Welcome back, everyone. It was a long one, but here’s the grand finale of the latest mailbag series. I want to thank everyone for their great and insightful questions, which made me think and which hopefully produced some illuminating and discussion-stirring answers.
It's a long read so, in case anyone missed it, I highlight:
"As for Europe showing their annoyance, to me it’s a clear and simple sign of their frustration: the conflict has turned into their worst nightmare. They’ve put down all their cards, doubled down and went ‘all in’, only to be humiliated with their favored horse losing on all counts, their best equipment exposed and tarnished on the world stage, untold amounts of public cash squandered and wasted, with no ready excuse available for their increasingly weary populace. Eurocrats hoped that this conflict would be one of those things you just “throw some money at” then wring your white-gloved hands and be done with it. They never imagined inadvertently awakening the sleeping giant of the Bear in the way that they have. Now they’re frustrated with increasingly mounting pressure and inner turmoil as all their plans come to naught. I believe in-fighting and frustration will only increase and we may even be witness to some unexpected surprises in the not-so-distant future."
Putin likely doesn't use German because he's such a nationalist but it would make sense to occasionally insert a meaningful paragraph about future friendship with Germany/"We are not your enemy". It would be reported on.
Here's an odd question that's been festering without me trying to research an answer.
The USA cannot pay its debt beyond interest. If China collected, it would crash the world. So why doesn't China simply swap it, American debt to China for Argentinian debt to America. That way, China could save key third world countries and radically alter the balance of global power.
I haven't read enough economic brains to know how stupid my question is.
By the way, Michael Hudson and Geopolitical Economy Report are on substack now (but I preferred the old podcast title Multipolarista) - https://geopoliticaleconomy.substack.com/
Simple answer is that China has so much invested that it'd be idiotic of them to start cashing out for a couple of reasons, the first two on the list being 1) It's unlikely they could withdraw/sell quickly enough not to prevent a bank run thereby killing the value of 'instruments' they have to wait to sell off and 2) the interest rate issue that's the same problem many US banks also in possession of US treasury bonds are dealing with - especially considering the recent (theatrical) downgrading of US bonds by Fitch and - I think - S&P.
TL/DR version - We have our own problems, let's focus on them while we build an alternat system and slowly kill the hegemon while watching it die its own natural death.
China will also be dealing with her own embrace of capitalists and their greed. As they are right now with the unaffordability of housing there in the cities, among other problems.
I'm not speaking about cashing out, 'just' transferring ownership of debt in return for new relationships. Imagine Argentina owes the USA $1m, and the USA owes China $1m. Why can't China takeover or cancel Argentina's debt with the money the USA owes China. It's all digital, isn't it? Debt collectors take over bank loans all the time.
Given how bonds work, the only real way to "swap" debts would be for China (or anyone else) is to sell US bonds, thus obtaining USD and then using USD to either purchase Argentinian currency or given how much of Argentinian debt is in USD, just using dollars and then buying Argentinian bonds from existing owners. This doesn't include debt to organizations such as the IMF, which would be effectively impossible to take over.
This doesn't really achieve anything as you could just give money to the Argentinian govt with the same result.
only when they mature. These are long term bonds. This time because of US' anti-China stance, China never rolls them over. They use the proceeds to buy properties along the Belt and Road projects.
At some point US debt becomes moot when the US disintegrates. I've read that Martin Armstrong's Socrates system has a date around 2030. Dmitri Orlov had a Long Now talk on the subject back in 2009 (no dates given). And of course Zhirinovsky. Also the US has now established itself as a bad credit risk with sanctions and asset seizures. Was it RAND that said that by 2025 China would surpass the US at which point it would be impossible to catch up (I think so..) Anyway the US system of counting various economic indicators can be called fictional.
The Fed can double interests rates and it will smash bond prices as well as kill our economy. It will stop a run, but the Fed already has the tools to stop runs.
First of all: The US can print dollars - it can ALWAYS pay its dollar debts. Sure, this will turbocharge inflation - but inflation is GREAT if you have lots of debt...
Second of all: China holds US dollars for many reasons - principally because it does a lot of trade with the US. If you are a nation conducting lots of trade with the US, your central bank needs lots of US dollars otherwise your trade is hostage to US government and private bank fuckery in many forms ranging from liquidity to exchange rates to interest rates and more.
Third: these dollars are very useful to China in many more ways than the purely domestic operational aspects noted above. For example: China has been setting up currency swap arrangements with countries all over the world - effectively using their massive dollar income to reduce US financial control over these other nations as a result. China doesn't want to be a moneylender, it wants trade partners that are less hostage to US fuckery.
Last: China has no desire to "crash the world". Among other things, China itself has an enormous debt to GDP ratio. It is officially only 77%, but in reality is much higher because a lot of extra debt is at the provincial level but which the Chinese national government is still ultimately responsible for it. The thing is, China is growing at multiples the pace of the West. Massive debt is much less of a problem if you have been using said borrowed money to grow fast, as opposed to blowing it on the sovereign equivalent of drugs and hookers i.e. military adventures and badly thought out subsidies.
I don't believe that asking a question can be wrong but I appreciate your comment :)
I do not believe China wants to crash the world economy. That would be nonsensical. Similarly, BRICS is no quick fix like some alternate media have made it out to be.
I realise things are complicated e.g., "How much debt does China have to USA? The United States pays interest on approximately $850 billion in debt held by the People's Republic of China. China, however, is currently in default on its sovereign debt held by American bondholders."
I'm also not a firm believer in China being a financial behemoth. I'm always concerned that the property market, for example, dives, and takes us all for a swim. It's those situations that ironically make me appreciate that they're an authoritarian government that can act quickly. Thus, I fear America's economic wobbles more.
Back to my question which I admitted could be stupid, so I could be stupid but not wrong :) I'm curious if it is possible for China to play with America's loans and debt to get more geopolitical leverage. Argentina popped into mind because its insane what they're going through.
You wrote "The USA cannot pay its debt beyond interest.".
There was no question mark, hence it is read in English as a declaration - not a question.
You then follow up by repeating the same fundamental lack of understanding with the question "I'm curious if it is possible for China to play with America's loans and debt to get more geopolitical leverage." which is simply a rewording of the previous "If China collected, it would crash the world.".
Both are wrong.
China selling its Treasuries would net China a massive dollar loss - how does this hurt the US? Basic bond math: if a bond matures - the bond holder gets their principal back and any outstanding interest. If you sell a bond before maturity, you get a market price based on the bond's interest rate vs. the market's interest rate. China's bonds' interest rates are certainly not higher than the present interest rates, so they would lose money selling said bonds - probably in the order of 20% like SVB did.
Yes, in theory, selling the Treasuries would cause Treasury interest rates to rise, but the Federal Reserve could simply just print money to absorb all those Treasuries if it didn't want interest rates to increase anyway (which it does right now). The Fed bought something like $7 trillion in bonds during the GFC so sucking up ~$900B from China "dumping" would barely be a hiccup.
Argentina is a terrible example because Argentina's problem is US dollar DEBTS, not CREDITS. Because Argentina has US dollar debts, it cannot repay them by just printing dollars - it must either earn more dollars via exports (a path which the West traditionally has leverage over via control over the big commodities traders/commodity prices plus exchange rates USD vs. Argentina peso) or via an IMF loan - which the West uses to austericise (read cripple) a target economy.
Argentina's ruling classes also took full advantage of the situation to enrich themselves by having the Argentina government issue crazy (as in 40% interest) dollar bonds - thus enshrining the "Argentina being fucked" situation.
The US will NEVER have the problem of repaying its debt because - once again - the US can print dollars at will and all of the US' debt is in dollars. The Rest of the World using dollars for trade gives the US a much bigger pool of dollars to dilute with money printing plus all those foreigners can't vote in the US elections.
This is why de-dollarization is such a huge strategic problem for the US even if it will take time to occur.
But who has a bigger issue with property bubbles: the West or China?
China's property bubble is valuation, but the most of the residential property in China is paid for in cash. Total China mortgage debt is ~$6T = 40% of nominal GDP.
Total US mortgage debt is a shade under $12T = a bit under 50% of nominal GDP.
Total EU mortgage debt is $7T = 44% of EU GDP.
So who is in worse trouble?
The US growing at ~2 to 3%/year vs. ~50% mortgage debt to GDP ratio
EU growing at 0.5%/year vs. ~44% mortgage debt to GDP ratio
China growing at ~6%/year with 40% mortgage debt to GDP ratio
I'm not in an intellectual poker match with you. There's a war for the global economy. I asked a question in the assumption that China is figuring out how to use Third World debt to the USA to its advantage.
My question can be extracted from the beginning i.e. "Here's an odd question that's been festering without me trying to research an answer... why doesn't China simply swap it, American debt to China for Argentinian debt to America."
You could have then responded with: "No, it cannot, yes you are stupid, because..." Then we could have commented back and forth on points.
It's obvious to anyone anti-empire that the creation of dollars is fiction transformed into unfair reality. It's also obvious that 'dollar printing' is a contributory factor to the situation the US is in. It may not be Zimbabwe, but there's finally effect, and the reaction opportunism by China and Russia is consequence.
I may have used Argentina as a sympathy example but it's also a good one considering its debt crisis and radical inflation. China's bridge loans are the only reason why it hasn't defaulted to the IMF. The situation is obviously more complicated but I wonder why China doesn't become the debt holder in return for what it wants from Argentina. Like debt restructuring but with mines and farms involved. Hell, China could take over the whole debt and restructure it over a longer period, just like banks do with small consumers.
Could it pay with the yuan to increase its position in the market? Or is it better if it spends as many of its dollars and euros as possible? Hell, the Euro may vanish one day so why not use it?
And to return full circle, is there a way for China to advantageously trade US bonds for Argentina's debt, whether they go into Argentina's hands as collateral until they mature, or by any other wild means?
And what it gets from Third World countries in return, could it be sufficient to compensate for its loss of trade surplus with the USA etc?
I have been explaining using real facts and figures to illustrate why your presumptions are invalid.
You in turn seem to be unable to accept or dispute these facts, instead complaining about tone.
Let's look at the latest crop of nonsense:
"It's obvious to anyone anti-empire that the creation of dollars is fiction transformed into unfair reality"
There is no part of this statement that makes any sense: there is nothing fundamentally good or evil about the US dollar. It is a legal currency empowered by law in the United States. For various historical reasons primarily having to do with World War 2, secondarily having to do with the US being the largest economy for the post WW2 period, and tertiarily because the US actively pushed to make the dollar so, the dollar is used worldwide for trade.
The dollar was not forced down anyone's throat from 1944 onwards - it was advantaged in many ways but ultimately it dominated because the postWW2 system worked.
Now: abuse of the US' control over the dollar and much of the related correspondant banking system has shown that the much/most of the world needs an alternative - and so the rest of the world is making one.
Nor is the US in a Zimbabwe situation. Let's not forget that China, the EU and pretty much all of the nations in the world (Russia is an exception) have also massively piled up debt. So long as foreign countries and people accept fiat dollars for real stuff, the US is going to be just fine. Even when/if that dollar acceptance moderates, the US will still be fine because the US is largely sufficient in both food and energy.
As for Argentina: I explained clearly that China has expressed zero interest in being a sovereign moneylender. Why would China want to take over the headache of Argentina's dollar debt, especially given that I told you straight out that a major factor in Argentina's ongoing economic shithole is of their own elites' doing?
As for what China gets from Third World countries: China has to import pretty much everything. They don't have energy other than coal, they don't have sufficient minerals or metals, they don't even have enough food to feed themselves (8.5% food imports x 1.4 billion = a lot of food). The enormous amount of commodities that China must import is furthermore vulnerable to naval interdiction: the US navy could do a much better job of interdicting maritime trade than Germany could to the US in WW2. And finally, China needs markets. The money spent to buy said commodities is earned by selling manufactured goods. A growing, prosperous Africa represents future sales for China to offset China's significant trade reliance on the US and EU (which is reciprocated). Getting a share of ownership in productive infrastructure built in Africa using Chinese money and knowhow also represents future profit should the hosting nation grow as a result.
You are leaning far too heavily on ideology and wishful thinking rather than on cold hard analysis of fact.
China isn't "anti-empire" per se - it is "pro China". Russia isn't "the savior of the world" so much as Russia is being "pro Russia".
This is what multi-polarity really means - it doesn't automatically mean "anti empire" or "anti US".
I remember when it was all free trade and everyone paid with their national currency and when balance of payments didn't work, countries would depreciate their currencies or support it by raising interest rates. Under this system, China would pay Argentina in their currency through Argentine banks and buy their currency to do so. Dollar hegemony came first with all the oil purchased in dollars per post WWII military negotiations. So when Europe buys from Saudi Arabia they have to do so in dollars. As everybody needs energy, the world needed dollars.
I don't see any reason why China couldn't buy Argentine debt and sell them Chinese debt at market price despite all your detractors below. The Chinese debt would be considered more more useful than that of Argentina debt as they sell more, and Argentina has a bad debt history so they might take a lose. But it would owe the same amount to the US either way, so I don't know if it would be worth the exchange. Buying Venezuelan, Cuban, or Niger debt would make a stronger statement.
Bond prices mark to the market. I have found people investing for 30 years for 2-3% irrational for a long time. As interest rates rise, the old bonds at lower interest rates lose value. Now that we are paying 4% for the 30 year, and the term is so long, the bonds are worth a lot less. There is a way to calculate it, but I think those in the lower range have already lost about 25-30% of their value which means the institutions using them have less capital on the balance sheet. This was a problem for several banks about 6 months ago when several Western banks went under, but were save. Although treasuries are still very low especially given inflation, the 30 year MORTGAGE is up over seven percent. I have not seen this sort of spread between the 10 year treasury. When packaged, these were at one time considered to be safer securities than treasuries, until 2008. I think treasury rates are made low to maintain banking capital while mortgages represent real interest rates. Long term, these higher rates will kill the housing new construction market.
The US doesn't have to pay back a bond immediately. And if there is a run on the federal bond market the Fed can stop the sales through SWIFT, but not private sales. The Fed is the largest debt holder and I believe the 2nd largest holder is Social Security Admin and other federal agencies.
And then there is the MMT GND school that doesn't believe our debts matter or we can always just print and spend, don't need to borrow to reach utopia.
Regarding the second part, its what I believed too (but as an unfair advantage) but now we know that they created a problem whilst keeping the interest artificially low at the same time - a smidgen of good news.
Improbable, but not impossible (Japanese are trying pretty hard to learn as much as they can about modern warfare lately and Ukraine is the place to be for that.). To be fair, I originally heard the news about the crash just as the stories of Western officers caught in the missile strike were spreading and that just seemed oddly uncanny.
I don't think it is impossible there are sheep-dipped Western officers in Ukraine. However, I do think it is utterly ludicrous to think any Western generals need/want to be in Ukraine because Western military philosophy does not put generals anywhere remotely near the front to start with.
More importantly: with moderns comms, there is absolutely no benefit for a general to be on site vs. in a 100% safe war room outside of Ukraine. Access to ISR is certainly better if outside because the vast majority of the ISR is coming from outside of Ukraine to start with: US and EU satellites and AWACs and what not as opposed to Ukrainian sources.
So what exactly would a Western general provide to Ukraine?
It isn't leading from the front.
It isn't a skill contribution over and above what their presence in a war room somewhere else would be.
It wouldn't be a morale boost since their presence is secret.
I would further note that the Ukraine ISR setup is nearly ideal from a Western command and control point of view. In a normal conflict - ISR capabilities are under attack but in Ukraine - the military satellites, the Western drones, the AWACs, the various NATO radar systems in Poland/Romania etc are able to do whatever they want with effectively no interference other than particularly egregious spy drones getting fuel/flared dumped on them. Even civilian infrastructure like Starlink is not being physically attacked (I'm sure there's cyber conflict going on).
Without a coherent or rational explanation for why a Western general would be there to start with - these rumors are a complete waste of time.
I think you are going off on the wrong premise, that Western observers give a damn about Ukraine or its war and that they are there to somehow "help" Ukraine conduct it. If there are Western generals in Ukraine, they would do so because they'd want to see what is going on in Ukraine and what lessons they could take for their own military in case of a conflict involving themselves against an adversary with similar capabilities as Russia. A Japanese observer would want to see, for example, what aspects of the current conflict in Ukraine may be replicated if there is a war with China whose assets, do, after all resemble Russia's in important aspects.
Again, I started with the premise that this is an idle speculation that occurred to me just because of the odd timing and I don't take it too seriously, BUT I don't think a high ranking officer wanting to observe the goings on first hand is not too implausible if their goal is not directly pertinent to conducting the war in Ukraine itself. As you have noted, what does a Japanese general add to the Ukrainian war effort? He doesn't, nor does he care about Ukraine. But his mission, if he was there at all, would be to learn about how, say, Russia is using electronic warfare, hypersonic missiles, or whatever, how effective these are, and how they might be countered (and what doesn't work against them) and how the Chinese military might do the same, say, in the South China Sea if there is a war there. ISR etc is irrelevant to such a mission. He doesn't care where the Russians are, how the Ukrainians are faring in the war, or such things.
He certainly would not be advising Ukrainians on what to do, let alone order them around. He would want to know how the Russians are using hypersonics, conducting electronic warfare, how the Ukrainians are countering them, and how effective or ineffective these efforts are, and what lessons Japan could take from them, all of which require that you see what's going on up close, especially given that Ukrainians are known to lie through their nose to the outsiders.
But even then, a general doesn't make sense just to make sense of these things either: you'd rather have a team of technical experts with, say, field grade ranks--assuming Ukrainians let them poke around, which may not be easily allowed. So a general might be needed to browbeat the Ukrainians so that his men could poke around more easily. Who knows? But my point is that Western observers in Ukraine, especially of high ranks, don't have any reason to care about Ukraine as such, but only how the war provides useful lessons that apply to their needs. This is, after all, why military observers were commonly sent to foreign wars in the 19th century: do you think German officers onboard the Imperial Chinese battleship Dingyuan in 1895 were interested in helping China defeat Japan, or even cared about China or Japan at all? What mattered to them were the following: Germans sold a lot of arms to China (including the two of best Chinese battleships), they knew that a naval war against Britain was a possibility, Japan was organizing its navy around British lines, and that Japanese warships at the time were purchased from French or British--both Germany's potential adversaries, so there were lessons to be had about how a war using German materiel against British and French materiel would be like.
A common mistake, I think, is that Ukraine and its fate are relevant at all to Western military's interests in the Ukrainian War. To most, Ukraine is irrelevant. What it does is irrelevant. How the war goes in the big picture is irrelevant. Whether Ukraine survives eventually is none of their business. They aren't there because they care about any of these things. But the specific technical aspects of the war are important because they may need to do something about such things in the wars that they might need to fight in the future. So these are my answers as to why, however improbable, the Japanese military specifically might care about Ukraine and may have high ranking observers there to keep an eye on how the war is being fought and why none of the AWACS, ISR, and other intel gathering tools are of very little interest to them--because they give no information that they'd actually want out of this conflict.
You wrote: " If there are Western generals in Ukraine, they would do so because they'd want to see what is going on in Ukraine and what lessons they could take for their own military in case of a conflict involving themselves against an adversary with similar capabilities as Russia. A Japanese observer would want to see, for example, what aspects of the current conflict in Ukraine may be replicated if there is a war with China whose assets, do, after all resemble Russia's in important aspects. "
Let's say this is true. Why again does being physically present in Ukraine, but in a bunker, give better observability of what is going on vs. watching all of the ISR i.e. satellite, drone, radar feeds? Plus reading Ukraine's own reports?
This makes zero sense to me.
I'm not even going to bother with the other case - that Western generals are observing on the ground or at the front given that there is zero precedent, practice or doctrine in the West for such practices.
You then said " don't think a high ranking officer wanting to observe the goings on first hand is not too implausible if their goal is not directly pertinent to conducting the war in Ukraine itself."
Yes, it is implausible because the West's generals don't do these things. They hide in bunkers far away from the front lines and rely on satellite, drone, radar and camera ISR.
You said: "my point is that Western observers in Ukraine, especially of high ranks, don't have any reason to care about Ukraine as such, but only how the war provides useful lessons that apply to their needs. "
Wrong again. Ukraine's own head of the military has been against the "counteroffensive" and publicly said so. The counteroffensive happened anyway.
The initial counteroffensive consisted of "combined arms" attacks using armor that failed miserably. The AFU then switched to mosquito tactics i.e. using warm bodies to flush out mines and ambushes, but then switched back again after a very public Western chorus.
The reality is that the AFU is carrying some significant portion of NATO reputation on its shoulders. NATO in general and the US in particular have been training, arming, equipping and now directing tactics for the AFU since 2014 along with literally hundreds of billions of Western dollars, Western training and Western equipment - and they are losing. This is a direct slapdown of Western military prestige and very much affects the Western militaries.
You said: "This is, after all, why military observers were commonly sent to foreign wars in the 19th century: do you think German officers onboard the Imperial Chinese battleship Dingyuan in 1895 were interested in helping China defeat Japan, or even cared about China or Japan at all?"
I hope you understand that there were no other ways of getting information in the 19th century than being present. The same is not true of today, and so your extension of 200 year old practices to the present is utterly ludicrous.
You said: "A common mistake, I think, is that Ukraine and its fate are relevant at all to Western military's interests in the Ukrainian War."
The fate of Ukraine itself is not relevant, true, but to say that the outcome of the SMO is not relevant to Western military's interests is completely wrong.
If in fact the West's military had no interests - their behavior would be radically different. Among other things - why would the US military resist deployment of F16s into Ukraine? Or Abrams? It is because both of these systems are still in active service in the US military as well as in NATO. Burning Abrams and F16s would damage an already severely damaged Western military reputation.
The UK Challengers are another example. The UK contributed 12? 16? whatever number of Challengers to Ukraine even though they have maybe 50 total. Yet neither hide nor hair has been seen of these vaunted 30+ year old tanks. Clearly Ukraine has been instructed not to use them, as the AFU has profligately used all other gear given to them.
You then conclude with: "But the specific technical aspects of the war are important because they may need to do something about such things in the wars that they might need to fight in the future."
Let's see - a Japanese general of a division of Japan's army, which has a total of 150K troops - is going to learn what in a ground conflict between 2 European military powers? How exactly is this going to be applicable to him? What are the scenarios he is learning information to prepare for? Invasion by China or North Korea? Invasion of China or North Korea? An assault to retake Sakhalin island?
No, can't say this is the least bit credible.
Anything involving China is insane for Japan; they couldn't do it when China was poor and not industrialized - they're not going to do it when China is now both a bigger economy AND more industrialized.
Assault on Sakhalin from Hokkaido? I suppose there are some morons in Japan who think it might be possible, and a big chunk of Japan's ground forces are deployed there but I should hope no military ones are among the morons.
Russia may have most of its military in the European theater, but what is in the Eastern side is still pretty damn big, and the Russian fleet and air force there is more than sufficient to ensure that Japan starves should hostilities break out.
Japan imports 60% of its food - a figure only lower than Taiwan's food import reliance in the entire Asia region.
Japan is not a major importer of exports from Russia/Ukraine (Leading imports are meat products: although Japan does import a fair amount of wheat and maize, leading Russian agricultural exports, they are not particularly important to Japan. The leverage Russia does have over Japan is over energy and there are some interesting goings on there. Basically, Japan is not being particularly hostile to Russia: Japan has refused to pull out, as I last saw, from energy cooperation projects in Siberia and Sakhalin; Japan has even refused to go along with the oil price cap. Japan has not been as active in shipping armaments to Ukraine as other US allies have been: South Korea, for example, has done a lot more. So we can surmise that Japanese presence in Ukraine would not necessarily be an openly hostile act (as much as you seem to have trouble believing this) to Russia (again, no more than German observers in Qing armies and navies were not a hostile act to Japan in 1895), but rather an activity for Japan's potential military planning vis a vis, say, China. So we can drop the obsession that whatever that may (or may not) have been going on is just about Russia or Ukraine, or that it is service of some grand geopolitical purpose. Japan could conceivably send observers to discretely check on developments in warfare that nobody had a chance to see and one potentially analogous to something they may face in near future without having much of a care (beyond the superficial) about who wins or loses. (Again, this is why 19th century military observers from 3rd countries were sent to check things out whenever there were major wars). Let's put it this way: if this were a war between United States and Canada and Japan had a good political cover for sending observers to Canada, they'd still send observers, not because they love Canada and hate United States, or have some grand geopolitical goal over Hawaii or whatever, but because it's a good learning opportunity for learning about a big war involving near peer competitors using the latest technology and techniques.
If you think anything involving Japan and China are insane, so was a potential war between US and Britain in 1920s. Yet, War Plan Red existed and was taken "seriously" if only for planning purposes. While my reference to War Plan Red is somewhat tongue in cheek, the point is that it is business of war planners to plan for contingencies, to understand developments in warfare and understand how they might apply to them. The missing (now confirmed dead) Japanese general was the commander of the 8th Division whose responsibilities include the disputed islands in the South China Sea and various missile installations Japan has installed on their (not disputed) islands in the general area. So he would actually be the kind of person who'd want to know what kind of techniques China might be using, how effective they are, and how they might be countered, if you ask me. (although it would be more logical to someone from Tokyo in a general staff function to do such things)
A Japanese general going to Ukraine to see how a modern war unfolds and what lessons Japan might learn from them makes as much sense as German observers studying the Sino-Japanese War in 1895. Yet, there were quite a few of them (and a German army colonel even wound up briefly taking charge of the Chinese flagship somewhat inadvertently when the Chinese command staff was incapacitated) and for good reasons--the face of warfare is changing, new technologies and techniques are being applied to warfare, and opportunities to see what's going on firsthand are extremely rare. Why shouldn't Japan send observers to Ukraine to see its lessons? This is a unique opportunity in history of warfare: there has never been a war where the techniques being used have been deployed on such scale. Japan, as a member of G7 and a strong US ally, has political cover for sending observers to poke around Ukraine and see what's going on with their own eyes. Japanese military does have the job of doing contingency planning against potential war with China and that is in fact official policy of Japan more or less (that they should plan for a possible war with China some time in near future). Again, the point is that Japan may not care about Ukraine, but it does care about how new techniques of war are being used, how effective they are, and what kind of techniques might be used to counter them and how effective they might be.
A Japanese general would not be the person going around looking up the technical details. He's not the technical expert, but he would be the "public" face (well, with the Ukrainian official and generals being his "public") while he would have his staff going around looking things up and asking questions. The head would stay where his Ukrainian counterparts are, hobnobbing, not doing the "real" work. If the high ranking Ukrainians were in a bunker, that's where the Japanese general would have been also. If the bunker got hit, the Japanese general would not necessarily have been the target, but a collateral casualty.
I will grant that this is getting a bit farfetched and too many stories have to be concocted to make pieces fit. But I don't see how anyone could say that a faraway country with limited interest in the war itself could categorically not be interested in sending a delegation to study the conduct of war and that, if a delegation is sent, for political reasons, a general might be dispatched to provide a "face" while his staff goes poking around. This, after all, is something that's been done for centuries: 20th century is unique for this practice going away (Russo-Japanese War was the last war where both sides had a bunch of observers from third countries trying to learn how the war was being conducted and trying to draw lessons). If it did take place, it would not have been about servicing Japan's geostrategic interests vis a vis Russia or Ukraine, but in acknowledgement that Japan may soon be facing a real war against a highly advanced adversary that has many of the same tools as the Russians do and that Japan has many of the same tools that Ukrainians do (and that it is Japan's policy that their military should plan for such a war) and that they have a unique opportunity to study it up close. So the Japanese general would not have been actively involving himself in the war there, but not all generals go to a war zone to fight (again, see the 19th century military observers). I think people have been too contaminated by the weird experiences of the 20th century wars to see what the job of military planning really involves. Like I keep saying, for 90-99% of world's population, Ukrainian War is not about Ukraine (or even Russia) at all--even for the military. So it makes no sense to try to link something to Ukraine and dismiss it because it has no obvious connection to Ukraine.
Agreed - and again, what would the benefit be of being in a bunker in Lvov over and above a nice comfortable war room in Washington DC or Rammstein or wherever? Where the risk is zero?
Can you prove it? Did you live in China? I lived in Hong Kong for 6 years. It’s very safe place. My daughter, 10 years old used to take train to Central ALONE, i never was worried about her. She forgot her back twice in public places. Local people took it police station, with cash it and her phone! I moved to so called “ Heart of Western civilization” EU in 2016..i was robbed on the street few times and even in my house! My daughter was robbed 3 times! Don’t say something about you have no idea. And btw, China Never started any WAR.
Yes, obviously but some thick people (Zonia) fail to see that, then get triggered like a typical Karen, become emotional, and refuse to admit the error.
I apologize if that's incorrect info, granted that while I'm aware of much of the Western propaganda against China in regard to Covid lockdowns, there were still quite a lot of troubling videos from there in regard to forced relocations, detainments, etc.
With that said, I'm a big fan of China in general and may even consider living there at some point in the future so that's one of my view detractions against it.
One area I'm ahead of the curve in is in regard to the 'social credit system' which I know is a complete hoax. But when it comes to the Covid fraud and forced vaccination, I don't take any chances.
China is a huge country with power decentralize down to the local level pretty much like US towns with their bylaws.
So some places are shitty because of local govt. But by and large we didn't have a bad time all the 3 years.
Back in 2020 and 2021 I was travelling around in my province, and most don't wear masks. We were very unaffected unlike life in the west.
China was the safest and most free place in the world during 2020/21.
Only at start of 2022 when our local district govt started acting weird with lockdowns which most places actually don't do since outside of some cities that get regularly reinfected by Chinese returning from outside China.
Beijing punishes govt officials who don't followed updated protocols and failed to control outbreaks. So better be overly strict than less and get punished. That's the mentality of the local district govt.
My city's district govt went ballistic weird in 2nd half 2022 and ordered illegal lockdowns all over the district. Ended up with daily PCR tests and estates wide lockdown.
Pretty much mirroring what's happening in the east.
Note that the degree in lockdown severity depends on the degree of local infection.
Chaining the doors of the buildings, fire exits, padlocking individual homes are illegal. These are defined as illegal by Beijing as far back as 2020 after reports of such actions by local authorities to lockdown their areas.
The videos you saw mostly took place during that period and caused by illegal acts of the local govts in different places. That sparked people's anger and they protested. Protest is legal in China.
Beijing immediately cracked down on these local govts because of their one size fits all approach, and formulated exact protocols for handling infections and applications to lockdown.
Exact instructions and not some vague stuff that the local govts were plucking out of thin air to keep their KPI for "strict control".
That's it. One Rule Book for All, and suddenly no more lockdowns, no more centralized isolations, because the situations just don't meet the necessary criteria.
By November Beijing ordered all lockdowns lifted. Whole of China became open. Very little rules left.
At that time the C19 variant spreading in China was the mutated Omicron B strain. This is the much mutated strain that was highly infectious but it's lethality greatly reduced compared to earlier Alpha, Gama, Delta.
Beijing decided they can deal with Omicron B strain and ordered all lockdown lifted as by then more than 90% of the Chinese population has been fully vaccinated with Chinese produced vaccines.
Over period of 2 months practically everyone in China was infected. I was one of the early ones who caught it in November. It was bad flu and I recovered within 10 days.
But more than 8,000 people died from that infection wave. Majority of them are old people bed bound with severe medical issues.
During the early initial infection in 2020 over 4,000 people, young and old died from C19. Mostly in Wuhan because Beijing locked down whole of China to contain the spread of the virus.
China shutdown their whole country for 6 months to save the people during the initial infection back in 2020. People's lives over economy.
There are still infections caused by the XBB variant of the Omicron but nobody cares as the symptoms are also like bad flu but this variant is practically non lethal. Nobody died from it unless very chronically near death already.
Today in August China has reopened and foreigners are rushing back in to work, tour, or live in.
If you wear a mask in public people will think you're sick when you're just trying not to be infected.
This is what you'll never read in MSM because you are not supposed to know the truth about China.
And China was first country to open economy after Plandemic. Sinovac is not MRNA based clotshot, although i am against vax anyway, i had only one vax in childhood against chicken pox and i got chicken pox after vax- lean my lesson then.Funny enough, in Hong Kong so called democratic oppressed by bad China, QR codes was mandatory, so is masks.
You talk about the "Pandemic" as a total covidiot does. Infections, variants, fucking Omicron, old people died FFS - it's all bullshit. Influenzas are yearly events that have always caused deaths in the elderly (mostly). And how are the numbers of "infections" gathered? By a discredited, highly inaccurate, and easily manipulated Drosten PCR!!
Of course it's interesting to hear the views of people that live in countries of which we know little. However no one wants to hear untruths, myths, and lies that come straight from the WHO/Fauci via random covidiots.
My "truth dogs" become vicious when confronted by scamdemic propaganda; soz.
If you're an ordinary citizen you don't bother about the Social Credit system which is meant to protect the people and provide disincentives to those thinking of breaking the laws. My wife don't care. She worry more about traffic demerit points as the system is very automated by CCTVs over the roads. Her auntie and her husband are slapped with limitations in only travelling in normal rail and not high speed trains because they have unsettled debts.
Come live in China. Best place for decent people who just want to live a peaceful life. You can choose where in China to settle down.
10 years in China and I swear never to leave.
The only Chinese govt you'll have to deal with is the local district govt that you are settled in. But on the whole you won't even have to unless you're doing business.
You only have to register your local address with the city's Public Safety foreign liaison office. And the local policeman responsible for the area you live in.
That's it. No police hassling you, stalking you. Nobody will bother you if you don't break the laws and disturb society.
And NO CORRUPTION! Surprise yah? President Xi totally wiped it out at the ground level. Impossible But He did it. I'm an eye witness.
Thanks for the insight. In Australia a propaganda outfit ASPI has had their “Uyghurs for Sale” debunked by Jaq James The usual suspects from the MIC fund this kind of anti China nonsense that pollutes the information space.
As for places to emigrate, the notion that Russia, being a place in some basic respects akin to the American experience, perhaps more so than Euro zone places, is arguably so, as you’ve done. I wonder, however, why the deep historical, and cultural aspects of Russia, the sheer opposition to basic Americana (language, religious foundation, script used, cuisine, historic architecture etc), though very much not akin to America’s isn’t an even greater part of the picture. Taken together, these provide pause to consider Russia. For a good resource about Russia, Gilbert Doctorow is recommended.
By extension of the “not akin” aspects being a draw, there are plenty of reasons to settle in places like Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, Thailand. Or, though not quite the same in this regard, Cuba. As an American in Asia, I’m not aggrieved by the so called ruling autocracies, they’re not my worry, as was the ruling apparatus in America. They neither promote themselves as righteous bearers of virtue and Good, nor do the repressions that do exist really impact a western foreigner so much. Why should I care if Thailand has a king, and a military-politico power block (btw mainly accepted as fine and dandy by Thai elites), or that VN and Lao are commies for instance? Why? If one is getting away from the nonsense of we are the best, why then, bring the ethics that propels it with you to a foreign country? Leave it behind, accept the new culture, and find a new way to be.
The history, culture, cuisine, style of life, the nature of these peoples (kindness, warmth, general chilled out, ease of being)…there’s lots of really “foreign to America” places to escape to. And I encourage you do!
Russia is not opposed to basic Americana - it is Russian.
Why does anyone outside of the USA have to be for or against the USA? Why can't they just be who they are - especially given that the Russian language, culture and existence as a nation is multiples that of the USA?
As for your list of other places to go: they're all 3rd world.
Russia is not 3rd world.
Just because many people in 3rd world nations will bend over backwards for the relatively insanely rich American whereas Russians will not, does not mean that you're going to fit into those nations any better, in reality, than you would fit in Russia.
Perhaps it is a uniquely American thing to believe that going somewhere else must require that other place bend to the needs of the American - at least now that the British empire is dust.
Having lived in S/E Asia for eight years I can confidently say you are talking bollocks. Thailand and Viet Nam have some 3rd world characteristics for sure, but are not strictly 3 world at all. In many respects the infrastructure is better than the 'west'. In others it's the same, and worse the further out in the boonies one goes.
The USA (and parts of the UK too now) has many aspects of a 3rd world country too IE widespread poverty; lack of health care to all; low wages; high incidents of unemployment, violence, corruption, and murder; and mass homelessness to name only some.
Trying to compare the worst parts of the US or UK vs. the best parts of Thailand is a false comparison.
You're not going to convince me that the infrastructure in Thailand or Vietnam is better than the West. I've been to both countries. There are open sewers still in many parts of the biggest cities in both countries - which there are not in the biggest cities in the US or Europe.
All of the items you name above are not infrastructure - they are societal outcomes. Infrastructure is roads, hospitals, bridges, sewers, electricity, telecom and so forth.
The only difference between your living in the US/UK vs. a 3rd world nation is that you don't need to be global elite wealthy to be near the top of the socio-economic heap in the 3rd world nation.
Thailand, Saigon and Hanoi are livable but are nothing compared to Moscow or St. Petersburg.
"There are open sewers still in many parts of the biggest cities in both countries"
Untrue, you resorted to a lie to "prove" your point.
"All of the items you name above are not infrastructure - they are societal outcomes. Infrastructure is roads, hospitals, bridges, sewers, electricity, telecom and so forth."
And the infrastructure is collapsing in the USA/UK whereas Thailand &nVN builds new roads, bridges, etc, hospitals are everywhere, state and privately owned, homeless people are very few and rare (beggars that are seen are organised crime groups not citizens). Personally I'd rather live in a country that has better "societal outcomes" as luxury, glitz and glamour are only superficial.
Yeah right - go and drink some canal water in Bangkok or Saigon to understand the difference. Even tap water is ...risky. Nor are you going to convince me that there aren't rats in Bangkok LOL.
These places have improved considerably, but they are still a long, long way from being Western level much less China or Singapore.
Yes, infrastructure has been under-maintained overall in the US for a long time but it already exists as oppose to being built or aspirational.
Lastly the problems you list are primarily in Democrat dominated states/cities as opposed to the US overall, and so is more of a competence issue than a lack of capability issue.
Go and drink water from the Thames, or tap water in Flint, Michigan and tell me how you feel after. Or swim in the many creeks contaminated with chemicals recently.
And rats? WTF, every huge city has rats.
The fact is that the USA has many indicators of a 3rd world nation, but that truth triggers many Karens that are from there.
The USA is a shithole masquerading as a first class nation.
grr is correct, here in Nicolaistan we are seeing serious infrastructure decay. Dereliction. Reduction in most services, rats on the streets, sewage in the rivers and water supply...blah blah, by design as far as i am concerned. Whilst their control grid is all installed instead.
Western cities, beyond their 15 minute hiveworld digi-vex hubs, will be utter shitholes just directly.
The developing world IS developing whilst the "developed" world rots and decays in its perverse senescence.
I think you misunderstand my comment entirely. I do not suggest Russia is on par with Thailand. In fact, were I able to go to Russia, I would. I tried to explain that one could migrate to Russia specifically for its rich culture and history, not because it has some or any American characteristics. I don’t expect anybody to bend over for me. Please don’t confuse me with your generalized opinion of Americans. There’s plenty of good people there, who are curious world travelers that also travel to places to learn about those cultures. Not all Americans are the same. I do not have any cause to demean them even if for my own reasons I no longer choose to reside there.
Living in Russia is not for everyone, but that applies for most countries to various different people.
As for going to Russia: anyone can go.
However, the Russian government does not bend over backwards to accommodate immigrants - especially ones who cannot function in Russian. This is a government/societal choice albeit the actual situation is very different for Central Asian/Caucasus immigrants.
If I misread your intent, I apologize but I am very tired of the many people who do fail to understand that different countries are ... different.
I forgot to comment on your last post but seeing that AFU amputee girl made me very sad. What the West is doing is crime against humanity. Even if she went to fight willingly they have all the blame from their brain washing hate propaganda.
I shouldn’t be surprised by this but it’s still shocking to anyone with a shred of humanity left. The ruling elites of the West deserve to be in solitary confinement or better yet hanging for all to see.
I’m sure normies see this and blame it on Russia but I see this and seeth with rage at the criminal Western leaders.
As for the girl, it’s 15 minutes of fame. One day soon she’ll regret ever going and give anything just to be whole again. Let’s hope the true Ukrainian Orthodox Church still exists and can help her through it.
Disregarding the missing bits, she's passingly pretty. That's all that matters and is why she was picked. For all we know she could be hale and hearty and they give her a stump through editing - though I suspect the loss is real enough, since there are plenty of amputees in the country to choose from.
I don't think so. Plus, at least Russia's jab isn't mRNA anyway. Not that I support any jabs and wouldn't take it myself, but at least the Sputnik vax is a standard attenuated Adenovirus rather than mRNA spike protein gene therapy.
Do you maybe know why Russian Special Military Operation in Ukraine (SMO) is often called NWO, like in below link? What does this abbreviation stand for?
This is possibly the most malodorous mixed metaphor ever written, a well-deserved criticism of the putrid ruling class: "... a losing, unpopular war will be the equivalent of an open, festering sore on the ass of the ruling class which will be a low hanging fruit for the opposition figures to use as ammo against them on the campaign trail." Love it!
Simplicius, late for this round of questions. Actually I had one and you answered it (though I think I wasn’t clear on it though).
Anyways ... is Penicillin being used and what degree of effectiveness? I heard it was an ingenious and cheap counter battery radar but haven’t heard much of it in a while.
Unfortunately Russian electronic warfare systems are some of the most secretive and shrouded in mystery, there isn't much info on them insofar as numbers of units and effectiveness.
The chief difference with Penicillin is that:
1. it is thermal/acoustic/seismic and doesn't use radar waves. That means that it's completely undetectable to traditional anti-radiation sources
This is a big plus as Ukrainian/NATO AGM-88 HARM missiles can't detect/hit it as well as NATO elint/sigint satellites which are used to honing in on radiation sources.
The downside is that acoustic detection is likely not as accurate or has as much range as radar. However, since the Penicillin is a much newer system that also means its computational/processing power is much stronger and likely has more accuracy than more dated systems in terms of the onboard computers which can triangulate sources.
Also, even Oryx doesn't have a single Penicillin listed in his database which means none of them have been damaged, captured, or destroyed whatsoever.
Meanwhile, Russia reported receiving a new batch/shipment of them late last year for the frontline troops:
So it's impossible to tell how effective it truly is but given that U.S. relies on using satellite sigint/elint surveillance to detect Russian radar/radiation sources, this would make it invisible to some of NATO's most powerful tools, which would explain the lack of identifiable hits thus far.
That's actually good enough to result in a fairly high probability of destruction (if not the gun itself, then certainly the crew) using less than a dozen rounds of standard 152 (or 155) HE. And it's certainly close enough to allow an autonomously-target-seeking munition (e.g., Lancet, etc.) to score a direct hit.
Back then that may have been bad, but now a days that's great because all you need to know is the general direction/distance and the drones do the rest. In counter-battery, typically if you can tell the drone team the general vector they can send up the bird and at least know where to look for the flash and smoke and detect the artillery shooting at you. Back in the day they didn't have drones so such accuracy would probably not be that great.
Superlative, as usual. If I may add a comment to the response to #32. Free speech is allowed in the US only when it has been shunted into some dead-end with minimal impact. Even with the overwhelming dominance of corporate media and academic institutions, The Empire works hard to quash any real choice for its domestic population—apart from what sauce you want with your fries (there you have seven or eight choices). On the other hand the West pushes free-speech and liberal democracies abroad because these make countries easy to subvert. Allow free press and free media and you will be overwhelmed with an avalanche of lies and propaganda. Every possible fissure in your society—religious, racial, economic and cultural will be exploited and exacerbated. A flood of money will go to western supporting newspapers and media. Political parties that support US policy will receive millions. If labor unions are anti-western, new labor unions will appear. The Left in these countries will be infiltrated. New journals and youth organizations will appear. These entities will specialize in wokeness and identity politics. These toxic ideologies will fracture traditional anti-US organizations and movements. Well-financed pro-western NGOs will grow like proverbial topsy. There is a reason that only disciplined, hard-core, often Marxist-Leninist, governed countries with limitations on speech have successfully resisted absorption into the Blob of US finance capitalism: Vietnam, China, North Korea, Eritrea, Cuba, Venezuela, Nicaragua. The only exception is Iran—which is run by disciplined theocrats with their own unique capacity to resist the blackmail, payoffs, propaganda, extortion and lies that the US uses successfully in countries whose leadership has no solid ideological identity. Even now most of Russia's fundamental engineering and military-industrial capacity comes from it's inheritance from the once stalwart USSR. Frankly free expression and free discussion does not threaten a successful society—unless it is weaponized to subvert and divide, which is precisely the methodology used by The Empire. Allow western “freedom”--which is really the freedom of huge piles of money to corrupt and subvert (this is likewise true of “free” elections, incidentally)-- and you will find your ship of state sinking from holes you yourself drilled in the hull. Finally, regarding item #42, You rightly recommend Michael Hudson. If one wants to understand how the world works, read “Super-Imperialism.” It is easily the best exposition of political-economic reality. Absolutely indispensable for understanding the world. And one step beyond that is his “The Destiny of Civilization.”
My page (long read) on the economic sanctions and the effect on various sectors of the Russian economy is one of the best, if not the best, currently available.
What are your thoughts on what North Korea is exactly? Obviously, the brutal and poverty stricken country narrative dominates, but how much truth is there in it?
Not much. There was a starvation event many years ago. But what is not recognised is that the US and their puppet do war games during NK's harvesting season, and this causes manpower shortages on farms as all hands are needed on deck in case of a sneak attack under the cover of "war games". This impacts crop levels.
I viewed a documentary many years ago, in which the subjects were US army deserters from the Korean War that were (at the time of the doco) elderly. They each had wives and children and lived in apartments and subsisted on a state pension. What they said about their lives was interesting.
I have a friend who has been there several times as a traveller. Another friend was a commercial agent for NK industry in the early 2000s. I flicked through the glossy brochures and the products they have are mind boggling. They manufacture their own military equipment too.
The North Koreans live fairly austerely (Soviet levels), many rural people live in poverty. The ruling clique is extremely paranoid, and exert a great deal of control on their citizens, and that is entirely understandable when we know what they faced for many decades, and still face currently. And they were treated badly by the Japanese well before the Korean War.
For what they have achieved, keeping in mind the US destroyed every single building in NK, I have the utmost admiration for them.
I’m not Simplicius but just recently have binge watched series of lectures by Russian specialist on both Koreas (obviously he had much more access to actual information than any western scholar) TL;DR North Korea is a country with poor agricultural land, also very isolationist with cultural and ideological idiosyncrasies but at the end of the day they are much more “normal” and well developed than hearing news would suggest. Their biggest issue is isolation that is both self inflicted due to ideology of “sovereignty” and forced from outside because “evul commies”.
I think almost everything written on North Korea is a lie. It's a good country with a good culture and a people who love their leader and have a higher morale/spirit than anyone in the West. The whole 'poverty stricken' thing is b.s. Go to any southern state in the U.S. there's still a huge population of people that don't have internet, running water, or even toilets. Any country has problems like that in rural areas. North Korea has one of the largest sanction/embargoes/economic terrorism packages on it of any other country in history so of course they're not going to be *as* developed as certain others when they're completely locked out of the system and have everything stacked against them.
But pretty much everything else you see/hear on them are complete lies.
Thanks! That’s about what I had figured. I knew that the scientific and industrial output we were seeing wasn’t possible if the country was in as bad of a shape as they claim.
Hi: only a minor tip. Raising the retirement age of one o two years is better than import black slave from arab middleman: they are trained yet and do not rape every single women on their watch.
Black slave are imported for the same reason they are imported in the USA: low social trust.
Gostomel airport used to be the home airport of Antonov corporation and as such the base of ~10 An-124 and the single An-225. Via SALIS these are NATO assets, slightly bigger than C-5, the biggest one NATO has on its own. The An-225 has been destroyed (it was a byproduct of the Soviet space program, de-Sovietization anyone?). Spares, tools and documents may have been taken away (RU has a number of An-124 as well) or destroyed reducing the resources of said aircraft in UA.
Not the main driver, but an important side effect for choosing Gostomel.
Nice. I'm first for a change. Liking first, then reading.
mRNA in food? That guy is selling a book. I need to know for free.
https://babylonbee.com/news/confirmed-people-who-comment-first-shall-be-last-in-kingdom-of-heaven?utm_source=pocket_saves
Saving that for future use
Wee here we go!
It's a long read so, in case anyone missed it, I highlight:
"As for Europe showing their annoyance, to me it’s a clear and simple sign of their frustration: the conflict has turned into their worst nightmare. They’ve put down all their cards, doubled down and went ‘all in’, only to be humiliated with their favored horse losing on all counts, their best equipment exposed and tarnished on the world stage, untold amounts of public cash squandered and wasted, with no ready excuse available for their increasingly weary populace. Eurocrats hoped that this conflict would be one of those things you just “throw some money at” then wring your white-gloved hands and be done with it. They never imagined inadvertently awakening the sleeping giant of the Bear in the way that they have. Now they’re frustrated with increasingly mounting pressure and inner turmoil as all their plans come to naught. I believe in-fighting and frustration will only increase and we may even be witness to some unexpected surprises in the not-so-distant future."
Putin likely doesn't use German because he's such a nationalist but it would make sense to occasionally insert a meaningful paragraph about future friendship with Germany/"We are not your enemy". It would be reported on.
That Zoopark video is both scary and remarkable!
Isn't Putin fluent in English, too?
https://edition.cnn.com/videos/world/2013/06/13/pkg-mann-russian-pres-putin-speaks-english.cnn
Here's an odd question that's been festering without me trying to research an answer.
The USA cannot pay its debt beyond interest. If China collected, it would crash the world. So why doesn't China simply swap it, American debt to China for Argentinian debt to America. That way, China could save key third world countries and radically alter the balance of global power.
I haven't read enough economic brains to know how stupid my question is.
By the way, Michael Hudson and Geopolitical Economy Report are on substack now (but I preferred the old podcast title Multipolarista) - https://geopoliticaleconomy.substack.com/
Simple answer is that China has so much invested that it'd be idiotic of them to start cashing out for a couple of reasons, the first two on the list being 1) It's unlikely they could withdraw/sell quickly enough not to prevent a bank run thereby killing the value of 'instruments' they have to wait to sell off and 2) the interest rate issue that's the same problem many US banks also in possession of US treasury bonds are dealing with - especially considering the recent (theatrical) downgrading of US bonds by Fitch and - I think - S&P.
TL/DR version - We have our own problems, let's focus on them while we build an alternat system and slowly kill the hegemon while watching it die its own natural death.
China will also be dealing with her own embrace of capitalists and their greed. As they are right now with the unaffordability of housing there in the cities, among other problems.
I'm not speaking about cashing out, 'just' transferring ownership of debt in return for new relationships. Imagine Argentina owes the USA $1m, and the USA owes China $1m. Why can't China takeover or cancel Argentina's debt with the money the USA owes China. It's all digital, isn't it? Debt collectors take over bank loans all the time.
?
Given how bonds work, the only real way to "swap" debts would be for China (or anyone else) is to sell US bonds, thus obtaining USD and then using USD to either purchase Argentinian currency or given how much of Argentinian debt is in USD, just using dollars and then buying Argentinian bonds from existing owners. This doesn't include debt to organizations such as the IMF, which would be effectively impossible to take over.
This doesn't really achieve anything as you could just give money to the Argentinian govt with the same result.
China cashes out USA treasury holdings
only when they mature. These are long term bonds. This time because of US' anti-China stance, China never rolls them over. They use the proceeds to buy properties along the Belt and Road projects.
At some point US debt becomes moot when the US disintegrates. I've read that Martin Armstrong's Socrates system has a date around 2030. Dmitri Orlov had a Long Now talk on the subject back in 2009 (no dates given). And of course Zhirinovsky. Also the US has now established itself as a bad credit risk with sanctions and asset seizures. Was it RAND that said that by 2025 China would surpass the US at which point it would be impossible to catch up (I think so..) Anyway the US system of counting various economic indicators can be called fictional.
The Fed can double interests rates and it will smash bond prices as well as kill our economy. It will stop a run, but the Fed already has the tools to stop runs.
Mike,
You are utterly wrong on many fronts.
First of all: The US can print dollars - it can ALWAYS pay its dollar debts. Sure, this will turbocharge inflation - but inflation is GREAT if you have lots of debt...
Second of all: China holds US dollars for many reasons - principally because it does a lot of trade with the US. If you are a nation conducting lots of trade with the US, your central bank needs lots of US dollars otherwise your trade is hostage to US government and private bank fuckery in many forms ranging from liquidity to exchange rates to interest rates and more.
Third: these dollars are very useful to China in many more ways than the purely domestic operational aspects noted above. For example: China has been setting up currency swap arrangements with countries all over the world - effectively using their massive dollar income to reduce US financial control over these other nations as a result. China doesn't want to be a moneylender, it wants trade partners that are less hostage to US fuckery.
Last: China has no desire to "crash the world". Among other things, China itself has an enormous debt to GDP ratio. It is officially only 77%, but in reality is much higher because a lot of extra debt is at the provincial level but which the Chinese national government is still ultimately responsible for it. The thing is, China is growing at multiples the pace of the West. Massive debt is much less of a problem if you have been using said borrowed money to grow fast, as opposed to blowing it on the sovereign equivalent of drugs and hookers i.e. military adventures and badly thought out subsidies.
I don't believe that asking a question can be wrong but I appreciate your comment :)
I do not believe China wants to crash the world economy. That would be nonsensical. Similarly, BRICS is no quick fix like some alternate media have made it out to be.
I realise things are complicated e.g., "How much debt does China have to USA? The United States pays interest on approximately $850 billion in debt held by the People's Republic of China. China, however, is currently in default on its sovereign debt held by American bondholders."
I'm also not a firm believer in China being a financial behemoth. I'm always concerned that the property market, for example, dives, and takes us all for a swim. It's those situations that ironically make me appreciate that they're an authoritarian government that can act quickly. Thus, I fear America's economic wobbles more.
Back to my question which I admitted could be stupid, so I could be stupid but not wrong :) I'm curious if it is possible for China to play with America's loans and debt to get more geopolitical leverage. Argentina popped into mind because its insane what they're going through.
You wrote "The USA cannot pay its debt beyond interest.".
There was no question mark, hence it is read in English as a declaration - not a question.
You then follow up by repeating the same fundamental lack of understanding with the question "I'm curious if it is possible for China to play with America's loans and debt to get more geopolitical leverage." which is simply a rewording of the previous "If China collected, it would crash the world.".
Both are wrong.
China selling its Treasuries would net China a massive dollar loss - how does this hurt the US? Basic bond math: if a bond matures - the bond holder gets their principal back and any outstanding interest. If you sell a bond before maturity, you get a market price based on the bond's interest rate vs. the market's interest rate. China's bonds' interest rates are certainly not higher than the present interest rates, so they would lose money selling said bonds - probably in the order of 20% like SVB did.
Yes, in theory, selling the Treasuries would cause Treasury interest rates to rise, but the Federal Reserve could simply just print money to absorb all those Treasuries if it didn't want interest rates to increase anyway (which it does right now). The Fed bought something like $7 trillion in bonds during the GFC so sucking up ~$900B from China "dumping" would barely be a hiccup.
Argentina is a terrible example because Argentina's problem is US dollar DEBTS, not CREDITS. Because Argentina has US dollar debts, it cannot repay them by just printing dollars - it must either earn more dollars via exports (a path which the West traditionally has leverage over via control over the big commodities traders/commodity prices plus exchange rates USD vs. Argentina peso) or via an IMF loan - which the West uses to austericise (read cripple) a target economy.
Argentina's ruling classes also took full advantage of the situation to enrich themselves by having the Argentina government issue crazy (as in 40% interest) dollar bonds - thus enshrining the "Argentina being fucked" situation.
The US will NEVER have the problem of repaying its debt because - once again - the US can print dollars at will and all of the US' debt is in dollars. The Rest of the World using dollars for trade gives the US a much bigger pool of dollars to dilute with money printing plus all those foreigners can't vote in the US elections.
This is why de-dollarization is such a huge strategic problem for the US even if it will take time to occur.
Your responses on the technical aspects of debt are very good and pretty clear. I do think you could have been a little less aggressive though.
As for the property market:
Yes, China has an issue with a property bubble.
But who has a bigger issue with property bubbles: the West or China?
China's property bubble is valuation, but the most of the residential property in China is paid for in cash. Total China mortgage debt is ~$6T = 40% of nominal GDP.
Total US mortgage debt is a shade under $12T = a bit under 50% of nominal GDP.
Total EU mortgage debt is $7T = 44% of EU GDP.
So who is in worse trouble?
The US growing at ~2 to 3%/year vs. ~50% mortgage debt to GDP ratio
EU growing at 0.5%/year vs. ~44% mortgage debt to GDP ratio
China growing at ~6%/year with 40% mortgage debt to GDP ratio
I'm not in an intellectual poker match with you. There's a war for the global economy. I asked a question in the assumption that China is figuring out how to use Third World debt to the USA to its advantage.
My question can be extracted from the beginning i.e. "Here's an odd question that's been festering without me trying to research an answer... why doesn't China simply swap it, American debt to China for Argentinian debt to America."
You could have then responded with: "No, it cannot, yes you are stupid, because..." Then we could have commented back and forth on points.
It's obvious to anyone anti-empire that the creation of dollars is fiction transformed into unfair reality. It's also obvious that 'dollar printing' is a contributory factor to the situation the US is in. It may not be Zimbabwe, but there's finally effect, and the reaction opportunism by China and Russia is consequence.
I may have used Argentina as a sympathy example but it's also a good one considering its debt crisis and radical inflation. China's bridge loans are the only reason why it hasn't defaulted to the IMF. The situation is obviously more complicated but I wonder why China doesn't become the debt holder in return for what it wants from Argentina. Like debt restructuring but with mines and farms involved. Hell, China could take over the whole debt and restructure it over a longer period, just like banks do with small consumers.
Could it pay with the yuan to increase its position in the market? Or is it better if it spends as many of its dollars and euros as possible? Hell, the Euro may vanish one day so why not use it?
And to return full circle, is there a way for China to advantageously trade US bonds for Argentina's debt, whether they go into Argentina's hands as collateral until they mature, or by any other wild means?
And what it gets from Third World countries in return, could it be sufficient to compensate for its loss of trade surplus with the USA etc?
I have been explaining using real facts and figures to illustrate why your presumptions are invalid.
You in turn seem to be unable to accept or dispute these facts, instead complaining about tone.
Let's look at the latest crop of nonsense:
"It's obvious to anyone anti-empire that the creation of dollars is fiction transformed into unfair reality"
There is no part of this statement that makes any sense: there is nothing fundamentally good or evil about the US dollar. It is a legal currency empowered by law in the United States. For various historical reasons primarily having to do with World War 2, secondarily having to do with the US being the largest economy for the post WW2 period, and tertiarily because the US actively pushed to make the dollar so, the dollar is used worldwide for trade.
The dollar was not forced down anyone's throat from 1944 onwards - it was advantaged in many ways but ultimately it dominated because the postWW2 system worked.
Now: abuse of the US' control over the dollar and much of the related correspondant banking system has shown that the much/most of the world needs an alternative - and so the rest of the world is making one.
Nor is the US in a Zimbabwe situation. Let's not forget that China, the EU and pretty much all of the nations in the world (Russia is an exception) have also massively piled up debt. So long as foreign countries and people accept fiat dollars for real stuff, the US is going to be just fine. Even when/if that dollar acceptance moderates, the US will still be fine because the US is largely sufficient in both food and energy.
As for Argentina: I explained clearly that China has expressed zero interest in being a sovereign moneylender. Why would China want to take over the headache of Argentina's dollar debt, especially given that I told you straight out that a major factor in Argentina's ongoing economic shithole is of their own elites' doing?
As for what China gets from Third World countries: China has to import pretty much everything. They don't have energy other than coal, they don't have sufficient minerals or metals, they don't even have enough food to feed themselves (8.5% food imports x 1.4 billion = a lot of food). The enormous amount of commodities that China must import is furthermore vulnerable to naval interdiction: the US navy could do a much better job of interdicting maritime trade than Germany could to the US in WW2. And finally, China needs markets. The money spent to buy said commodities is earned by selling manufactured goods. A growing, prosperous Africa represents future sales for China to offset China's significant trade reliance on the US and EU (which is reciprocated). Getting a share of ownership in productive infrastructure built in Africa using Chinese money and knowhow also represents future profit should the hosting nation grow as a result.
You are leaning far too heavily on ideology and wishful thinking rather than on cold hard analysis of fact.
China isn't "anti-empire" per se - it is "pro China". Russia isn't "the savior of the world" so much as Russia is being "pro Russia".
This is what multi-polarity really means - it doesn't automatically mean "anti empire" or "anti US".
:)
Could it be - just a wild guess - that the people in control of the CB of China are the same as those in control of the BIS ?
They can always be got at....like Jack Ma was.
Reading about One Belt One Road I found a very good point - something like
"when you have put $1trillion into US Treasurires yieding less than 2%, bonds then there has to be better investments you can make".
And that is why the US Treasury stake has fallen, the trade surpluses are now being invested in OBOR and other 2nd and 3rd world investments.
I remember when it was all free trade and everyone paid with their national currency and when balance of payments didn't work, countries would depreciate their currencies or support it by raising interest rates. Under this system, China would pay Argentina in their currency through Argentine banks and buy their currency to do so. Dollar hegemony came first with all the oil purchased in dollars per post WWII military negotiations. So when Europe buys from Saudi Arabia they have to do so in dollars. As everybody needs energy, the world needed dollars.
I don't see any reason why China couldn't buy Argentine debt and sell them Chinese debt at market price despite all your detractors below. The Chinese debt would be considered more more useful than that of Argentina debt as they sell more, and Argentina has a bad debt history so they might take a lose. But it would owe the same amount to the US either way, so I don't know if it would be worth the exchange. Buying Venezuelan, Cuban, or Niger debt would make a stronger statement.
Bond prices mark to the market. I have found people investing for 30 years for 2-3% irrational for a long time. As interest rates rise, the old bonds at lower interest rates lose value. Now that we are paying 4% for the 30 year, and the term is so long, the bonds are worth a lot less. There is a way to calculate it, but I think those in the lower range have already lost about 25-30% of their value which means the institutions using them have less capital on the balance sheet. This was a problem for several banks about 6 months ago when several Western banks went under, but were save. Although treasuries are still very low especially given inflation, the 30 year MORTGAGE is up over seven percent. I have not seen this sort of spread between the 10 year treasury. When packaged, these were at one time considered to be safer securities than treasuries, until 2008. I think treasury rates are made low to maintain banking capital while mortgages represent real interest rates. Long term, these higher rates will kill the housing new construction market.
Excellent comment. As for detractors, only one. He was just missing the spirit of my question.
The US doesn't have to pay back a bond immediately. And if there is a run on the federal bond market the Fed can stop the sales through SWIFT, but not private sales. The Fed is the largest debt holder and I believe the 2nd largest holder is Social Security Admin and other federal agencies.
And then there is the MMT GND school that doesn't believe our debts matter or we can always just print and spend, don't need to borrow to reach utopia.
That was informative.
Regarding the second part, its what I believed too (but as an unfair advantage) but now we know that they created a problem whilst keeping the interest artificially low at the same time - a smidgen of good news.
Speaking of oddly timed aviation "accidents," there was supposed to be helicopter crash in which a Japanese general went missing right after a big missile strike in Ukraine where high ranking Western officers were supposedly killed back in April.... (https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/japanese-military-helicopter-goes-missing-with-several-people-board-2023-04-06/#:~:text=The%20UH60%20troop%20transport%2C%20commonly,said%20at%20a%20press%20briefing.,,)
Meh.
Helicopters crash all the time, and generals like to ride in helicopters.
If there is a G7 nation least likely to have any credible presence in Ukraine, it is Japan.
Improbable, but not impossible (Japanese are trying pretty hard to learn as much as they can about modern warfare lately and Ukraine is the place to be for that.). To be fair, I originally heard the news about the crash just as the stories of Western officers caught in the missile strike were spreading and that just seemed oddly uncanny.
I don't think it is impossible there are sheep-dipped Western officers in Ukraine. However, I do think it is utterly ludicrous to think any Western generals need/want to be in Ukraine because Western military philosophy does not put generals anywhere remotely near the front to start with.
More importantly: with moderns comms, there is absolutely no benefit for a general to be on site vs. in a 100% safe war room outside of Ukraine. Access to ISR is certainly better if outside because the vast majority of the ISR is coming from outside of Ukraine to start with: US and EU satellites and AWACs and what not as opposed to Ukrainian sources.
So what exactly would a Western general provide to Ukraine?
It isn't leading from the front.
It isn't a skill contribution over and above what their presence in a war room somewhere else would be.
It wouldn't be a morale boost since their presence is secret.
I would further note that the Ukraine ISR setup is nearly ideal from a Western command and control point of view. In a normal conflict - ISR capabilities are under attack but in Ukraine - the military satellites, the Western drones, the AWACs, the various NATO radar systems in Poland/Romania etc are able to do whatever they want with effectively no interference other than particularly egregious spy drones getting fuel/flared dumped on them. Even civilian infrastructure like Starlink is not being physically attacked (I'm sure there's cyber conflict going on).
Without a coherent or rational explanation for why a Western general would be there to start with - these rumors are a complete waste of time.
I think you are going off on the wrong premise, that Western observers give a damn about Ukraine or its war and that they are there to somehow "help" Ukraine conduct it. If there are Western generals in Ukraine, they would do so because they'd want to see what is going on in Ukraine and what lessons they could take for their own military in case of a conflict involving themselves against an adversary with similar capabilities as Russia. A Japanese observer would want to see, for example, what aspects of the current conflict in Ukraine may be replicated if there is a war with China whose assets, do, after all resemble Russia's in important aspects.
Again, I started with the premise that this is an idle speculation that occurred to me just because of the odd timing and I don't take it too seriously, BUT I don't think a high ranking officer wanting to observe the goings on first hand is not too implausible if their goal is not directly pertinent to conducting the war in Ukraine itself. As you have noted, what does a Japanese general add to the Ukrainian war effort? He doesn't, nor does he care about Ukraine. But his mission, if he was there at all, would be to learn about how, say, Russia is using electronic warfare, hypersonic missiles, or whatever, how effective these are, and how they might be countered (and what doesn't work against them) and how the Chinese military might do the same, say, in the South China Sea if there is a war there. ISR etc is irrelevant to such a mission. He doesn't care where the Russians are, how the Ukrainians are faring in the war, or such things.
He certainly would not be advising Ukrainians on what to do, let alone order them around. He would want to know how the Russians are using hypersonics, conducting electronic warfare, how the Ukrainians are countering them, and how effective or ineffective these efforts are, and what lessons Japan could take from them, all of which require that you see what's going on up close, especially given that Ukrainians are known to lie through their nose to the outsiders.
But even then, a general doesn't make sense just to make sense of these things either: you'd rather have a team of technical experts with, say, field grade ranks--assuming Ukrainians let them poke around, which may not be easily allowed. So a general might be needed to browbeat the Ukrainians so that his men could poke around more easily. Who knows? But my point is that Western observers in Ukraine, especially of high ranks, don't have any reason to care about Ukraine as such, but only how the war provides useful lessons that apply to their needs. This is, after all, why military observers were commonly sent to foreign wars in the 19th century: do you think German officers onboard the Imperial Chinese battleship Dingyuan in 1895 were interested in helping China defeat Japan, or even cared about China or Japan at all? What mattered to them were the following: Germans sold a lot of arms to China (including the two of best Chinese battleships), they knew that a naval war against Britain was a possibility, Japan was organizing its navy around British lines, and that Japanese warships at the time were purchased from French or British--both Germany's potential adversaries, so there were lessons to be had about how a war using German materiel against British and French materiel would be like.
A common mistake, I think, is that Ukraine and its fate are relevant at all to Western military's interests in the Ukrainian War. To most, Ukraine is irrelevant. What it does is irrelevant. How the war goes in the big picture is irrelevant. Whether Ukraine survives eventually is none of their business. They aren't there because they care about any of these things. But the specific technical aspects of the war are important because they may need to do something about such things in the wars that they might need to fight in the future. So these are my answers as to why, however improbable, the Japanese military specifically might care about Ukraine and may have high ranking observers there to keep an eye on how the war is being fought and why none of the AWACS, ISR, and other intel gathering tools are of very little interest to them--because they give no information that they'd actually want out of this conflict.
You wrote: " If there are Western generals in Ukraine, they would do so because they'd want to see what is going on in Ukraine and what lessons they could take for their own military in case of a conflict involving themselves against an adversary with similar capabilities as Russia. A Japanese observer would want to see, for example, what aspects of the current conflict in Ukraine may be replicated if there is a war with China whose assets, do, after all resemble Russia's in important aspects. "
Let's say this is true. Why again does being physically present in Ukraine, but in a bunker, give better observability of what is going on vs. watching all of the ISR i.e. satellite, drone, radar feeds? Plus reading Ukraine's own reports?
This makes zero sense to me.
I'm not even going to bother with the other case - that Western generals are observing on the ground or at the front given that there is zero precedent, practice or doctrine in the West for such practices.
You then said " don't think a high ranking officer wanting to observe the goings on first hand is not too implausible if their goal is not directly pertinent to conducting the war in Ukraine itself."
Yes, it is implausible because the West's generals don't do these things. They hide in bunkers far away from the front lines and rely on satellite, drone, radar and camera ISR.
You said: "my point is that Western observers in Ukraine, especially of high ranks, don't have any reason to care about Ukraine as such, but only how the war provides useful lessons that apply to their needs. "
Wrong again. Ukraine's own head of the military has been against the "counteroffensive" and publicly said so. The counteroffensive happened anyway.
The initial counteroffensive consisted of "combined arms" attacks using armor that failed miserably. The AFU then switched to mosquito tactics i.e. using warm bodies to flush out mines and ambushes, but then switched back again after a very public Western chorus.
The reality is that the AFU is carrying some significant portion of NATO reputation on its shoulders. NATO in general and the US in particular have been training, arming, equipping and now directing tactics for the AFU since 2014 along with literally hundreds of billions of Western dollars, Western training and Western equipment - and they are losing. This is a direct slapdown of Western military prestige and very much affects the Western militaries.
You said: "This is, after all, why military observers were commonly sent to foreign wars in the 19th century: do you think German officers onboard the Imperial Chinese battleship Dingyuan in 1895 were interested in helping China defeat Japan, or even cared about China or Japan at all?"
I hope you understand that there were no other ways of getting information in the 19th century than being present. The same is not true of today, and so your extension of 200 year old practices to the present is utterly ludicrous.
You said: "A common mistake, I think, is that Ukraine and its fate are relevant at all to Western military's interests in the Ukrainian War."
The fate of Ukraine itself is not relevant, true, but to say that the outcome of the SMO is not relevant to Western military's interests is completely wrong.
If in fact the West's military had no interests - their behavior would be radically different. Among other things - why would the US military resist deployment of F16s into Ukraine? Or Abrams? It is because both of these systems are still in active service in the US military as well as in NATO. Burning Abrams and F16s would damage an already severely damaged Western military reputation.
The UK Challengers are another example. The UK contributed 12? 16? whatever number of Challengers to Ukraine even though they have maybe 50 total. Yet neither hide nor hair has been seen of these vaunted 30+ year old tanks. Clearly Ukraine has been instructed not to use them, as the AFU has profligately used all other gear given to them.
You then conclude with: "But the specific technical aspects of the war are important because they may need to do something about such things in the wars that they might need to fight in the future."
Let's see - a Japanese general of a division of Japan's army, which has a total of 150K troops - is going to learn what in a ground conflict between 2 European military powers? How exactly is this going to be applicable to him? What are the scenarios he is learning information to prepare for? Invasion by China or North Korea? Invasion of China or North Korea? An assault to retake Sakhalin island?
No, can't say this is the least bit credible.
Anything involving China is insane for Japan; they couldn't do it when China was poor and not industrialized - they're not going to do it when China is now both a bigger economy AND more industrialized.
Assault on Sakhalin from Hokkaido? I suppose there are some morons in Japan who think it might be possible, and a big chunk of Japan's ground forces are deployed there but I should hope no military ones are among the morons.
Russia may have most of its military in the European theater, but what is in the Eastern side is still pretty damn big, and the Russian fleet and air force there is more than sufficient to ensure that Japan starves should hostilities break out.
Japan imports 60% of its food - a figure only lower than Taiwan's food import reliance in the entire Asia region.
Starting from bottom, let's see:
Japan is not a major importer of exports from Russia/Ukraine (Leading imports are meat products: although Japan does import a fair amount of wheat and maize, leading Russian agricultural exports, they are not particularly important to Japan. The leverage Russia does have over Japan is over energy and there are some interesting goings on there. Basically, Japan is not being particularly hostile to Russia: Japan has refused to pull out, as I last saw, from energy cooperation projects in Siberia and Sakhalin; Japan has even refused to go along with the oil price cap. Japan has not been as active in shipping armaments to Ukraine as other US allies have been: South Korea, for example, has done a lot more. So we can surmise that Japanese presence in Ukraine would not necessarily be an openly hostile act (as much as you seem to have trouble believing this) to Russia (again, no more than German observers in Qing armies and navies were not a hostile act to Japan in 1895), but rather an activity for Japan's potential military planning vis a vis, say, China. So we can drop the obsession that whatever that may (or may not) have been going on is just about Russia or Ukraine, or that it is service of some grand geopolitical purpose. Japan could conceivably send observers to discretely check on developments in warfare that nobody had a chance to see and one potentially analogous to something they may face in near future without having much of a care (beyond the superficial) about who wins or loses. (Again, this is why 19th century military observers from 3rd countries were sent to check things out whenever there were major wars). Let's put it this way: if this were a war between United States and Canada and Japan had a good political cover for sending observers to Canada, they'd still send observers, not because they love Canada and hate United States, or have some grand geopolitical goal over Hawaii or whatever, but because it's a good learning opportunity for learning about a big war involving near peer competitors using the latest technology and techniques.
If you think anything involving Japan and China are insane, so was a potential war between US and Britain in 1920s. Yet, War Plan Red existed and was taken "seriously" if only for planning purposes. While my reference to War Plan Red is somewhat tongue in cheek, the point is that it is business of war planners to plan for contingencies, to understand developments in warfare and understand how they might apply to them. The missing (now confirmed dead) Japanese general was the commander of the 8th Division whose responsibilities include the disputed islands in the South China Sea and various missile installations Japan has installed on their (not disputed) islands in the general area. So he would actually be the kind of person who'd want to know what kind of techniques China might be using, how effective they are, and how they might be countered, if you ask me. (although it would be more logical to someone from Tokyo in a general staff function to do such things)
A Japanese general going to Ukraine to see how a modern war unfolds and what lessons Japan might learn from them makes as much sense as German observers studying the Sino-Japanese War in 1895. Yet, there were quite a few of them (and a German army colonel even wound up briefly taking charge of the Chinese flagship somewhat inadvertently when the Chinese command staff was incapacitated) and for good reasons--the face of warfare is changing, new technologies and techniques are being applied to warfare, and opportunities to see what's going on firsthand are extremely rare. Why shouldn't Japan send observers to Ukraine to see its lessons? This is a unique opportunity in history of warfare: there has never been a war where the techniques being used have been deployed on such scale. Japan, as a member of G7 and a strong US ally, has political cover for sending observers to poke around Ukraine and see what's going on with their own eyes. Japanese military does have the job of doing contingency planning against potential war with China and that is in fact official policy of Japan more or less (that they should plan for a possible war with China some time in near future). Again, the point is that Japan may not care about Ukraine, but it does care about how new techniques of war are being used, how effective they are, and what kind of techniques might be used to counter them and how effective they might be.
A Japanese general would not be the person going around looking up the technical details. He's not the technical expert, but he would be the "public" face (well, with the Ukrainian official and generals being his "public") while he would have his staff going around looking things up and asking questions. The head would stay where his Ukrainian counterparts are, hobnobbing, not doing the "real" work. If the high ranking Ukrainians were in a bunker, that's where the Japanese general would have been also. If the bunker got hit, the Japanese general would not necessarily have been the target, but a collateral casualty.
I will grant that this is getting a bit farfetched and too many stories have to be concocted to make pieces fit. But I don't see how anyone could say that a faraway country with limited interest in the war itself could categorically not be interested in sending a delegation to study the conduct of war and that, if a delegation is sent, for political reasons, a general might be dispatched to provide a "face" while his staff goes poking around. This, after all, is something that's been done for centuries: 20th century is unique for this practice going away (Russo-Japanese War was the last war where both sides had a bunch of observers from third countries trying to learn how the war was being conducted and trying to draw lessons). If it did take place, it would not have been about servicing Japan's geostrategic interests vis a vis Russia or Ukraine, but in acknowledgement that Japan may soon be facing a real war against a highly advanced adversary that has many of the same tools as the Russians do and that Japan has many of the same tools that Ukrainians do (and that it is Japan's policy that their military should plan for such a war) and that they have a unique opportunity to study it up close. So the Japanese general would not have been actively involving himself in the war there, but not all generals go to a war zone to fight (again, see the 19th century military observers). I think people have been too contaminated by the weird experiences of the 20th century wars to see what the job of military planning really involves. Like I keep saying, for 90-99% of world's population, Ukrainian War is not about Ukraine (or even Russia) at all--even for the military. So it makes no sense to try to link something to Ukraine and dismiss it because it has no obvious connection to Ukraine.
The thing is they could be sitting in a bunker a few meters underground in Lvov and got visited by a Kinzhal
Agreed - and again, what would the benefit be of being in a bunker in Lvov over and above a nice comfortable war room in Washington DC or Rammstein or wherever? Where the risk is zero?
Australia as well, a few days ago
I have no idea where you get your info on China from. US govt?
I'm a foreigner living in China and never left during the pandemic.
China NEVER had a compulsory vaccination program.
That's it. NEVER!
Nobody has to show a vaccination passport to go anywhere. Only a QR code to show didn't come from an area with infection.
For most of the 3 years most Chinese didn't even wear a mask except in the big cities, or entering hospital, govt offices, banks.
Even medical personal can refuse vaccination and then they are not deployed in areas where they have to work with the infected.
I should know because my wife is a state nurse.
Even students cannot be forced to be vaccinated in order to enter their schools.
You really need to detox yourself from the "China is Evil" that US has infected you with.
China is the safest place in the world for people who just wants to live a peaceful life.
This is my Chinese city of Anyang. And this is an Uyghur family selling dough bread outside their shop. I killed 2 birds with one photo.
https://i.imgur.com/Q5OlHOM.jpg
SHHHH. Shut UP! CHYNNA is an evil commie dictatorship!!!
Can you prove it? Did you live in China? I lived in Hong Kong for 6 years. It’s very safe place. My daughter, 10 years old used to take train to Central ALONE, i never was worried about her. She forgot her back twice in public places. Local people took it police station, with cash it and her phone! I moved to so called “ Heart of Western civilization” EU in 2016..i was robbed on the street few times and even in my house! My daughter was robbed 3 times! Don’t say something about you have no idea. And btw, China Never started any WAR.
Yes, obviously but some thick people (Zonia) fail to see that, then get triggered like a typical Karen, become emotional, and refuse to admit the error.
Learn western humor. Part 1: Sarcasm
i hate sarcasm, the lowest form of wit... and its adage? remember that one?
sarcasm is so easy it shouldn't even be regarded as wit.
sardonic is tolerable.
gleeful mirth is best delivered with a sparkle, not a blunt dunt.
western humour my arse.
LOL the lowest form of "wit" - Wit is defined thusly:
1) mental sharpness and inventiveness; keen intelligence.
2) a natural aptitude for using words and ideas in a quick and inventive way to create humor.
So I'll take your pearl clutching complete misunderstanding of, yes, "western humor" as a compliment.
you shouldn't, and you never got the adage did you. Who misunderstood what smarty pants?
You,
so choke on the your pearl necklace.
Blunt and flat? No, thanks for the offer
It was obviously sarcasm. You need to apologise.
I apologize if that's incorrect info, granted that while I'm aware of much of the Western propaganda against China in regard to Covid lockdowns, there were still quite a lot of troubling videos from there in regard to forced relocations, detainments, etc.
With that said, I'm a big fan of China in general and may even consider living there at some point in the future so that's one of my view detractions against it.
One area I'm ahead of the curve in is in regard to the 'social credit system' which I know is a complete hoax. But when it comes to the Covid fraud and forced vaccination, I don't take any chances.
China is a huge country with power decentralize down to the local level pretty much like US towns with their bylaws.
So some places are shitty because of local govt. But by and large we didn't have a bad time all the 3 years.
Back in 2020 and 2021 I was travelling around in my province, and most don't wear masks. We were very unaffected unlike life in the west.
China was the safest and most free place in the world during 2020/21.
Only at start of 2022 when our local district govt started acting weird with lockdowns which most places actually don't do since outside of some cities that get regularly reinfected by Chinese returning from outside China.
Beijing punishes govt officials who don't followed updated protocols and failed to control outbreaks. So better be overly strict than less and get punished. That's the mentality of the local district govt.
My city's district govt went ballistic weird in 2nd half 2022 and ordered illegal lockdowns all over the district. Ended up with daily PCR tests and estates wide lockdown.
Pretty much mirroring what's happening in the east.
Note that the degree in lockdown severity depends on the degree of local infection.
Chaining the doors of the buildings, fire exits, padlocking individual homes are illegal. These are defined as illegal by Beijing as far back as 2020 after reports of such actions by local authorities to lockdown their areas.
The videos you saw mostly took place during that period and caused by illegal acts of the local govts in different places. That sparked people's anger and they protested. Protest is legal in China.
Beijing immediately cracked down on these local govts because of their one size fits all approach, and formulated exact protocols for handling infections and applications to lockdown.
Exact instructions and not some vague stuff that the local govts were plucking out of thin air to keep their KPI for "strict control".
That's it. One Rule Book for All, and suddenly no more lockdowns, no more centralized isolations, because the situations just don't meet the necessary criteria.
By November Beijing ordered all lockdowns lifted. Whole of China became open. Very little rules left.
At that time the C19 variant spreading in China was the mutated Omicron B strain. This is the much mutated strain that was highly infectious but it's lethality greatly reduced compared to earlier Alpha, Gama, Delta.
Beijing decided they can deal with Omicron B strain and ordered all lockdown lifted as by then more than 90% of the Chinese population has been fully vaccinated with Chinese produced vaccines.
Over period of 2 months practically everyone in China was infected. I was one of the early ones who caught it in November. It was bad flu and I recovered within 10 days.
But more than 8,000 people died from that infection wave. Majority of them are old people bed bound with severe medical issues.
During the early initial infection in 2020 over 4,000 people, young and old died from C19. Mostly in Wuhan because Beijing locked down whole of China to contain the spread of the virus.
China shutdown their whole country for 6 months to save the people during the initial infection back in 2020. People's lives over economy.
There are still infections caused by the XBB variant of the Omicron but nobody cares as the symptoms are also like bad flu but this variant is practically non lethal. Nobody died from it unless very chronically near death already.
Today in August China has reopened and foreigners are rushing back in to work, tour, or live in.
If you wear a mask in public people will think you're sick when you're just trying not to be infected.
This is what you'll never read in MSM because you are not supposed to know the truth about China.
And China was first country to open economy after Plandemic. Sinovac is not MRNA based clotshot, although i am against vax anyway, i had only one vax in childhood against chicken pox and i got chicken pox after vax- lean my lesson then.Funny enough, in Hong Kong so called democratic oppressed by bad China, QR codes was mandatory, so is masks.
You talk about the "Pandemic" as a total covidiot does. Infections, variants, fucking Omicron, old people died FFS - it's all bullshit. Influenzas are yearly events that have always caused deaths in the elderly (mostly). And how are the numbers of "infections" gathered? By a discredited, highly inaccurate, and easily manipulated Drosten PCR!!
You probably even had clot shots too.
you need to be civil grr, please.
I hear you, but it was interesting to hear a view from inside China too. Whatever its bias.
calm them truth dogs ; )
Of course it's interesting to hear the views of people that live in countries of which we know little. However no one wants to hear untruths, myths, and lies that come straight from the WHO/Fauci via random covidiots.
My "truth dogs" become vicious when confronted by scamdemic propaganda; soz.
If you're an ordinary citizen you don't bother about the Social Credit system which is meant to protect the people and provide disincentives to those thinking of breaking the laws. My wife don't care. She worry more about traffic demerit points as the system is very automated by CCTVs over the roads. Her auntie and her husband are slapped with limitations in only travelling in normal rail and not high speed trains because they have unsettled debts.
Come live in China. Best place for decent people who just want to live a peaceful life. You can choose where in China to settle down.
10 years in China and I swear never to leave.
The only Chinese govt you'll have to deal with is the local district govt that you are settled in. But on the whole you won't even have to unless you're doing business.
You only have to register your local address with the city's Public Safety foreign liaison office. And the local policeman responsible for the area you live in.
That's it. No police hassling you, stalking you. Nobody will bother you if you don't break the laws and disturb society.
And NO CORRUPTION! Surprise yah? President Xi totally wiped it out at the ground level. Impossible But He did it. I'm an eye witness.
Thanks for the insight. In Australia a propaganda outfit ASPI has had their “Uyghurs for Sale” debunked by Jaq James The usual suspects from the MIC fund this kind of anti China nonsense that pollutes the information space.
As for places to emigrate, the notion that Russia, being a place in some basic respects akin to the American experience, perhaps more so than Euro zone places, is arguably so, as you’ve done. I wonder, however, why the deep historical, and cultural aspects of Russia, the sheer opposition to basic Americana (language, religious foundation, script used, cuisine, historic architecture etc), though very much not akin to America’s isn’t an even greater part of the picture. Taken together, these provide pause to consider Russia. For a good resource about Russia, Gilbert Doctorow is recommended.
By extension of the “not akin” aspects being a draw, there are plenty of reasons to settle in places like Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, Thailand. Or, though not quite the same in this regard, Cuba. As an American in Asia, I’m not aggrieved by the so called ruling autocracies, they’re not my worry, as was the ruling apparatus in America. They neither promote themselves as righteous bearers of virtue and Good, nor do the repressions that do exist really impact a western foreigner so much. Why should I care if Thailand has a king, and a military-politico power block (btw mainly accepted as fine and dandy by Thai elites), or that VN and Lao are commies for instance? Why? If one is getting away from the nonsense of we are the best, why then, bring the ethics that propels it with you to a foreign country? Leave it behind, accept the new culture, and find a new way to be.
The history, culture, cuisine, style of life, the nature of these peoples (kindness, warmth, general chilled out, ease of being)…there’s lots of really “foreign to America” places to escape to. And I encourage you do!
Your commentary is nonsense.
Russia is not opposed to basic Americana - it is Russian.
Why does anyone outside of the USA have to be for or against the USA? Why can't they just be who they are - especially given that the Russian language, culture and existence as a nation is multiples that of the USA?
As for your list of other places to go: they're all 3rd world.
Russia is not 3rd world.
Just because many people in 3rd world nations will bend over backwards for the relatively insanely rich American whereas Russians will not, does not mean that you're going to fit into those nations any better, in reality, than you would fit in Russia.
Perhaps it is a uniquely American thing to believe that going somewhere else must require that other place bend to the needs of the American - at least now that the British empire is dust.
Having lived in S/E Asia for eight years I can confidently say you are talking bollocks. Thailand and Viet Nam have some 3rd world characteristics for sure, but are not strictly 3 world at all. In many respects the infrastructure is better than the 'west'. In others it's the same, and worse the further out in the boonies one goes.
The USA (and parts of the UK too now) has many aspects of a 3rd world country too IE widespread poverty; lack of health care to all; low wages; high incidents of unemployment, violence, corruption, and murder; and mass homelessness to name only some.
I know where I'd rather be right now.
Trying to compare the worst parts of the US or UK vs. the best parts of Thailand is a false comparison.
You're not going to convince me that the infrastructure in Thailand or Vietnam is better than the West. I've been to both countries. There are open sewers still in many parts of the biggest cities in both countries - which there are not in the biggest cities in the US or Europe.
All of the items you name above are not infrastructure - they are societal outcomes. Infrastructure is roads, hospitals, bridges, sewers, electricity, telecom and so forth.
https://saigoneer.com/saigon-environment/17571-only-13-of-vietnam-s-urban-sewage-is-treated-before-discharge
https://sdgs.un.org/basic-page/thailand-34142
The only difference between your living in the US/UK vs. a 3rd world nation is that you don't need to be global elite wealthy to be near the top of the socio-economic heap in the 3rd world nation.
Thailand, Saigon and Hanoi are livable but are nothing compared to Moscow or St. Petersburg.
"There are open sewers still in many parts of the biggest cities in both countries"
Untrue, you resorted to a lie to "prove" your point.
"All of the items you name above are not infrastructure - they are societal outcomes. Infrastructure is roads, hospitals, bridges, sewers, electricity, telecom and so forth."
And the infrastructure is collapsing in the USA/UK whereas Thailand &nVN builds new roads, bridges, etc, hospitals are everywhere, state and privately owned, homeless people are very few and rare (beggars that are seen are organised crime groups not citizens). Personally I'd rather live in a country that has better "societal outcomes" as luxury, glitz and glamour are only superficial.
Yeah right - go and drink some canal water in Bangkok or Saigon to understand the difference. Even tap water is ...risky. Nor are you going to convince me that there aren't rats in Bangkok LOL.
These places have improved considerably, but they are still a long, long way from being Western level much less China or Singapore.
Yes, infrastructure has been under-maintained overall in the US for a long time but it already exists as oppose to being built or aspirational.
Lastly the problems you list are primarily in Democrat dominated states/cities as opposed to the US overall, and so is more of a competence issue than a lack of capability issue.
Go and drink water from the Thames, or tap water in Flint, Michigan and tell me how you feel after. Or swim in the many creeks contaminated with chemicals recently.
And rats? WTF, every huge city has rats.
The fact is that the USA has many indicators of a 3rd world nation, but that truth triggers many Karens that are from there.
The USA is a shithole masquerading as a first class nation.
grr is correct, here in Nicolaistan we are seeing serious infrastructure decay. Dereliction. Reduction in most services, rats on the streets, sewage in the rivers and water supply...blah blah, by design as far as i am concerned. Whilst their control grid is all installed instead.
Western cities, beyond their 15 minute hiveworld digi-vex hubs, will be utter shitholes just directly.
The developing world IS developing whilst the "developed" world rots and decays in its perverse senescence.
I think you misunderstand my comment entirely. I do not suggest Russia is on par with Thailand. In fact, were I able to go to Russia, I would. I tried to explain that one could migrate to Russia specifically for its rich culture and history, not because it has some or any American characteristics. I don’t expect anybody to bend over for me. Please don’t confuse me with your generalized opinion of Americans. There’s plenty of good people there, who are curious world travelers that also travel to places to learn about those cultures. Not all Americans are the same. I do not have any cause to demean them even if for my own reasons I no longer choose to reside there.
Thanks for adding your comments.
Living in Russia is not for everyone, but that applies for most countries to various different people.
As for going to Russia: anyone can go.
However, the Russian government does not bend over backwards to accommodate immigrants - especially ones who cannot function in Russian. This is a government/societal choice albeit the actual situation is very different for Central Asian/Caucasus immigrants.
If I misread your intent, I apologize but I am very tired of the many people who do fail to understand that different countries are ... different.
https://gilbertdoctorow.com/
Thank you!
I forgot to comment on your last post but seeing that AFU amputee girl made me very sad. What the West is doing is crime against humanity. Even if she went to fight willingly they have all the blame from their brain washing hate propaganda.
I shouldn’t be surprised by this but it’s still shocking to anyone with a shred of humanity left. The ruling elites of the West deserve to be in solitary confinement or better yet hanging for all to see.
That particular girl has become a sort of semi-famous symbol in the war, there are many videos about her and her amputation: https://www.bitchute.com/video/2xAq29C1oOIo/
https://www.bitchute.com/video/1gF7ihix2I2c/
I’m sure normies see this and blame it on Russia but I see this and seeth with rage at the criminal Western leaders.
As for the girl, it’s 15 minutes of fame. One day soon she’ll regret ever going and give anything just to be whole again. Let’s hope the true Ukrainian Orthodox Church still exists and can help her through it.
Was the girl actually fighting? Or hit by Russian ordnance as a civilian?
Or is this more like the many other bullshit agitprop Ukraine puts out - i.e. she lost her legs in a skiing accident or some nonsense?
I would be shocked if there weren't many similar situations in Donetsk/Luhask due to Ukrainian shelling, hence my general reaction being DGAF.
Disregarding the missing bits, she's passingly pretty. That's all that matters and is why she was picked. For all we know she could be hale and hearty and they give her a stump through editing - though I suspect the loss is real enough, since there are plenty of amputees in the country to choose from.
And will be plenty more wherever cluster munitions were used ... for decades to come.
Did you see that the Ukies are sending pregnant women to fight? as the site said - pure genocide.
Rank evil.
Moving to Russia won’t stop you having to take the pharma jabs, which Russia is considering making mandatory.
I don't think so. Plus, at least Russia's jab isn't mRNA anyway. Not that I support any jabs and wouldn't take it myself, but at least the Sputnik vax is a standard attenuated Adenovirus rather than mRNA spike protein gene therapy.
Do you maybe know why Russian Special Military Operation in Ukraine (SMO) is often called NWO, like in below link? What does this abbreviation stand for?
https://en.topwar.ru/200264-kakova-realnaja-cel-svo-ob-oficialno-oboznachennyh-i-realnyh-celjah-operacii-na-ukraine.html
This is possibly the most malodorous mixed metaphor ever written, a well-deserved criticism of the putrid ruling class: "... a losing, unpopular war will be the equivalent of an open, festering sore on the ass of the ruling class which will be a low hanging fruit for the opposition figures to use as ammo against them on the campaign trail." Love it!
One is forced to visualize vile little monkeys coming after one another's hemorrhoids to use for flinging.
Simplicius, late for this round of questions. Actually I had one and you answered it (though I think I wasn’t clear on it though).
Anyways ... is Penicillin being used and what degree of effectiveness? I heard it was an ingenious and cheap counter battery radar but haven’t heard much of it in a while.
Unfortunately Russian electronic warfare systems are some of the most secretive and shrouded in mystery, there isn't much info on them insofar as numbers of units and effectiveness.
The chief difference with Penicillin is that:
1. it is thermal/acoustic/seismic and doesn't use radar waves. That means that it's completely undetectable to traditional anti-radiation sources
This is a big plus as Ukrainian/NATO AGM-88 HARM missiles can't detect/hit it as well as NATO elint/sigint satellites which are used to honing in on radiation sources.
The downside is that acoustic detection is likely not as accurate or has as much range as radar. However, since the Penicillin is a much newer system that also means its computational/processing power is much stronger and likely has more accuracy than more dated systems in terms of the onboard computers which can triangulate sources.
Also, even Oryx doesn't have a single Penicillin listed in his database which means none of them have been damaged, captured, or destroyed whatsoever.
Meanwhile, Russia reported receiving a new batch/shipment of them late last year for the frontline troops:
https://www.rt.com/russia/568427-russia-reconnaissance-penicillin-artillery/
So it's impossible to tell how effective it truly is but given that U.S. relies on using satellite sigint/elint surveillance to detect Russian radar/radiation sources, this would make it invisible to some of NATO's most powerful tools, which would explain the lack of identifiable hits thus far.
1960's era acoustic artillery location systems in Sweden had an accuracy of around 100m out to around 10km (from memory), as a reference.
That's actually good enough to result in a fairly high probability of destruction (if not the gun itself, then certainly the crew) using less than a dozen rounds of standard 152 (or 155) HE. And it's certainly close enough to allow an autonomously-target-seeking munition (e.g., Lancet, etc.) to score a direct hit.
Back then that may have been bad, but now a days that's great because all you need to know is the general direction/distance and the drones do the rest. In counter-battery, typically if you can tell the drone team the general vector they can send up the bird and at least know where to look for the flash and smoke and detect the artillery shooting at you. Back in the day they didn't have drones so such accuracy would probably not be that great.
Superlative, as usual. If I may add a comment to the response to #32. Free speech is allowed in the US only when it has been shunted into some dead-end with minimal impact. Even with the overwhelming dominance of corporate media and academic institutions, The Empire works hard to quash any real choice for its domestic population—apart from what sauce you want with your fries (there you have seven or eight choices). On the other hand the West pushes free-speech and liberal democracies abroad because these make countries easy to subvert. Allow free press and free media and you will be overwhelmed with an avalanche of lies and propaganda. Every possible fissure in your society—religious, racial, economic and cultural will be exploited and exacerbated. A flood of money will go to western supporting newspapers and media. Political parties that support US policy will receive millions. If labor unions are anti-western, new labor unions will appear. The Left in these countries will be infiltrated. New journals and youth organizations will appear. These entities will specialize in wokeness and identity politics. These toxic ideologies will fracture traditional anti-US organizations and movements. Well-financed pro-western NGOs will grow like proverbial topsy. There is a reason that only disciplined, hard-core, often Marxist-Leninist, governed countries with limitations on speech have successfully resisted absorption into the Blob of US finance capitalism: Vietnam, China, North Korea, Eritrea, Cuba, Venezuela, Nicaragua. The only exception is Iran—which is run by disciplined theocrats with their own unique capacity to resist the blackmail, payoffs, propaganda, extortion and lies that the US uses successfully in countries whose leadership has no solid ideological identity. Even now most of Russia's fundamental engineering and military-industrial capacity comes from it's inheritance from the once stalwart USSR. Frankly free expression and free discussion does not threaten a successful society—unless it is weaponized to subvert and divide, which is precisely the methodology used by The Empire. Allow western “freedom”--which is really the freedom of huge piles of money to corrupt and subvert (this is likewise true of “free” elections, incidentally)-- and you will find your ship of state sinking from holes you yourself drilled in the hull. Finally, regarding item #42, You rightly recommend Michael Hudson. If one wants to understand how the world works, read “Super-Imperialism.” It is easily the best exposition of political-economic reality. Absolutely indispensable for understanding the world. And one step beyond that is his “The Destiny of Civilization.”
Excellent summary of the weaponization of free speech !
My page (long read) on the economic sanctions and the effect on various sectors of the Russian economy is one of the best, if not the best, currently available.
https://www.lauriemeadows.info/conflict_security/The-West's-Apartheid-Trading-System.html
Rolling updated, but not fully up to date, life being busy.
Simplicius,
What are your thoughts on what North Korea is exactly? Obviously, the brutal and poverty stricken country narrative dominates, but how much truth is there in it?
Not much. There was a starvation event many years ago. But what is not recognised is that the US and their puppet do war games during NK's harvesting season, and this causes manpower shortages on farms as all hands are needed on deck in case of a sneak attack under the cover of "war games". This impacts crop levels.
I viewed a documentary many years ago, in which the subjects were US army deserters from the Korean War that were (at the time of the doco) elderly. They each had wives and children and lived in apartments and subsisted on a state pension. What they said about their lives was interesting.
I have a friend who has been there several times as a traveller. Another friend was a commercial agent for NK industry in the early 2000s. I flicked through the glossy brochures and the products they have are mind boggling. They manufacture their own military equipment too.
The North Koreans live fairly austerely (Soviet levels), many rural people live in poverty. The ruling clique is extremely paranoid, and exert a great deal of control on their citizens, and that is entirely understandable when we know what they faced for many decades, and still face currently. And they were treated badly by the Japanese well before the Korean War.
For what they have achieved, keeping in mind the US destroyed every single building in NK, I have the utmost admiration for them.
I’m not Simplicius but just recently have binge watched series of lectures by Russian specialist on both Koreas (obviously he had much more access to actual information than any western scholar) TL;DR North Korea is a country with poor agricultural land, also very isolationist with cultural and ideological idiosyncrasies but at the end of the day they are much more “normal” and well developed than hearing news would suggest. Their biggest issue is isolation that is both self inflicted due to ideology of “sovereignty” and forced from outside because “evul commies”.
I think almost everything written on North Korea is a lie. It's a good country with a good culture and a people who love their leader and have a higher morale/spirit than anyone in the West. The whole 'poverty stricken' thing is b.s. Go to any southern state in the U.S. there's still a huge population of people that don't have internet, running water, or even toilets. Any country has problems like that in rural areas. North Korea has one of the largest sanction/embargoes/economic terrorism packages on it of any other country in history so of course they're not going to be *as* developed as certain others when they're completely locked out of the system and have everything stacked against them.
But pretty much everything else you see/hear on them are complete lies.
Thanks! That’s about what I had figured. I knew that the scientific and industrial output we were seeing wasn’t possible if the country was in as bad of a shape as they claim.
Hi: only a minor tip. Raising the retirement age of one o two years is better than import black slave from arab middleman: they are trained yet and do not rape every single women on their watch.
Black slave are imported for the same reason they are imported in the USA: low social trust.
@49 Gostomel
Gostomel airport used to be the home airport of Antonov corporation and as such the base of ~10 An-124 and the single An-225. Via SALIS these are NATO assets, slightly bigger than C-5, the biggest one NATO has on its own. The An-225 has been destroyed (it was a byproduct of the Soviet space program, de-Sovietization anyone?). Spares, tools and documents may have been taken away (RU has a number of An-124 as well) or destroyed reducing the resources of said aircraft in UA.
Not the main driver, but an important side effect for choosing Gostomel.
it's still a damned shame that that big bird got trashed.