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https://scheerpost.com/2022/12/13/patrick-lawrence-germany-the-lies-of-empire/

Germany & The Lies of Empire

Germany is Hamlet,” Gordon Craig once wrote. The great historian of that nation (1913–2005) was noted for pithy summations of this kind, insights that cast light into the innermost recesses of the German psyche, the what-makes-them-tick of its people.

Does Germany face westward to the Atlantic or eastward to the Eurasian landmass? From which tradition does it draw? Where lie its loyalties? These are questions geography; a rich, old culture; and a long, complicated history bequeathed to Germans. I do not think Craig meant to suggest this condition was burdensome. No, there was nothing to resolve. In its ambiguous state — in the West but not wholly of it, in the East but not wholly Eastern — Germany was most truly itself.

Germans lived this way, making no apologies, for a long time. They could allow the U.S. to station 200,000 troops on their soil — the figure at the Cold War’s end — while pursuing Willi Brandt’s Ostpolitik, the Federal Republic’s opening to the German Democratic Republic and by extension the whole of the East Bloc. It was Germany that invested with Gazprom, the Russian energy conglomerate, in the Nord Stream I and II pipelines even amid rising East–West tensions.

On the long drive into Moscow from Domodedovo International Airport, the broad thoroughfares are lined with German car dealers, German construction cranes, the factories of German companies. German businesses, along with many German citizens, were vociferous critics of the sanctions regime the U.S. imposed on Russia — and effectively on Europe, indeed — after the U.S.-choreographed coup in Kiev eight years ago set in motion the current crisis in Ukraine.

I read those two extraordinary interviews Angela Merkel granted Der Spiegel and Die Zeit last week against this history, this record, this ordained state of ambiguity. If there is one truth that may stand above all others in the former chancellor’s astonishing revelations of Berlin’s duplicity in its dealings with Moscow, it is that the Federal Republic has abandoned its inheritance — its natural state, indeed —and so the considerable responsibilities the past and geography awarded it.

East-West Alienation

It would be hard to overstate the significance of this turn for all of us. The global divide just got wider. Cold War II just got colder. The alienation of East and West is now down as a more or less permanent state of affairs. And the world just lost the one country capable of mitigating these dreadful circumstances by dint of its special, maybe singular position in the community of nations.

It is odd to consider the view of Prince Heinrich XIII, the German aristocrat just arrested for leading a plot to overthrow the Berlin government (a set of absurd allegations, I must mention right away, I do not for a minute take seriously absent credible evidence, and I do not expect we will ever see any). It seems the prince has long argued that Germany did not become a new nation after World War II but a wholly owned subsidiary of the U.S.

“We are not Germans. We are not in a real German state,” his alleged followers are quoted as saying in a (highly misleading) New York Times piece published Sunday. “We are just a branch of a GmBH,” this last meaning a limited liability company.

How strange to read this the same week that Merkel removed all doubt this is precisely the German condition — arguably since the early postwar years, certainly since Washington committed itself and its allies to its all-out, all-in campaign to bring NATO to Russia’s very doorstep and ultimately to subvert the Russian Federation.

And while I do not know much about the prince’s politics, how interesting to hear a German citizen object, in effect, that the Federal Republic has betrayed itself and its historical inheritance the very week its former chancellor told Germany’s leading newsmagazine and one of its leading dailies that the fruitful ambiguity of the nation’s past is gone now in favor of the manipulative, Russophobic dishonesty that lies at the heart of the proxy war the U.S. now wages against Russia in Ukraine.

As has been widely reported and excellently analyzed — except in the mainstream American press, where Merkel’s remarks last week go unmentioned — the former German leader described her cynical, treacherous betrayal of Moscow during negotiations of the two Minsk Protocols, the first signed in September 2014 and the second the following February.

Berlin, Paris, the post-coup Kiev regime and Moscow were signatories to those accords. How well I recall the earnestness with which Russian President Vladimir Putin entered into the talks. How hopeful many of us were that, with Kiev having swiftly breached Minsk I, the second accord would produce what the Russian president sought — a lasting settlement that would leave Ukraine united and stabilize the security order on Russia’s southwestern border and Europe’s eastern flank.

Earlier this year Petro Poroshenko, Ukraine’s first post-coup president, shocked everybody when he stated publicly that Kiev never had any intention of honoring the commitments it made when it signed the Minsk Protocols: The talks in the Belarusian capital and all the promises were meant simply to buy time while Ukraine built fortifications in the eastern regions and trained and armed a military strong enough to wage a full-dress war of aggression against the Russian-tilted Donetsk and Lugansk regions.

There was never any interest in the federal structure envisioned in Minsk II. There was never any intention of granting the breakaway regions the measure of autonomy Ukraine’s history and its mixed languages, cultures and traditions called for. Committing to all that was a ruse intended to deceive Moscow and the Donbass republics while Ukraine rearmed and shelled the latter in anticipation of the war that broke out in February.

Shocking, O.K. But Poroshenko was a jumped-up candy magnate running the wildly irresponsible, rabidly Russophobic regime that had seized power in Kiev. So: Shocking but also in keeping with the conduct of a corrupt-up-to-the-eyebrows pack of nobodies with no notion or regard for statecraft or responsible governance.

It is another matter, to state the very obvious, for Merkel to say the very same things. The former chancellor was supposed to be leading the West’s diplomatic démarche along with François Hollande, France’s president at the time and plainly a junior partner to Europe’s most powerful political figure. By her own account, she was using diplomacy just as Kiev was, to scuttle the accord she pretended to sponsor.

The U.S., to remind readers, was not part of the Minsk talks. On the one hand, it stood squarely against any settlement with either Russia or the breakaway regions. On the other, there was no point inviting the U.S. to Minsk because its position was obvious and its presence would be counterproductive. Now that Merkel has spoken of these matters, the German position seems to have been that the West needed the accord nobody in the West wanted if time was to be bought for Ukraine’s rearming.

Merkel’s interviews with Der Spiegel and to Die Zeit, which are here and here, were in the way of sprawling retrospectives during which friendly correspondents pitched a series of softballs to a chancellor given to looking back. Minsk and the Ukraine conflict were two topics among many. The documents give the impression that Merkel spoke casually and unguardedly of them. The damning passages are brief but very clear.

Der Spiegel:

“She believes that… later during the Minsk talks, she was able to buy the time Ukraine needed to better fend off the Russian attack. She says it is now a strong, well-fortified country. Back then, she is certain, it would have been overrun by Putin’s troops.”

In Die Zeit, the second of the two interviews, Merkel described the Minsk talks as “an attempt to give Ukraine time… to become stronger,” later expressing satisfaction that this strategy — a straight-out abuse of the diplomatic process — has succeeded.

There are various interpretations of Merkel’s remarks. They are generally taken at face value, as an offhandedly delivered admission of her duplicity — and by extension the West’s — in her dealings with Russia on the Ukraine question. Moon of Alabama, a German publication, reads the interviews as Merkel’s attempt to protect her political reputation as Germany’s leadership circles succumb to the kind of Russophobia common in the U.S. but not, heretofore, in the Federal Republic.

I find both of these readings plausible. Either way, the important topic now before us is the damage Merkel did in 2014 and 2015 and the consequences of her comments last week.

Much has been written and said about the fatal blow that Merkel dealt to trust in diplomatic affairs, and I think “fatal” is our word. Ray McGovern was eloquent on this topic, bringing a lifetime’s professional experience to the question, during a long exchange with Glenn Diesen and Alexander Mercouris last week.  

A measure of trust was essential between Washington and Moscow even during the Cold War’s most perilous passages. The Cuban Missile Crisis was resolved as it was because U.S. President John F. Kennedy and the Soviet premier, Nikita Khrushchev, were able sufficiently to trust one another. This trust no longer exists, as Putin and other Russian officials have made clear in responding to publication of the two German interviews.

Moscow and Beijing have said repeatedly since Joe Biden assumed office not quite two years ago that there is no trusting the Americans. The follow-on thought is that there is no point negotiating with them in a diplomatic context. For various Russian officials, from Putin on over and down, Merkel’s revelations seem grimly to have confirmed these conclusions. 

It is a major turn that Moscow now includes the Europeans, and especially the Germans, in this assessment. Germany now tells the lies of which the American empire is made — a matter of anxiety and sadness all at once. If scorched-earth diplomacy is a fitting name for what the West has been up to in its dealings with Russia since 2014, as I think it is, the German bridge between West and East has been burnt.

The gravity of these conclusions, the implications as we face forward, are immense for the West and non–West alike. A world replete with hostilities is one we all know. A world devoid of trust and talking will prove another matter. As we now see in the Ukraine context, there is no possibility for diplomacy, negotiation or dialogue of any kind without trust. We read daily of the result in those few publications reporting this war honestly.

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http://endoftheamericandream.com/5-global-flashpoints-which-could-absolutely-explode-during-the-early-stages-of-2023/

5 Global Flashpoints Which Could Absolutely Explode During The Early Stages Of 2023

Will 2023 be a year when extremely destructive conflicts erupt all over the world?  We are certainly already living in a time of “wars and rumors of wars”, and tensions are approaching the boiling point in a number of key global flashpoints right now.  If several more major conflicts were to suddenly begin next year, we could potentially witness an extended period of geopolitical instability that would be unlike anything that we have ever witnessed.  It is easy to start wars, but it is much harder to end them.  If you doubt this, just look at what is going on in Ukraine.  There is no end in sight for that conflict, and there are several other wars that could literally erupt at any time.  The following are 5 global flashpoints which could absolutely explode during the early stages of 2023…

#1 Serbia

Are you ready for another war in the Balkans?  Ethnic tensions have risen to the highest level in more than two decades, and the president of Serbia just convened an emergency gathering of his national security council…

Serbian President Aleksandar Vučić has met his national security council as tensions rise in Kosovo between the authorities there and ethnic Serbs.

On Saturday a stun grenade was thrown at EU police in north Kosovo, where Serbs form a majority, and local police exchanged fire with unknown groups.

Ethnic Serbs set up road blocks after Kosovan police were deployed in a dispute over car number plates.

Some in the region now believe that war is “inevitable”, and Kosovo is already asking NATO to step in and intervene…

At a news conference in Kosovo’s capital Pristina on Sunday, Prime Minister Albin Kurti asked the Kosovo Force (KFOR), a NATO-led international peacekeeping force, to guarantee “freedom of movement,” as he accused “criminal gangs” of blocking roads.

A fragile peace has been preserved in Kosovo since it declared independence from Serbia in 2008 following the 1998-99 war in which NATO intervened to protect Kosovo’s Albanian majority. Serbia does not recognize Kosovo’s independence.

#2 The Disputed Border Between China And India

On Tuesday, we learned that there has been yet another violent clash along the hotly disputed border between China and India…

Soldiers from India and China clashed last week along their disputed border, India’s defense minister said Tuesday, in the latest violence along the contested frontier since June 2020, when troops from both countries were killed in a deadly brawl.

Rajnath Singh, who addressed lawmakers in parliament, said Friday’s encounter along the Tawang sector of eastern Arunachal Pradesh state started when Chinese troops “encroached into Indian territory” and “unilaterally tried to change the status quo” along the disputed border near Yangtze.

The Chinese just can’t seem to stop provoking India, and a full-blown conflict between the two nations could escalate out of control very rapidly.

Let us hope that does not happen, because both China and India possess nuclear weapons.

#3 Taiwan

For a long time, we have been warned that China will eventually invade Taiwan.

Unfortunately, tensions in the region just continue to escalate, and on Tuesday the Chinese sent more bombers into Taiwan’s air defense zone than ever before…

China sent a record 18 nuclear-capable bombers into Taiwan’s air defence zone, Taipei said on Tuesday (Dec 13), just days after Beijing banned more Taiwanese imports in the latest sign of deteriorating ties.

Democratic Taiwan lives under the constant threat of invasion by China, which sees the self-ruled island as part of its territory to be seized one day.

#4 Iran

There will be a war between Iran and Israel.

Of course the IDF has already been regularly hitting Iranian-backed forces inside Syria on a regular basis, but we should be thankful that a full-blown war in which missiles are flying back and forth between the two nations hasn’t started yet.

Unfortunately, we are closer than ever to that point.  In fact, it is being reported that Israel is actually warning that it may bomb the airport in Beirut “if it determines that Iran is smuggling weapons on civilian planes”…

According to Israeli media reports, Israel has warned Lebanon that Israel Defense Forces could bomb Beirut’s airport if it determines that Iran is smuggling weapons on civilian planes destined for the terrorist group Hezbollah. The alleged weapons smuggling was reported by a London-based Arabic language newspaper Asharq Al-Awsat, which quoted Israeli sources who said Israel issued the warning.

When a full-blown war between Iran and Israel finally starts, there will be no holding back by either side.

The death and destruction such a war will cause will shock the entire world, and the global oil trade will be thrown into a state of complete and utter chaos.

#5 Ukraine

The United States and Russia both continue to escalate the horrifying conflict in Ukraine.

Now that Russia is bombing the living daylights out of Ukraine’s power grid, the U.S. is choosing to respond by giving Patriot missiles systems to the Ukrainians…

Pentagon officials are in the final stages of preparing a plan to send a Patriot air defense missile system to Ukraine to counter Russian aerial assaults, U.S. officials told CBS News.

The plan has not yet been approved by either the Pentagon or the White House, but that could come as early as this week.

This represents a major escalation, and it is also being reported that the Biden administration has given the Ukrainian government the green light to conduct drone strikes deep inside of Russia.

Needless to say, the Russians are not pleased at all about having to deal with drone strikes deep inside their own territory.  In fact, some prominent Russian voices are warning that the U.S. and Russia are getting dangerously close to the unthinkable.  The following comes from a British news source…

Mad Vlad Putin’s henchmen have fired a warning shot that the Ukraine conflict could turn into a “full-scale nuclear war.”

They made the stark comments after the US gave the go-ahead for Kyiv to kick off drone strikes into Russia.

We don’t see such talk on U.S. television.

The Biden administration continues to assure all of us that the risk of nuclear war is extremely low, but the Russians see things very differently…

One source in Putin’s circle said: “This is playing with fire, risking full-scale war which could easily go nuclear.”

Another added: “Who will now give Moscow the green light for strikes against Ukrainian decision-making centres?”

Most people never imagined that World War I would get as bad as it did.

And most people never imagined that World War II would result in tens of millions of deaths.

Now we have entered the early stages of a third world war, and this time the major participants are armed with nuclear weapons.

If we don’t pull back from the brink, the consequences could potentially be far beyond what most people could even imagine right now....

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https://www.oftwominds.com/blogdec22/fall-apart12-22.html

How Things Fall Apart

Outsiders are shocked when things fall apart. Insiders are amazed the duct-tape held this long. The erosion of critical skills and institutional knowledge is invisible to outsiders, while everyone inside who saw the unstoppable decay either left or burned out.

Those who remain are the ambitious who lack the experience to reverse the decline and the self-awareness to realize they're way over their head. They're ambitious enough to want the managerial title and power but don't have the necessary experience and competence to lead a brutally difficult and painful turnaround.

So they either "stay the course" doing more of what's failed or they flail around, trying one reorganization-fad-of-the-day after another, pushing the few remaining competent staffers to leave and thus steepening the decline.

Everyone who cared and was competent in the support staff either left or burned out trying to doing three jobs at once. The most prescient and experienced staffers noted the decline in managerial competence and the decay of the operational skills needed to keep the ship afloat, and so they found a better position elsewhere or retired early.

The less prescient but competent then tried to compensate for failing management and poorly trained staff by doing more of the work themselves. First they do the work of one-and-half less competent employees, then of two and after that, three for a brief time until their health is destroyed and they burn out. They either go on medical leave, retire or quit as the sole means of retaining whatever health they still possess.

In this manner, those who care are weeded out, leaving only those who don't care whose sole ambition is to do as little as possible to get by and cling on long enough to vest stock options or retirement benefits.

Since training fell apart long ago, when the old timers retire their replacements don't know enough to keep things operational. The replacements think they know enough from studying textbooks and sitting through training videos, but once something happens that isn't entirely routine, the holes in their experience become visible, and they are soon calling the retired workers begging for advice.

Those who care soon realize the hopelessness of keeping the ship afloat and they leave to avoid the misery of collapse. Those who are left are those who don't care: when the whole mess stops functioning, they'll walk with whatever they can salvage and move on.

Should a competent manager be appointed, it's too late. The middle managers and operationally critical staffers needed to reverse the decay have already left, leaving only those who over-estimate their experience and competence and those who pretend to care and pretend to work.

As the last best leadership hope burns out and quits in disgust, the last die-hards who held out hope for a turn-around finally accept that it's hopeless, and they finally quit, go free-lance, transfer to another location or retire early.

That's how things fall apart: insiders know but keep their mouths shut, outsiders are clueless, and the decay that started slowly gathers momentum as the last of the experienced and competent workforce burns out, quits or retires.

As noted above, outsiders are shocked when the enterprise / institution collapses, while the insiders who got out while the getting was good marvel it lasted as long as it did.