Wednesday, April 21, 2021

"Doug Casey on the Shocking 2025 Deagel Forecast... War, Population Reduction and the Collapse of the West"

"Doug Casey on the Shocking 2025 Deagel Forecast...
War, Population Reduction and the Collapse of the West"
by International Man

"International Man: Deagel is a private online source for the military capabilities of the world’s nation-states. It recently released a shocking five-year forecast. The report analyzes countries by projected population size, GDP, defense budget, and more. In it, they predict a 70% reduction in the size of the United States population. This is a bold prediction. What are your thoughts on this?

Doug Casey: I’ve got to say that I wasn’t familiar with Deagel - it keeps a low profile. Deagel is in the same business as Jane’s - which has been in the business of analyzing weapons systems for many decades.

A look at the Deagel website, which is quite sophisticated, makes it clear we’re not dealing with some blogger concocting outrageous clickbait. It seems to be well-connected with defense contractors and government agencies like the CIA. They’ve predicted that about 70% of the US population, and about the same percentage in Europe, is going to disappear by 2025. It’s hard to believe that anybody in their position would make a forecast like that. There’s no logical business reason for it, especially since it was done before the COVID hysteria gripped the world. It stretches a reader’s credulity.

Could it possibly happen? It would be the biggest thing in world history. Does it have a basis in reality, or is it just some bizarre trolling exercise? I’m not sure - it’s hard to take almost anything from any source at face value these days. But for the last several years, I’ve been saying that World War III would basically be a biological war. Of course, it will have substantial conventional, nuclear, space-based, and AI/computer elements as well, but its most serious component will be biological. Essentially, it will involve the use of bacteria and viruses to wipe out the enemy. The odds are that it will be between the US and China. But since anyone with a CRISPR in their garage can hack the genome and DNA of almost anything and anybody… there are no limits to the possibilities.

Certainly, from the Chinese point of view, a biological war makes all the sense in the world. That’s because the Han Chinese share a lot of genetic similarities. Presumably, a bacteria or virus can be bred to favor the Chinese and take out most everybody else. The fact is that anything that can be done eventually will be done. It’s just the law of large numbers.

Somebody might respond, "Well, that's horribly racist." Of course it's racist. Notwithstanding rational and philosophical arguments against it, all ethnic groups and countries are quite naturally racist. A fear of different racial and ethnic groups has been bred into humans, as a survival mechanism, over the hundreds of thousands of years since we became biologically modern. All races and ethnic groups like to think that they're "the best" or the most worthy, and that non-members are "other", perhaps only marginally human. Biological warfare plays directly into feeling.

Americans who - like everybody else - see themselves as "the good guys", believe we’re immune to that. However, don’t forget that the US pioneered modern biowarfare. Fort Detrick, Maryland, has been an epicenter of it for over 70 years, and there are undoubtedly many other more clandestine sites where US government agencies are working on biological warfare. No doubt the Chinese and other major powers are working clandestinely as well. It’s not something anybody wants to advertise for many reasons.

What shocks me is not that a biowar is being researched or even actively wargamed, but that a connected organization like Deagel is actually saying it publicly. It’s not like what goes on in the spook community is an open book. Deagel doesn’t explicitly say what, exactly, will cause the great die-off. But there are many advantages to biological warfare over other types of warfare, so it will probably be featured. It’s probably inevitable, now that the technology has made it practical.

What are the advantages of biowar? What might wargaming generals like about it? First, it doesn’t destroy materiel. That’s a huge plus. After all, what’s the point of conquering a country if all you have to show for it is a smoking radioactive ruin? That’s the major advantage of the neutron bomb, of course; it kills the people but limits damage to buildings. Bioweapons essentially make atomic weapons obsolescent.

Second, bioweapons can be structured to attack only certain racial groups. That’s potentially either a big advantage or disadvantage to China. The diverse population of the US could also be either an advantage or a disadvantage, depending on who strikes first. But, on the bright side, you can perhaps immunize your own population, or at least the military and "essential" workers, to control the damage.

Third, bioweapons are very cheap and easy to fabricate. Anyone with access to a good high school chemistry lab is in business. There’s no need for expensive and tricky U-235 or, for that matter, any of the junk toys the Pentagon spends hundreds of billions on.

Fourth, bioweapons don’t need sophisticated delivery systems; again, no need for B-2s, B-52s, cruise missiles, ICBMs, or any of that. A sick tourist or two, or a few packages sent in the mail, can get the job done.

Fifth, bioweapons, whether they’re viruses or bacteria, not only offer plausible deniability but the potential to blame a third party. You can launch an attack, and nobody can really be sure who did it. Or even that an attack is, in fact, being launched.

There’s every advantage to biological warfare from an aggressor's point of view. And, the aggressor doesn’t even have to be a nation-state, which is, of course, another excuse for governments to further clamp down on their populations, as COVID has shown. Guns are good self-defense weapons, and governments are trying to eliminate them; basement biowar labs are strictly offensive. Imagine the bureaucratic enforcement possibilities.

International Man: In addition, Deagel included a lengthy disclaimer, which states: "After COVID, we can draw two major conclusions: 

1. The Western world success model has been built over societies with no resilience that can barely withstand any hardship, even a low-intensity one. It was assumed, but we got the full confirmation beyond any doubt. 
2. The COVID crisis will be used to extend the life of this dying economic system through the so-called Great Reset."

Doug, you’ve written extensively about the economic, political, cultural, and social decline in the US- long before it became a popular topic of discussion. Has anything changed in your perspective on the future of the US?

Doug Casey: No. I’m afraid the election of actual Bolsheviks in 2020 - and I don’t use that term lightly - has sealed its fate. Not to mention that the nomenklatura in most major cities and states are cut from the same cloth. In point of fact, the US is on such a self-destructive path that the Chinese don’t have to do anything in order to win. All they need to do is lay back and be quiet. The West is destroying itself.

As for this COVID crisis, it impresses me as 80% hysteria, a bad flu season that has been blown out of proportion. It’s well known (insofar as anything can be known, considering the abysmal quality of reporting and the extreme politicization of the issue) that COVID mainly affects the elderly, the sick, and the obese. The average age of descendants is 80; however, the ages of those who die are rarely mentioned. The media reports the number of COVID cases constantly, but that’s as meaningless as counting who gets a common cold. Anyway, aren’t all those who get infected become immune? A virus - like the Hong Kong flu, the Asian flu, the Bird flu, and the Swine flu - goes viral, then goes away. Even the Spanish flu, which was actually serious, came and went without destroying the economy. Nonetheless, the public has been so terrorized that they’re panicking to take potentially dangerous experimental injections. Even though there are numerous cheap drugs that can mitigate the virus after diagnosis, they’re never prescribed. The opinions of physicians and world-class scientists who differ with Fauci - an overpaid lifelong government employee - are actively suppressed. However, this is a whole different subject.

There is one thing I question about Deagel’s statement that you quoted: "The COVID crisis will be used to extend the life of this dying economic system through something called the Great Reset." That’s a very odd statement because the crisis isn’t extending the life of the dying economic system. It’s putting the final nail in its coffin. It would be nice to hear how they figure that out, as COVID seems to be medically vastly overblown. The Great Reset has nothing to do with preserving the current economic system; it’s about formalizing a new one.

Here’s a wild and crazy thought. What if the real problem isn’t so much the COVID virus itself. What if the real problem is the new vaccines. What if, after X number of months or years, they turn out to have very deadly effects? There’s a reason new drugs are tested over a period of years, which is far from the case here. Ted Turner, Bill Gates, and numerous others who think they’re "elite" have long said that the earth’s population ought to be reduced radically, perhaps by 80%. Is it too shocking to believe that some group would take advantage of this to cull the human population? It’s something that would be hard to believe even in a science fiction novel. But it now appears to be technically feasible. History is replete - overrun, actually - with psychos who try to destroy everybody once they get in power.

In point of fact, science fiction is a much better predictor of the future than any think tank has ever been. So maybe there’s a Dr. Evil at large, anxious to eliminate deplorables and other undesirables. If he exists, I doubt today’s woke transgender version of James Bond can counter him. Who knows where this is going? But it’s the wrong direction, and the trend is still accelerating.

International Man: The disclaimer in the Deagel report goes on to say, "The collapse of the Western financial system - and ultimately the Western civilization - has been the major driver in the forecast along with a confluence of crisis with a devastating outcome. As COVID has proven Western societies embracing multiculturalism and extreme liberalism are unable to deal with any real hardship." Is the Western civilization seeing a confluence of crises coming together in a perfect storm?

Doug Casey: That’s a very good point. It seems like everything is starting to happen at once and at a hyperbolically accelerating rate. While the worlds of science and technology are approaching Ray Kurzweil’s utopian Singularity, the worlds of politics and sociology are approaching a dystopian anti-Singularity.

Let’s briefly look at the financial, economic, social, and political aspects of the potential collapse. We’re absolutely en route to a gigantic financial crisis, featuring the destruction of the US dollar. And with it, the savings of a large percentage of the planet’s people will be impoverished because their savings are in dollars. Much of the value people thought they had in stocks, bonds, real estate, pensions, and insurance could disappear.

That's bad enough, but what’s worse are the economic consequences. We're likely to see wholesale unemployment, a collapse in business activity, and corporate bankruptcies, even while taxes go up radically. I’m increasingly of the opinion there will be a crack-up boom along the way; however, we might be entering that as we speak.

What’s even worse are the social ramifications, such as critical race theory, which emphasizes the differences between race groups, creating actual race hatred. One consequence of the financial and economic upsets will be riots like those of 2020. The mass migration of people from alien cultures who don't share Western values into the US and Europe is destabilizing. The US has, in fact, become a multicultural domestic empire.

The political consequences are evident. The Biden people in Washington, D.C. are exactly the same personality types who took over Russia in 1917 or France in 1789. They aren’t going to let go of the apparatus of power now that they've got it. They will find a way to re-install themselves in 2024.

What about the military? The US spends something like $1 trillion on defense annually, but nobody knows for certain. These budgets are complicated; military spending is hidden here, there, and everywhere. It doesn't defend the United States; it just antagonizes foreigners. It’s also interesting that the Department of Defense is now trying to root out conservative political views from the rank-and-file soldiers.

But let’s get back to what could collapse the populations of North America and Europe by over 50%. Perhaps Deagel is anticipating a serious collapse of complex society because food won’t be grown, processed, and sent to cities. Maybe COVID is seen as just a catalyst. Most people in today’s highly urbanized world, from cubicle dwellers to ghetto rats, are incapable of surviving for more than a week if supply chains break.

International Man: The report also discusses a prediction regarding a potential war that involves Russia and China against the US. What are your thoughts on this? Is it likely that we’ll see a conflict of this kind during the 2020s?

Doug Casey: As I said earlier, a war, at least with China, seems inevitable. It will likely be fomented by the US because, as the economy goes bad, governments always look for somebody else, an outsider, to blame. At this point - and I recognize this will outrage jingoists and nationalists - the US government is actually the most dangerous force on the face of the planet. Much more dangerous than the Chinese, the Russians, or anybody else. Why? The US government is unique in actively and aggressively looking for trouble absolutely everywhere, sticking its nose into everything. Only the US has troops in a hundred other countries and is fighting hot wars in several more.

It’s said, for instance, that the Russians are aggressors because they may retake the Crimea and the Donbas region. Most Americans, who can’t even find these places on the map, are unaware that Crimea had been part of Russia since it was taken from the Ottomans in the 18th century and is mostly populated by ethnic Russians. Nikita Kruschev arbitrarily transferred it from the Russian SSR to the Ukrainian SSR in 1954 for personal political reasons shortly after Stalin’s death. The current problem started only after the US fomented a coup d’etat, a so-called color revolution, in Ukraine in 2014. It then made sense for Putin to retake it, much like the US tried to overthrow Castro after he ousted Batista.

In any event, it’s a problem between Russia and Ukraine and none of our business. The Biden regime butting in is somewhat analogous to Russia threatening war over the US owning Puerto Rico. We don’t need a serious war with Russia over nothing.

Taiwan is similar. Historically, it’s just a secessionist Chinese province - or not. Perhaps it’s a government in exile. But no matter; these are meaningless legalisms. Frankly, I’m on the side of Taiwan, but it’s none of our business whether they go to war with each other. US government intervention could easily start a conflict with China. It might end with the sinking of a couple of US carrier groups, or it might evolve into World War 3.

And, of course, we’re still in Afghanistan, Central Asia, and the Middle East. Plus Africa and God knows where else. The US is unnecessarily and stupidly whacking hornet’s nests everywhere in the world, bankrupting itself and making enemies, setting the stage for something really significant."
Related:
"Entirely Possible This Will Be Used
 For Massive-scale Depopulation"
by Mordechai Sones

"America’s Frontline Doctors (AFLDS) spoke to former Pfizer Vice President and Chief Science Officer Dr. Mike Yeadon about his views on the COVID-19 vaccine, hydroxychloroquine and ivermectin, the regulatory authorities, and more. At the outset, Dr. Yeadon said “I’m well aware of the global crimes against humanity being perpetrated against a large proportion of the worlds population. I feel great fear, but I’m not deterred from giving expert testimony to multiple groups of able lawyers like Rocco Galati in Canada and Reiner Fuellmich in Germany. I have absolutely no doubt that we are in the presence of evil (not a determination I’ve ever made before in a 40-year research career) and dangerous products.

In the U.K., it’s abundantly clear that the authorities are bent on a course which will result in administering ‘vaccines’ to as many of the population as they can. This is madness, because even if these agents were legitimate, protection is needed only by those at notably elevated risk of death from the virus. In those people, there might even be an argument that the risks are worth bearing. And there definitely are risks which are what I call ‘mechanistic’: inbuilt in the way they work.

But all the other people, those in good health and younger than 60 years, perhaps a little older, they don’t perish from the virus. In this large group, it’s wholly unethical to administer something novel and for which the potential for unwanted effects after a few months is completely uncharacterized.

In no other era would it be wise to do what is stated as the intention. Since I know this with certainty, and I know those driving it know this too, we have to enquire: What is their motive? While I don’t know, I have strong theoretical answers, only one of which relates to money and that motive doesn’t work, because the same quantum can be arrived at by doubling the unit cost and giving the agent to half as many people. Dilemma solved. So it’s something else.
Appreciating that, by entire population, it is also intended that minor children and eventually babies are to be included in the net, and that’s what I interpret to be an evil act.

There is no medical rationale for it. Knowing as I do that the design of these ‘vaccines’ results, in the expression in the bodies of recipients, expression of the spike protein, which has adverse biological effects of its own which, in some people, are harmful (initiating blood coagulation and activating the immune ‘complement system’), I’m determined to point out that those not at risk from this virus should not be exposed to the risk of unwanted effects from these agents.”

AFLDS: The Israel Supreme Court decision last week cancelling COVID flight restrictions said: “In the future, any new restrictions on travel into or out of Israel need, in legal terms, a comprehensive, factual, data-based foundation.”

In a talk you gave four months ago, you said, “The most likely duration of immunity to a respiratory virus like SARS CoV-2 is multiple years. Why do I say that? We actually have the data for a virus that swept through parts of the world seventeen years ago called SARS, and remember SARS CoV-2 is 80% similar to SARS, so I think that’s the best comparison that anyone can provide.

The evidence is clear: These very clever cellular immunologists studied all the people they could get hold of who had survived SARS 17 years ago. They took a blood sample, and they tested whether they responded or not to the original SARS and they all did; they all had perfectly normal, robust T cell memory. They were actually also protected against SARS CoV-2, because they’re so similar; it’s cross immunity.

So, I would say the best data that exists is that immunity should be robust for at least 17 years. I think it’s entirely possible that it is lifelong. The style of the responses of these people’s T cells were the same as if you’ve been vaccinated and then you come back years later to see if that immunity has been retained. So I think the evidence is really strong that the duration of immunity will be multiple years, and possibly lifelong.”

In other words, previous exposure to SARS – that is, a variant similar to SARS CoV-2 – bestowed SARS CoV-2 immunity. The Israel government cites new variants to justify lockdowns, flight closures, restrictions, and Green Passport issuance. Given the Supreme Court verdict, do you think it may be possible to preempt future government measures with accurate information about variants, immunity, herd immunity, etc. that could be provided to the lawyers who will be challenging those future measures?

Yeadon: “What I outlined in relation to immunity to SARS is precisely what we’re seeing with SARS-CoV-2.
The study is from one of the best labs in their field. So, theoretically, people could test their T-cell immunity by measuring the responses of cells in a small sample of their blood. There are such tests, they are not “high throughput” and they are likely to cost a few hundred USD each on scale. But not thousands. The test I’m aware of is not yet commercially available, but research only in U.K.

However, I expect the company could be induced to provide test kits “for research” on scale, subject to an agreement. If you were to arrange to test a few thousand non vaccinated Israelis, it may be a double edged sword. Based on other countries experiences, 30-50% of people had prior immunity & additionally around 25% have been infected & are now immune.

Personally, I wouldn’t want to deal with the authorities on their own terms: that you’re suspected as a source of infection until proven otherwise. You shouldn’t need to be proving you’re not a health risk to others. Those without symptoms are never a health threat to others. And in any case, once those who are concerned about the virus are vaccinated, there is just no argument for anyone else needing to be vaccinated."

AFLDS: My understanding of a “leaky vaccine” is that it only lessens symptoms in the vaccinated, but does not stop transmission; it therefore allows the spread of what then becomes a more deadly virus. For example, in China they deliberately use leaky Avian Flu vaccines to quickly cull flocks of chicken, because the unvaccinated die within three days. In Marek’s Disease, from which they needed to save all the chickens, the only solution was to vaccinate 100% of the flock, because all unvaccinated were at high risk of death. So how a leaky vax is utilized is intention-driven, that is, it is possible that the intent can be to cause great harm to the unvaccinated.

Stronger strains usually would not propagate through a population because they kill the host too rapidly, but if the vaccinated experience only less-serious disease, then they spread these strains to the unvaccinated who contract serious disease and die.

Do you agree with this assessment? Furthermore, do you agree that if the unvaccinated become the susceptible ones, the only way forward is HCQ prophylaxis for those who haven’t already had COVID-19? Would the Zelenko Protocol work against these stronger strains if this is the case? And if many already have the aforementioned previous “17-year SARS immunity”, would that then not protect from any super-variant?

“I think the Gerrt Vanden Bossche story is highly suspect. There is no evidence at all that vaccination is leading or will lead to ‘dangerous variants’. I am worried that it’s some kind of trick. As a general rule, variants form very often, routinely, and tend to become less dangerous & more infectious over time, as it comes into equilibrium with its human host. Variants generally don’t become more dangerous. No variant differs from the original sequence by more than 0.3%. In other words, all variants are at least 99.7% identical to the Wuhan sequence.

It’s a fiction, and an evil one at that, that variants are likely to “escape immunity”. Not only is it intrinsically unlikely – because this degree of similarity of variants means zero chance that an immune person (whether from natural infection or from vaccination) will be made ill by a variant – but it’s empirically supported by high-quality research.

The research I refer to shows that people recovering from infection or who have been vaccinated ALL have a wide range of immune cells which recognize ALL the variants. This paper shows WHY the extensive molecular recognition by the immune system makes the tiny changes in variants irrelevant.

I cannot say strongly enough: The stories around variants and need for top up vaccines are FALSE. I am concerned there is a very malign reason behind all this. It is certainly not backed by the best ways to look at immunity. The claims always lack substance when examined, and utilize various tricks, like manipulating conditions for testing the effectiveness of antibodies. Antibodies are probably rather unimportant in host protection against this virus. There have been a few ‘natural experiments’, people who unfortunately cannot make antibodies, yet are able quite successfully to repel this virus. They definitely are better off with antibodies than without. I mention these rare patients because they show that antibodies are not essential to host immunity, so some contrived test in a lab of antibodies and engineered variant viruses do NOT justify need for top up vaccines.

The only people who might remain vulnerable and need prophylaxis or treatment are those who are elderly and/or ill and do not wish to receive a vaccine (as is their right). The good news is that there are multiple choices available: hydroxychloroquine, ivermectin, budesonide (inhaled steroid used in asthmatics), and of course oral Vitamin D, zinc, azithromycin etc. These reduce the severity to such an extent that this virus did not need to become a public health crisis.”

AFLDS: Do you feel the FDA does a good job regulating big pharma? In what ways does big pharma get around the regulator? Do you feel they did so for the mRNA injection?

Yeadon: “Until recently, I had high regard for global medicines regulators. When I was in Pfizer, and later CEO of a biotech I founded (Ziarco, later acquired by Novartis), we interacted respectfully with FDA, EMA, and the U.K. MHRA.
 Always good quality interactions.

Recently, I noticed that the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation (BMGF) had made a grant to the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA)! Can that ever be appropriate? They’re funded by public money. They should never accept money from a private body.

So here is an example where the U.K. regulator has a conflict of interest. The European Medicines Agency failed to require certain things as disclosed in the ‘hack’ of their files while reviewing the Pfizer vaccine. You can find examples on Reiner Fuellmich’s “Corona Committee” online. So I no longer believe the regulators are capable of protecting us. ‘Approval’ is therefore meaningless.

Dr. Wolfgang Wodarg and I petitioned the EMA Dec 1, 2020 on the genetic vaccines. They ignored us. Recently, we wrote privately to them, warning of blood clots, they ignored us. When we went public with our letter, we were completely censored. Days later, more than ten countries paused use of a vaccine citing blood clots.

I think the big money of pharma plus cash from BMGF creates the environment where saying no just isn’t an option for the regulator. I must return to the issue of ‘top up vaccines’ (booster shots) and it is this whole narrative which I fear will be exploited and used to gain unparalleled power over us.

PLEASE warn every person not to go near top up vaccines. There is absolutely no need to them. As there’s no need for them, yet they’re being made in pharma, and regulators have stood aside (no safety testing), I can only deduce they will be used for nefarious purposes.

For example, if someone wished to harm or kill a significant proportion of the worlds population over the next few years, the systems being put in place right now will enable it. It’s my considered view that it is entirely possible that this will be used for massive-scale depopulation.”
Related:
Without comment I present this article for your consideration,
and strongly urge you to view it:

Musical Interlude: Ludovico Einaudi, "The Royal Albert Hall Concert" ( 2010 )

Full screen recommended.
Ludovico Einaudi, "The Royal Albert Hall Concert" ( 2010 )

"A Look to the Heavens"

“How many arches can you count in the below image? If you count both spans of the Double Arch in the Arches National Park in Utah, USA, then two. But since the above image was taken during a clear dark night, it caught a photogenic third arch far in the distance- that of the overreaching Milky Way Galaxy. Because we are situated in the midst of the spiral Milky Way Galaxy, the band of the central disk appears all around us.
Click image for larger size.
The sandstone arches of the Double Arch were formed from the erosion of falling water. The larger arch rises over 30 meters above the surrounding salt bed and spans close to 50 meters across. The dark silhouettes across the image bottom are sandstone monoliths left over from silt-filled crevices in an evaporated 300 million year old salty sea. A dim flow created by light pollution from Moab, Utah can also be seen in the distance.”

"Life Is The Hyphen..."

"Life is the hyphen between matter and spirit."
- A.W. and J.C. Hare, 

"A Single Lesson...

"Your thoughts, opinions, beliefs, and worldviews are based on years and years of experience, reading, and rational, objective analysis. Right? Wrong. Your thoughts, opinions, beliefs, and worldviews are based on years and years of paying attention to information that confirmed what you already believed while ignoring information that challenged your preconceived notions. If there’s a single lesson that life teaches us, it’s that wishing doesn’t make it so."
– Lev Grossman

"Why Do We Laugh..."

"Why do we laugh at such terrible things? Because comedy
is often the sarcastic realization of inescapable tragedy."
- Bryant H. McGill

The Poet: David Whyte, "One Day"

"One Day"

"One day I will say
the gift I once had has been taken.
The place I have made for myself
belongs to another.
The words I have sung
are being sung by the ones
I would want.
Then I will be ready
for that voice
and the still silence in which it arrives.
And if my faith is good
then we'll meet again
on the road,
and we'll be thirsty,
and stop
and laugh
and drink together again
from the deep well of things as they are."

- David Whyte,
"Where Many Rivers Meet"

"The poem is a little myth of man's capacity of making life meaningful.
And in the end, the poem is not a thing we see -
it is, rather, a light by which we may see - and what we see is life."
- Robert Penn Warren

The Daily "Near You?"

Jaipur, Rajasthan, India. Thanks for stopping by!

"Flashpoint Ukraine: Don't Poke the Bear"

"Flashpoint Ukraine: Don't Poke the Bear"
by Mike Whitney And Israel Shamir

"Question 1: For the last 4 years, Democrat leaders have blamed Russia for allegedly meddling in the 2016 elections. Now the Democrats - who control all three branches of government - have the power to reset US foreign policy and take a more hostile approach to Moscow. But will they?

At present, there are roughly 40,000 US-NATO troops massed along the Russian border conducting military exercises while scores of Russian tanks, artillery and an estimated 85,000 Russian troops are now located about 25 miles from Ukraine’s eastern border. Both armies are on hair-trigger alert and prepared for any sudden provocation. If the Ukrainian Army invades the Russian-speaking region of Ukraine (Donbas), Moscow will likely respond. So, will there be a conflagration in the Ukraine this spring and, if so, how will Putin respond? Will he limit the scope of his campaign to the Donbas or push onward to Kiev?

Israel Shamir: If the Russian army crosses the Ukrainian border, it won’t stop in the Donbas. The war will be brief and the Ukraine will be split into pieces. But will it happen? Russia’s totem animal, the Bear, is a strong and peaceful animal that is not easily aroused, but once provoked, it is unstoppable. Russian rulers have typically fit this image. They weren’t adventurous, but level-headed and prudent. Putin, who is the quintessential Russian ruler, is risk-averse. He won’t start a war he never wanted to begin with, but he will act decisively if he needs to do so. Consider 2014, after the Ukrainian coup: the lawful Ukrainian president Mr Yanukovich ran to Russia and asked Putin to help him regain power. At that time, the Ukrainian army was weak and Russia could have easily retaken the country without facing any significant resistance. But, surprisingly, Putin did not give the order to take Kiev.

Putin is unpredictable. He ordered the seizure of Crimea despite the counsel of his advisors. It was an unexpected move, and it worked like a charm. He also pummeled Georgia in 2008 after Saakashvili invaded South Ossetia. This was another surprise move that succeeded better than anyone could have imagined. If the Ukrainians try to retake Donbas, the Russian army will beat them badly and continue on to Kiev. The presence of NATO’s troops will not deter Putin.

As for the Democrats, they can push Kiev to attack, but they will end up losing Ukraine in the process. If the point is to poison relations between Russia and Europe, they can try to do so, but if they think the Russo-Ukrainian war is going to drag on, they’re mistaken. And if they think Putin won’t defend the Donbas, they’ve made a serious miscalculation.

Biden’s recent phone call to Putin suggests that the administration has decided not to launch a war after all. The unconfirmed report of two US ships turning away from the Black Sea fits this assessment. However, we cannot be sure about this since the Kremlin refused to agree to Biden’s offer for a meeting. The Kremlin’s response was a frosty “We shall study the proposal”. Russians feel that the summit proposal might be a trick aimed at buying time to strengthen their position. Bottom line: We cannot know certain how things will play out in the future.

Question 2: I have a hard time understanding what the Biden administration hopes to gain by provoking a war in the Ukraine. Seizing the Donbas will force the government to impose a costly, long-term military occupation that will be ferociously resisted by Russian-speaking people who live in the area. How does that benefit Washington?

I don’t think it does. I think the real objective is to provoke Putin into overreacting, thus, proving that Russia poses a threat to all of Europe. The only way Washington can persuade its EU allies that they should not engage in critical business transactions (like Nordstream) with Moscow, is if they can prove that Russia is an “external threat” to their collective security. Do you agree with this or do you think Washington has something to gain by launching a war in Ukraine?

Israel Shamir: What do you mean by ‘overreacting’? Putin is not threatening to nuke Washington or take over Brussels or storm Warsaw? But to solve the problem of Ukraine on such occasion would be entirely reasonable.

When the regime in Kiev began to prepare for war a few months ago, they thought it would be a repeat of 2015, where they attack Donbas, the Donbas suffers losses, and then the Russian army steps in to prevent their defeat. They saw it as a limited war with a good chance of regaining Donbas. But Moscow has indicated that they will respond to any unprovoked aggression using their full strength, thereby crushing the Ukrainian state. In other words, the Russian army won’t stop at the Donbas but will proceed to the western borders of Ukraine until the entire country is liberated. Is that ‘overreacting’?

Definitely not. The people of Ukraine would be saved from the nationalist, anti-Russian regime, and the people of Russia would be saved from a NATO base on their western flank. Hopefully the EU will understand this. As for the US, the Russians have already made up their minds; the United States is an enemy. There has been a tectonic shift in Russia, and that shift is the result of Russia’s weariness with the United States’ proxy assaults.

The US would like to see the Donbas reintegrated into the Ukrainian state because then they’d be praised as a ‘mighty defender of an East European country against Russia’. But then Russia would have permanent low-level war on its border. Either way, Russia’s relations with Europe would be poisoned and the EU would probably end up buying expensive liquefied gas from the US rather than instead the much cheaper Russian gas. Russia’s decision to launch a full-blown attack on the Ukraine has made the whole plan irrelevant. Putin will not allow it to happen.

The Ukrainians are flexible folks. At present, they submit to anti-Russian nationalist narrative, but if the Russian army were to come, the Ukrainians would quickly remember that they were co-founders of the USSR, brothers to Russians, and they would shake off the nightmarish nationalist rule. The Ukrainians are wonderful people, but they easily adapt to new rulers, be they the German Wehrmacht, the Polish landlords, the Petlyura Nationalists, or the Communists. They would adapt to a partnership with Russia, too. Similarly, the Russians would embrace the Ukrainians as they did in 1920 and in 1945.

Question 3: The Russian army would have little problem capturing the Capitol, but holding on to Kiev might be a different matter altogether. Let’s say, Russian troops are deployed to Kiev to maintain the peace while a provisional government is established in the run-up to free elections. What would the US response be? What would NATO’s response be? How would this maneuver be portrayed in the western media? Would it be portrayed as a “liberation” or an “occupation by a ruthless imperial power”? Would this help or hurt Moscow’s relations with its partners around the world and particularly Germany where Nordstream is still under construction?

And wouldn’t this scenario prompt the US Intel agencies to arm, train and fund disparate groups of far-right extremists who would carry out a protracted insurgency against Russian troops in Kiev? How is that in Russia’s interest? Why would Putin put himself in the same situation the US put itself in Afghanistan, where a poorly-armed, ragtag militia has made governance impossible forcing the US to pack-up and leave 20 years later. Is that what Putin wants?

Israel Shamir: The comparison with Afghanistan is absurd. Ukraine is a part of Russia that became independent the moment the Soviet Union collapsed. Ukrainians are Russians of a sort. They have the same religion, the same language, the same culture, and the same history. Yes, the CIA did try to arm the Ukrainian insurgency after WWII, but with little success. You could compare a takeover of Kiev with a takeover of Atlanta by Sherman.

Ukrainian independence and separation probably cannot be reversed right away, but instead of one big unwieldy state, Ukraine can be transformed into a few coherent independent units. Western Ukraine is likely to join Poland as an independent or semi-independent state. East and South Ukraine could become semi-independent under Russian umbrella, or join Russian Federation. And historical Ukraine around Poltava could try and go its own way. I think the Ukrainians would be happy to reunite with their mother state, or at least to become friendly with Moscow. There will be no need to deploy Russian troops in Kiev or elsewhere. There are enough Ukrainians to govern and control the situation and to deal with remaining extreme nationalists.

What would the US and NATO response be? How would this maneuver be portrayed in the western media? Probably the same as their response to Crimea takeover. They will be angry, unhappy, furious. The problem is they already are. They’ve already imposed sanctions on Russia and reinstalled the Iron Curtain. They’ve already done everything short of a military confrontation. Russia is so annoyed by it all, that she is beyond caring about another bout of sanctions.

I am certain that Russia won’t start a war in the Ukraine, but if Kiev does, the Russian army will topple the regime just like the US toppled regimes in Afghanistan, Iraq and many other states. And, any attempt to establish US or NATO military bases in Ukraine will undoubtedly be seen as casus belli.

Russians think that a big war is unavoidable, so it’s probably better to have Ukraine under Moscow’s control before that war breaks out. The US is an enemy; that is the feeling in Russia. If the US wants to change that perception, it should act fast.

Question 4: Is Washington genuinely interested in Ukraine or is it just a staging-ground for its war on Russia?

Israel Shamir: Washington would like to initiate a low-intensity war between Ukraine and Russia, a long-lasting war that would drain Russian resources and kill Russian troops; a war that would divert Russia’s attention from other hotspots, like in Syria or Libya. This is the way in which the US is laying the groundwork for an even bigger confrontation with Russia in the future.

Putin has accepted the breakup of the USSR. He’s not trying to reconstruct the Soviet empire nor is he particularly interested in Ukraine. Twice he allowed Russia’s enemies to carry Ukraine away: in 2004 and in 2014. He has showed that he’d prefer to have as little to do with Ukraine as possible. Being a lawyer by education, Putin has a legal mind. He thought that Minsk Treaties were good enough a solution for all concerned. (The Minsk Treaty would “federalize” the Ukraine) He didn’t expect that Kiev would just ignore the treaties, but that’s what happened. Now he’s stuck between a rock and a hard place. He’s not keen on annexing any part of Ukraine, but he might be forced to do so sooner or later.

In the last few weeks, US-Russian relations have deteriorated significantly. Russia is deeply offended by recent developments and will not go back to “business as usual”. We have entered uncharted waters and there is no way to predict what will happen next.

Question 5: No one in the United States benefits from a conflict with Russia, in fact, a military confrontation with Moscow poses a serious and, perhaps, existential threat to Russians and Americans alike. Still, the rush to war continues apace, mainly because the US military –with all of its millions of troops and high-tech weaponry – is in the hands of a foreign policy establishment that is determined to control the vast resources and growth-potential of Central Asia despite the casualties and destruction that strategy will undoubtedly cause.

The biggest obstacle to this plan is Russia, which is why – since the collapse of the Soviet Union – the US and NATO have made every effort to encircle Russia, deploy missile sites to its borders, conduct hostile military exercises on its perimeter, and arm and train Islamic extremists to fight in its provinces. (Chechnya) Now that Joe Biden has been elected president, I would expect the hostilities towards Russia will rapidly intensify in both Ukraine and Syria. Biden has already shown that he will do whatever he is told to do by the foreign policy “Borg”, which means that war with Russia might be unavoidable. Do you agree or disagree with this analysis?

Israel Shamir: There are forces that want to control and direct mankind. These forces use the US as their enforcer. The Trump-related part of the US elites want the US to be the main beneficiary of the process. The Biden-related part of the US elites is more globally-oriented. Russia is ready to adjust to some of their demands (vaccination, climate) in order to avoid a final showdown. On the other hand, we don’t completely know what these global elites really want. And why the sense of urgency? Why the lack of concern for the American people or the Russians or the Europeans? Perhaps Davos is the new center of power and they are simply upset by Putin’s disobedience?

What we can say for certain is that imperialists always seek world hegemony. Independent Russia presents a challenge to that plan. Perhaps, western elites think they can bring Russia into full compliance by brinkmanship and threatening war? Perhaps, what we’re seeing in the Ukraine is an attempt to browbeat Russia into obedience? The danger is that they will push things too far and start a war they can neither manage or contain. Putin remembers the fate of Saddam and Gadhafi. He’s not going to throw in the towel and back down. He’s not going to give up or give in.

To my American readers I’d say that the US is very strong and the people of the US can have a wonderful life even without world hegemony, in fact, hegemony is not in their interests at all. What they should seek is a strong nationalist policy that cares for the American people and avoids wasteful foreign wars."

"A Refining Process..."

“Life is a refining process. Our response to it determines whether we’ll be ground down or polished up. On a piano, one person sits down and plays sonatas, while another merely bangs away at “Chopsticks.” The piano is not responsible. It’s how you touch the keys that makes the difference. It’s how you play what life gives you that determines your joy and shine.”
- Barbara Johnson

"Confessions of a Doomsayer"

"Confessions of a Doomsayer"
by Bill Bonner

YOUGHAL, IRELAND – "A dear reader writes to say we are wrong. “What these doomsday prophets like Bonner fail to explain is the efficiency of today’s supply chain that can quickly produce goods and services to meet demand. The market continues to roar in the face of his daily diatribes. If we were keeping score, we would say Fed: 40; Bonner: 0. I do enjoy reading the columns as I find them highly entertaining.” – Mike C.

And yes, of course, we are wrong about a great number of things. This is partly because the odds are so heavily against us. If we say “The bond market topped out on August 4, 2020” (which we think it did), we are guessing that it won’t go higher and finally top out on any of the 365 days in this year. And now, in our constant rehearsal of the “sky is falling” forecast, we will be wrong again… until it finally hits us in the head. When might that be? Well, we don’t know. It could begin any day now… or not. In the meantime, the Federal Reserve will be right… and we will look like an idiot.

Lesson Learned: Today, we enter the confessional. And let’s begin by warning new readers that they should never pay attention to our stock market suggestions. Publicly traded stocks don’t interest us; we don’t do any serious research on them. And on the rare occasions when we comment on any particular company, we are as likely to be wrong as right. (Full disclosure: We do own stocks! They’re managed for us by our trusted old friend, Chris Mayer.)

Just this week, we were reminded that, some months ago, in this space, we laughed at investors who were buying Hertz (HTZGQ). The company had gone bankrupt. But somehow, it had found favor with the young traders who spend their time chatting about such things. They were so eager to buy the stock that the company – then in bankruptcy – decided to issue new shares. It would have been a first in the history of finance… had not the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) put a stop to it.

“When you’re young… in love… at war… or in a bubble…” we concluded, “there’s no time to think straight, or even think at all.” Well, wouldn’t you know… we’re in a bubble. The used car market turned up… and Hertz – like a sleeping beauty, kissed by its Reddit suitors – came back to life. The company is back in business. The whippersnappers turned out to be right. We turned out to be wrong. We take no lesson from the Hertz story but that there are a lot of things you can be wrong about. We’re working our way through them, slowly.

A Costly Lesson: Take Amazon (AMZN), for example… please. One of the most spectacular things we were wrong about was Jeff Bezos’ creation. When it came out – this was more than 20 years ago – we called it “The River of No Returns.” The title was clever. But the prediction was poor. Amazon’s business strategy was a classic formula for failure. The company cut its margins so thin, it lost money on every sale. Then, it aimed to make up for the losses by increasing volume. That was never going to work, we opined.

And it never really did. Amazon’s retailing business has never made enough money to justify the huge “investment” (losses) necessary to reach its present scale. So its core business is still a river of no returns – not worth a fraction of its current market price. But how were we supposed to know that a virus would come along… so that people would stay home and be almost forced to order from amazon.com? Boom! Amazon’s net sales rose by more than $100 billion last year. And how were we to know that its huge data processing needs would get it into a whole new line of business that would be so profitable? Yes, the cloud computing business. That’s where the money is. Amazon Web Services (AWS) accounts for a bit more than 10% of the company’s sales… but more than 60% of its profits.

AMZN gave our dear readers their first big opportunity to get rich. Those who were smart enough to ignore our advice could have bought the stock for under $50. Today, split adjusted, it is over $3,000, giving the company a market value of about $1.7 trillion. Jeff Bezos got so rich, he could go through the most expensive divorce in history and still have a net worth estimated at almost $200 billion.

Mechanistic Approach: So let’s turn back to the Federal Reserve, which is clearly ahead of us – as our dear reader tells us – on points. There – on the big picture, the macro view – we do pay attention. And maybe there, we are less of an idiot than we appear. Ours is a “moralistic” view. That is, we assume that if we leave the dishes unwashed, sooner or later, they’ll attract cockroaches. But, of course, that could happen any time.

Almost all other observers today use a more mechanistic approach. They believe you can understand an economy – and are able to predict its next moves – by looking at dials and instruments, as if you were flying an airplane. Losing altitude? Give the machine more throttle! The trouble with the mechanistic approach is that an economy is not a machine. It is more like a living thing… infinitely complex, with purposes and prejudices we can’t possibly know. As for adjusting the throttle, forget about it. You can’t plot a course… or determine the correct speed or altitude… because you never know where you’re going. You won’t know until you get there. And you don’t know how to fly a plane, anyway.

Moralistic Approach: But the “moralist” is always wrong… before he is right. He notices when things seem out-of-whack. But he has no way of knowing when or how they will go back into whack. That is what happened in 2000 and again in 2008. Each time, the stock market was in a boom and the mechanics were proclaiming a New Era. The moralists denied it. “How could investors make money from unprofitable companies?” they wondered in 1999. Eight years later, they wanted to know how people could get rich by “taking out equity” from their own homes.

Both times, the doomsayers (including us) were way too early, anticipating crashes years before they ever happened. Then, when the crises came, the Fed gave the plane full throttle – “printing” record amounts of new money. The mechanics saw a recovery. The moralists saw more trouble ahead. And now, in the greatest bout of money-printing in U.S. history, we doomsayers see another calamity coming – the third major crisis of the 21st century. Will we be right or wrong?

Bad Ending: The Fed has set off a boom. Everything is flying through the air. The mechanic sees sales increasing… unemployment going down… stocks near record highs. Even things with no apparent value – NFTs, money-losing businesses, Dogecoin – can be worth billions. Dogecoin, created as a joke in 2013, is now said to be worth $42 billion… or just slightly less than Hewlett-Packard, for example. We try not to pretend to know things we don’t know. And we have no idea why Dogecoin is worth more than HP. But we believe this boom is going to end badly… like the other two. Only worse. Boom… boom… Ka-boom!"

"How It Really Is"

Well that's not entirely true, there's the $trillion mineral deposits; the Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-India (TAPI) Gas Pipeline; the trillions spent by the Defense Dept; the hundreds of billions spent on "private contractors"; tremendous oil and natural gas deposits; the hundreds of billions spent on "reconstruction projects" like gas stations in the middle of deserts; and control (and distribution) of 90% of the world's $100 billion yearly opium supply by those great patriots the CIA; and on and on ad absurdio...
Oh, and lest we forget, "freedom and democracy", baby!
Related:

"The Lockdown Paradigm Is Collapsing"

"The Lockdown Paradigm Is Collapsing"
by Jeffrey A. Tucker

"The one-time hero of the lockdown, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo, has seen his support tank from 71% to 38%, along with ever more demands that he resign. Meanwhile, polls have started to favor Florida governor and lockdown opponent Ron DeSantis for influence over the GOP in the future. This remarkable flip in fortunes is due to the dawning realization that the lockdowns were a disastrous policy. DeSantis and fellow anti-lockdown governor Kristi Noem are the first to state the truth bluntly. Their honesty has won them both credibility.

Meanwhile, in Congressional hearings, Representative James Jordan (R-OH) demanded that Dr. Fauci account for why closed Michigan has worse disease prevalence than neighboring Wisconsin which has long been entirely open. Fauci pretended he couldn’t hear the question, couldn’t see the chart, and then didn’t understand. Finally he just sat there silent after having uttered a few banalities about enforcement differentials.

The lockdowners are now dealing with the huge problem of Texas. It has been fully open with no restrictions for 6 weeks. Cases and deaths fell dramatically in the same period. Fauci has no answer. Or compare closed California with open Florida: similar death rates. We have a full range of experiences in the US that allow comparisons between open and closed and disease outcomes. There is no relationship.
Click image for larger size.
Or you could look to Taiwan, which had no stringencies governing its 23.5 million people. Deaths from Covid-19 thus far: 11. Sweden, which stayed open, performed better than most of Europe.The problem is that the presence or absence of lockdowns in the face of the virus seem completely uncorrelated with any disease trajectory. AIER has assembled 33 case studies from all over the world showing this to be true.

Why should any of this matter? Because the “scientists” who recommended lockdowns had posited very precisely and pointedly that they had found the way to control the virus and minimized negative outcomes. We know for sure that the lockdowns imposed astonishing collateral damage. What we do not see is any relationship between lockdowns and disease outcomes.

This is devastating because the scientists who pushed lockdowns had made specific and falsifiable predictions. This was probably their biggest mistake. In doing so, they set up a test of their theory. Their theory failed. This is the sort of moment that causes a collapse of a scientific paradigm, as explained by Thomas Kuhn in "The Structure of Scientific Revolutions" (1962).

A good example of a similar situation might be the Soviet economy under Nikita Khrushchev. He came to power with a promise that he would make the Russia economy under communism perform better than the United States. That was the essence of his famous promise “We will bury you.” He meant that Russia would outproduce America.

It did not happen. He failed and the theory he pushed failed alongside. And thus began the slow coming apart of communist theory and practice. Khrushchev had already repudiated the Stalinist terror state but never had any intention of presiding over the slow demise of the entire Soviet experiment in central planning. By setting up a test that could falsify his promise, he doomed an entire system to intellectual repudiation and eventual collapse.

The theory and practice of lockdownism could be going the same way. In Kuhn’s reconstruction of the history of science, he argued that progress in science occurs not in a linear fashion but rather episodically as new orthodoxies emerge, get codified, and then collapse under the weight of too many anomalies. The pattern goes like this. There is normal science driven by puzzle solving and experimentation. When a theory seems to capture most known information, a new orthodoxy emerges – a paradigm. Over time, too much new information seems to contradict what the theory would predict or explain. Thus emerges the crisis and collapse of the paradigm. We enter into a pre-paradigmatic era as the cycle starts all over again.

As best anyone can tell, the idea of locking down when faced with a new virus emerged in the US and the UK around 2005-2006. It started with a small group of fanatics who dissented from traditional public health. They posited that they could manage a virus by dictating people’s behavior: how closely they stood next to each other, where they travelled, what events they attended, where they sat and for how long. They pushed the idea of closures and restrictions, which they branded “nonpharmaceutical interventions” through “targeted layered containment.” What they proposed was medieval in practice but with a veneer of computer science and epidemiology.

When the idea was first floated, it was greeted with ferocious opposition. Over time, the lockdown paradigm made progress, with funding from the Gates Foundation and more recruits from within academia and public health bureaucracies. There were journals and conferences. Guidelines at the national level started to warm to the idea of school and business closures and a more broad invocation of the quarantine power. It took 10 years but eventually the heresy became a quasi-orthodoxy. They occupied enough positions of power that they were able to try out their theory on a new pathogen that emerged 15 years after the idea of lockdown had been first floated, while traditional epidemiology came to be marginalized, gradually at first and then all at once.

Kuhn explains how a new orthodoxy gradually replaces the old one: "When, in the development of a natural science, an individual or group first produces a synthesis able to attract most of the next generation’s practitioners, the older schools gradually disappear. In part their disappearance is caused by their members’ conversion to the new paradigm. But there are always some men who cling to one or another of the older views, and they are simply read out of the profession, which thereafter ignores their work. The new paradigm implies a new and more rigid definition of the field. Those unwilling or unable accommodate their work to it must proceed in isolation or attach themselves to some other group."

That’s a good description of how lockdown ideology triumphed. There are plenty of conspiracy theories out there concerning why the lockdowns happened. Many of them contain grains of truth. But we don’t need to take recourse to them to understand why it happened. It happened because the people who believed in them became dominant in the world of ideas, or at least prominent enough to override and banish traditional principles of public health. The lockdowns were driven primarily by lockdown ideology. The adherents to this strange new ideology grew to the point where they were able to push their agenda ahead of time-tested principles.

It is a blessing of this ideology that it came with a built-in promise. They would achieve better disease outcomes than traditional public health practices, so they said. This promise will eventually be their undoing, for one simple reason: they have not worked. Kuhn writes that in the history of science, this is prelude to crisis due to “the persistent failure of the puzzles of normal science to come out as they should. Failure of existing rules is the prelude to a search for new ones.” Further: “The significance of crises is the indication they provide that an occasion for retooling has arrived.”

The silence of Fauci in Congressional hearings is telling. His willingness only to be interviewed by fawning mainstream media TV anchors is as well. Many of the other lockdowners that were public and preening one year ago have fallen silent, sending ever fewer tweets and content that is ever more surreptitious rather than certain. The crisis for the fake science of lockdownism may not be upon us now but it is coming.

Kuhn speaks of the post-crisis period of science as a time for a new paradigm to emerge, first nascently and then becoming canonical over time. What will replace lockdown ideology? We can hope it will be the realization that the old principles of public health served us well, as did the legal and moral principles of human rights and restrictions on the powers of government."
Related:

"Housing Bubble Will Collapse Everything; Retail Sales Go Bananas; Helicopter Money; Stimulus Effect"

Jeremiah Babe,
"Housing Bubble Will Collapse Everything; 
Retail Sales Go Bananas; Helicopter Money; Stimulus Effect"

Gerald Celente, "Trends Journal: The Prince is Dead, Long Live the Prince"

Gerald Celente, 
"Trends Journal: The Prince is Dead, Long Live the Prince"