geopolitical issues

One War at a Time

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This image has an empty alt attribute; its file name is twee-3-1024x831.png byJohn Helmer, Moscow
@bears_with via John Helmer

Excerpts

[ . . . ]

The politico-military strategy driving the US negotiators and prompting Trump’s tweets, is not a peace deal with Russia, nor even US withdrawal from the war in Europe. It is a strategy of sequencing one war at a time – the war in Europe to continue in the Ukraine with rearmed Germany, Poland and France in the lead, supported by Trump; and the US war against China in Asia.

Sequencing these wars so as not to fight both enemies simultaneously – that’s the formula devised for Trump by Wess Mitchell, a former State Department appointee in the first Trump Administration, and his business partner Elbridge Colby, now the third-ranking Pentagon official as Under Secretary of Defense for Policy. “The essence of diplomacy in strategy”, Mitchell has just declaimed in Foreign Affairs, “is to rearrange power in space and time so that countries avoid tests of strength beyond their ability. There is no magic formula for how to get this right, and there is no guarantee that Trump’s approach will succeed. But the alternative—attempting to overpower everybody—is not viable, and a good deal riskier.”

Mitchell and Colby have convinced Trump and his negotiators that Russia has been badly damaged by the Ukrainian war which the Obama and Biden Administration have fought. Russian weakness, especially the perception that President Putin is both politically vulnerable and personally susceptible to US business inducements, is Trump’s strong card, and he should play it now.

“Washington can start by reducing tensions with the weaker of its main rivals in order to concentrate on the stronger. That is what Kissinger and his boss, U.S. President Richard Nixon, did when they warmed ties with Beijing so the United States could better focus on Moscow in the early 1970s. Today, the weaker rival is Russia. This has become all too obvious as Ukraine has chewed through Moscow’s military resources. The United States should thus aim to use Russia’s depleted state to its advantage, seeking a détente with Moscow that disadvantages Beijing. The goal should be not to remove the sources of conflict with Russia but to place constraints on its ability to harm U.S. interests.”

“This process should begin by bringing the war in Ukraine to an end in a way that is favorable to the United States. That means that when all is said and done, Kyiv must be strong enough to impede Russia’s westward advances. To achieve this end, the American officials negotiating a peace agreement should learn from the failure of the 2022 Istanbul talks between Kyiv and Moscow, which treated a political settlement as the goal and worked backward toward a cease-fire. Doing that enabled Russia to make its political demands—neutering the Ukrainian state through caps on the size of its army and changing its constitution—a precondition to peace. A better model would be 1950s Korea: to prioritize an armistice and push questions about a wider settlement into a separate process that could take years to bear fruit, if it ever does. Washington should still be willing to push the Ukrainians to cede territory when doing so is necessary. But it should make Ukrainian sovereignty a precondition for talks and use U.S. sanctions, military assistance, and seized Russian assets to bring Moscow around.”

This is the same war against Russia which has been US strategy since 1945, but with a trillion-dollar premium to be paid to the US by the Ukrainians and the European and other US allies for Trump’s grand extortion.

According to Mitchell’s (right) paper, “[the Trump Administration] signed a mineral deal with Ukraine that increases the connection between the two countries without making Washington responsible for Kyiv’s defense. And its sterner tone toward Europe has prompted the continent’s largest increase in defense spending in generations: nearly $1 trillion. Trump’s opening tariffs have roiled the Europeans but could also restart talks about a new transatlantic grand bargain in trade for the first time in a decade. All this may well lead to better outcomes for the United States, provided that Washington keeps its eyes on the prize—which is not disruption itself, but disruption in service of strategic renovation.”

“The United States should pursue a defense relationship with Ukraine akin to the one it maintains with Israel: not a formal alliance, but an agreement to sell, lend, or give Kyiv what it needs to defend itself. But it should not grant Ukraine NATO membership. Instead, the United States should push European states to take responsibility for Ukraine—and for the security of their continent more generally.”

In this strategy, these American officials believe they are capitalizing on Putin’s special relationship with the Russian oligarchs and duping Kirill Dmitriev, Putin’s negotiator with Witkoff, into pressing the Kremlin to accept a short-term military armistice which stops well short of the demilitarization and denazification goals of the Special Military Operation.

There is a faction in Moscow which believes the General Staff can also be persuaded to accept this because they need time to rebuild the Russian military forces. “Don’t give too much credit to [General Valery] Gerasimov and the General Staff. Putin for reasons unknown does have his foot on the brake; Russia was not ready for a full war. It might be in a few years but Putin might yet not be. Although his warnings to the Germans are now stark, Putin still wants a deal. If Trump does not withdraw any of the major sanctions, this is still favourable to Russia. [Putin will concede to Trump] some small deals and Witkoff will successfully lobby to favour his own US oligarchs and some of Putin’s. Musk and Boeing will benefit. The Europeans will obviously hold out on SWIFT and Open Skies. At the same time though, a few Russian national companies will benefit.”

Less susceptible than Dmitriev, sources in Moscow point out they are not as weak as the Americans believe. Nor, they say, are they as rattled as the faction-fighting betweeen US oligarchs reveals as their placemen in the Trump ministries compete for the money to be earned from the enrichment schemes of Witkoff and other Trump appointees — Stephen Feinberg at the Pentagon, Scott Bessent at Treasury, and Howard Lutnick at Commerce.

Read the whole article here.

La Resistance - One by One

What If They’re Just Stupid?

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by Indrajit Samarajiva via https://indi.ca/what-if-theyre-just-stupid/

I try to intelligently analyze White Empire as best I can, but something irks me. What if there is no plan? What if they’re just stupid? What if the simplest answer is that they’re just simpletons? What if they’re just cutting coke with Occam’s Razor, and licking the blade with wild abandon? At this time, a Great Man Theory (GMT) of history won’t do, we need a Great Idiot Theory (GIT).

Theory

Tom Carlyle delivering a different lecture

Great Man Theory comes from a series of lectures by Thomas Carlyle from 1840, called On Heroes. It’s an erudite, expansive work, covering everyone from the Prophet Muhammad to Shakespeare to Napoleon Bonaparte. Most people reduce Carlyle to out of context quotes (in the context of reduced attention spans), and I’m afraid I’m no exception. For our purposes, Carlyle said, “Universal History, the history of what man has accomplished in this world, is at bottom the History of the Great Men who have worked here.” I would amend just one word. Great Men might mark the top of history, but the bottom is just morons.

Carlyle addresses this. In his section on kings and kingslayers, Carlyle posited a difference between the ‘Ablest Man’ and the ‘Unablest Man’, each emerging cyclically throughout history. As the modern airport novel wisdom goes, “Hard times create strong men, strong men create good times, good times create weak men, and weak men create hard times.” Carlyle seems to talk about the American Devolution today, when he talks about the French Revolution of yore,

This is the history of all rebellions, French Revolutions, social explosions in ancient or modern times. You have put the too Unable Man at the head of affairs! The too ignoble, unvaliant, fatuous man. You have forgotten that there is any rule, or natural necessity whatever, of putting the Able Man there. Brick must lie on brick as it may and can. Unable Simulacrum of Ability, quack, in a word, must adjust himself with quack, in all manner of administration of human things;—which accordingly lie unadministered, fermenting into unmeasured masses of failure, of indigent misery: in the outward, and in the inward or spiritual, miserable millions stretch out the hand for their due supply, and it is not there.

The ‘ignoble, unvaliant, fatuous man,’ an administration of quacks, ‘fermenting into unmeasured masses of failure.’ Does this not describe the current situation in parallax? Trump is a revolutionary in the sense of turning things over, and French in the sense that nothing good comes of it. There’s an English saying, cometh the hour, cometh the man, but at this late hour, who’s answering the call but morons and charlatans? As Yeats said, “The best lack all conviction, while the worst are full of passionate intensity.” There’s also a Chinese saying, 时势造英雄, “the times create their heroes,” but what does this mean in a time of decline? The times also create their zeroes, who drive the ‘miserable millions’ down accordingly.

Critique Of GMT

Via

One critique of GMT comes from Karl Marx, who said, “how absurd is the conception of history held hitherto, which neglects the real relationships and confines itself to high-sounding dramas of princes and states.” Marx describes his alternative, historical materialism, saying,

History is nothing but the succession of the separate generations, each of which exploits the materials, the capital funds, the productive forces handed down to it by all preceding generations, and thus, on the one hand, continues the traditional activity in completely changed circumstances and, on the other, modifies the old circumstances with a completely changed activity. This can be speculatively distorted so that later history is made the goal of earlier history, e.g. the goal ascribed to the discovery of America is to further the eruption of the French Revolution. Thereby history receives its own special aims and becomes “a person rating with other persons” (to wit: “Self-Consciousness, Criticism, the Unique,” etc.), while what is designated with the words “destiny,” “goal,” “germ,” or “idea” of earlier history is nothing more than an abstraction formed from later history, from the active influence which earlier history exercises on later history.

History is thus a palimpsest (a manuscript rubbed out and rewritten), and the medium is the message (as McLuhan said). Personally I have noticed this as America being evil now (something I only recently noticed) reveals that America was alwaysevil (to my shame). I can feel the palimpsest being scrubbed out and overwritten in my brain, though I still can’t spell the word for the life of me. It’s yet such a delightful and descriptive word that I can’t refrain.

Describing historical materialism, Marx says, “It shows that circumstances make men just as much as men make circumstances.” But then, aren’t we back where we started? Cometh the man, cometh the hour, only reversing the order. Greater (or lesser) men will always rise (or fall) to the occasion, their personalities providing a violent volatility around the general arc of history. History creates a certain probability for change, but only personality tells us what shape it will take.

Marx views history through production changes and class struggle. Thus feudal production systems produced barons, just as capitalist production produces robber barons. That is, a certain production system leads to the reproduction of certain morons, leading to high drama of princes and states, or CEOs and corporations. In both cases, once you gather enough grain or GDP to sustain an insane inbred population, they do insane inebriated things.

Practice

Aimé Césaire

Pre-industrial European history was largely a bunch of inbred morons doing inane things, culminating Queen Victoria’s grandchildren fighting over their toys (World War I) and smashing everything. There were very few, very incestuous, people making very stupid decisions and chaos ensued. Sound familiar?

Production based on land reproduced landed nobility. In the same way, production based on capital reproduces capitalists. Trump, for example, is a second generation capitalist. He inherited $40 million from his father and could have been just as rich passively investing it. Today, most billionaires are produced this way, through inheritance rather than entrepreneurship. This new class of inherited capitalist holds the same investments, goes to the same schools, wears the same watches, and rapes the same children. A production system of widespread machines has turned into a reproduction system of insular morons.

Today the 50 richest Americans hold nearly as much wealth as the bottom 50%. Just a few families control America, and they all know each other. Given that wealth is legally speech in America these people can buy both sides of the 2% spread that divides elections and continue the party, whatever the party. Duopoly is even better than monopoly because it gives you plausible deniability. As Julius Nyerere said, “The United States is also a one-party state, but with typical American extravagance, they have two of them.”

Just as bankers and the merchant class displaced European nobility, cash is king in America. American politicians are not public but private servants, they’re answerable to the ‘donor class’, because America has legalized bribery. Western politicians are just hired hands, accountable to rich shareholders, not poor voters. Very few people behind the scenes actually run the White Empire, and they’re hardly people. Marx called them “capital personified and endowed with consciousness and a will.” This private jet-set is the new unlanded ignobility.

In this way material conditions lead us to the “high-sounding dramas of princes and states” all over again. The reproduction and concentration of capital leads to the reproduction and concentration of capitalists, becoming successively more moronic over degenerating generations. Thus we end up back in the age of mad kings doing mad tings, only under different production systems.

Thus the question is not really what Trump produces but what produces a Trump. What system would elevate such an “ignoble, unvaliant, fatuous man” to power? What leads to “forgetting that there is any rule, or natural necessity whatever, of putting the Able Man there”? It is, in fact, an unable system that calls out for an unable man, to represent it. As Aimé Césaire said, “a civilization which is morally diseased, which irresistibly, progressing from one consequence to another, one denial to another, calls for its Hitler, I mean its punishment.”

Evil Is Stupid In The Long Run

Frank Sinatra painting a clown for some reason

Even more pointless than looking for intelligence in this stupidity is looking for morality, but let’s do it, because I think evil and stupid are the same thing, just with a timing difference. If you look at any moral advice it is really just good advice, in the long run. Evil is stupid in the long run, especially if you consider the hereafter (though in the meantime it can be fun). If you cheat in business, you’re less likely to be trusted, you make your own life harder. If you cheat on your wife, you have a more stressful life, you wreck your own home. Of course, people ‘get away’ with cheating all the time, but how far do they get, and how often do they fall? Doing evil is simply more risky in the long-run, AKA stupid, especially considering the hereafter, as you should.

In this way, colonialism was always stupid in the long run, a global minority trying to cheat and steal from the global majority was always going to go Global South at some point. There’s simply more of us, and technology moves around. While they did get away with colonialism for centuries, that was just a blink of the historical eye, and that eye is opening. Climate collapse, Palestinian liberation, Chinese independence, these are all part of the same reckoning. When Trump responds to this with traditional western racism, it appears stupid, but remember that everything Trump is doing was once conventional wisdom.

As Ernest Renan from the no-good French said (via Césaire), “The regeneration of the inferior or degenerate races by the superior races is part of the providential order of things for humanity… Nature has made a race of workers, the Chinese race, who have wonderful manual dexterity and almost no sense of honor; govern them with justice, levying from them, in return for the blessing of such a government, an ample allowance for the conquering race, and they will be satisfied.” Trump is called a moron for trying to extort the Chinese today, but it was (and is) common continental sentiment to treat the this way.

Césaire introduced this Renan saying, “Who is speaking? I am ashamed to say it: it is the Western humanist, the “idealist” philosopher… “Hitler? Rosenberg? No, Renan.” White people blame racism on their ignorant poors, but this ideology was written by their elites long before. Modern racists are simply regurgitating the blood meal of past centuries. People say Trump can’t do this, but no less than Immanuel Kant says that he should. Kant said, “the race of the whites contains all talents and motives in itself” (so tariff everybody else into oblivion).

Even though Trump’s ghostwriter Tony Schwartz said, “I seriously doubt that Trump has ever read a book straight through in his adult life,” Trump nonetheless channels the id of imperialist thought unconsciously. As John Maynard Keynes said, “Practical men who believe themselves to be quite exempt from any intellectual influence, are usually the slaves of some defunct economist. Madmen in authority, who hear voices in the air, are distilling their frenzy from some academic scribbler of a few years back.” In this way, Trump is simply distilling the jist of western thought, which is that the west is the best and everybody else can eat shit. Trump’s frenzy really expresses the whole of western philosophy, which claims the whole category of philosophy, and deports everything else to departments on the periphery.

But Trump comes too late to avert his fate. While fate might lead the willing (re: Seneca) it drags the unwilling, and Trump is dragging America to the fate it deserves more rapidly than intended. This is one of those moments when a Great Idiot takes the reins of a probable decline and yanks it downwards into a certainty. As Césaire said. “At the end of capitalism, which is eager to outlive its day, there is Hitler. At the end of formal humanism and philosophic renunciation, there is Hitler.” You can sense that America is eager to outlive its day, having voted for the man twice. And so they go out in the traditional American white man way, murder-suicide of the whole family.

Trump is the heir to an inheritance that’s already been spent. He’s the hair combed over a baldness that’s already apparent. He’s the last furious attempt to simply eat the palimpsest of history before it’s overwritten by present rebellions. White Empire was always evil but only now does it appear stupid, as it’s ending. Evil is just stupid in the long run and this is the long run. As Frank Sinatra sang, send in the clowns, don’t bother, they’re here.

Western Hegemony's Collapse

China has officially deployed its digital arsenal

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by James Hickman via Schiff Sovereign

By 1970, US commanders in Vietnam were optimistic that they had “functionally severed” North Vietnamese forces.

The generals were particularly boastful about their taking out the Ho Chi Minh Trail—a sprawling network of roads, footpaths, and tunnels through Laos and Cambodia that let North Vietnamese forces move troops and supplies into South Vietnam, bypassing the fortified border.

After bombing it into oblivion, a senior US Air Force general declared, “Gentlemen, what we have here is the end of North Vietnam as a viable fighting power.”

Unfortunately, the ‘experts’ were wrong again.

Only weeks after declaring victory, US forces found themselves locked in a brutal and unexpected battle at Fire Support Base Ripcord— a base the US was constructing as a launchpad for future operations.

The North Vietnamese brought in artillery, mortars, rockets, anti-aircraft weapons, and wave after wave of ground troops. All of that firepower, manpower, and ammunition moved hundreds of miles through dense jungle terrain, across borders, and into South Vietnam—right under the nose of US airpower that had supposedly rendered the the Ho Chi Minh Trail defunct.

Their ability to move silently helped the Viet Cong guerrillas wage a shadow war of ambushes, sabotage, and infiltration—blending into the population by day and striking by night.

The Viet Cong’s psychological victories eroded US public support. Morale among American troops declined, and political dissent at home surged.

US troops at Fire Support Base Ripcord held out for nearly a month under constant bombardment and ground assaults. But by late July, with casualties mounting, the last Americans were airlifted out under enemy fire.

It was a scene that foreshadowed what would play out in Saigon just a few years later as the US abandoned the war.

And it was through the use of these guerrilla tactics— Distract. Disrupt. Discourage. Dismay.— that a substantially weaker force was able to defeat a much more powerful army.

China is starting to do the same thing in this economic war with the United States. And they’re targeting America’s youth.

For example, TikTok’s ‘Blackout Challenge’ encourages the app’s young users to asphyxiate themselves until they lose consciousness, which led to the death of a 13-year old California boy in February of this year.

A 15-year old in Oklahoma died from the ‘Benadryl Challenge’. Concussions and other serious injuries have resulted from the ‘Skullbreaker Challenge’ where kids ‘prank’ others by kicking their legs out from under them as they jump.

Curiously, Chinese teens haven’t succumbed to the same contests. Instead, viral math problems challenging users’ problem-solving skills regularly trend on Douyin, China’s version of TikTok.

One popular influencer is a 12-year-old girl who has gone viral for teaching college-level math, explaining complex problems in a simplified manner.

Last week, we got another look at how TikTok figures into China’s guerrilla economic warfare arsenal.

Chinese influencers began pointing American consumers toward a new app: DHgate— a Beijing-based e-commerce platform that sells items directly from the Chinese factories which manufacture brand-name goods.

Their pitch: why pay $120 for name-brand yoga pants when the same exact item, just without a brand label, can be yours for $15?

Within days, DHgate exploded in popularity—climbing to the #2 spot on Apple’s App Store in the US, just behind Temu (another Chinese-owned e-commerce app) and ahead of ChatGPT.

Yoga pants, handbags, sunglasses, sneakers, you name it—products stripped of their logos and exposed for what they are: glorified drop-shipped Chinese goods with a 700% markup.

Of course, the sudden surge in popularity wasn’t organic; it was orchestrated. Chinese influencers produced videos explaining how major Western brands were bilking their consumers and outsourcing production to these very same factories.

TikTok made sure those videos went viral in the US.

Even 145% tariffs would only push the price of $15 yoga pants up to $36.75— still much less expensive than buying from Lululemon.

China’s guerrilla strategy is clear: They want US consumers to question who is the enemy— the ones selling you affordable clothing, or the ones increasing your cost of living?

This drives a wedge between consumers and the US government— why would my government prevent me from buying affordable goods? Tariffs could quickly become as unpopular among Americans as the Vietnam War was in the 1960s.

China is weaponizing TikTok to turn US consumers against the government… and against major US brands.

They pulled back the curtain on how the economy really makes the sausage—exposing that a $2,000 handbag comes from the same factory, made of the same materials, with the same quality stitching as the $40 knockoff. Americans are paying thousands for a label, not for a superior product.

You can bet that all the data that has been gathered from TikTok has been sent back to the mothership to be analyzed and weaponized. China clearly understands how to use that information for marketing and messaging in ways that could give them a huge edge in the escalating economic warfare.

American consumers may quickly feel that China is not the enemy robbing them blind; instead, they may view China as the ones offering a better deal.

The US government, on the other hand, suddenly looks like the bad guy for keeping prices high and products out of reach.

And this is just the beginning.

What happens when a billion-dollar marketing machine—fueled by foreign data, run through a CCP-influenced algorithm, and distributed on the most addictive app in the world—starts targeting not just consumer wallets, but the foundations of America’s consumer-centric economy?

An erosion of trust in American brands. A growing resentment toward US trade policy. A subtle, creeping, deliberate narrative that China gives you value, while your own government gives you inflation.

This is now the guerrilla phase of the economic war.

geopolitical issues

How the Kremlin Plans to Bait Trump Into a Grand Bargain

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by Pyotr Kozlov via The Moscow Times
kremlin.ru

As Moscow prepares for possible negotiations with Washington aimed at ending its full-scale invasion of Ukraine, it is seeking a far more ambitious outcome than a mere ceasefire: a global reordering of spheres of influence.

In the Kremlin’s view, such an agreement would effectively mean U.S. recognition of Russian dominance in the post-Soviet space — including Ukraine — and, to some extent, an acknowledgment of its influence in Europe.

To secure that goal, the Kremlin is now scouring for incentives it believes can catch and hold President Donald Trump’s attention, ranging from rare earths deals and geopolitical leverage in Iran and North Korea to a long-dreamed-of Trump Tower in Moscow.

Five current Russian government officials, including two diplomats, three sources close to the Kremlin and employees of three major state-owned companies confirmed this to The Moscow Times, all speaking on condition of anonymity due to the sensitivity of the matter.

“The main thing is that they [the Americans] don’t interfere in our affairs and don’t tell us how to live,” said a senior Russian official familiar with the Kremlin’s negotiating logic. “That they don’t hinder us in doing what we are doing.”

Some in Moscow also envision symbolic gestures of recognition as part of a potential agreement, such as President Vladimir Putin visiting Washington and meeting Trump in the White House.

“If our boss [Putin] occasionally comes to Washington to meet with Trump — that would also be nice,” a current government official said.

Still, officials acknowledge that the era of major summits like those during the Cold War or the early post-Soviet years is over.

“It’s hard to count on that now,” the government official said.

Searching for leverage

The Kremlin, recognizing the limitations of its negotiating position, has tasked officials and experts with analyzing and identifying all possible incentives that could grab Trump’s interest and keep the talks from narrowing to a limited agenda.

Trump’s envoy Steve Witkoff and President Vladimir Putin meet in St. Petersburg.kremlin.ru

Following Trump’s election victory in November, the Kremlin ordered major corporations to prepare detailed proposals for economic cooperation with Washington.

“Work was in full swing in the government, ministries and major corporations, including at night and on weekends: proposals were being prepared across key economic sectors,” a current government official told The Moscow Times.

“Rosatom and Rosneft presented their initiatives, and [gold producer] Polyus sent fresh intelligence on gold deposits to the Kremlin. Rusal and other entities joined in,” the official said, adding that deputy head of the presidential administration Maxim Oreshkin and Putin’s special envoy Kirill Dmitriev were among those coordinating these efforts.

Employees at three major state-owned companies and a source close to the Kremlin confirmed this.

This new approach reflects the collapse of the previous model of U.S.-Russia relations.

During the Cold War, the superpowers practiced “linkage,” in which seemingly unrelated issues became concessions within a larger negotiating framework.

“You give us grain, we’ll give you fewer radicals in Latin America. You give me aspirin, I give you Valocordin,” said a senior Russian diplomat.

If you have a wide range of issues on the table, it is easier to find trade-offs and balance asymmetries, the diplomat noted.

But unlike the Cold War era, Russia now holds far fewer cards. Strategic arms control treaties that once structured dialogue, from the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty to New START, are unraveling. With New START set to expire in February 2026, talks on its extension have not even begun.

“We used to hold summits, sign treaties — first Strategic Arms Limitation Talks (SALT), then the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START). A whole ecosystem of consultations and joint mechanisms was built around that,” recalls a current Russian diplomat. “This launched mechanisms of cooperation between Moscow and Washington across various fields.”

Today, this architecture no longer exists, and arms control only interests Trump in the context of his competition with China. As a result, Moscow and Washington increasingly see each other as rivals rather than partners.

“We compete in hydrocarbon markets in Europe, food markets and arms sales. And this confrontation will only intensify,” said a Russian government official.

Ukraine as a bargaining chip

With few remaining levers, Moscow sees the war in Ukraine as its most potent bargaining chip, and officials hope to take advantage of Trump’s eagerness to secure a ceasefire.

“We need to milk Trump as much as possible, dangling the possibility of a ceasefire like a carrot before him,” one participant in the discussions said.

There is little illusion about the fragility of this opportunity.

“The window may slam shut. Trump could lose interest or, worse, bear a grudge,” diplomats and officials who spoke to The Moscow Times agreed.

However, many in the Foreign Ministry and the Kremlin hold a different view.

“We are on the right track. The priority is to recalibrate relations with the United States — a task that is anything but simple — while keeping dialogue on Ukraine alive,” one Russian diplomat said. “From there, the situation on the ground will dictate the next moves. Ultimately, it’s all about time, patience and staying the course.”

Formally, the Kremlin has signaled a willingness to make concessions.

Following a call with Trump in March, Putin said he agreed to observe a 30-day moratorium on strikes against Ukrainian energy infrastructure. While Ukraine said separately that it would back the ceasefire, no formal agreement between the two sides was ever signed. Ukrainian officials have accused Moscow of violating the pause multiple times since.

“Under these circumstances, talking about a ceasefire at this stage is simply unrealistic,” Vasily Nebenzya, Russia’s permanent representative to the UN, said in early April.

Officials see two main scenarios. The first is to agree to a Trump-brokered ceasefire in exchange for concessions like limitations on U.S. weapons deliveries to Ukraine.

“Though this doesn’t mean weapons won’t still come in via Europe,” one Russian diplomat cautioned.

The second: if talks collapse, blame Kyiv.

“If Russia refuses a ceasefire, we must be ready to once again face a united Western front, and in an even less favorable configuration for us,” another official warned.

Setting the bait

Many ideas have been floated as possible incentives to lure Trump into a deal, from mediating U.S.-China negotiations to joint missions to Mars. But the Kremlin has few real trump cards.

Economic proposals look weak. Even in their best years, U.S.-Russia trade barely reached $45 billion. In 2024, it plunged to just $3.5 billion, its lowest level since 1992.

Today, Moscow can offer only a few commodities the U.S. still needs: titanium for aircraft manufacturing, uranium for nuclear energy and heavy crude oil for refineries along the Gulf Coast. But as one official put it, these “won’t save the American trade balance, and thus have no value for Trump.”

Russia is a major supplier of rare earth metals like scandium, yttrium and lanthanum, essential for electronics and defense systems. But these, too, are seen as insufficient to unlock major political concessions.

Regional initiatives are also limited. Washington would like Russia to halt its arms shipments to North Korea and comply with UN sanctions. But Moscow, having invested in a growing alliance with Pyongyang, has no intention of rolling back its cooperation.

Iran has also been floated as a possible channel for engagement, given Russia’s role in managing Tehran’s spent nuclear fuel and support for its peaceful nuclear program.

“There is a belief that Trump has a certain reverence for Putin. And that Putin’s word could influence an American decision [on Iran],” said a Russian government official.

But even Russian diplomats admit that Moscow’s role in U.S.-Iran talks would be marginal at best.

“Tehran has always wanted to talk directly to the Americans and has also feared being ‘sold out’ by us in a grand bargain,” said one Russian diplomat.

More realistic proposals involve energy coordination and symbolic gestures. One suggestion: a humanitarian mission in Gaza leveraging Russian-built infrastructure in Syria. Another would see informal cooperation on oil markets involving the U.S., Russia and Saudi Arabia.

“Here, three great statesmen could take the stage: the leaders of the U.S., Russia and Saudi Arabia,” noted one Russian diplomat.

And then there’s the idea of a Trump Tower in Moscow. Officials have brainstormed building a 150-story Trump Tower in Moscow City, the capital’s business district. The project could be quickly launched, and Trump himself could participate in the groundbreaking.

“Speed, impact and showiness: those are things Trump intuitively values,” said a source close to the Kremlin. This all the more so given that Trump’s team and Russian officials had discussed this project in the past, he added.

Africa, long peripheral to U.S. foreign policy, is seen as unlikely to capture Trump’s interest. Nor is a joint Mars mission considered realistic.

Across all of these proposals, the Kremlin is guided by a single axiom: initiatives must be personally tailored to Trump, achievable within a single term and offer strong media appeal.

“Without that,” said a senior Russian official, “it’s naive to expect any progress.”

geopolitical issues

The Palestinian connection in El Salvador’s politics

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by Any Fallas via New Arab

In-depth: Salvadorans of Palestinian descent have had an enormous influence in shaping the Central American country’s political landscape.

Although Latin America is home to several prominent politicians of Arab descent, perhaps no country in the region has had as many of Palestinian ancestry play such a key role in national politics as El Salvador.

Salvadorans of multigenerational Palestinian descent have been tremendously influential in shaping the post-civil war political landscape of the small Central American country since 1992.

Some key figures include Schafik Handal, who headed the Legislative Assembly from 1997 to 2006, Tony Saca who served as president from 2004-2009, and now Nayib Bukele who is looking at a second term as president after a controversial but decisive election in early February.

“Palestinians, mainly from Bethlehem and Jerusalem, arrived in El Salvador during the early waves of Middle Eastern migration to the Western Hemisphere during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries”

All three men trace their family origins to Bethlehem. Their ancestors arrived in El Salvador during the early waves of Middle Eastern migrationto the Western Hemisphere during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.

And even though many of the estimated 1.2 million migrants during this period hailed from Lebanon and Syria, those who eventually settled in the Salvadoran provinces of San Salvador, San Miguel, Santa Ana, and La Unión were primarily from the Palestinian cities of Bethlehem and Jerusalem.

Although all three men trace their ancestry to Palestine – their similarities diverge from there. Handal was a central figure in shaping the Salvadoran left as the leader of the country’s Communist Party from the 1970s to 1994, a guerrilla commander with the Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front (FMLN) during the 1980s, and a politician who facilitated the FMLN’s transition from armed resistance to electoral politics following the Chapultepec Peace Accords.

Meanwhile, Tony Saca has become synonymous with the country’s right-wing politics. He defeated Handal in the 2004 presidential election on the conservative National Republican Alliance (ARENA) ticket and embraced neoliberal and pro-US policies during his term. He even deployed Salvadoran soldiers to the war in Iraq.

Today, Saca is serving a 10-year prison sentence for embezzlement and money laundering of over 300 million dollars of public funds.

If Handal and Saca’s political careers weren’t colourful enough, Nayib Bukele arguably outdoes them both. His meteoric rise in national politics began through his successful mayoral runs in Nuevo Cuscatlán in 2012 and then in the capital San Salvador in 2015. Known as the ‘millennial mayor’, his youthful and anti-establishment platform gradually earned him broad-based support that enabled his presidential run and electoral victory in 2019 at just 37.

His first presidential term was characterised by an erratic series of policies – such as investing public funds into cryptocurrency and promoting bitcoin beach tourism – and ended with a wide-scale campaign to address gang violence by curtailing civil liberties through intimidation by militarised force, a state of exception, and the highest incarceration rate in the world.

Has this prominence of Salvadoran-Palestinian politicians translated into a more pro-Palestine position in Salvadoran foreign relations? Not necessarily.

“Salvadorans of multigenerational Palestinian descent have been tremendously influential in shaping the post-civil war political landscape of the small Central American country since 1992”

The political stance on Palestine has largely followed ideological linesrather than patrimonial allegiances. The most active figure was undoubtedly Handal who nurtured transnational ties with the Palestinian Liberation Organisation (PLO) during the national and leftist resistance movements of the 1980s.

While the Washington Post reported in 1982 that these ties were enhanced by the “Palestinian origins of some Salvadoran insurgent leaders,” they primarily found common cause in challenging the United States and Israel’s funding, supplying, and training of counterinsurgents and right-wing governments in the Middle East and Central America.

Tony Saca held a more centrist position on Israel-Palestine but embarked on enhanced diplomatic engagement with Palestinian leaders. On one hand, he made the symbolic decision to move the Salvadoran embassy from Jerusalem to Tel Aviv but on the other continued to uphold the Israeli status quo.

Saca also referenced his Palestinian and multi-religious background to frame his approach to the peace process: “I have a Christian grandfather, a Muslim grandfather and I am Salvadoran and that is why I say that Israel, Palestine and the Arab States must become brothers”.

President Bukele has been the most mercurial, avoidant even, about his stance on Palestine. He has been reluctant to comment publicly during crucial moments such as the global Sheikh Jarrah demonstrations that protested the expulsion of Palestinian families from their homes in East Jerusalem in 2021.

A main reason for his position is his effort to maintain favourable relations with Israelis on whom he hopes to continue partnerships in business and technology – not to mention funds for military and police forces.

“Has this prominence of Salvadoran-Palestinian politicians translated into a more pro-Palestine position in Salvadoran foreign relations? Not necessarily”

A rare instance and exception to his quietism occurred in the aftermath of 7 October in which he compared the Hamas attacks to gang violence in El Salvador.

“As a Salvadoran with Palestinian ancestry, I’m sure the best thing that could happen to the Palestinian people is for Hamas to completely disappear…It would be like if Salvadorans would have sided with MS13 terrorists, just because we share ancestors or nationality…The best thing that happened to us as a nation was to get rid of those rapists and murderers.”

He has yet to issue any statement or comment on the death toll of over 28,000 Palestinians, including more than 12,000 children, in Israel’s war on Gaza.

But this position might put him on the margins of regional relations as the Latin American ‘pink tide’ grows more critical of Israel the longer its unrestrained assault on Gaza continues. It has certainly put him at odds with the Salvadoran-Palestinian community in El Salvador which has been an active base of support for Palestinian causes.

In 2021, the President of the Salvadoran-Palestinian Association had hoped for a more outspoken role for the president: “Given his roots, Bukele can go further and not just defend our people but also denounce Israeli crimes”.

Yet the current moment is particularly critical as Bukele’s second term comes on the heels of a renewed authoritarian turn in El Salvador and as Israel’s war unfolds in Gaza with minimal clarity as to the short and long-term trajectory for both.

What is clear is that Palestinian roots won’t be a deciding factor in taking a moral stand on Palestine for the world’s ‘coolest dictator’.

Amy Fallas is a Salvadoran-Costa Rican writer, editor, and historian. She received her MA in History from Yale and is a PhD Candidate in History at UC Santa Barbara. She is an Interdisciplinary Humanities Council Fellow for 2023-2024 and an adjunct Professor of History at Santa Barbara City College.

Democracy as Mob Rule

El Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele: Communist Palestinian Converted to an Evangelical Zionist Christian

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by Brian Shilhavy
Editor, Health Impact News

Thanks to a tip from a Health Impact News reader, I was able to do some research today on the President of El Salvador, Nayib Bukele, who is a Palestinian and former member of the Communist Party in El Salvador, but is now an Evangelical Zionist Christian with strong ties to Israel.

No wonder why Trump’s Zionist Administration likes this guy so much!

Trump’s Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, made a deal with Bukele to confine criminals from the U.S., including U.S. Citizens, back on February 4, 2025, just days after Trump’s inauguration.

El Salvador’s offer to take in US deportees and violent criminals is unlike any other migrant deal

SAN SALVADOR, El Salvador (AP) — El Salvador has offered to take in people deported from the U.S. for entering the country illegally and to house some of the country’s violent criminals — even if they’re American citizens.

U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio, after a meeting Monday with El Salvador President Nayib Bukele, proclaimed it the most “unprecedented, extraordinary” offer the country has yet received during the ongoing wave of global migration.

Details on the deal are scant, and immigration and constitutional experts question its legality. (Source.)

What is largely not being reported in the media about Bukele is his Palestinian family heritage. His paternal grandfather was born in Jerusalem and his grandmother was from Bethlehem, and were Palestinian Christians who migrated to El Salvador

The young Salvadoran leader is descended from Palestinian Christians on his father’s side. According to the Times of Israel, his paternal grandfather was born in Jerusalem and his grandmother was from Bethlehem; the two migrated to El Salvador amid a wave of Palestinian immigration to Latin America.

His father, born in El Salvador, converted to Islam in adulthood and became a well-known imam, one whom Nayib has claimed had warm relationships with Jews and Israel. (Source.)

He entered politics in 2011, joining the Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front (FMLN), a left-wing Salvadoran political party. He was elected as mayor of Nuevo Cuscatlán in March 2012, and went on to be elected as mayor of San Salvador in the 2015 elections under the Communist FMLN party. While serving as mayor of San Salvador, he fell out of favor with the FMLN. (Source.)

He was only 37 years old when he became President of El Salvador, which was the youngest head of state in the world at that time, and he developed a Zionist Pro-Israel policy after he became President.

Here is a profile written about him in 2023 from the Jewish publication, Mishpacha.

THE NAYIB BUKELE PHENOMENON

Pro-Israel and Muslim, Nayib Bukele is a new breed of Latin American strongman

Nayib Bukele, the brash young president of El Salvador, offers a study in intriguing contrasts.

He is descended from Palestinian Arabs, yet embraces a staunchly pro-Israel foreign policy. He entered politics under the banner of the Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front (FMLN), a Communist group that waged a guerilla war during the 1970s and ’80s; but now governs with a right-wing populist style that has drawn support from former US president Donald Trump.

Now 41, he was the world’s youngest head of state when he became president at 37, and, according to local opinion polls, is still the most popular. It almost seems a wonder that the tiny Republic of El Salvador — a country of 6.5 million, about the same size as New Jersey, on the isthmus of Central America, bordered by Guatemala and Honduras — can contain his gargantuan contradictions.

Nayib Bukele currently draws an approval rating of over 80 percent, and according to some pollsters, possibly as high as 90 percent. Feeding that popularity, however, is a harsh crackdown on the maras, the fearsome criminal gangs that have terrorized the country over the last two decades.

While the influence of the gangs has been pernicious, contributing to a per capita murder rate that for a time was the world’s highest, Bukele has drawn criticism for the ruthlessness of his policies.

The development of Bukele’s ideology has not followed a traditional trajectory. He began his career in the FMLN, an ultra-leftist party, but has gradually shifted toward the center-right.

Unlike other regional leaders who have been aligned with leftist movements, Bukele has been a staunch supporter of Israel.

In fact, a photo of his visit to the Western Wall while he served as mayor of the capital of San Salvador has traveled the world.

And although his ethnic background would suggest his sympathies lie with the Palestinians in their conflict with the Jewish state, that is not in fact the case.

Senator Marco Rubio paid an official visit to El Salvador, and took to Twitter to express his frustration with Washington’s condemnation of Bukele’s policies: “Biden appeases our enemies & ostracizes our friends. Seeking deals with Iran & lifting sanctions on Cuba & Venezuela while criticizing & sanctioning willing partners like El Salvador under Nayib Bukele.”

Bukele has wasted no time reciprocating Republican accolades. Throughout his tenure, he has vocally criticized President Biden and shunned bilateral meetings, boldly asserting at one point, “The Biden administration is losing all the credibility it has left.”

Moreover, Bukele has made no secret of his affinity for former president Donald Trump.

When Secretary of State Antony Blinken emphasized the US government’s support for El Salvador’s efforts to combat gang proliferation but urged the country to safeguard civil liberties, including freedom of the press, Bukele promptly fired back on Twitter: “Really? Yes, we received support from the U.S. government to fight crime, but that was UNDER THE TRUMP ADMINISTRATION. Now you’re merely backing the gangs and their so-called ‘civil liberties.’ ” (Source.)

Perhaps the best article articulating Bukele’s Evangelical Zionist views and his support of Israel was written in October of 2024, by The North American Congress on Latin America (NACLA), titled “Christian Zionism in Bukele’s El Salvador“.

Christian Zionism in Bukele’s El Salvador

President Nayib Bukele’s framing of security as a spiritual battle between good and evil helps to explain his popularity and his support for Israel.

Excerpts:

On October 8 of last year, Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele published a post on X outlining his position on Palestine.

“As a Salvadoran of Palestinian ancestry, I’m sure the best thing that could happen to the Palestinian people is for Hamas to completely disappear. Those savage beasts do not represent the Palestinians,” he wrote.

Drawing parallels between Hamas and gangs in El Salvador, Bukele continued:

“It would be like if Salvadorans would have sided with MS13 terrorists, just because we share ancestors or nationality. The best thing that happened to us as a nation was to get rid of those rapists and murderers and let the good people thrive.”

Bukele closed his post with a word of advice, drawing from his nearly 30-month long—and counting—assault against gangs. “Palestinians should do the same: get rid of those animals and let the good people thrive.”

The parallel drawn by Bukele between Hamas and MS13 derives from an evangelical Christian understanding of “terrorist” security threats as a spiritual contest between good and evil.

Bukele uses biblical allegories, religious narratives, declarations of devotion, and visual propaganda leveraging sacred symbols to justify the country’s security policies, in addition to asserting the Salvadoran government’s unwavering support for Israel during its genocide of Palestinians.

Christian Zionism and “Spirit-Filled Geopolitics”

In 2018, prior to becoming president, Bukele arrived in Jerusalem at the invitation of deputy foreign minister Tzipi Hotovely and Jack Rosen, the president of the American Jewish Congress, to attend an urban policy conference.

At such conferences, policymakers, consultants, and tech industry representatives broker deals for security initiatives.

Indeed, shortly after his election, Bukele announced a $3 million donation from the nonprofit Jerusalem Foundation for police and military medical supplies. Since assuming the presidency, Bukele has also extensively used Israeli spyware to track the activities of independent journalists, human rights defenders, and members of opposition parties.

Israeli exports to El Salvador have grown at an annual rate of 21.1 percent from 2017 to 2022, with the top products being firearms and military weapons.

These connections highlight the material influence of the Israeli military-industrial complex and continuing Salvadoran security dependence on Israel, which began with the bloody military regimes of the 1970s.

Israel provided 83 percent of Salvadoran military imports between 1975 and 1979, and these agreements continued throughout the Salvadoran civil war (1980-1992) with deals for napalm, arms, and military technology and training.

Bukele’s attendance at the conference also provided an opportunity to generate images that demonstrate his commitment to Judeo-Christian values.

Approval by and affirmation from key Jewish and evangelical Christian leaders provides powerful legitimation in Salvadoran politics, reinforcing Bukele’s cult of personality among Salvadoran evangelicals who believe him to be chosen by God to “clean” their country of the scourge of gangs.

His campaign and presidential press releases demonstrate how Christian Zionism generates not just support for Israel but symbolic and ideological power for his right-wing populist leadership.

Regardless of Bukele’s faith, evangelical Christianity is essential for understanding both El Salvador’s support for Israel and Salvadoran security policies at home.

Christian Zionist ideology and identity help explain Bukele’s rise to power.

During his campaign, Bukele carefully courted the support of the Salvadoran leadership of evangelical Churches, who publicly prayed for his victory.

A smear campaign that cast doubt on his Christian bonafides forced then-candidate Bukele—who was raised in a Muslim household—to explicitly defend his religious identity, declaring himself to be a disciple of Jesus Christ and sharing photos of himself at multiple religious sites as a sign of his tolerance and devotion. (Full article.)

La Resistance - One by One

“Will Not Surrender” – Harvard Takes Trump to Court

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He said the “majority” of those demands represent “direct governmental regulation of the intellectual conditions at Harvard.”

Authored by Aldgra Fredly via The Epoch Times,

Harvard University’s professors sued the Trump administration on April 11 after it threatened to withhold nearly $9 billion in grants and contracts if the university fails to adopt the administration’s required structural changes.

The Harvard faculty chapter of the American Association of University Professors (AAUP) filed a lawsuit alleging that the administration’s action represents an “unlawful and unprecedented misuse of federal funding and civil rights enforcement authority to undermine academic freedom and free speech” on a university’s campus.

According to the court filing, the university received a letter from the administration on April 3 outlining the “non-exhaustive preconditions” it must meet in order to keep its government funding, following an investigation into the university’s failures to address anti-Semitism on campus.

Among the requirements are a review of programs that fuel anti-Semitic harassment on campus, to “improve viewpoint diversity, and end ideological capture” within the university. Harvard was also required to enact a mask ban and eliminate all diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) programs, according to the lawsuit.

It stated that the administration threatened to terminate at least $255.6 million in contracts and place more than $8.7 billion in multiyear grant commitments to Harvard University and its affiliates under review unless the university agrees to implement the proposed changes.

“Harvard, like all American universities, depends on federal funding to conduct its academic research. Threats like these are an existential ‘gun to the head’ for a university,” the lawsuit states.

The plaintiffs accused the administration of misusing Title VI of the Civil Rights Act, an anti-discrimination law that applies to federally funded institutions, to “coerce universities into undermining free speech.”

“These sweeping yet indeterminate demands are not remedies targeting the causes of any determination of noncompliance with federal law. Instead, they overtly seek to impose on Harvard University political views and policy preferences advanced by the Trump administration and commit the University to punishing disfavored speech,” they state.

The professors asked the court to preliminarily and permanently enjoin any further investigation or review of the university’s federal funding. They also requested that it block the administration from using its authority to penalize Harvard over the viewpoints of its members.

“No government — regardless of which party is in power — should dictate what private universities can teach, whom they can admit and hire, and which areas of study and inquiry they can pursue,” said Harvard President Alan Garber in a message.

The Epoch Times reached out to the White House for comment but did not receive a response by publication time.

Harvard University is one of 60 institutions of higher education currently under investigation for allegations of anti-Semitic discrimination and harassment on campus.

Protests erupted across universities in the United States after Israel launched a military operation in the Gaza Strip with the stated goal of eradicating the Hamas terrorist group. The operation was retaliation for Hamas launching a land, sea, and air attack on southern Israel on Oct. 7. 2023, killing around 1,200 people and taking hostage 251 more. Last spring, pro-Palestinian protesters camped out on campus and, at one point, took over a building.

Education Secretary Linda McMahon has previously urged university leaders to prevent discrimination against Jewish students on campus or risk losing federal funding.

“The Department is deeply disappointed that Jewish students studying on elite U.S. campuses continue to fear for their safety amid the relentless antisemitic eruptions that have severely disrupted campus life for more than a year,” McMahon said in a statement on March 10.

“U.S. colleges and universities benefit from enormous public investments funded by U.S. taxpayers. That support is a privilege and it is contingent on scrupulous adherence to federal anti-discrimination laws.”

Harvard University’s professors also filed a motion on April 11 seeking a temporary restraining order to prevent the government from cutting funding while the litigation continues, saying that it would cause “severe irreparable harm” to the university and disrupt its research operations.

“No law in this country permits Trump to suspend billions from universities simply because he doesn’t like the constitutionally protected speech of their students & faculty,” Nikolas Bowie of Harvard’s AAUP said in a statement.

Economics/Statistics

No, A 50% Tariff Doesn’t Mean A 50% Price-Hike

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Authored by Randy White via AmericanThinker.com,

The tariff doomsday machine is roaring again. This time, it’s over talk of a 50% tariff on certain imports.

Predictably, the panic-peddlers are out in force, warning that such a tariff means retail prices will skyrocket 50%.

It’s an easy line to chant, but it’s wrong — flat wrong — and anyone with a basic grasp of economics should know better.

Let’s make one thing clear: a tariff applies to the transaction value, not the final retail price. The transaction value is what the importer pays the exporter, plus freight and insurance. That cost is just the first step in a long supply chain. By the time a product reaches the consumer, it’s been marked up to cover domestic shipping, warehousing, employee wages, utilities, sales tax, and profit margins for every hand it passes through. The tariff is just one input among many.

Take a simple example.

A retailer imports a widget with a $100 transaction value. Add a 50% tariff, and the cost to the importer becomes $150. That importer then sells it wholesale — perhaps at $200 — to a retailer, who marks it up again to $300 for sale. That $50 tariff is now 16.7% of the retail price. Even if every penny of the tariff is passed along, you’re not looking at a 50% increase in retail price — you’re looking at something closer to 17%.

But here’s the kicker: tariffs are not always fully passed on to the consumer. Importers and retailers know they can’t raise prices beyond what the market will bear. Sometimes they absorb part of the cost, cut expenses, renegotiate contracts, or shift to different suppliers. The market reacts; it doesn’t just lie down and take it.

Still not convinced? Look at the real-world data.

The National Bureau of Economic Research analyzed the 2018–2019 U.S. tariffs on Chinese goods. They found that for every 10% tariff, retail prices rose 1–2%. So even a 50% tariff, if applied, might cause retail prices to edge up 5–10% — not 50%. That’s a far cry from the alarmist headlines.

So why do politicians and media outlets keep pushing the scare narrative? Easy: Fear sells.

“Fifty percent” is a lot more dramatic than “maybe 5 to 10%.” It’s easier to provoke outrage than to explain how pricing actually works. They’re banking on the average person not understanding the difference between wholesale cost and retail price — or not caring enough to dig into the numbers.

Yes, tariffs matter. They influence trade behavior. They can increase some costs. They can disrupt certain supply chains. But they’re not some magic multiplier that doubles the price of your groceries or gadgets overnight.

Anyone pushing that line is either economically illiterate or deliberately misleading you.

The next time you hear that a 50% tariff will mean a 50% price hike, don’t nod along. Push back. Ask for the math. Demand the details.

Because when it comes to tariffs and retail pricing, the facts just don’t support the hysteria.

geopolitical issues

The Three Steps — Which Way is Forward, Which Way is Backward in Russia’s War Fighting, Peac e Negotiating Strategy

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This image has an empty alt attribute; its file name is twee-3-1024x831.png

byJohn Helmer, Moscow
@bears_with

Kirill Dmitriev (lead image) is the Stanford and Harvard educated official appointed by President Vladimir Putin to persuade American businessmen to invest in the profits to be made from dismantling US economic sanctions against Russia.

Today at the Kremlin (April 11), he tried again in fresh talks with Putin and Stephen Witkoff, President Donald Trump’s negotiator.

Dmitriev was just fourteen years of age when he first arrived for schooling in California where neither he, nor anyone else, had ever heard of Vladimir Lenin’s 1904 booklet on the difference between revolutionaries and opportunists in politics; Lenin’s title had been “One Step Forward, Two Steps Back.” All Russian adults schooled before Dmitriev know that phrase.

But on April 4 in Washington, when Dmitriev invited Russian reporters to ask whether he had made any steps forward in his talks with the Americans, he replied: “Yes, definitely. I would say that today and yesterday we made three steps forward on a large number of issues.” Either Dmitriev was making a mockery of Lenin’s three steps, or he was revealing his total ignorance of them.

At home in Moscow no one has dared to fault Putin’s emissary for transforming the direction of Lenin’s three steps. Nor has anyone asked Dmitriev to say concretely what his three steps are, or in what direction. The closest he came to that in his remarks in a Washington park were that he has been discussing “possible cooperation in the Arctic, in rare earth metals, in various other sectors where we can build constructive and positive relations…[and] active work on restoring air travel.” One of the “other sectors” Dmitriev mentioned is an Elon Musk project to fly to Mars.

That Dmitriev is proposing to open sectors of the Russian economy which are legally closed under national security control – at the same time as the US is escalating its military power projection from Greenland to Alaska – has been noted by the Russian Foreign Ministry, which has been trying to curb Dmitriev’s powers, as well as his tongue. Dmitriev has retreated, ingenuously telling the BBC: “first of all, I am focused on economics and investment, so I don’t comment on political issues.” Then he did just that. “There are already very good results. So the stop of the hitting the energy infrastructure is a major, major result. And frankly that is a good result for Ukraine.. for Russia, for the world.”

Dmitriev was referring to President Putin’s undertaking to President Trump during their telephone call of February 12 to halt Russian strikes on Ukrainian energy targets. This partial ceasefire by the Russian side has been ignored by the Ukrainians and their US and NATO advisors. Although the Kremlin notice warned that “in the event of a violation of the moratorium by either party, the other party has the right to consider itself free from obligations to comply with it”, there has been no Russian retaliation yet.

When Lenin had begun his three steps a century ago, he warned: “When a prolonged, stubborn and heated struggle is in progress, there usually begin to emerge after a time the central and fundamental points at issue, upon the decision of which the ultimate outcome of the campaign depends, and in comparison with which all the minor and petty episodes of the struggle recede more and more into the background.”

In the record which the Russian and American negotiators have been making since the presidents’ telephone call, the outcome to date is nothing but “minor and petty episodes”. Dmitriev is the only Russian official to say otherwise.

At the first round of talks in Saudi Arabia on February 18, Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov disclaimed there had been agreement on anything but a programme of talks to follow at the sub-ministerial level on ceasefire measures in the Black Sea, and on the restoration of regular operations between the State Department and the Foreign Ministry. “We didn’t just listen”, Lavrov said in briefing the Russian press after the meeting, “but we also heard each other…This does not necessarily mean a convergence of positions.”

The subsequent talks which have followed have demonstrated almost no “convergence of positions.”

The negotiations between Andrew Peek and Michael Anton on the US side, Senator Grigory Karasin and Colonel-General Sergei Beseda on the Russian side, held in Riyadh on March 24 discussed Ukrainian proposals for a ceasefire on the Black Sea, including Odessa port, and the resumption of Ukrainian grain exports. The two sides failed to accept a joint communiqué of what they had agreed.

Instead, the Kremlin issued a detailed outline of agreement for the Black Sea with preconditions. These were “the removal of sanctions imposed on Rosselkhozbank (Russian Agricultural Bank) and other financial institutions involved in ensuring international food trade (including fish and fish products) and fertilisers, their reconnection to SWIFT, and opening of relevant correspondent accounts; the removal of restrictions imposed on trade finance operations; the removal of sanctions imposed on companies producing and exporting food (including fish and fish products) and fertilisers, as well as restrictions banning insurance companies from working with food cargoes (including fish and fish products) and fertilisers; the removal of restrictions on servicing ships in ports and sanctions against ships flying the flag of Russia, if they are involved in food trade (including fish and fish products) and fertilisers; the removal of restrictions on supplies to the Russian Federation of agricultural machinery and other goods used in the production of food (including fish and fish products) and fertilisers.”

In the US communiqué, the Russian sanctions terms were ignored.

Source: https://www.whitehouse.gov

Instead, the US said that in principle it would “help restore Russia’s access to the world market for agricultural and fertilizer exports, lower maritime insurance costs, and enhance access to ports and payment systems for such transactions. “ It said no more about the Ukrainian attacks on energy targets except that “the United States and Russia agreed to develop measures for implementing President Trump’s and President Putin’s agreement to ban strikes against energy facilities of Russia and Ukraine.” That was on March 25. In the interval of three weeks since then, the frequency of the Ukrainian drone attacks on Russian energy targets has increased.

The US and Russia then sent officials to Istanbul on April 10 for negotiations to implement the earlier Rubio-Lavrov agreement in Riyadh “to address irritants to our bilateral relationship with the objective of taking steps necessary to normalize the operation of our respective diplomatic missions.” Alexander Darchiev for the Russian Foreign Ministry (he is the new Russian Ambassador to Washington) and Sonata Coulter, a deputy assistant secretary of State, failed to agree on any of the issues on the agenda except for one: “the U.S. and Russian delegations exchanged notes to finalize an understanding to ensure the stability of diplomatic banking for Russian and U.S. bilateral missions.”

The return of Russian offices, residences and other property in the US, confiscated on White House order for several years, was the Russian priority. According to Darchiev, “the return of illegally seized diplomatic property to the Russian side… is of critical importance for the restoration of normalcy in the entire bilateral relationship.” Coulter refused, claiming the US priority is “the Russian Federation’s policy prohibiting the employment of local staff, which is the key impediment to maintaining for stable and sustainable staffing levels at the U.S. Embassy in Moscow.”

This serial failure, dictated by the Trump subordinates, has now led to an afternoon meeting in St Petersburg between Putin, his foreign policy advisor Yury Ushakov, Dmitriev and Witkoff. Lavrov was not present. The meeting appears to have been arranged hastily on the US initiative. “The situation on the negotiation track of the United States and Ukraine is developing rapidly,” Putin’s spokesman Dmitry Peskov announced. “There are a lot of developments in one day.”

Source: http://en.kremlin.ru/events/president/news/76675

For the time being neither the Kremlin nor the White House has claimed any result. RIA Novosti, headlining that the meeting with Witkoff lasted for four hours, reported no detail at all.

Several hours after Witkoff had left meeting with Putin, Trump implied that he is blaming the Russians for the failure of the talks so far, and is planning a new ultimatum. “Russia has to get moving”, Trump tweeted.

Source: https://truthsocial.com/@realDonaldTrump/posts/114319592702753512

A well-informed source in Moscow says that Trump and his subordinates have been surprised by the Russian terms for ending the war. “The Russians have told Americans they will have Odessa and a land corridor to Moldova. They have offered ports on Dnieper River for access to the sea for the Ukrainians. There has been no demand about Nord Stream. Money is being discussed on the sidelines but not in the main talks. In the main room [in Riyadh on February 18] Lavrov and Ushakov brought no papers and asked Americans [Rubio and Waltz] to dust off the December 2021 treaty draft. The Russian positions shocked the Americans. They were told the Ukraine will be demilitarized and its forces will be turned into paramilitary and police. The Americans were also surprised how little Russians cared about Zelensky or his British and Europeans backers. The Americans were told there will be no Ukrainian paramilitary force east of the Dnieper – only police. A new Russian demand was tabled for autonomy of eight Ukrainian oblasts, with Kiev army forces removed. In general, the Russians propose turning the Ukraine into a genuinely federal structure with provisions that Banderites can never take power in Kiev and that the central forces will be limited in their capabilities, supplementing the police if and when Banderites take to the streets. The main purpose of any such force will be de-nazification and keeping it that way. There are demands also about the Orthodox Church in Ukraine.

geopolitical issues

How Strong is Russia Actually?

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True to his stated objective analysis, Igor Strelkov refutes the conventional beliefs, especially among the American alternative social media pundits, about the “strong Russia”. He does it with facts and more facts in the face of just hubris. Especially Gilbert Doctorow is making the rounds these days on behalf of his Masters trying to convince the uninformed about the need to appease Russia or else. Scott Ritter, Col. MacGregor, J. Johnson, are and have been telling us for 3 years now, oh, Russia can take out Ukraine in two weeks any time.

IGOR STRELKOV’S RESPONSE TO CRITICISM OF “ALEXANDER ALEXANDROVICH”

Dear “Alexander Alexandrovich”!

Excerpts

[…]

2). “It was decided to drag out the negotiations until autumn.” Who decided? Were you personally present when the decision was made? I suspect that you were not and this is just your personal (albeit quite true) conclusion. But it may not be possible to “drag out” because (according to information from other letters) Mr. Secretary of State Rubio already (April 4) warned that “the countdown is in weeks and time has started” (for Moscow to accept the “peace settlement” plan based, of course, on the “Kellogg plan”). Alas, Moscow is not a subject of the world political agenda. It is, albeit relatively “independent” and poorly managed, but an object. The “agenda” of the so-called “negotiations” is determined by Washington (and Moscow itself agreed with this and even with “puppy delight”). Therefore, how long Moscow will actually be able to “drag out” without another wave of “crippling” sanctions – we will soon find out (my forecast is May or June).

3). “Significant reserves” (we have) is an absolutely unfounded (on your part) assertion. I do not have such data, and you did not consider it possible (perhaps rightly) to share the sources of such information. The same applies to the “large-scale offensive on all fronts”. No, I believe in intentions of this kind (although “not on all fronts”, since the state of affairs with personnel in some areas is known to me and it is not encouraging). But I remember very well such “rosy plans” of 2024, which stumbled in mid-May in Vovchansk and near Liptsy in the Kharkov region, and to this day remain in a “neither here nor there” position (with a general advance of 8-10 km in depth and 30 km in width along the front). 4 corps were simply “burned”.

Naturally, if I knew about the preparation of this offensive, then (naturally) the enemy’s intelligence knew about it very well. Has anything changed since then, what do you think? Has the enemy weakened or gone blind? – I don’t think so. My forecast is that our offensive will “get bogged down” just like the previous one, because we have nowhere to “take” and throw into battle 3-4 full-fledged armies necessary for a strategic deep operation, and another 3-4 corps (if they exist at all) will not be able to go beyond the operational level. And our successes (if they exist at all) will be limited to pieces of Donbass, Zaporizhia and (maybe) Kharkov regions. At the level of another “Avdiivka-Ugledar-Kurakhove”. Which will not and cannot give any advantage in a “war of attrition”.

4). “Improvement of the work of the diplomatic corps” – I do not notice it “not even once”. All our “allies” are North Korea, Sri Lanka and some cannibals from equatorial Africa. Well, Venezuela too. Where are the “diplomatic victories”? Finland and Sweden are in NATO, there are American ground forces in Estonia. Dmitriev (Surkov’s fosterling) – is he negotiating with the USA? – Is this “improving quality”? Is the agent negotiating with his masters about the fate of Russia? – Is this a “success”? – This is nonsense…

5). “Improving the work of other government bodies.” – Are you serious? Khinshtein (a homosexual) at the head of the Kursk region – is this an “improvement”? Hmm. Are you, by any chance, “playing a joke” on me?

6). “They want to remove liberals from the Ministry of Finance, the Ministry of Economic Development and the Central Bank” – Who wants to remove them? – You? Or me? – Maybe, but certainly not those who can do it.

7). “The system began to break and now it is partially corrected.” The first part is 100% true, and the second does not stand up to any criticism. The system has ceased to meet the requirements (minimum), because it turned out to be completely incapable of reacting to the crisis (dreaming of “sitting it out”, without changing itself in any way). And this is already irreversible – time is lost irretrievably.

8). “A fair reputation as a “doomsayer” – well, so be it. But at least I have a reputation. Most (if not all) modern Russian “politicians” have no reputation at all – they only have “what would you like, Your Excellency?!” And yes – I, in general, don’t care whether I will be “less interesting to readers” (not to mention that soon readers will have “no time for reading” – they will think about a piece of bread and safety 90% of the time). I do my Duty – as I understand it and as I can. I have never chased popularity and intend to do so specifically in the future.

I hope you understood from my letter that I have much more information than the correspondents you mentioned send me, and I can still critically evaluate the information I receive. And also that I am not a “consumer of ready-made conclusions” (like those you sent me – without any specific justification). Do you want to really have a “positive-corrective effect” on me? – Operate with facts! And I will evaluate them as carefully as the arguments of your opponents.

I also ask you to convey my regards to “Ivan Ivanovich”! (I would not object if you decided to acquaint him with this opus). However, I also do not object to a wider publication.

Sincerely, I.V. Girkin

08.04.2025

/all names and surnames in the text, taken in quotation marks ” “, are fictitious/

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