your money in' Western banks. It's Western banks all the way through the system wherever you look (you just don't notice it because it is seamless and behind the scenes). It's like an ecosystem. The Western banks are such an integral part of the ecosystem that you just can't 'do without them' in more than you can 'do away' with the water distribution and drainage system.
Only a few select countries (that have been purposely excluded from the Western system or consciously chosen to not be a 'big part' of that system ) could disconnect from the matrix (even if they wanted to). Iran. Cuba. North Korea. Russia. Some might argue that the fact that Russia has only been partially connected to this Western finance system is the real reason why all of this 'regime change' 'expand NATO' 'bomb Iran' stuff is happening in the first place.
Thank you very much. But I was wondering why on Earth GOVERNMENTS kept so much money in Western banks. Russia had $300 billion. Iraq $8 billion. Afghanistan $4 billion. So why do governments need to park one nickel of this money in US or UK banks?
Also in the list of the top 10 world banks, we have the following:
3 China Industrial and Commercial Bank of China 194.56 billion
4 China Agricultural Bank of China 160.68 billion
5 India HDFC Bank 157.91 billion
9 China China Construction Bank 139.82 billion
10 China Bank of China 136.81
Four of the ten largest banks in the world are in China! One is in India.
Why not park your money in a Chinese or Indian bank?
Couple of thoughts. China (and India) are very big countries with lots of people and developing economies (and hence a lot of demand for credit and inflows / outflows of funds). This would make these banks 'big' even if all they did was offer local savings accounts and very local small dollar loans. I am not saying that 'small town banking' is all that these banks do -- just saying that there is a law of large numbers kind of factor going on here that will distort those rankings a bit. Second, the structure of the banking system in these countries also matters and also makes these banks seem 'bigger' than they really are -- if the government choses to 'control' its economy through a certain number of 'big banks' (that dominate all or most of the financial transactions in a country), then that will also make these banks seem 'bigger' and 'comparable' or 'competitive' to big, more organically grown, Western banks as well. So the take away here is just because these banks are 'big' on the rankings, it doesn't mean that they are 'comparable' (in ways that matter) to similarly sized (or smaller) Western banks, particularly in markets outside of China or India (which is a factors for people in Egypt for example).
A second big problem with using 'non Western' banks is 'capital controls'. You and I can't just part our money in a Chinese banks -- they won't let you -- or more accurately, they might let you but they may not let you take the money back out again. There are lots of rules restricting what foreigners can and can't do in these two markets in particular. Plus on top of this regulation, there is the 'rule of law' and 'geo-political' types of concerns as well. Unfortunately, there are lots of historical examples of where non-Indian and non-Chinese 'owners of money' didn't get all (or even any) of their 'money' back out out of those Indian or Chinese financial system (with their government's approval) -- and that 'memory' 'leaves a mark' affecting future decision making involving which banks to use and why (even if the leaders of India or China claim that they have 'changed' or can 'show' how much better things have become). There is a huge trust imbalance (arguably worse than the trust deficit you are trying to escape by fleeing Western banks).
Finally, there are all the points I made about financing (and there is also a comment from me somewhere talking about foreign exchange reserves on this page). These foreign reserves are not really as controllable as you imagine. These reserves accrue (in some ways regardless) of what the home country governments want (since it is the result of millions of daily transactions done at a decentralized level that convert foreign earnings in USD into local currency for use back at 'home'). These foreign central bank reserves, if converted into home currency, would inflate the local currency value enormously (and choke off exports and probably crash the economy due to liquidity -- i.e. credit -- shortages) in the economy. So, they have to be 'kept' in something (other than home currency). Gold, crypto, and other currencies aren't big enough (for Gold) or safe enough to hold such enormous amounts of 'money'. So you are 'stuck' holding USD (or other Western currency) denominated reserves.
This point about USD is important because , it is not just that you might want to hold your money in a Chinese bank -- it's that you would have to hold your money in Yuan not dollars in that Chinese bank. Holding USD in a Chinese banks (a is not really allowed) but even if it was, it ultimately holds you hostage to the Western rules about how USD funds can be used.
Finally, you need 'a certain amount' in foreign currency a country or central bank just needs to hold if it is to conduct t trade (internally and externally).
Put that all together and you get the need to 1) hold surplus USD (or other currencies) somewhere if you are generating 'surpluses', 2) you need banks to do so and you need banks to keep you economy transacting on a daily basis, 3) the combination of USD and constant bank inflows/outflows to support your economy tie you into Western finance (and banks) even if you tried to stay away from Western finance.
Russia is an example of a country managing this well (at least since 2014). It kept a bare minimum in foreign change in foreign banks (the $300 billion). This is literally a drop in the bucket compared to the reserves it created in gold at home. And some 'minimum bank balance' it needed in foreign currency (which means it ultimately involves foreign banks) just to 'keep the lights on' in terms of foreign trade and investment and currency markets (prior to being excluded from the Western financial system). Afghanistan is a different case because it never 'had' those reserves in the first place (Western governments 'gave' the Afghan government the money to 'hold in its own name' but really it was just an accounting fiction to support the inflow and outflow of Western dollar control of its relatively miniature and primitive economy (no insult intended to Afghans by phrasing it that way).
I just rephrased it as I think it is interpreted in the west with their double standards and lies (being a citizen of the west myself)
Trust me when I say that I can’t stand injustice, that I hate the foreign policy of the USA to the core and that I hope we will soon be living in a multipolar world.
On the Israel/Gaza conflict; it looks like the Muslim nations have done ZERO to actually help Gaza. They haven't even broken off financial or diplomatic ties. Seems likely that a significant percentage of the Gaza and West Bank people will be killed off this year. Life continues to be without hope for the Palestinians.
It's bad yeah, but since the US has boxed itself in by vetoing ceasefires notice the IDF is pulling back on a flimsy excuse. They've suffered unprecedented losses, Hamas is still intact and you can't say the Houthis have done nothing. Also, heard an unverified rumor that an Israel court has nullified at least part of Bibi's weakening of the court system so he's again in jeopardy of being thrown out.
It's not a rumor but the truth. The issue is whether the Israeli Supreme Court can block a cabinet minister or other high-level appointee, and the SC just said that yes, it does have this power. Netanyahu and his allies say the SC doesn't have this power (prior to Oct 7, most Israelis agreed with the SC, and there were many large street protests about this).
Try searching "Basic law" in Israel for more, as the bigger issue stems from the fact that Israel doesn't have a Constitution, just a number of "Basic Laws" that sometimes contradict one another.
There's almost no Left in Israel and there's very little of even liberalism. It's a conservative, reactionary, or better yet fascist country and that's the politics of most of the people, definitely of the Arab Jews.
The Left is small, neutered, shrinking, and compromising.
The Israelis are not neocons. They're a lot worse than that. They are out and out ethnic nationalist fascists straight out of the 1930's.
The war is continuing. The vicious maniacs pulled back out of Northern Gaza only. They're still in Central and Southern Gaza. They shifted those troops up to the north so they can fight Hezbollah.
I think they are playing the "long game," and Israel now has its hands full for a year against Hamas, and then comes Hezbollah, and then the Red Sea, and I hear Syria is threatening, and Turkey troops all over the place as are Russian, and Lindsay Graham is getting red in the face wanting mo' war. So far, Netanyahu seems to be losing diplomatically, and militarily, and economically. But yes, some of these countries are owned by US and British banks, including Turkey, Morocco, Egypt. That's the power of the dollar still.
You mean Netanyahu is playing the long game--it's the only game he has if he wants to stay in power and out of jail. But as the Ukrainians are realizing, there are two sides in the war. What Israel wants Israel may not get.
Alfred -- you are right in the sense that the 'threat of force' might be used to 'enforce payment of debt' (the UK and France have certainly invaded Egypt and other countries regarding payment of debt many times in the past) -- but the real reason the debt cant be renounced is much more insidious. The financial system itself (not governments) would extract a ferocious punishment on any 'defaulter' arguably worse than incoming bombs and missiles (see my comments somewhere above about foreign reserves).
As long as a country is 'integrated' into the 'world's' (i.e. Western i.e. primarily US dominated) economic / financial system, the Western finance (and to some extent governments) have 'power' over those countries. Repudiating Western (or IMF whatever) debt would be punished, not by misses and bombs, but by the cessation of all Western sourced 'credit' into the country. Without Western sourced credit, most industries and transactions -- including imports of raw materials, even food delivery to grocery stores, gasoline stations, etc. -- would shut down. Ironically, the more 'advanced' and 'prosperous' the country, the worse the collapse because the more advanced the economy, the more 'credit' is interwoven into the day-to-day functioning of the economy. Typically in almost all countries (including China), domestic sources of credit just aren't enough, on their own, to maintain 'modern life' without a dramatic economic and financial pull-back. This kind of economic 'freeze', even if somewhat temporary, leads to economic collapse, unemployment, a local banking collapse, capital flight out of the country, etc. So, no 'bombs' are required to enforce continued debt repayments -- in fact, 'no one' in the West actually expects Egypt or Pakistan etc to actually 'repay' the debt (it's unplayable at this point) -- all that is required is that 'payments' continue to be paid (and credit be allowed to find and exploit even more opportunities within that countries economy and society).
For evidence, look at how 'collapses' in credit affected Mexico, Russia, Brazil, and Asia in the 1990s. Or Greece and Italy in 2012 or Brazil in 2014. These credit freezes (or threats of a freeze) weren't caused by debt repudiation, but by 'other' credit (liquidity) triggers, but the effect on the country and the economy would be the same (credit evaporates, the economy collapses, society teeters, governments fall, etc.).
This all sounds terrible -- countries are 'enslaved' to a ruthless capitalist system than basically 'holds a gun to their heads' and can 'cut them off' at any time. It must give the US government ultimate world power -- right? But actually no, firstly because the power is held more decentralized (by the banking system not the governments or central banks) and because it is a sort of 'mutually assured destruction' (MAD). Cutting a small country (e.g. Belize) is something the system 'could do' without bringing the banking system down -- but cutting off a larger country or countries is suicide for the banks as well.
The second reason it is not as 'bleak' as 'enslavement' is that when 'in the system', life tends to 'get better' for both sides (the West and the Developing World). Morocco is a relatively poor country in many ways -- but it was much much poorer when it was relatively unconnected from the global economic and finance system. The global system gives access to markets and provides investment to develop those fruit/vegetable/flower export markets, develop low cost manufacturing industries, support expanded tourism industry, etc. But that 'life blood' that funds development and economic prosperity comes at a cost --- dependence on flows of hard currency, primarily USD, to make all this work via the credit markets. The richer that country becomes (the more times they use a credit card, the more iPhones and sneakers they buy, the more Toyotas they import, the more power plants they build, etc.), the more credit matters. Cutting off credit to any country (even rich countries like Italy or even the US) kills it.
Moving 100% outside of the system is not even going to be possible for a country (unless they are very self-sufficient in pretty much everything including finance like Russia) or wiling to have a medieval level of economic existence (like North Korea). That is partly why BRICS is a potential opportunity -- if a 'third way' become possible, then degrees of freedom will open up in the global economic / financial system for countries like Egypt or Morocco -- but BRICS is still a work in process and not a sure thing.
One final note, for as 'good' for the West as the current Western economic / financial system may sound (at least when compared to the situation of a country like Egypt), the current Western system is not perfect --- it creates extreme wealthy inequality, pollution, de-industrialization, over-financialization etc --- but what's worse is that it is prone to years long cycles of inflation and deflation, boom & bust. Part of the problem with the West and the world in general right now is that this global Euro-dollar system (as it is sometimes called by some who study this phenomenon) stopped 'working' in 2007 and has not truly recovered since then. We talk about economic growth and inflation in daily life etc -- and such things do occur, but these economic trends and events are actually occurring in the context of a mega-cycle of deleveraging (i.e. a global credit shortage and way below trend economic growth --- which happens to be the definition of a depression --- and yes, there can be price inflation and growth even in a Great Depression -- there was plenty of it in the 1930s. It's about a kind of 'sickness' that strikes capitalist economies periodically, and I'd argue that we are in such a cycle right now).
Being Egypt in the current Eurodollar world is 'bad' in many respects (especially now with the West's rapacious behavior and the global breakdown in the system) -- but living without it is (sadly) just not an option at this time.
Thank you for your detailed analysis. I am presently in Egypt. It is of great interest to me to know what is going to happen in the near future. The current official rate against the dollar is 31. The unofficial online rate is 51. There is a great deal of capital flight. I am wondering how long will people continue to believe that the USA and Europe are safe havens?
My answer would be 'people' will continue to believe that the USA is a safe-ish haven 'for a very long time' for a couple of reasons.
The first reason is 'what are your alternatives?'. Would you keep your money in Egyptian pounds? (Most would say 'hell no'). Yuan? No -- first because it is really not exchangeable outside of very specific parameters and secondly because do you really trust the Chinese government or economy any better than you trust the West? (Most would say 'no' -- at least not 'yet'). Do you buy 'commodities'? No, not really. No sane person would 'store' oil in their backyard, or copper, etc. and 'buying it' virtually (on paper) is both 'virtual' (i.e. you don't really 'have it') and dependent on the same Western banking and financial system you are trying to avoid in the first place. Physical gold (in your own possession or a vault you really really trust just down the street) works somewhat -- but it is physically risky and awkward and a pretty small market (in comparison to the worldwide capital markets). Same with bitcoin. Possible decentralized store of value -- yes (on the margin). Replacement system for the USD (and Western currencies) in terms of market size, liquidity, range of acceptance, credit leverage capabilities -- 'no -- or at least not yet'.
The second reasons why 'this can go on a long time' is that 'people' is not the same as 'the people'. Individuals are making these decisions one person at a time -- not countries. The countries might want its people to avoid Western credit and assets (USD), and the 'people as a whole' might want that too (because they resent the US and what it is doing) -- but the successful local Egyptian flat bread baking tycoon is going to put his spare assets in hard (ish) currency (the USD) for the reasons cited above (no viable alternative and lots of potential benefits if in USD). Collectively, everyone in Egypt might benefit from disconnecting from the Western system (although that is debatable), but individually virtually no one benefits if they do so, especially if they have to 'lead the charge'.
Finally, the reason that it will likely 'go on' a lot longer is that the people 'with the money' that theoretically could choose a different system aren't just sitting on 'piles of money' in the form of 'safe and liquid assets' looking for a monetary 'home'. Yes, there are rich old retirees and trust fund babies around, but most people (like Musk for instance) have their real wealth invested in the enterprises they are running. Or, if they have surpluses, they are investing in the enterprises that other people are running. Being 'in an enterprise' means that you have a constant and unrelenting demand for USD for supply chain credit transactions, importation, currency exchanges, major USD denominated capital loans, etc. Being in business -- even a local business in Egypt of modest size -- pretty much means that you will need USD in some way, so you are going to 'stay in USD' because you are going to 'need them' tomorrow. Without USD flows into your business (or economy), you don't have a 'going concern'. Without a 'going concern', your wealth (or at least most of it) evaporates, so there is no 'sitting out of the economy' or 'getting out of USD' (except at the margin).
There may be something I am missing with all that I just said (and we will all sit back and chuckle at how stupid arguments like this were back in the day) -- but having studied this a bit, talked to people, and thought about it --- it's really really hard to beat a system (like the USD) that is so pervasive and essential for continued existence with 'something' that does not yet exist.
Your reasoning is very similar to that of Martin Armstrong. Apparently, big money is moving from Europe to the USA. This explains the rise of the Dow Jones.
Lebanon is supporting Hezbollah. (Shia government, Sunni and Shia people but mostly Shia).
Syria is supporting Gaza and Hezbollah. (Sunni people, Shia government)
Iran is supporting Gaza and the rest of the Resistance. (Shia)
Malaysia has banned all Israeli ships from landing at its ports. (Sunni)
The Parliament of Algeria declared war on Israel. (Sunni)
The Iraqi military (!) is the group that is shooting at our bases on Syria and Iraq. They never tell you that, do they? And the government doesn't try to stop them, either. Those are all battalions of the official Iraqi military! The Iraqi military has battalions and brigades inside of it that are mostly Shia and are very pro-Iran. (Sunni/Shia mixed people, Shia government)
Yemen is poorly understood. Ansar Allah is actually real government of Yemen. They won a civil war and took over the state. The existing very unpopular state fled to Saudi Arabia where they continue to administer their fake state from afar. Most of the Yemeni military (~80%) went over to Ansar Allah, even though the military is mostly Sunni. That's why Ansar Allah has those huge stockpiles of fancy weapons. They're actually the real government. (People 60-40 Sunni-Shia mix, Shia government, Sunni military)
Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, and UAE are actually supporting Israel in this war. The first three are shooting down missiles heading for Israel. Saudi Arabia and the UAE have made an overland route so goods can go overland to Israel to avoid the Red Sea.
Bahrain has joined the US flotilla to protect Israeli ships and ships going to Israel.
Tunisia, Morocco, Libya, Sudan, Mauritania, Oman, and Qatar have said nothing.
Kuwait and Turkey had some harsh words.
Muslim Africa has said nothing.
Pakistan, Bangladesh, and the Stans have done nothing.
Azerbaijan is allied with Israel!
Look what is really going on here is a lesson in just how deranged the Sunni hatred of the Shia really is. It needs to be seen to believed. These Sunni governments would rather fight and kill the Shia then fight Israel. In fact they will literally ally themselves with Israel so they can fight and kill Shia alongside the bloodthirsty Jews.
That is literally how insane and stupid Sunni Muslims are.
Now it's true that as you get towards the outlying areas away from Arabia it calms down a lot. Tunisia, Libya, Sudan, Somalia, Morocco, Algeria, Morocco, Oman, Qatar, Bangladesh, Malaysia, and Indonesia care nothing at all about the Shia, mostly because they don't have any of them anywhere near them.
But Saudi Arabia, Yemen, UAE, Bahrain, Lebanese Sunnis, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Egypt, Jordan, many Syrian Sunnis, Iraqi Sunnis, Turkey, and Egypt REALLY hate the Shia. I honestly think this is going to tear Islam apart because the Sunnis will not get over this Shia hatred in my lifetime. I know these people. I've met them and talked to them.
"Yemen is poorly understood". Very true ! And the rest of your comment is very interesting too, but for clarity you might have said that 'Ansar Allah' is what I believe everyone else is calling 'The Houthis'.
"These Sunni governments would rather fight and kill the Shia then fight Israel". Generally true, but some temporary cooperation is not impossible. However, in these seemingly terminal times, they may be further held back from cooperation by their differing views on the Apocalypse.
"If the Israeli conflict is truly being steered into a long term attritional war where the airforce can no longer solve the problems, and much of the load has to be transferred to artillery and other conventional means..."
Well, if you dig your bunkers deep enough - as Hamas apparently has done (and no doubt Hezbollah as well) - then air power is useless - and so is artillery and tanks. And if your troops are too scared to go into the tunnels (probably rightly), then what do you have left? It doesn't take a military genius to figure that out. The Vietnamese discovered that sixty years ago. Apparently, as Martyanov says daily, the West - including Israel, who were all trained in the West - can't figure that out. Apparently digging in the dirt isn't something suitable for "The Chosen People."
They'll be digging their own bunkers once Hezbollah starts dropping some of those 100,000 rockets and missiles on Tel Aviv.
I’m curious about the tit4tat going on the northern border. It seems that HZB has been taggin various IDF communications facilities and the like for a while now. Despite all the bluster, I suspect the IDF brass know what could happen if they escalate too much though. But hey it looks like we wont have to wait too long to find out...
The problem is the IDF expects the US to come to their rescue - and the US will, despite its limitations.
I've been predicting this for years, ever since Hezbollah kicked Israel's butt in 2006. My argument was simply that Israel wants Iran destroyed by the US, but needs the US to do that. It can't start the war with Iran on its own because then Hezbollah blows up Tel Aviv on Iran's behalf. It can't attack Lebanon unilaterally without bringing on the same results. So it needs the US to destroy Hezbollah first. Problem with that is Israel needs an excuse and a US administration willing to do that.
So Israel had to wait until an adequate excuse and administration appeared. Trump almost was it - the Trump administration moved against Hezbollah economically and diplomatically, but Trump was too much of a narcissist to unilaterally start a war. So was Obama. At least not without a good excuse.
So now we have the "God send" of Biden and his extreme neocon administration. Plus the other big neocon project - Ukraine - is dead, so the neocons need a distraction. So the neocons gave Netanyahu and his freak show government the green light to do what the Israelis have been wanting to do since 1947 - clear out Palestine. This means Hezbollah will get involved whether Israel likes it or not, but Israel has already been told by the neocons that the US will deal with Hezbollah. I can't prove that but there is zero doubt in my mind.
All this stuff you hear from the other analysts about how "the US doesn't want a wider war" is BS. Statements by Biden and his crew about that is just CYA. That is exactly what they want. They want Hezbollah, Syria, Iran and the Houthis all gone.
Unfortunately,, like their Ukraine project, that idea is dead in the water before it starts. The US can't do it, militarily. The US can cause a lot of destruction, but in the end it will fail.
Which unfortunately will not prevent the US from starting it. Both sides will keep escalating until a red line is crossed. I read yesterday that Nasrallah considers Israeli assassinations in Lebanon - like the one they just did - to be a red line. Supposedly Nasrallah is about to make a speech, so we'll see.
Once the red line is crossed, Hezbollah will start crushing Israel economically by doing major damage to Israel's infrastructure. The Houthis have already done a first rate job of that by blocking the Red Sea. Once that becomes apparent, the US will have to intervene both against Hezbollah and the Houthis.
The US allegedly is pulling out one of its carrier battle groups, probably due to budget or logistical issues. They will have to replace it and add one more to get three so they can operate around the clock once the real war starts. The Pentagon may be pushing back against this war using the budget and logistics as the excuse, but sooner of later they will get over-ruled by Biden and the neocons.
I can't estimate timing, but probably sometime in the next month or two, it will have to kick off or Israel will be forced to stop its campaign due to economic and military problems. So Israel needs a distraction from its Gaza failure as much as the neocons do from Ukraine.
And I doubt Israel will stop because one thing Zionists and neocons have in common, as Mercouris says all the time, "they have no brake peddle". Fanatics never do.
I think you are spot on in regard to the US being essentially a blunt tool at the behest of the neocons and their ilk. This administration certainly is on the same page especially given the tribal affiliations of what ....95% of the cabinet!? I get the sense that it’s a Now or Never moment when it comes to clearing out all the undesirables you mentioned above. I also agree that there is really no way it could go as planned by the aforementioned mentioned neocons and their handlers. An All or Nothing moment works both ways, and when enough red lines get crossed I can see things getting pretty intense. What alternatives do the Hezbollah, Syrians, Iranians and Palestinians have? Just sit there and watch their nations get slowly picked part?
Looking back I remember cutting my teeth on IraqWar.RU and learning that things are never what they seem. That was also my first exposure to hasbara trolls and the techniques used to derail interesting conversations. I served me well though, and now I am able to assemble information in a way that makes enough sense without succumbing to the ever present confirmation biases...
Even then it was the evil Rooskies that were putting out the actual intelligence and was it ever handy to have when trying to decode the endless bullshit coming from the MSM. Same as now in a way, except the Russian Federation is back on its feet and much more kinetic that in 2004.
I believe the world is watching the way the US is tiptoeing, and keeping their powder dry in anticipation of the inevitable final spasms. In the world of countermeasures, things have changes a lot in the past few decades. When the stops get pulled out we might just see how the naked the emperor really is when it comes to pitched battle. 20 years of LARPing as an occupation force has made his troops soft, and the recent waves of cultural indoctrination have not helped.
You have a point, that the neocons and the zionists really do not seem to have any brakes on the runaway train. At this rate they cannot back down and if they do the pack will smell blood and pounce. So they have to do their very worst to degrade everyone before the showdown, which it turns out is not all that easy to do.
When the “International Community” (25%) is trying to sanction the R.O.W. (75%) things don’t often go as planned.
As you said, I rather doubt the Pentagon is all that eager to wade in bag-deep on this one, and might be sand-bagging the “war efforts”. It makes sense, of all the USAns, it is they who are most likely to have an uncluttered perspective on what reality will look like in a full blown regional shooting war. I recall the Iranians giving a demonstration of their targeting on the al-Assad air base several years back.
"Looking back I remember cutting my teeth on IraqWar.RU and learning that things are never what they seem. "
That site was my first exposure to foreign policy reality as well. I used to post there in 2003. I predicted the Iraqi insurgency probably back in April or May of 2003 there. You may remember that the site was alleged to have contacts with Russian GRU intelligence and that's why they reported stuff no one saw in the western MSM.
Yeah I remember which is why I was amazed that you showed up here years later. I was living in SF at the time as well. Ramzaj or some such moniker as I recall was the name of the source. Then there was an article in Forbes asking the question ‘Is the GRU feeding intelligence on this website’ or something like that. It was hoot to be able to cross reference the intel we were getting with what was coming out in the mainstream.
Good times! Reminds me of the days when I was at Talking Points Memo and goingtoiran.com. Got banned from the first one (Josh Marshall is a Zionist), and the other one died out. Don't know what the Leveretts are doing these days, haven't heard a word out of them.
Also posted a lot at Matt Yglesias' blog at the Center for American Progress. I bugged him so much about stating a definite position on Iran that he made an entire post about me, attempting to refute my contention that his being Jewish and afraid of Jewish retaliation made him not make a clear statement. Hint: He failed since he still didn't make a definite statement during his post.
True. But that's also been the plan since 2006, Israel just couldn't get the US to do it without a major excuse. The Al-Agsa provocation and Hamas' response provided that excuse.
Brian Berletic just did a video on Youtube that explains a Brookings' paper from 2009 which shows how the plan to gin a war with Iran has developed which illustrates how these things are done:
Israel's Incursion into Gaza Continues as US Seeks Wider War with Iran
Good analysis and information. The fog of war is often a reference to the massive propaganda and misinformation, it is difficult to weed through that quagmire. This post cuts through some of the fog.
Shinzo Abe was holding secret talks with the Chinese. Ignore his pro-West public statements - he did not want to die. The Americans found out and assassinated him. He was probably killed by a sniper. What happened in South Korea is a warning to South Korean politicians.
The US is reliant on threats and standover tactics because it has nothing to offer, it's just a complete loss for those nations as the process of draining vassals continues and accelerates. The BRICS+ demonstrates that a critical mass of rejection is in train and Russia's continuing success is encouragement.
"Western military analyst community has always founded their philosophy on the principle that as long as air superiority can be established, the paradigmatically ‘Western’ army will easily defeat any foe"
This is biggest BS ever!
NATO attack Yugoslavia in 1999. with more than 1000 air planes
After 78 days of bombing, NATO manage to kill more than 3000 civilians and 1005 soldiers.
For 78 days of "air superiority" NATO did not manage to make a dent into Serbian Third Army that defend border of Kosovo and Metohija against 15.000 Albanians, fully supported by NATO, for two months trying to break into Yugoslavia!
Western media during Air-campaigne wrote how Serbian forces are decimated but yet, border was holding despite two months ground fight with complete air superiority and bombardment of whole Serbia, including civil objects. As NATO planed for war to last two weeks and there was no sign of ending after two months, NATO start to "unselectly" bomb civilian infrastructure, trains, schools... so eventually Yugoslavia gave up but not on terms to give Kosovo and Metohija or to surrender.
After the war, NATO manage to destroy less than 10 of 300 tanks. Same was with other equipment. Serbia could hold for much longer if he had any support from any other country. Russia was on knees in 1999., only Ukraine gave moral and political support to Yugoslavia!
btw you have many western post/analysis of 1999. NATO aggression. There are precise numbers like: "768 HARM missiles fired, 16 hit target..."
Also consider that there were all kinds of weird 'rules of engagement', problems with the order of battle (which NATO countries were included in which strikes with which pieces of equipment and weapons), basing rights (and which forces could fly out of where) -- and probably most importantly huge casualty aversion on the part of NATO. US and other leadership wanted to fight the war, but the NATO public was uncertain -- and other countries like Germany and Hungary were pretty iffy. Going in close (and remember this was the early 1990's and 'smart bombs' were neither widely available or deployable on most NATO platforms available to that conflict) and you get a huge incentive to 'play it safe'. Serbian air defense was pretty good and losing NATO pilots (and not getting them back) would have been a public relations disaster that could upset the whole tenuous applecart. Saying all this, I am not 100% on board with the 'air power wins the war' crowd -- just saying that NATO against Serbia was pretty much an own-goal clusterfuck in many ways and not representative of what warfare on the north German plain might have looked like in 1989 (or today in 2024).
First
is that what ya wife said too?
https://babylonbee.com/news/confirmed-people-who-comment-first-shall-be-last-in-kingdom-of-heaven?utm_source=pocket_saves
Good thing I'm not a Christian
i see, straight to hell it is then.
LMAO. OK christcuck
mentally challenged, i see.
What is being a Christian to you?
All hail the glorious SOL Invictus
1) The Bradley is a piece of shit. You still haven't watched "The Pentagon Wars". It points out all its deficiences, more or less unmitigated to this day.
2) You're singing my tune about the West's inability to sustain war. They expect years to be able to turn up their production. They won't get that.
I'd like to see a Bradley versus a Terminator go at it, but that shas probably been done on video games. I'd hate to be in a Bradley when they burn up. But in a sense, neither Terminator or Bradley can do much in mine fields, against artillery, or gators, and they are both vulnerable to drones. Neither will win the war. Insurrection and rebellion might, and we need to win some elections.
The election system is rigged and completely corrupt. Fuggetaboutit.
I cannot believe my fellow Americans (many of them are capable of critical thinking EXCEPT when it comes to elections. The system is rigged and has been for some time. President Trump won only because ALL of the DC swamp believed their own media hype. They were caught totally by surprise. Since then we have seen just how much they locked in the ability to manipulate and control outcomes. All the so called "battleground" States have kept unlimited, unverified, mail in ballots for everyone. I live in Pennsylvania it is a joke, I sold my house and moved into an apartment. I registered as Republican from Libertarian so I could vote in R primaries. I never asked for a mail in ballot, but I receive 3 ballots every election all sent to democrats who used to live in my apartment going back over 10 years. I could fill them out and send them in, they must be counted and the signature cannot be verified.
Do it! Fight fire with fire!
I live in a Closed Primary State. The Republican primary is in April and Democrat primary is in August. I'm registered R and will vote in the R Primary. Immediately after I change my registration to D and vote in the D Primary in August. Now I feel I'm only validating the corrupt system.
For the first time in my life and henceforth I'm done with voting and preparing for the Second American Revolution! FUKIT!
Voting for Trump is one of the few ways that the average frustrated American can give the Establishment the Double Bird.
This was Trump's real selling point.
The US has never been a democracy.. The elections are a sham to keep the flock believing that the land of milk of honey is just around the corner when there is nothing but an endless desert..
We live in a verified Banana Republic since 2016. Please vote multiple times when given the opportunity ity.
I meant elections in Europe, ME, and Taiwan more than in the US which seems the most rigged because the US is the mainstream source. But we hope people are waking up. At least we are waking up to the idea that elections are rigged and wars are run for the banks and to prop up the dollar.
There was a recent video of what appeared to be a Bradley going at it with a BMP-1/2 (difficult to tell precisely at the distance). The Bradley was raking it as the BMP retreated. However most AFU Bradleys appear to be loaded with M792 incendiary rather than standard AP (armor piercing) and the rounds *appeared* to not be doing much to the BMP which seemed to get away.
The BMP, whether due to worse optics or some other exigency we're not aware of, was not shooting back. However everyone knows if a BMP shot its 30mm at the Bradley it would be game over vs. the Bradley's relatively puny 25mm.
But one of the reasons I've gained a newfound respect for the Bradley in this conflict is its famed Bushmaster gun has proven quite accurate--as it's known to be, far more accurate than equivalent BMP guns.
But there's a trade off: first rate accuracy but weak fire power and RPM vs. less accuracy and heavy punch and high rate of fire.
But the tie breaker lies in durability , and prompt serviceability . I take the BMP. function , instead of fancy , but unproven on the long run . ( weather , terrain , etc.)
But for parade , front of the waving crowds I would pick a Bradley .
The Bradley remains a POS.
The US Army is replacing the Bradleys with two things:
1) The personnel carrier, aka the AMPV, which is a turretless Bradley, basically. As originally intended.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Armored_Multi-Purpose_Vehicle
2) The OMFV "Optionally Manned Fighting Vehicle" which is a remote controlled turreted Bradley workalike that more or less doesn't carry troops.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XM30_Mechanized_Infantry_Combat_Vehicle
The first is in production and getting fielded to units as of last year, the second is likely to get caught in programmatic hell. The Bradleys are likely to exit the force in the not too distant future.
I don't doubt that the Bradley has flaws, and the BMP is superior. However, from watching frontline footage, it seems that the AFU has made effective use of Bradleys, that the soldiers even prefer them to tanks due to maneuverability, and it's useful in extracting them from dangerous situations. At the very least, they have greater integrity than US elections.
hah, that is funny.
They have aluminum armor, they are over 10' tall and they look like a tank. Oh, and they weigh 33 tons, and would weigh 40 if it weren't for the Al armor. Al burns when hit by incendiaries. The original M2 was supposed to hold 11 soldiers, it holds 6 instead. The TOWs are not reloadable except by getting outside. They can only fire the TOWs when stationary. Not to even count the shitty counter-IED stuff.
Someone needs to hit one with an RPG or something.
Hahaha...
Interesting. First the M10 Booker, and now the Bradley without a turret. The development of American armored vehicles is taking unexpected paths.
Well if they wanted a light tank they should have designed one instead of this shoehorned monstrosity called the Bradley. The indictment here is the developmental process. The Bradley was concocted mid-Vietnam, in 1965 and really only hit the force in the late 1980s. It's not suited to any actual purpose - it's a crappy vehicle for carrying soldiers in and it's not a good light tank. And the light is in question here at 33 tons. For that, you'd get a whole T34-85 with 20-90mm of armor vs the 14.5mm on the Bradley. Oh, and an 85mm gun vs a 25mm chain gun. No aluminum to burn, either.
"standard AP (armor piercing)"
This is depleted uranium?
M919 APFSDS (Armor-Piercing, Fin-Stabilized Discarding Sabot) uses a depleted uranium penetrator.
There is another fin stabilized tungsten rod version of the APFSDS (can't recall a #) as well as an older, spin stabilized tungsten projectile round, the
M791 APDST (Armor-Piercing Discarding Sabot with Tracer).
So, dedicated non explosive kinetic AP rounds could be either DU or tungsten.
Additionally, there are "dual purpose" chemical energy Semi AP rounds with some capability against light armor, as PGU-32/U SAPHEI-T
An explosive round like a HEAT is what is needed for the Bradley, even though the reactive armor kits are often applied to Uke vehicles and make this more difficult to use.
A 25mm round really does not have the volume/diameter for much of a shaped charge + standoff + tail fuse system, plus projectiles from a rifled barrel sacrifice a lot of penetration from shaped charge effect, centrifugal forces cut way down on penetration. One of the reasons modern(ish) MBT main guns are mostly smooth bore these days.
Probably using up the M 791 tungsten first.
BMP2's gun bounces all over the place when it shoots, and consequently precision goes out the window at high rate of fire. Longer barrel with same thickness = more range but less stiff. BMP3 stiffens the barrel by strapping it to the 100mm gun next to it. Most BMP/IFV's designed today have some kind of stiffening mechanism, to get both range/power and precision in automatic.
Also I suspect, like tanks, that BMP's mostly don't seek out random duels with other BMP's. Machines of same class are perfectly capable of killing each other, and a 50/50 confrontation is not ideal, when a drone or atgm can safely eliminate the opponent with less risk.
Exactly. Tank vs tank and bmp vs bmp fights all over the place is movie thinking syndrome. usually those things avoiding each other and prefer to destroy enemy armor with artillery, atgms and kamikaze drones
And when you have thrown a track trying to diagonally traverse a steep muddy slope? Never try to ford a 4' deep river going more than a couple miles an hour. The entry splash will crack the Bradley manifold.
The Bradley is great fun to drive, though.
Ukrainians say that Bradley is a much more robust vehicle than in a BMP-1/2 and your chances of surviving inside when infantry fighting vehicle is hit by something are much higher in a Bradley.
Since Bradley weighs about twice as much as the old Soviet BMP-1/2, I can believe it.
ofc its more robust and has more armor. no dout about that but if your bradley is hit by atgm or artillery of another tank/armor you are done
bmp 1-2 isnt protected much at all. but if you consider EVERYTHING from producing to maintance to operating etc etc i prefer bmp 2 over bradley cause you can have like 4-5 bmp2 for 1 bradley at same price.
if you want to compare 1 bradley vs 1 bmp2 in a vacuum so yes bradley is ok or better in some enviroments (for example deserts or plains). but combined arms operations is very all round connected thing and you have to consider entire army configuration and military doctrine.
bradley isnt that bad as people say IMO, problem its not as good as some people think.. its OKish armor vehicle with cons and pros. i wouldnt refer to it as a falure vehicle. no, its not falure.
You can't seriously compare a BMP-1/2 weighing 13-15 tons and a Bradley weighing 22-34 tons. It's like comparing Sherman and Tiger 2. Different categories.
I can't imagine you'd feel that way after watching "The Pentagon Wars".
I've seen this movie. It's even saved on my hard drive.
And you still think that vehicle - largely unchanged from the movie result - is a good APC?
I think Bradley is too heavy, big and expensive for his capabilities. It's a pretty archaic vehicle. Considering that the Yankees are returning, in fact, to the M113 at the modern level, it seems that this is not only my opinion. The level of Bradley protection can be called acceptable for IFV.
on the subject of BMP's, recent episode of Voennaya Priyomka
https://tvzvezda.ru/video/programs/201412231323-1cpc.htm/20231230859-tysXn.html
I'm assuming you're not taking your information on US weapons development from a 90s Hollywood comedy flick, you're just saying that the memoir which the movie was based on is representative of what happened at the trials.
So I'll just post here what the critics of that line of reasoning say:
The "whistleblower" whose memoir the film was based upon was not a soldier, nor had any experience testing, designing, or operating armoured vehicles of any kind, as he was an lieutenant colonel in the Air Force. His claim to fame was that he participated in the F15 development program. And so what he did when he "uncovered the fatal flaw" of the Bradley was essentially propose a bunch of survivability tests that the Bradley was not designed to withstand and then when it did fail, he claimed that the entire Bradley project was just the misguided and corrupt "Old guard" pressing their ideas through despite objections from weapons design geniouses like him.
They're basically claiming that what Burton did was akin to firing a 120 mm APFSDS penetrator from an Abrams at a BMP-3, and then claim the BMP-3 is a "death trap". Of course the BMP gets penetrated, it was not designed to be taking shots from a main battle tank.
Attack Burton all you want - ad hominem demonstrates a weak argument.
I work in the space. The movie is more or less accurate. I got referred to the movie by a program manager in charge of a $2 billion program. Aluminum armor on a fighting vehicle? Come on... 10' high APC with a tank turret? If we had been fighting peer enemies all these years we'd have paid a high price for this.
Knowing the difference between an OT and a DT (developmental test) is the technical issue. The stuff depicted in the movie were all DTs conducted by the proponent. Like firing the defective Romanian RPG rounds at the Bradley that didn't detonate. They are always bullshit propaganda. "Look, we passed this hobbled test with flying colors" Exactly as stated in the movie. Also, precisely as stated in the movie, no one wants to be the one who says the materiel in question is a piece of shit. It destroys careers.
OTs (operational tests) are different and conducted by a testing agency. They tend to expose actual issues. To see what a properly conducted OT can do, take a look at the IVAS program using Microsoft Hololens. Sample link below. Note this is a program that the DoD did not want, so it's getting savaged via testing.
https://www.theverge.com/2023/9/13/23871859/us-army-microsoft-ivas-ar-goggles-success-new-contract-hololens
The Bradley is indefensible - the development process should have resulted in a much better and more survivable vehicle. The AMPV is an attempt to restore it to the original intent, though it still has that broke ass Al armor. I've seen worse programs, but the Bradley is a piece of shit by any measure.
I pretty much agree with what you've said about the Bradley -- but there's two comments I would make to 'qualify' your criticism and be a bit kinder to the Bradley (and yes, I've served in them).
The first is that the Bradley (like most weapon systems today and since at least the end of WW1) were developed during times of peer-to-peer 'peace' and rapid technology innovation. In some ways, the Germans in the 1930's 'guessed right' (or were just 'lucky') and had a large, relatively advantage over their peers in 1939-1940 (e.g. radios in tanks, multi-person tank turrets, better optics, more mobile vehicles, etc.). That 'German Experience' left a big mark on Western equipment designers, and it seems like every peer military has been trying to 'swing for the fences' and 'guess right' on the next 'secret to success' in armored vehicles (and other platforms) ever since. The Bradley exhibits many of these 'guesses'. It has more speed than the 113 it replaced -- in part because the M1 had more speed than the M60 it replaced and for some reason, that 'speed' was seen as 'critical' (whether it really was or not is still kind of an open question, at least to me). The Bradley has better protection than the 113 (because the US was taking too many losses in Vietnam with 113's and similarly armored vehicles) -- but still not enough protection to maybe matter (which goes back to the speed and armor and layout issue). It had 'gun ports' (which are really pretty stupid) and a more powerful main gun -- but it had those in part because the early Marder and BMP's had them as well -- and hey, the Germans and Russians know armor so maybe they know something we don't Lots of what the Bradley had designed into it -- that made it 'bad' was based on what the 'big brains' (in the Army community, in industry, in think tanks) thought was going to be needed. This constant 'trying to get a leg up on the competition by foreseeing an unforeseeable future' is a big part of the Bradley (and other weapon system's problems). So, it's more of an endemic disease than a Bradley specific problem. It's probably rare that these 'guesses' are really game changers, many of those guesses are probably not useful for the reasons envisioned (but can be made to work somehow in some other context), and probably a handful of those guesses are just 'bad' (as in deadly) or just 'stupid' or 'wasteful' in the extreme.
The other comment that mitigates the Bradley faults, to an extent, is the 'ok' side of bureaucratic inertia. The 'bad' side of inertia is that we have a program or product, it sucks in certain ways, we know it sucks, but it would be embarassing or dangerous to admit we have the problem so let's stay with what we've got. Clearly, that is 'bad'. But there is a related part which is 'ok' -- and it comes back again to the 'uncertainty'. There were lots of weapon systems that 'guessed wrong' about what what needed for the future -- but once in actual combat, had other features that worked out well, or at least 'good enough'. The P39 Aerocobra was pre WW2 design that was a 'failure' in its intended role of a high altitude interceptor in WW2 (but turned out to be a kick ass low level fighter and air-to-ground platform for the Soviets in their type of combat on the eastern front). The Army Air Corps didn't want the P39 (but took them anyway because they were better than what they had and weren't too sure that something better would be coming around in 1940 that would be developed or funded). But it worked out (both at Guadalcanal in 1942 and later when got something better and gave them to the Soviets). Another example is the lowly 113 -- first used in South Vietnam and has MAJOR survivability issues -- was still providing service in Ukraine in 2023. It has advantages: cheap, relatively easy to fix, light, holds a lot of things, has lots of uses -- but it has many many disadvantages, and I would prefer not to have to sit in one if I had a choice in combat.
So, even when there is a problem, there is often a 'who knows whether it is really a dog when it matters' kind of wisdom there as well. Some products are totally crap and it is obvious -- I'd wouldn't put the Bradley in that bucket. It's probably like 'most' military products since WW2 --- questionable, full of bad design choices and program mismanagement, too expensive for what it promised to deliver, a mix of obsolete and/or never-ready-for-prime time technology, etc. But before the test of combat, it's really a crap-shoot, I'd say and a bird in a hand ....
Tracking, Martin, and well thought out.
I object mainly to the inability of the DoD to say "we want X" and actually deliver X. I cited the OMFV spec elsewhere. If this spec actually carried through and wasn't mutable by the program staff, i'd feel better about the whole thing. Having worked a number of programs, I believe the modifications made by the staff - people like me - is a net negative. It doesn't improve the solution.
Now, I admit, the engineering offered by the MIC vendors - the Northrop Grummans, GDs, etc of the world is often lacking. Most programmatic hell situations are caused by program staff that care too much going head to head with MIC vendor engineers. These programs are un-cancellable. The reason why is that to senators and congresspeople, these programs are district jobs that assist in electoral politics. They are not about procuring the best weapons. This is why I say the entire process is really a jobs program.
If you wanted a more perfect world, you'd let the MIC vendors produce a limited quantity based on a firm spec that some general couldn't modify on a whim, test the crap out of them, and if they couldn't fix within certain time and cost guidelines, cancel the whole thing and start over, rather than trying to negotiate out compromises that suck with the program staff, which ironically often ends up writing the TRADOC documentation for the system that specifies it...on the fly.
I would also add that one big reason why the AMPV is what it is (a Bradley chassis with no turret) is because there was only one existing vendor with a line set up to make vehicles. Not very surprisingly, the same line that produces Bradleys.
Also keep in mind that no metal is bent, generally, until the downselections have gone to one vendor. So you don't know the engineering compromises until you have no choice.
Totally agree -- the whole military product development process is in a hysteresis loop -- it just keeps getting worse and worse every single time it cycles. Bradley was bad -- and everything bad about the Bradley process is still around today and new, additional dysfunctions have been added. I don't know how it gets 'better'.
As a side (and crazy) thought -- I am beginning to wonder if the viewpoint of 1948 may be coming around the corner. Back in 1948, we had senior 'combat veterans' speculating that we would no longer need a sea going navy, or a significant standing army, or a marine corps -- that it would be power projection from afar pretty much all the way. Back then, it was based on belief in the utility of air power and atomic weapons. Messy realities like the Berlin crises, the Soviet army in Europe, and the Korean War put a stop to all that and 'interventions' like Vietnam called for 'real' weapons, doctrines, and training in the tactical space to take the place of all that 'nukes' for all wars big and small.
But what about now? Europe is now disarmed (and hopelessly unable to rearm for a whole slew of reasons). The USA is not as bad but maybe even it can't even replace what it has in stock right now --- product development is total disaster, recruitment is ridiculous, funding (mid and longer term) may not even be feasible. Sure, the 'people in charge' want to start another war, deploy another assets, etc every day: there is no war or conflict that they are not eager to start or join -- but there is huge and growing amount of daylight between those 'leaders' and the country that pays the bills and mans the ships. Plus, drones and cyber and other forms of shadow war may be the real engagement area (not armored vehicles or carriers at sea). Sure, intervening in the Middle East, or 'protecting' the sea lanes, etc require 'hard assets' (like since 1948) -- but for the first time since 1945, I am beginning to see both the futility of trying to 'Cold War' it and the possibility that certain 'policies' may be 'war' by other means. The blockage of the Red Sea is a big problem for lots of folks -- but not necessarily the US of A. And yes, 'letting go' may be expensive -- but maybe cheaper than 'staying in' the game. If we don't change our attitudes -- all of the stuff we have today must be replaced and upgraded --- but with the changes in certain key 'attitudes' -- a lot of stuff would not be needed. Just thinking ....
First, you're right about the hysteresis loop. I just thought unrelatedly about my insulin dosing being very similar and got a laugh out of that.
The cure for all product development problems in the military is war. From late 2001 through mid-2003, the DoD actually worked ...quickly. There were GWOT dollars flowing and people who got in the way got fired. The last Vietnam-era leftovers retired about then. Programs that sucked had their funds reallocated to programs that didn't. Mobs of contractors were sent into theater to get shit done in ways the soldiers and govvies couldn't. Crash programs that resulted in communications equipment and new vehicles were started up. The MRAPs, Strykers, M-ATVs, WIN-T Inc1, all descend from this time, amongst other things.
The problem is that in 2001-2003, you got a bunch of Guard formations from around the country filled up with American youth. I remember landing in Baghdad on Christmas Day 2007 (it had snowed...) and seeing all the fresh faces looking very confused. Again, just like in Vietnam, they refused to call up the reserves, preserving them for some reason. Of course now the reserves are depleted anyway, same as the Guard and the active duty component. I will venture a slightly political statement here - after a decade or more of moral decay, I can't imagine pulling it off again. The ready force is just not there anymore.
That said, the liberal hegemon fear is that if they back off, some other nation will seize the position. They need to get over that. They squandered their inheritance, and will have to get comfortable with the world they made.
"he Germans in the 1930's 'guessed right' (or were just 'lucky') and had a large, relatively advantage over their peers in 1939-1940"
Disagree. Red Army had better tanks entire war. t 34 didnt have any competitor at start and IS1-2 were much better than tigers and panteras 1-2.
problem is pro german war propaganda like 1 tiger kick ass of shermans or t 34s created this myth of german superiority. but they never show how t 34 kick ass of p3-4 or how company of IS 2s litterally obliterated company of Pantera 2s (best german tank ever) in head to head fight. germans called IS2 as Stalins hammers and didnt want to deal with it at all. But because of anti russia anti ussr propaganda you can have absolutely absurd notion that german's army armor was better and red army won using body waves and other retarded propaganda..
another thing is where im agreed and i said before here, that bradley is OK vehicle its not falure IMO. it has own cons and pros. actually only 1 real pro - better armor. and some variants has good electronics+optics (but it is not pro of Bradly its pro of US army in general, US army has good advanced elecronics and optics in many things).
Some of the very early Soviet tanks were .... crap .... and unfortunately these were the tanks that hit the pre-war German designs in 1941. Subsequent Soviet tanks -- the T34 in particular -- were a lot better than the 1935-1940 Soviet designs and often better, in a lot of ways (but not all ways) to German tanks.
More importantly to this argument, I was not trying to claim that German tanks were 'great' and superior overall or throughout the war -- I was talking about how German designs of 1935-1940 compared to Allied / Soviet tanks in the 'first look' at war after decades of peace. The factors I cited: radios in tanks, two or three man turrets, better optics (which enabled a better 'first look, first kill' capability etc )were really good 'investments' and a lot better than pre-war designs Britain, France, the Soviet Union, and the US had to come up with and funded. Subsequent US and British and Soviet tanks caught-up (and in many ways surpassed) the German designs on these specifics (and even more so overall as a 'package'). So, my argument is not about who had the 'better tanks' -- it is about how sometimes (for whatever reason) one side 'figures out' what will matter in the next 'peer-to-peer' war better than the other side during the preceding years of peace -- and how that 'damn, how is it that they got there and we did not' kind of moment shapes subsequent military product development doctrine.
So, for the record, I am not a German tank fan-boy -- and by the end of the war, overall, both the Allied (British and US) and Soviet tanks were 'better' overall (as a comprehensive combat system of numbers, complexity, reliability, technology, reliance on supporting combat systems, etc.) than the Germans -- so, I largely agree with your comments (I just think that you missed my point).
I once wrote a paper arguing that Germany in 1939 didn’t necessarily have better tech than the allies, but how Germany used the available technology was initially decisive. Using radios to allow for and support very deep operations rather than the radios or the tanks themselves was the revolutionary part. Of course Germany always knew that it needed to win its campaigns quickly, so it developed a doctrine that accentuated its strengths and utilized novel applications of technology.
Invading the USSR, however, was beyond the limits of the doctrine because it was simply too big. And it was defended by Russians. Who were more competent from day one than later histories gave them credit for.
The T-34 had a couple of flaws that had little directly to do with its survivability and hitting power. One was the one-man turrret. The other was the lack of radios. Only unit commanders generally had them. These were made right eventually in later models. But it does a lot to explain superior armor tactics being employed against qualitatively superior Soviet armor.
I trained on the Bradley. It's high maintence junk that wants to break down if not properly coddled.
Thanks for doing it, but wish you had gotten a better product to work with.
I was a young fool. Didn't know any better.
Like the rest of us...getting me to do the same shit as back then is unlikely :-)
Hahaha...nope.
Finally figured out how to change my user name to match my several other social media profiles. Ain't I smart?
That's the plan, so the US can be invaded and we can't fight back.
"Arestovich continues to go “full Monty” in his quest to rebrand himself as Ukraine’s savior. Now he says smart Ukrainians are turning into Russians." Insurrection! Rebellion!
I think it is funny they don't want to draft young people, under 27, their base - just the old dudes.
I can't tell if NATO will double down (false flag) or cut loses. Depends too much on who is talking. Why is Washington Post featuring Lindsay Graham?
Graham Cracker is a turd.
That's putting it mildly 😋
So why is the Washington Post featuring the jerk? Where is Bernie (lol)?
Because Graham is all-in for more war and empire.
Graham may be developmentally disabled. I'm undecided.
You know, when the Ukrainians hit something with a storm shadow or scalp or something, the Russians don't seem to have any qualms with publishing photos, videos, analysis and so on. Even if it is embarrassing or draws criticism
The Ukrainians have much tighter information security. But what's the point of these lies? Plus if they were true, wouldn't we be seeing endless circle-jerk military worship puff pieces in the likes of the WSJ and NYT about how American kit is taking down Russian stuff?
I can tell that you've never watched Ukrainian TV :))) It's quite a goofy charade, in its own way.
Ukraininan news programming is basically a fictional sitcom in which illiterate orcs armed only with shovels are always emerging from their filthy trenches in endless meat waves, only to be shot down singlehandedly by heroic blonde supersoldiers with glistening Western-supplied guns.
Definitely don't watch Ukrainian TV 🤣
But in seriousness, early on we had a lot of footage of Russian tanks getting hit by javelin and NLAW and so on, and the consequent pieces in MSM news.
If there was a real hit on Russian missiles, they'd have filmed it, published it, broadcast to the world. The propaganda value would be immense. They've claimed hundreds of intercepts...
Which is a valid reason to consider that it is really not happening much....because if it were.....
Similarly, the Ling Winter of Death for the UnJected never really materialized....if it had..... You get the picture.
Right exactly. Their best attempt was a sad picture of a gravity bomb that they tried to pass off as a khinzal
Lord Posonby's Ten Commandments of War Propaganda
1. We don't want war, we are only defending ourselves!
2. Our adversary is solely responsible for this war!
3. Our adversary's leader is inherently evil and resembles the devil
4. We are defending a noble cause, not our particular interests!
5. The enemy is purposefully committing atrocities; if we are making mistakes this happens without intention
6. The enemy makes use of illegal weapons
7. We suffer few losses, the enemy's losses are considerable
8. Recognized intellectuals and artists support our cause
9. Our cause is sacred
10. Whoever casts doubt on our propaganda helps the enemy and is a traitor
4 January 2023 FT 2024 Off to the same old bad start
‘Seizing Russian reserves is the right thing to do’
https://www.ft.com/content/b2446a0d-de0a-4cc0-a600-87dc1643f844
“Seizing the assets has raised worries about the consequences for the financial system, namely that some countries such as China might come to fear that reserves held in euros or dollars were no longer safe. But they shouldn’t. If countries don’t illegally invade other countries, their money is quite safe. “
The problem the FT faces is that compensation is paid by losers to winners or on behalf of winners
Given that even the FT realises that the ‘west’ is unlikely to win, & hopes there will be no peace treaty imposed by RF, it follows
‘ a peace settlement does not seem likely with the current political regime in Moscow, which makes confiscation a good solution.”
Bingo!
No mention of possible counter measures taken by RF leaving the west worser off, as per sanctions
?It is a policy statement to proclaim to RoW that when the west enacts an illegal by their own laws confiscation ‘you should’nt worry’?
‘China’s advanced machine tool exports to Russia soar after Ukraine invasion’
https://www.ft.com/content/d16c688d-9579-4f1d-a84f-ca29ca2f0bc0
After crowing that China had be proven an untrusty partner to Russia, and after the various attempts at secondary China sanctions, and the manifest backfire of the direct US sanctions against China….
…..The answer to all our problems is once again….’more sanctions!’
This is the FT on autoglide or AI – even the most lumpenbusinessclass grunts must suspect they are being slipped a fony take
Medvedev said Russia has 2 Trillion in Western Assets they can seize in a tit for tat and I'm sure they are drooling at the prospect once West makes this fatal mistake which will destroy trust in West. Not only that 404 is worth tens of trillions. So 300B is noise level for Russia.
Going forward, how damaged west will be by this seizure will depend on how many join the BRICS or neutral but distrustful and how many stay Western vassals. If West only retains Europe, USA OZ Japan SK and Philippines, all with little resources, it will be the greatest financial suicide in history. Dubai will probably become the new Switzerland and trade, loans, investment will just circulate within the global 80% all emerging while West obviously in mass debt and sinking.
Check min 47 of the interview with Prof Hudson about why the West insists on stealing Russia's reserves
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7iwV-Zhwb9I&t=2127s
When does he say why?
At min 47+
What Dr. Hudson says is that the purpose for Washington saying (Dec. 28, 2023) that Europe should confiscate the already-frozen $ 300 Billion of Russian money, is to throw fear in the Saudi leaders that their trillions of dollars parked in the US could be confiscated if Saudi Arabia does not do what Washington demands. He goes on to say that the bug issue of 2024 will whether Saudi Arabia and others (BRICS, IIRC) can deal with this economic blackmail. Well, I'm surprised because I didn't think this issue could be dealt with in a single year. Dr. Hudson is 100% honest and never exaggerates. So he may well be right about 2024 being the big year of decision.
big issue, not "bug issue". My typo.
There is "edit" in the top right corner of the replies.
I was surprised when Dr. Hudson said that countries would stop paying their debts to the US, because the US is being at war with them, proxy or direct. Makes sense.
Thanks for this info
I think that the scenario Dr Hudson describes is one potential (extreme) outcome.
That doesn't mean that it won't occur (or that it isn't a 'preferred option' for some advisors / leaders in the West) -- it is just high risk option for the West and there are alternate ways of 'bringing about the outcomes they seek'. For example, as an alternative, the 'West' could try to engineer a coup against the current Saudi leadership to bring them more 'in line' with Western interests -- in fact you could argue that this has already been tried -- but that doesn't rule out repeat attempts again in the future. Another option would be 'Bribing' the current Saudi leadership (with 'no string attached' nuclear technology -- i.e. turning a blind eye to the building of a nuclear device) -- such an offer was just reportedly made by the Biden/Blinken administration to Saudi Arabia (and rejected). Anther option would be 'waiting things out' or just 'surrendering to reality' and not doing much of anything (because the costs of doing something outweigh the benefits). Bottomline, there are many paths forward for the West (aside from asset freezing or seizure) and everyone can place their own bets on how likely such and such course of action might be -- but nothing is 'certain'.
As for seizing those assets themselves, it's not as easy as it sounds.
Seizing the 'assets' of 'pariah' states (like Iran or Cuba or North Korea or Venezuela) happened decades ago in part because Russia, China, India, and others were willing to go along with those sanctions at that time for various reasons. Furthermore, the freezing and seizing was possible because none of these states being targeted were really part of the Western financial system at the time they were targeted (Cuba and North Korea were always very much outside of the system from the beginning. Iran was cut off in 1979 and Venezuela 'collapsed' itself and was 'thrown out' slowly starting in the 1990's). Burma and Sudan started out as 'cut out' but were then reintegrated partly (and then isolated again). Point being -- 'successful' sanctions and seizures by the West in the past have mostly been limited to a bunch of 'special cases' historically (small, weak, isolated).
Seizing the assets of Russia was a bit different than these past special cases and shows some of the larger risks associated with trying something similar with Saudi Arabia (or others). Russia was a lot larger and much more self-reliant economically and financially than the special cases of the past -- that gave it 'powers of resistance' to the isolation and helped to limit the effectiveness of such seizing and freezing. Furthermore, Russia had many things that others actually depended on (a lot) -- energy, raw materials, food, etc. This gave Russia economic power to 'strike back' and it helped it to have many friends and allies (and even many so-called 'antagonists' willing to 'turn a blind eye' against such self-defeating policies in the West). Thus the 'case of Russia' shows that there are real practical limits in imposing the 'freeze and seize' regime on the 'powerful'.
This 'case of powerfulr' also applies to China or Saudi Arabia. In fact, both China and Saudi Arabia may have more power to fight back economically against the West than Russia itself. Cutting yourself off of Russia oil and gas is bad (stupid really), but eliminating the rest of your imported energy supply by demonizing Saudi Arabia (or your Chinese imported consumer, drug, building material, and component flow) would be stupid squared.
And these are just the economic arguments against freezing and seizing -- there are also equally powerful financial ones. Saudi Arabia is fully integrated into the Western financial system. India is less so. China less so than India. Russia is less so than China. Economically punishing Russia (and Russia punishing the West in turn) hurt the West economically -- it just didn't have a huge impact on financial markets (I am referring to the the flow of credit across markets to support lending and economic growth -- not stock prices. Russia didn't have a lot of foreign loans in its wholesale or retail economy and therefore its isolation had a relatively little impact on the Western lending market). Seizing and freezing China would have a massive financial impact on the West. Both China and Saudi Arabia are central to how global funds circulate throughout the globe (and I am referring not to country to country lending at a nationstate level but the daily business-business-bank credit flows that lubricate global finance and trade both nationally and internationally). In fact, you could argue that seizing and freezing Saudi Arabia's 'foreign assets' would hurt the West financially much more than economically (losing yet more energy sources is a price-increasing supply shock, collapsing your banking system and plunging your economy into an economic depression is an order of magnitude worse -- although a deep economic depression does help with your energy import deficit because no one will be able to afford to run their factories or drive their cars or pay for those energy consuming things even if they have the funds).
In short, seizing and freezing with regard to China or Saudi Arabia is probably a 'mutually assured destructive' event financially (and perhaps economically) even if there is no kinetic military action (which is also possible). Thus seizing Russia assets is certainly a 'signal' to the Saudis (and China and others) but it is not something the US or the West can do without serious consequence to itself or likely worldwide political, military, economic, financial escalation.
Your comments are very welcome and informative and over a wide range of subjects, I thank you for the time and effort you give to explain subjects, especially financial, which are among the most difficult and obscured aspects of this war
I find convincing and pertinent your descriptions of how and why US threats of asset confiscations, as M Hudson surmises intended to warn the Saudis, are empty or if not will be disastrous for the system which enables the US to make such
And obviously there are many more in the US bag of tricks as you outline
1-The current CBR confiscation drama is a threat to every country, veiled, but in this case specifically directed against the EU and their best interests
It is well known that the RF has long ‘written off’ these assets (so that seizure will not faze); that there is a comparable amount of ‘western’ assets in RF that may be nationalised, mostly belonging to EU companies; and that when RF prevails in Ukraine these assets will be high on the list of reparations to be paid to RF
In which case best to steal them now ‘on behalf of, at the bidding of, Uk’ , send some part to Uk , let the Ukraine take responsibility, pay the reparations
2-Given the complete assimilation of the EU governing class into the US governing class, this threat can be considered actionable – it may well be that the EU execute, and suffer the consequences, which will hardly touch the US, but which will produce emigration to US of remaining EU viable financial and industrial infrastructure skilled personnel and investments (short as opposed to long term benefits to US), along of course with large numbers of the current politico/business classes
(It’s remarkable how many of these EU types have assets in the US (!) and green cards/citizenship (!))
The US has long expressed the requirement that European members of NATO pay their way, and recently have shown via Congress that US financial contributions to the Ukraine will fall off
CBR soap opera is a way of making this quite clear to the EU – not that to revive EU contributions, e.g. the famous E60B that Hungary blocked, will do the trick, all E300B odd is required
The destruction or considerable degradation of the EU economy is not in the long term national economic interests of the US, but….never underestimate US ruling class capability/capacity to take actions contrary to US national interests, and apparently contrary to their own interests: they are confident they are in better shape than anyone to weather whatever storm they brew
-The US likes to behave like a mad dog biting it’s own tail when none others will do (Gaza)
Of course Russia will not give back any of the assets it seizes in Ukraine - including gas and coal fields, industrial plant, natural resources and farm land. Nor will pay any attention to Blackrock's and others "title" to such assets, nor will it repay any of the debt incurred by the Ukraine regime or secured on such assets. $300B is small change in these circumstances.
Blackrock can take Elon's advice given to Eisner. Besides taking the 300 billion.confirms what is known, the collective west/US are a bunch of thieves and deadbeats. They change the rules on a whim and will renege on debts. My guess the US game plan is to retreat into a closed loop of vassal states.
(((Blackrock))). (((Eisner))).
Same Difference!
The Small Hats
What’s with the brackets?
It’s a device to avoid being immediately censored.
They're called Echoes or Coincidence or Cohencidence Marks.
Well well well.
I disagree, Russia didn’t seize public assets but they were obtained in legal ways: the security agreement with the regions that declared themselves independent based on UN article 51 and the right of self determination; the referendums and the decision of the regions to join Russia.
You are right as far as the Donbass are concerned
The ‘West’, mainly the US, is barking about confiscation of CBR assets – mainly to threaten RoW (as M Hudson explains) but mostly to threaten the EU, and to so destroy a lucrative financial industry, and to downgrade the Euro
These are sovereign assets, usually/always considered untouchable- the US has invented various empty arguments, of the you have no reason to worry variety, but since the intention is clearly to threaten the less convincing the legality the better
There are other western assets in Russia, outside of the DPR LPR etc, those of Western companies and banks which continue, despite their home countries' sanctions, to operate: then there are various frozen assets, then some confiscations (nationalisations) of company assets involved in the Arctic, German and Austrian, in retaliation for German nationalisations of Gazprom subsidiaries and of the Rosneft majority share of the Schwedt oil refinery
There have been other confiscations – but many western companies have chosen more or less willingly to continue their operations
Stop Press- new FT article on asset seizure
‘The West would harm itself with rash seizures of frozen Russian assets’
https://www.ft.com/content/2c917ef5-60bd-4825-89e4-8b88dc9080a8
A glimmer of hope ….some saner of the westies recognise the dangers of illegal confiscations and the FT is prepared to give them a platform
Even if the author pays bended knee to the dominant US ‘narrative’, he describes the ongoing dissolution of distinctions between war and peace operated by his government, hence this facile recourse, attributes the root cause lying in US lack of political will to put their money where their mouth is
“Besides these political, legal and diplomatic problems, the best argument against a confiscation is that it is economically unnecessary. US and EU aid to Ukraine, military and economic, has so far amounted to significantly more than $100bn per year. This sum is easily sustainable for the transatlantic economy. A less risky approach would involve funding Ukraine with the several billion euros in annual profits accruing from Russian assets. As this would redirect income streams rather than touch the principal, international legal ramifications would be milder.
Helping Kyiv ward off Russian aggression defends national sovereignty and territorial integrity. But advocates of a rules-based order demolish their credibility if they respond to Moscow’s criminality with illegal measures of their own. Such conduct will accelerate the dissolution of the boundary between war and peace, alienate many states outside the sanctions coalition and dismantle a building block of the world they claim to defend.”
Thank you. Interesting information. It’s mind boggling the self destruction of the EU by the political class. I lost hope they come to their senses. It’s clear the USA wants to bring the EU on its knees. Not that they have to put in a lot of effort as many nations in the EU like to please their master more than their neighbors in the expectation that the master likes them more. It’s pathetic.
Btw what does RoW stand for? Tried to look it up myself but wasn’t successful in the time that I spent sofar
I subscribed to the FT for half the time from 1974 to 2012. Eventually, their Zionist blather got too much to stomach. I cancelled my subscription.
At one time, the FT was publishing my "letters to the editor". On one notable occasion, the scumbag Gideon Rachman criticised my remarks while using a pseudonym. I guess my letter must have burnt his arse. A bit later, they blocked my online comments.
Would that be (((Gideon Rachman))), as opposed to just regular Gideon Rachman, by any chance?
😊
I cancelled my subscription to the FT in May, 2003. No because I had finally woken up and realized the FT didn't have any real news. I wasn't that smart yet. But it published some major fresh (fresh, I tell ya) "breaking" "news" that I had seen 9 months earlier. I kept my clippings, which I went through years later and finally realized it was minor news at best and misleading at worst. One clipping was about the massive time-bomb of financial derivatives (which will 10,000% destroy the entire Western financial system - if it ever gets activated), with the FT saying, "Nothing to see here, move along now," and I didn't catch the drift. Evans-Pritchard used to be worth reading, maybe still is, but there are better voices out there. Gideon Rachman never was any good but he also never hid his Zionism.
Really, every British newspaper stinks and is filled with lies. Mostly bald lies.
“Seizing the assets has raised worries about the consequences for the financial system, namely that some countries such as China might come to fear that reserves held in euros or dollars were no longer safe. But they shouldn’t. If countries don’t illegally invade other countries, their money is quite safe."
Who says they will limit it to that? No sane country that has a possibility of getting on the US' bad side should ever keep their money in the US or the UK or maybe even the EU period.
In other words, touch Taiwan and we'll rob you blind.
It appears that the ROW has been backing away slowly from the USA and the financial system. Confiscate assets, and there will be massive pushback if for no other reason than the veil is lifted and sets off a mad scramble.
What is ROW?
Rest Of [the] World
Actually, Russian invasion to Ukraine is legal according to international law. But western propaganda talking only about those parts of international laws which fits their narrative and absolutely ignoring all other aspects.
Robert -- what I am about to say to you in response to this is relatively controversial, but I have been researching the topic of foreign reserves, dollar hegemony, etc and I'll like to offer a few qualifiers to what you wrote (i.e. I agree, 'who would want to keep their reserves in USD' -- but there are difficult to get around 'reasons').
The first 'reason' why staying is USD is hard to get around is because of how global trade and lending works. Most international trade is conducted in USD. The parts that aren't done in USD is done outside of USD for very special reasons (e.g. there is no reason for German and French 'international' trade to occur via USD because both Germany and France are part of the euro system. Similarly, 'enough' foreign trade occurs between France and the UK on a routine basis that trading 'bilaterally' between euros and pounds won't be a problem). Keeping a certain stock of USD, or euros, or pounds, or Yuan, at country's money center banks or that country's central bank just 'makes sense' because they are always in use (kinda like you may have a small amount in a local bank account just to receive your salary and pay routine bills even though most of your 'assets' are stored somewhere else or maybe even stored 'in' something else). More and more countries are starting to use something other than the dollar for certain bi-lateral trade transactions (e.g. Yuan for oil or Rupees for oil) -- but that only 'goes so far' and is a) happening on only a very small percentage of world trade right now (beyond the exceptions noted above) and b) progressing very very slowly. For that kind of bilateral trade to work there has to be sufficient use for both currencies in the countries doing the trade (e.g. Russia has been trading oil to India for Rupees but now has a problem in that India has practically unlimited demand for Russia oil but Russia has relatively little demand for Indian goods and services). Thus, it would take a long time to really dispose the USD from world trade (even if the US become Uber-rapacious and does even 'worst' things). Thus, a certain amount of USD 'reserves' are needed just to run world trade. and make currency exchange function.
The second reasons it is 'hard' to get away from the USD is because it acts as a 'reserve asset' at these banks: it accumulates over time due to trading profits and trade 'surpluses'. You might ask that 'If these 'countries' are holding USD as a 'store of value' or as 'investments', why would they continue to hold these USD assets if the US just starts to 'go rogue'? Just 'sell those USD assets and hold something else?"
The best reasons why they would continue to hold these assets, even if the US 'goes rogue' is that they really 'cant'' get out of them. So why 'can't they get out of them? The first reasons is that you have to assume that they (the country's government or central bank) actually have 'control' of them. And it kind of turns out that they sort of 'don't' have (enough) control of them, don't have alternatives to invest in, and can't afford to sell them even if they could.
The first point I just raised is whether or not those countries really have effective 'control' of those assets. Our view that a country has 'control' of its USD assets rests on our knowledge of the so call petro-dollar and Saudi Arabia back in the early 1970's. After the 1973-74 Arab oil embargo, Gulf petro-states suddenly were making huge profits exporting oil to the West, and thanks to the 'petro-dollar', these states agreed to sell this oil for USD -- which resulted in huge USD denominated 'profits' reinvested in USD treasuries (and other securities) in the US markets. But keep in mind, this was a one-time huge windfall, accruing to state-owned oil firms, that were controlled by those Arab governments. These government -- at least theoretically -- could have invested these surpluses in gold or the pound or Deutsch Mark -- but they didn't. But this kind of a special case -- suddenly the stuff you (the monarch and state oil company) were selling is worth multiples of what it was worth just the year before (with no increase in your costs), so you (the ruler) get to decide what to do with this new found wealth. But most 'trade surpluses' don't come about in this way (and are not controlled by a relatively narrow elite at that country -- and even the Gulf States are not like this any more).
In most countries at most times, USD trade surpluses are the result of millions of transactions by specific individuals and businesses that collectively accumulate over time. These accumulations of USD 'profits' are mostly (but not entirely) turned into home country currency to pay local wages, local suppliers, local taxes, etc and the countries big banks and central banks end up with theses USD because the Central Banks and local big banks are the ones are trading the local currency with theses companies for their USD. So the first difference with the Saudi 1974 model is that there are lots of individual decision makers making choices about how much USD to convert to local currency -- not just the state technocratic elite.
The second problem with the Saudi 1974 model is that in almost all cases all of these companies had to 'import' either supplies or investment funding from overseas in USD to generate those exports and generate USD profits. So while USD are flowing into these countries to pay for exports and offer credit, USD are also flowing out to pay for supplies and service USD denominated loans. And since pretty much everything that is made, shipped, purchased, sold, etc involves credit in today's economy, there is no avoiding 'financing' -- no country (or even individual) operates on a purely 'cash' basis - there is credit everywhere. And almost all of this credit is in USD (outside of the Eurozone or UK etc). Even in countries with 'developed' local banks, companies and individuals will 'borrow' in USD (because funds are so widely available at much better rates than in the local or other currencies). Countries like Turkey or Brazil or even China may have great export industries, favorable balances of trade and USD 'reserves' -- but they are still very dependent on USD denominated financing and credit to make all of this happen.
In short, the dollar's role in 'trade' is big -- but the dollars role in financing trade is enormous. Even central banks with lots of USD reserves can't finance their country's USD finance needs with just their 'reserves' -- in some cases because those reserves are just too small but mostly because they, as centralized institutions just can't do the job that a decentralized globalized banking system working in USD can do. Government centralized planners just can't replicate what the has emerged via the decentralized, pretty-much-unregulated 'free market'. The problem is that this 'free market' in finance is all built around the infrastructure of the USD system.
So, then why not just have the Central Banks 'sell their excess' reserves and prevent any 'build up' in the USD denominated assets beyond the bare minimum? The problem is that there really isn't any other 'asset' outside of the USD big enough to 'absorb' those 'excess' reserves. The gold market is tiny in comparison to world trade (one estimate is that gold would have to be revalued at something like 50k dollars per ounce vs 2k dollars today) to even get close to a level that could hold those reserves. And trading in physical gold across companies and countries is a lot more complicated logistically than trading virtual electronic USD across computer screens. Furthermore, currencies like euros and Yuan are both not big enough or safe enough and something new like a BRICS currency really needs a lot more time to develop and prove itself out.
The finally issue is what would happen if those banks 'sold' those 'excess' US assets -- selling those assets quickly would temporarily 'flood' the market with those securities and result in 'getting out' at a firesafe price (say 10 cents on the dollar)and temporarily lowering the price of the USD on currency markets (and raise the exchange rate of the home currency selling the reserves) and thus crush exports and the economy. Selling slowly over time is an option - but once again, it takes time and needs an alternative 'home' for those 'liberated assets'.
All this is not to say that your sentiment 'they will want to get out of the USD' is not true -- it is. They will want to get out and will try, slowly, through all kinds of ways to get out -- but it is not easy. Russia had 8 years since 2014 to 'prepare' for a dollar break - and it spent that time making plans so that it could survive getting shut out of Western currencies and the USD. Plus Russia is largely self-sufficient in resources and investment and a natural resource exporting giant. That won't work for Brazil (which is not self-sufficient in many things and needs external finance and loans) or for China (which is still focused on exporting products to Western countries with lots of imported content and a surprising amount of USD denominated 'cheap' finance). It's all pretty complicated.
Hi, thank you very much for this. What I meant though was why do people keep their money in dollars in US, UK, or EU banks where it can be so easily confiscated or frozen? Do you have an answer to that one too. It just seems so stupid.
There are a couple of different issues going on with your question. The first issue is that companies (and countries) don't really keep 'banks accounts' like you and I do -- they use them in a very different and non-optional kind of way.
For example, you and I earn income somehow and pay expenses and keep the remainder in 'a bank' to manage the inflow / outflow of these funds and, if we are lucky, save up a few 'pennies' along the way (which we then 'store' in a 'bank'). Banks, in that sense, are incidental to what we do.
The larger the company, however, the more 'essential' are the banks to our actually 'earning' the income in the first place. Without a bank(s) constantly extending credit, the company's 'product' that they sell doesn't get moved by a trucking company, or purchased and stored by a wholesaler, or bought and shipped and kept in inventory by a retailer, or purchased (via some electronic banking system like a credit card, debit card, PayPal, etc) and shipped to an end customer, etc.). Every step in the supply chain for a good or service pretty much involves the extension of 'credit' in order to occur. Back in the 1920's, Henry Ford owned his own steel plants and rubber plantations -- in part because he wanted control, felt he could better control his costs and guarantee supply etc -- but also because he could 'fund' all of these supply chain credit transactions himself (from his cash flows) and not rely on a global banking system (that didn't really exist yet). Over centuries, the global banking system has developed that would make all of these supply chain credit extension efforts seamless to us (and provide the credit services Henry Ford provided himself more cheaply and efficiently than he ever could). That is why you don't see that kind of vertical economic integration today (the decentralized system provided by competitive banking system is just, in a word, superior).
You and I may not 'need' a bank and credit to earn money as a plumber -- but most companies do. So, the first response to your question is that 'some kind of bank' is needed (unless we want to go back to a cash currency, local area economy like around 1900).
The second issue is then 'why a use Western bank' -- just use a local Indonesian or Brazilian one instead. To some extent, this is possible (although, like in the first response it because more difficult the bigger and more international the company is). But there are also 'big problems' with local banks. The first is that they are often 'not big enough' -- not big enough in terms of being able to afford the technologies and the locations and develop the credit products etc but often not big enough in terms of balance sheet capacity and sheer 'banking size'. The economies that they are trying to serve are need more credit than they can possibly create.
This is a by-product of globalization and the rapid increase in living standards and productive capacity world-wide (i.e. the developing world is a victim of its own success). Part of the reason why the developing worlds' economy has grown so rapidly in such a short time (the last 200 years) is because of Western credit and banks. In some ways, global growth and prosperity is like an exotic house plant growing in your sun room in large part because you are carefully watering it and fertilizing it and giving it extra light and heat in order to make it bloom. If you took away that 'unnatural' fertilizer, light, water, etc the plant will suffer (maybe even die) -- because it does not have the 'natural' supporting environment it would need to flourish naturally (e.g. a jungle rainforest in the middle of Ohio). So, in general, right now the local banking systems are not 'big enough' to support their local economy 'bloom'.
Over time, it is possible that this home-grown banking system could 'catch-up' to the plant's current 'growth state' -- it is just that this largely never happens (for good reasons). Partly, this is because the 'soil & fertilzier' in this example is not inert -- the banking system is sort of 'alive' and it is constantly seeking out 'plants' to stimulate -- so this out-of-country, Western fertilizer (the banks) is actively trying to out-compete the local banks to provide this support to local country business. And since these Western banks are bigger, more experienced, better capitalized, have better technology, have the better skilled people, etc they almost always dominate the local banks. It is very difficult for a local bank to grow big and sophisticated enough to out-compete these Western banks. Head-to-head free market competition gives the big Western banks too many advantages and local government support usually leads to local cronyism, corruption, and centralized planning disaster. So, it is really hard to have a viable alternative to Western banks in most places.
So, if you put it all together (along with my original comments to you) you get the following:
-- these individuals and companies in the non-western world need banks to support foreign (and even local) trade and modern prosperity
-- the local banks can't provide what the Western banks can provide in many respects (and if they do, they face very tough competition)
- Even when the local banks do provide such services, it will usually be much more expensive (to the individuals and companies) or complicatedt to source all of these services from local banks (and therefore the Western banks outcompete the local ones)
-- the local banks themselves (like the local economies they are part of) are also usually 'too big for their home markets' (in the sense that their lending portfolios are too large for their underlying base of domestic deposits) and are thus operating at a scale larger than they naturally would because they are getting 'wholesale' bank money lent to them from the Western banks. These means that the local banks are only able to make the local loans they do in part because Western banks are lending them the money they themselves lend out into the local market. Thus, if the Western banks disappeared from their economies these local banks would likely disappear or shrink dramatically as well).
-- most individual and companies are making decisions in a de-centralized manner. They are deciding to transact and take loans in USD (not local currency) and they are re-investing their savings in USD assets because individually it makes most sense for them (even if in aggregate it may not be great for the country as a whole).
-- most individuals and companies (even if they wanted to only use local banks and bank products) are using Western banks behind the scenes (because that is how the plumbing of the modern worldwide banking system works).
Seen in this light, you have to see the problem of how you just can't decide to not 'use' or 'keep your money in' Western banks. It's Western banks all the way through the system wherever you look (you just don't notice it because it is seamless and behind the scenes). It's like an ecosystem. The Western banks are such an integral part of the ecosystem that you just can't 'do without them' in more than you can 'do away' with the water distribution and drainage system.
Only a few select countries (that have been purposely excluded from the Western system or consciously chosen to not be a 'big part' of that system ) could disconnect from the matrix (even if they wanted to). Iran. Cuba. North Korea. Russia. Some might argue that the fact that Russia has only been partially connected to this Western finance system is the real reason why all of this 'regime change' 'expand NATO' 'bomb Iran' stuff is happening in the first place.
Thank you very much. But I was wondering why on Earth GOVERNMENTS kept so much money in Western banks. Russia had $300 billion. Iraq $8 billion. Afghanistan $4 billion. So why do governments need to park one nickel of this money in US or UK banks?
Also in the list of the top 10 world banks, we have the following:
3 China Industrial and Commercial Bank of China 194.56 billion
4 China Agricultural Bank of China 160.68 billion
5 India HDFC Bank 157.91 billion
9 China China Construction Bank 139.82 billion
10 China Bank of China 136.81
Four of the ten largest banks in the world are in China! One is in India.
Why not park your money in a Chinese or Indian bank?
Couple of thoughts. China (and India) are very big countries with lots of people and developing economies (and hence a lot of demand for credit and inflows / outflows of funds). This would make these banks 'big' even if all they did was offer local savings accounts and very local small dollar loans. I am not saying that 'small town banking' is all that these banks do -- just saying that there is a law of large numbers kind of factor going on here that will distort those rankings a bit. Second, the structure of the banking system in these countries also matters and also makes these banks seem 'bigger' than they really are -- if the government choses to 'control' its economy through a certain number of 'big banks' (that dominate all or most of the financial transactions in a country), then that will also make these banks seem 'bigger' and 'comparable' or 'competitive' to big, more organically grown, Western banks as well. So the take away here is just because these banks are 'big' on the rankings, it doesn't mean that they are 'comparable' (in ways that matter) to similarly sized (or smaller) Western banks, particularly in markets outside of China or India (which is a factors for people in Egypt for example).
A second big problem with using 'non Western' banks is 'capital controls'. You and I can't just part our money in a Chinese banks -- they won't let you -- or more accurately, they might let you but they may not let you take the money back out again. There are lots of rules restricting what foreigners can and can't do in these two markets in particular. Plus on top of this regulation, there is the 'rule of law' and 'geo-political' types of concerns as well. Unfortunately, there are lots of historical examples of where non-Indian and non-Chinese 'owners of money' didn't get all (or even any) of their 'money' back out out of those Indian or Chinese financial system (with their government's approval) -- and that 'memory' 'leaves a mark' affecting future decision making involving which banks to use and why (even if the leaders of India or China claim that they have 'changed' or can 'show' how much better things have become). There is a huge trust imbalance (arguably worse than the trust deficit you are trying to escape by fleeing Western banks).
Finally, there are all the points I made about financing (and there is also a comment from me somewhere talking about foreign exchange reserves on this page). These foreign reserves are not really as controllable as you imagine. These reserves accrue (in some ways regardless) of what the home country governments want (since it is the result of millions of daily transactions done at a decentralized level that convert foreign earnings in USD into local currency for use back at 'home'). These foreign central bank reserves, if converted into home currency, would inflate the local currency value enormously (and choke off exports and probably crash the economy due to liquidity -- i.e. credit -- shortages) in the economy. So, they have to be 'kept' in something (other than home currency). Gold, crypto, and other currencies aren't big enough (for Gold) or safe enough to hold such enormous amounts of 'money'. So you are 'stuck' holding USD (or other Western currency) denominated reserves.
This point about USD is important because , it is not just that you might want to hold your money in a Chinese bank -- it's that you would have to hold your money in Yuan not dollars in that Chinese bank. Holding USD in a Chinese banks (a is not really allowed) but even if it was, it ultimately holds you hostage to the Western rules about how USD funds can be used.
Finally, you need 'a certain amount' in foreign currency a country or central bank just needs to hold if it is to conduct t trade (internally and externally).
Put that all together and you get the need to 1) hold surplus USD (or other currencies) somewhere if you are generating 'surpluses', 2) you need banks to do so and you need banks to keep you economy transacting on a daily basis, 3) the combination of USD and constant bank inflows/outflows to support your economy tie you into Western finance (and banks) even if you tried to stay away from Western finance.
Russia is an example of a country managing this well (at least since 2014). It kept a bare minimum in foreign change in foreign banks (the $300 billion). This is literally a drop in the bucket compared to the reserves it created in gold at home. And some 'minimum bank balance' it needed in foreign currency (which means it ultimately involves foreign banks) just to 'keep the lights on' in terms of foreign trade and investment and currency markets (prior to being excluded from the Western financial system). Afghanistan is a different case because it never 'had' those reserves in the first place (Western governments 'gave' the Afghan government the money to 'hold in its own name' but really it was just an accounting fiction to support the inflow and outflow of Western dollar control of its relatively miniature and primitive economy (no insult intended to Afghans by phrasing it that way).
“If countries don’t illegally invade other countries, their money is quite safe”…
Addition: if undemocratic countries
Correction: the money is very safe
I just rephrased it as I think it is interpreted in the west with their double standards and lies (being a citizen of the west myself)
Trust me when I say that I can’t stand injustice, that I hate the foreign policy of the USA to the core and that I hope we will soon be living in a multipolar world.
Does that makes me an imperialist?
Thanks for clarifying things.
Iraq? Afghanistan? Yemen? Syria? Libya?....
A double standard is a terrible thing to waste
Fnar!
On the Israel/Gaza conflict; it looks like the Muslim nations have done ZERO to actually help Gaza. They haven't even broken off financial or diplomatic ties. Seems likely that a significant percentage of the Gaza and West Bank people will be killed off this year. Life continues to be without hope for the Palestinians.
It's bad yeah, but since the US has boxed itself in by vetoing ceasefires notice the IDF is pulling back on a flimsy excuse. They've suffered unprecedented losses, Hamas is still intact and you can't say the Houthis have done nothing. Also, heard an unverified rumor that an Israel court has nullified at least part of Bibi's weakening of the court system so he's again in jeopardy of being thrown out.
It's not a rumor but the truth. The issue is whether the Israeli Supreme Court can block a cabinet minister or other high-level appointee, and the SC just said that yes, it does have this power. Netanyahu and his allies say the SC doesn't have this power (prior to Oct 7, most Israelis agreed with the SC, and there were many large street protests about this).
Try searching "Basic law" in Israel for more, as the bigger issue stems from the fact that Israel doesn't have a Constitution, just a number of "Basic Laws" that sometimes contradict one another.
Seems to be activist, self-selecting left-wing judges against crazed right wing neocons. It's a shame they can't both lose.
The Supreme Court is reasonable.
There's almost no Left in Israel and there's very little of even liberalism. It's a conservative, reactionary, or better yet fascist country and that's the politics of most of the people, definitely of the Arab Jews.
The Left is small, neutered, shrinking, and compromising.
The Israelis are not neocons. They're a lot worse than that. They are out and out ethnic nationalist fascists straight out of the 1930's.
The war is continuing. The vicious maniacs pulled back out of Northern Gaza only. They're still in Central and Southern Gaza. They shifted those troops up to the north so they can fight Hezbollah.
I think they are playing the "long game," and Israel now has its hands full for a year against Hamas, and then comes Hezbollah, and then the Red Sea, and I hear Syria is threatening, and Turkey troops all over the place as are Russian, and Lindsay Graham is getting red in the face wanting mo' war. So far, Netanyahu seems to be losing diplomatically, and militarily, and economically. But yes, some of these countries are owned by US and British banks, including Turkey, Morocco, Egypt. That's the power of the dollar still.
You mean Netanyahu is playing the long game--it's the only game he has if he wants to stay in power and out of jail. But as the Ukrainians are realizing, there are two sides in the war. What Israel wants Israel may not get.
Yep. It boils down to that: thousands of innocent people on all sides have to die so that Netanyahu can stay out of jail for a few more months.
As soon as the USA loses its ability to threaten countries like Egypt, Morocco etc., their dollar debts will become uncollectable.
Alfred -- you are right in the sense that the 'threat of force' might be used to 'enforce payment of debt' (the UK and France have certainly invaded Egypt and other countries regarding payment of debt many times in the past) -- but the real reason the debt cant be renounced is much more insidious. The financial system itself (not governments) would extract a ferocious punishment on any 'defaulter' arguably worse than incoming bombs and missiles (see my comments somewhere above about foreign reserves).
As long as a country is 'integrated' into the 'world's' (i.e. Western i.e. primarily US dominated) economic / financial system, the Western finance (and to some extent governments) have 'power' over those countries. Repudiating Western (or IMF whatever) debt would be punished, not by misses and bombs, but by the cessation of all Western sourced 'credit' into the country. Without Western sourced credit, most industries and transactions -- including imports of raw materials, even food delivery to grocery stores, gasoline stations, etc. -- would shut down. Ironically, the more 'advanced' and 'prosperous' the country, the worse the collapse because the more advanced the economy, the more 'credit' is interwoven into the day-to-day functioning of the economy. Typically in almost all countries (including China), domestic sources of credit just aren't enough, on their own, to maintain 'modern life' without a dramatic economic and financial pull-back. This kind of economic 'freeze', even if somewhat temporary, leads to economic collapse, unemployment, a local banking collapse, capital flight out of the country, etc. So, no 'bombs' are required to enforce continued debt repayments -- in fact, 'no one' in the West actually expects Egypt or Pakistan etc to actually 'repay' the debt (it's unplayable at this point) -- all that is required is that 'payments' continue to be paid (and credit be allowed to find and exploit even more opportunities within that countries economy and society).
For evidence, look at how 'collapses' in credit affected Mexico, Russia, Brazil, and Asia in the 1990s. Or Greece and Italy in 2012 or Brazil in 2014. These credit freezes (or threats of a freeze) weren't caused by debt repudiation, but by 'other' credit (liquidity) triggers, but the effect on the country and the economy would be the same (credit evaporates, the economy collapses, society teeters, governments fall, etc.).
This all sounds terrible -- countries are 'enslaved' to a ruthless capitalist system than basically 'holds a gun to their heads' and can 'cut them off' at any time. It must give the US government ultimate world power -- right? But actually no, firstly because the power is held more decentralized (by the banking system not the governments or central banks) and because it is a sort of 'mutually assured destruction' (MAD). Cutting a small country (e.g. Belize) is something the system 'could do' without bringing the banking system down -- but cutting off a larger country or countries is suicide for the banks as well.
The second reason it is not as 'bleak' as 'enslavement' is that when 'in the system', life tends to 'get better' for both sides (the West and the Developing World). Morocco is a relatively poor country in many ways -- but it was much much poorer when it was relatively unconnected from the global economic and finance system. The global system gives access to markets and provides investment to develop those fruit/vegetable/flower export markets, develop low cost manufacturing industries, support expanded tourism industry, etc. But that 'life blood' that funds development and economic prosperity comes at a cost --- dependence on flows of hard currency, primarily USD, to make all this work via the credit markets. The richer that country becomes (the more times they use a credit card, the more iPhones and sneakers they buy, the more Toyotas they import, the more power plants they build, etc.), the more credit matters. Cutting off credit to any country (even rich countries like Italy or even the US) kills it.
Moving 100% outside of the system is not even going to be possible for a country (unless they are very self-sufficient in pretty much everything including finance like Russia) or wiling to have a medieval level of economic existence (like North Korea). That is partly why BRICS is a potential opportunity -- if a 'third way' become possible, then degrees of freedom will open up in the global economic / financial system for countries like Egypt or Morocco -- but BRICS is still a work in process and not a sure thing.
One final note, for as 'good' for the West as the current Western economic / financial system may sound (at least when compared to the situation of a country like Egypt), the current Western system is not perfect --- it creates extreme wealthy inequality, pollution, de-industrialization, over-financialization etc --- but what's worse is that it is prone to years long cycles of inflation and deflation, boom & bust. Part of the problem with the West and the world in general right now is that this global Euro-dollar system (as it is sometimes called by some who study this phenomenon) stopped 'working' in 2007 and has not truly recovered since then. We talk about economic growth and inflation in daily life etc -- and such things do occur, but these economic trends and events are actually occurring in the context of a mega-cycle of deleveraging (i.e. a global credit shortage and way below trend economic growth --- which happens to be the definition of a depression --- and yes, there can be price inflation and growth even in a Great Depression -- there was plenty of it in the 1930s. It's about a kind of 'sickness' that strikes capitalist economies periodically, and I'd argue that we are in such a cycle right now).
Being Egypt in the current Eurodollar world is 'bad' in many respects (especially now with the West's rapacious behavior and the global breakdown in the system) -- but living without it is (sadly) just not an option at this time.
Thank you for your detailed analysis. I am presently in Egypt. It is of great interest to me to know what is going to happen in the near future. The current official rate against the dollar is 31. The unofficial online rate is 51. There is a great deal of capital flight. I am wondering how long will people continue to believe that the USA and Europe are safe havens?
My answer would be 'people' will continue to believe that the USA is a safe-ish haven 'for a very long time' for a couple of reasons.
The first reason is 'what are your alternatives?'. Would you keep your money in Egyptian pounds? (Most would say 'hell no'). Yuan? No -- first because it is really not exchangeable outside of very specific parameters and secondly because do you really trust the Chinese government or economy any better than you trust the West? (Most would say 'no' -- at least not 'yet'). Do you buy 'commodities'? No, not really. No sane person would 'store' oil in their backyard, or copper, etc. and 'buying it' virtually (on paper) is both 'virtual' (i.e. you don't really 'have it') and dependent on the same Western banking and financial system you are trying to avoid in the first place. Physical gold (in your own possession or a vault you really really trust just down the street) works somewhat -- but it is physically risky and awkward and a pretty small market (in comparison to the worldwide capital markets). Same with bitcoin. Possible decentralized store of value -- yes (on the margin). Replacement system for the USD (and Western currencies) in terms of market size, liquidity, range of acceptance, credit leverage capabilities -- 'no -- or at least not yet'.
The second reasons why 'this can go on a long time' is that 'people' is not the same as 'the people'. Individuals are making these decisions one person at a time -- not countries. The countries might want its people to avoid Western credit and assets (USD), and the 'people as a whole' might want that too (because they resent the US and what it is doing) -- but the successful local Egyptian flat bread baking tycoon is going to put his spare assets in hard (ish) currency (the USD) for the reasons cited above (no viable alternative and lots of potential benefits if in USD). Collectively, everyone in Egypt might benefit from disconnecting from the Western system (although that is debatable), but individually virtually no one benefits if they do so, especially if they have to 'lead the charge'.
Finally, the reason that it will likely 'go on' a lot longer is that the people 'with the money' that theoretically could choose a different system aren't just sitting on 'piles of money' in the form of 'safe and liquid assets' looking for a monetary 'home'. Yes, there are rich old retirees and trust fund babies around, but most people (like Musk for instance) have their real wealth invested in the enterprises they are running. Or, if they have surpluses, they are investing in the enterprises that other people are running. Being 'in an enterprise' means that you have a constant and unrelenting demand for USD for supply chain credit transactions, importation, currency exchanges, major USD denominated capital loans, etc. Being in business -- even a local business in Egypt of modest size -- pretty much means that you will need USD in some way, so you are going to 'stay in USD' because you are going to 'need them' tomorrow. Without USD flows into your business (or economy), you don't have a 'going concern'. Without a 'going concern', your wealth (or at least most of it) evaporates, so there is no 'sitting out of the economy' or 'getting out of USD' (except at the margin).
There may be something I am missing with all that I just said (and we will all sit back and chuckle at how stupid arguments like this were back in the day) -- but having studied this a bit, talked to people, and thought about it --- it's really really hard to beat a system (like the USD) that is so pervasive and essential for continued existence with 'something' that does not yet exist.
Again, Thank you.
Your reasoning is very similar to that of Martin Armstrong. Apparently, big money is moving from Europe to the USA. This explains the rise of the Dow Jones.
True.
Why should "Muslim countries" do anything? Palestine was invaded by Euro-American zionists, it's our problem.
The Arab leaders like western toys, western assets (such as dollars) and western plaudits. They do not want to lose these.
The Houthis have never had much in the way of any of these, and consequently zero [FAMILYBLOGS] to give.
Muslim nations = SUNNI MUSLIM nations, ok?
And that makes all of the difference.
Lebanon is supporting Hezbollah. (Shia government, Sunni and Shia people but mostly Shia).
Syria is supporting Gaza and Hezbollah. (Sunni people, Shia government)
Iran is supporting Gaza and the rest of the Resistance. (Shia)
Malaysia has banned all Israeli ships from landing at its ports. (Sunni)
The Parliament of Algeria declared war on Israel. (Sunni)
The Iraqi military (!) is the group that is shooting at our bases on Syria and Iraq. They never tell you that, do they? And the government doesn't try to stop them, either. Those are all battalions of the official Iraqi military! The Iraqi military has battalions and brigades inside of it that are mostly Shia and are very pro-Iran. (Sunni/Shia mixed people, Shia government)
Yemen is poorly understood. Ansar Allah is actually real government of Yemen. They won a civil war and took over the state. The existing very unpopular state fled to Saudi Arabia where they continue to administer their fake state from afar. Most of the Yemeni military (~80%) went over to Ansar Allah, even though the military is mostly Sunni. That's why Ansar Allah has those huge stockpiles of fancy weapons. They're actually the real government. (People 60-40 Sunni-Shia mix, Shia government, Sunni military)
Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, and UAE are actually supporting Israel in this war. The first three are shooting down missiles heading for Israel. Saudi Arabia and the UAE have made an overland route so goods can go overland to Israel to avoid the Red Sea.
Bahrain has joined the US flotilla to protect Israeli ships and ships going to Israel.
Tunisia, Morocco, Libya, Sudan, Mauritania, Oman, and Qatar have said nothing.
Kuwait and Turkey had some harsh words.
Muslim Africa has said nothing.
Pakistan, Bangladesh, and the Stans have done nothing.
Azerbaijan is allied with Israel!
Look what is really going on here is a lesson in just how deranged the Sunni hatred of the Shia really is. It needs to be seen to believed. These Sunni governments would rather fight and kill the Shia then fight Israel. In fact they will literally ally themselves with Israel so they can fight and kill Shia alongside the bloodthirsty Jews.
That is literally how insane and stupid Sunni Muslims are.
Now it's true that as you get towards the outlying areas away from Arabia it calms down a lot. Tunisia, Libya, Sudan, Somalia, Morocco, Algeria, Morocco, Oman, Qatar, Bangladesh, Malaysia, and Indonesia care nothing at all about the Shia, mostly because they don't have any of them anywhere near them.
But Saudi Arabia, Yemen, UAE, Bahrain, Lebanese Sunnis, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Egypt, Jordan, many Syrian Sunnis, Iraqi Sunnis, Turkey, and Egypt REALLY hate the Shia. I honestly think this is going to tear Islam apart because the Sunnis will not get over this Shia hatred in my lifetime. I know these people. I've met them and talked to them.
"Yemen is poorly understood". Very true ! And the rest of your comment is very interesting too, but for clarity you might have said that 'Ansar Allah' is what I believe everyone else is calling 'The Houthis'.
"These Sunni governments would rather fight and kill the Shia then fight Israel". Generally true, but some temporary cooperation is not impossible. However, in these seemingly terminal times, they may be further held back from cooperation by their differing views on the Apocalypse.
Thank you!
The Chelsea Bradley trans vehicle and Stroker are both shit compared to BMP's.
Oh yeah, Happy New Year Y'all!
Likewise!
This is a juicy post. THANKS! Alot of BS in the msm bit below but some truth too. "Zelensky knows that perceptions can become reality" says it all about the Western hologram of power. https://www.smh.com.au/world/europe/zelensky-is-angry-and-he-wants-you-to-know-it-20240102-p5eupw.html
Too often lately many links can only be viewed by subscribers ☹️
So I have to make choices…
try this as a work around paywalls. works a treat for me :)
But but but, I read in some rag that Russia has lost 30k troops and 420 tanks in December alone!
No. 3 m men and 4200 tanks. Next
They've lost more men than Joe Biden got votes.
"If the Israeli conflict is truly being steered into a long term attritional war where the airforce can no longer solve the problems, and much of the load has to be transferred to artillery and other conventional means..."
Well, if you dig your bunkers deep enough - as Hamas apparently has done (and no doubt Hezbollah as well) - then air power is useless - and so is artillery and tanks. And if your troops are too scared to go into the tunnels (probably rightly), then what do you have left? It doesn't take a military genius to figure that out. The Vietnamese discovered that sixty years ago. Apparently, as Martyanov says daily, the West - including Israel, who were all trained in the West - can't figure that out. Apparently digging in the dirt isn't something suitable for "The Chosen People."
They'll be digging their own bunkers once Hezbollah starts dropping some of those 100,000 rockets and missiles on Tel Aviv.
Those bunker-busters only go so far into the ground. If you go deep enough, those bombs can't touch you.
I’m curious about the tit4tat going on the northern border. It seems that HZB has been taggin various IDF communications facilities and the like for a while now. Despite all the bluster, I suspect the IDF brass know what could happen if they escalate too much though. But hey it looks like we wont have to wait too long to find out...
The problem is the IDF expects the US to come to their rescue - and the US will, despite its limitations.
I've been predicting this for years, ever since Hezbollah kicked Israel's butt in 2006. My argument was simply that Israel wants Iran destroyed by the US, but needs the US to do that. It can't start the war with Iran on its own because then Hezbollah blows up Tel Aviv on Iran's behalf. It can't attack Lebanon unilaterally without bringing on the same results. So it needs the US to destroy Hezbollah first. Problem with that is Israel needs an excuse and a US administration willing to do that.
So Israel had to wait until an adequate excuse and administration appeared. Trump almost was it - the Trump administration moved against Hezbollah economically and diplomatically, but Trump was too much of a narcissist to unilaterally start a war. So was Obama. At least not without a good excuse.
So now we have the "God send" of Biden and his extreme neocon administration. Plus the other big neocon project - Ukraine - is dead, so the neocons need a distraction. So the neocons gave Netanyahu and his freak show government the green light to do what the Israelis have been wanting to do since 1947 - clear out Palestine. This means Hezbollah will get involved whether Israel likes it or not, but Israel has already been told by the neocons that the US will deal with Hezbollah. I can't prove that but there is zero doubt in my mind.
All this stuff you hear from the other analysts about how "the US doesn't want a wider war" is BS. Statements by Biden and his crew about that is just CYA. That is exactly what they want. They want Hezbollah, Syria, Iran and the Houthis all gone.
Unfortunately,, like their Ukraine project, that idea is dead in the water before it starts. The US can't do it, militarily. The US can cause a lot of destruction, but in the end it will fail.
Which unfortunately will not prevent the US from starting it. Both sides will keep escalating until a red line is crossed. I read yesterday that Nasrallah considers Israeli assassinations in Lebanon - like the one they just did - to be a red line. Supposedly Nasrallah is about to make a speech, so we'll see.
Once the red line is crossed, Hezbollah will start crushing Israel economically by doing major damage to Israel's infrastructure. The Houthis have already done a first rate job of that by blocking the Red Sea. Once that becomes apparent, the US will have to intervene both against Hezbollah and the Houthis.
The US allegedly is pulling out one of its carrier battle groups, probably due to budget or logistical issues. They will have to replace it and add one more to get three so they can operate around the clock once the real war starts. The Pentagon may be pushing back against this war using the budget and logistics as the excuse, but sooner of later they will get over-ruled by Biden and the neocons.
I can't estimate timing, but probably sometime in the next month or two, it will have to kick off or Israel will be forced to stop its campaign due to economic and military problems. So Israel needs a distraction from its Gaza failure as much as the neocons do from Ukraine.
And I doubt Israel will stop because one thing Zionists and neocons have in common, as Mercouris says all the time, "they have no brake peddle". Fanatics never do.
I think you are spot on in regard to the US being essentially a blunt tool at the behest of the neocons and their ilk. This administration certainly is on the same page especially given the tribal affiliations of what ....95% of the cabinet!? I get the sense that it’s a Now or Never moment when it comes to clearing out all the undesirables you mentioned above. I also agree that there is really no way it could go as planned by the aforementioned mentioned neocons and their handlers. An All or Nothing moment works both ways, and when enough red lines get crossed I can see things getting pretty intense. What alternatives do the Hezbollah, Syrians, Iranians and Palestinians have? Just sit there and watch their nations get slowly picked part?
Looking back I remember cutting my teeth on IraqWar.RU and learning that things are never what they seem. That was also my first exposure to hasbara trolls and the techniques used to derail interesting conversations. I served me well though, and now I am able to assemble information in a way that makes enough sense without succumbing to the ever present confirmation biases...
Even then it was the evil Rooskies that were putting out the actual intelligence and was it ever handy to have when trying to decode the endless bullshit coming from the MSM. Same as now in a way, except the Russian Federation is back on its feet and much more kinetic that in 2004.
I believe the world is watching the way the US is tiptoeing, and keeping their powder dry in anticipation of the inevitable final spasms. In the world of countermeasures, things have changes a lot in the past few decades. When the stops get pulled out we might just see how the naked the emperor really is when it comes to pitched battle. 20 years of LARPing as an occupation force has made his troops soft, and the recent waves of cultural indoctrination have not helped.
You have a point, that the neocons and the zionists really do not seem to have any brakes on the runaway train. At this rate they cannot back down and if they do the pack will smell blood and pounce. So they have to do their very worst to degrade everyone before the showdown, which it turns out is not all that easy to do.
When the “International Community” (25%) is trying to sanction the R.O.W. (75%) things don’t often go as planned.
As you said, I rather doubt the Pentagon is all that eager to wade in bag-deep on this one, and might be sand-bagging the “war efforts”. It makes sense, of all the USAns, it is they who are most likely to have an uncluttered perspective on what reality will look like in a full blown regional shooting war. I recall the Iranians giving a demonstration of their targeting on the al-Assad air base several years back.
"Looking back I remember cutting my teeth on IraqWar.RU and learning that things are never what they seem. "
That site was my first exposure to foreign policy reality as well. I used to post there in 2003. I predicted the Iraqi insurgency probably back in April or May of 2003 there. You may remember that the site was alleged to have contacts with Russian GRU intelligence and that's why they reported stuff no one saw in the western MSM.
Yeah I remember which is why I was amazed that you showed up here years later. I was living in SF at the time as well. Ramzaj or some such moniker as I recall was the name of the source. Then there was an article in Forbes asking the question ‘Is the GRU feeding intelligence on this website’ or something like that. It was hoot to be able to cross reference the intel we were getting with what was coming out in the mainstream.
Good times! Reminds me of the days when I was at Talking Points Memo and goingtoiran.com. Got banned from the first one (Josh Marshall is a Zionist), and the other one died out. Don't know what the Leveretts are doing these days, haven't heard a word out of them.
Also posted a lot at Matt Yglesias' blog at the Center for American Progress. I bugged him so much about stating a definite position on Iran that he made an entire post about me, attempting to refute my contention that his being Jewish and afraid of Jewish retaliation made him not make a clear statement. Hint: He failed since he still didn't make a definite statement during his post.
Netanyahu is like Zelensky in that respect: desperately trying to drag the US into a wider war to save his backside.
True. But that's also been the plan since 2006, Israel just couldn't get the US to do it without a major excuse. The Al-Agsa provocation and Hamas' response provided that excuse.
Brian Berletic just did a video on Youtube that explains a Brookings' paper from 2009 which shows how the plan to gin a war with Iran has developed which illustrates how these things are done:
Israel's Incursion into Gaza Continues as US Seeks Wider War with Iran
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MOg91s4D8r4
Good analysis and information. The fog of war is often a reference to the massive propaganda and misinformation, it is difficult to weed through that quagmire. This post cuts through some of the fog.
Happy New Year, Simplicius. It is good to be with you for this year wild ride! 😎
Thank you
Not only will Scholz gtfo of office but other presidents will follow. Screencap this.
Good bet! 2024 is a big year for elections around the world.
Which is in turn a good year for swarms of black swan flags...
Shinzo Abe was holding secret talks with the Chinese. Ignore his pro-West public statements - he did not want to die. The Americans found out and assassinated him. He was probably killed by a sniper. What happened in South Korea is a warning to South Korean politicians.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shinzo_Abe
The US is reliant on threats and standover tactics because it has nothing to offer, it's just a complete loss for those nations as the process of draining vassals continues and accelerates. The BRICS+ demonstrates that a critical mass of rejection is in train and Russia's continuing success is encouragement.
Watching the video of that event looked a bit peculiar...some guy with a sawed off hit him at point blank? Sure did not look like it....
"Western military analyst community has always founded their philosophy on the principle that as long as air superiority can be established, the paradigmatically ‘Western’ army will easily defeat any foe"
This is biggest BS ever!
NATO attack Yugoslavia in 1999. with more than 1000 air planes
After 78 days of bombing, NATO manage to kill more than 3000 civilians and 1005 soldiers.
For 78 days of "air superiority" NATO did not manage to make a dent into Serbian Third Army that defend border of Kosovo and Metohija against 15.000 Albanians, fully supported by NATO, for two months trying to break into Yugoslavia!
Western media during Air-campaigne wrote how Serbian forces are decimated but yet, border was holding despite two months ground fight with complete air superiority and bombardment of whole Serbia, including civil objects. As NATO planed for war to last two weeks and there was no sign of ending after two months, NATO start to "unselectly" bomb civilian infrastructure, trains, schools... so eventually Yugoslavia gave up but not on terms to give Kosovo and Metohija or to surrender.
After the war, NATO manage to destroy less than 10 of 300 tanks. Same was with other equipment. Serbia could hold for much longer if he had any support from any other country. Russia was on knees in 1999., only Ukraine gave moral and political support to Yugoslavia!
btw you have many western post/analysis of 1999. NATO aggression. There are precise numbers like: "768 HARM missiles fired, 16 hit target..."
Thanks for the explanation. I was aware, but it’s always good to refresh memory.
However, Whether it is BS or not, the story keeps on being repeated. The problem in general is that people have very short memories.
The NATO bombing switched to industries and civilian infrastructure. That is what caused Milosevich to surrender
Also consider that there were all kinds of weird 'rules of engagement', problems with the order of battle (which NATO countries were included in which strikes with which pieces of equipment and weapons), basing rights (and which forces could fly out of where) -- and probably most importantly huge casualty aversion on the part of NATO. US and other leadership wanted to fight the war, but the NATO public was uncertain -- and other countries like Germany and Hungary were pretty iffy. Going in close (and remember this was the early 1990's and 'smart bombs' were neither widely available or deployable on most NATO platforms available to that conflict) and you get a huge incentive to 'play it safe'. Serbian air defense was pretty good and losing NATO pilots (and not getting them back) would have been a public relations disaster that could upset the whole tenuous applecart. Saying all this, I am not 100% on board with the 'air power wins the war' crowd -- just saying that NATO against Serbia was pretty much an own-goal clusterfuck in many ways and not representative of what warfare on the north German plain might have looked like in 1989 (or today in 2024).