If progress is minimal, while you are expected to report on what is happening, you tend to zoom in on details. Then, if something huge is developing just outside your peripheral eyesight, you do not see it until it is too late. What is more, by focussing on details you may not understand the function of this complicated ‘thing’ you are studying. This is why driving instructors teach you a ‘scan flow’, switching from one source of information to the next on a regular basis while driving. But then, if something happens as displayed in one of your mirrors, it is a bad idea to stop your ‘scan flow’ and stare at this rapidly approaching, unique sports car, missing this truck hitting the brakes right in front of you.
This war in Ukraine has been ‘slow’ lately, with a focus on what was happening in Bakhmut, inching towards a Russian victory, while we were waiting for the launch of this major Ukrainian ‘Spring Offensive’. And then all kinds of things are starting to happen, all at once. Drone attacks on the Kremlin. Another attempt on a Russian journalist. Drone attacks on fuel depots. Zelensky on the move. His sidekick telling the world that Ukraine will murder Russians wherever they have a chance. Prigozhin launching his attack on the military planners in Moscow. Rumors left and right. One bank after the other going broke. Bombs going off in Rotterdam on a daily basis. A car plowing into a line of people in the US. Syria back in the Arab League. The UAE moving into the orbit of the SCO. One country after the other leaving the Dollar and the Euro. Upgraded ‘food fights’ among politicians in the US in preparation of elections still beyond the horizon. Talks of NATO teasing the Chinese into another war. Zaporizhzhia being evacuated in preparation of the scheduled ‘Spring Offensive’, as NATO/Ukraine is shelling the largest nuclear power plant in Europe located in that area, as if that was normal.
Things may be related, or not at all. But you’ve got this unnerving feeling that ‘something’ huge is about to go down. And it may not even be visible. An unexpected pleasant surprise, like peace breaking out, and a return to common sense and the rule of law. Or uncontrolled, utter mayhem and destruction. Too much information does that to people. Not enough information will have them living in a state of bliss, until it is too late. So, human beings created governments to watch over them, and defend their ‘Free Market’ where they can trade and improve their lives. But what if a government abandons this mandate, becoming an expeditionary force, while neglecting the home front? Bad things happen. Money which should have been spent on fighting crime, is being funneled to yet another war. The cost of living is rising exponentially to fund these adventures, feeding into desperation among the downtrodden, who feel particularly vulnerable. And when they snap, they do horrible things.
The government, neglecting the needs of the people, is increasingly being run as a ‘private venture’ to advance the interests of those in power. Corruption becomes rampant at a material, as well as at an ‘intellectual’ level. The media are bought and paid for, or pressured into urging the people to keep their eyes on the ball, and to accept that the enemy ‘within’ is of no importance, since it is this outside threat that is about to destroy ‘our way of life’. But the people, seeing that their wealth and security is being destroyed by various criminal organizations, without the government lifting a finger, or it being in cahoots with the criminals, are asking which ‘way of life’ that might be, exactly. Not any ‘way of life’ they ever voted for. So, who is calling the shots within the government? And to what end? What if a government claims that it is ‘over their head’ as well? That some supra-national organization the country is bound to through ‘treaties’, some of which the people explicitly voted against, but were implemented anyway, through some kind of backdoor, are leaving the government no choice?
If we take a step back to look at the path which brought us here, we will be hard pressed to isolate a single choice which was clearly a mistake. It always is a long line of ‘baby steps’, and not in any given direction. On occasion we did take a step back after the people blocked the government, only to arrive at the same outlook via a detour, ‘nudging’ us forward. Why? What is the plan? Whose plan? Is it a coherent plan? Or are we looking at bits and pieces, glued together through ‘consensus’? Who were these people reaching ‘consensus’? Who appointed them? On what basis? Who was paying their bills? The luxury hotels. The private jets. The cocktail parties. The parades. The crowning ceremonies. The trips to Epstein’s Lolita Island.
It is my impression that the Russians, and the Chinese, came to see this chaotic, unstructured, improvised, ill prepared, ill advised expedition of the ‘Collective West’, and abandoned us before it would destroy them too. They told us so, and they told us why. Without telling us to mend our ways. If we wanted to explore new ways to structure the military, or promote beer, who were they to object? If we felt strongly that women who had never served were right to demand that they’d be given a fair chance to wage wars, and being anointed to the top of all those ministeries and agencies in charge of all those wars, and being crowned Boss of the EU after demolishing the military in Germany, making them play with broomsticks for guns, while Angela Merkel was preparing the ground for a future war with Russia through buying time by signing a fake treaty, they probably scratched their head in those countries. What was the plan?
Well, the plan was to destroy Russia through Europe committing economic suicide, and throwing Ukraine under the bus. It didn’t work. It backfired spectacularly. And these ‘consensus’ thinkers from various ‘scientific’ disciplines concocting ‘expert advice’ on how to conquer the universe, designed this new strategy, which hinges on a Ukrainian ‘Spring Offensive’. The general idea seems to be that ‘creating events’ as a distraction will set the stage for military success. Making the Russian leadership stare in the mirror at this fast approaching sports car, while making the truck driver ahead of them hit the brakes. The same strategy is used all over the world by other pickpockets and scammers. But an alternative explanation of what we are witnessing, is that the ‘Big Event’, the ‘Spring Offensive’, is itself a distraction, while some ‘Intelligence Operation’ is designed as the ‘decisive blow’. Releasing a biochemical agent during the Victory Day parade in Moscow? I can’t tell you. All I know is that they are stark raving mad, not bound by treaties or concern for anything you and I might refuse to do.
Prigozhin losing it on the Russian side was odd, and I’ve heard, and considered various possible explanations, which I shared with you previously. But understand that the Russians ‘designed’ this siege of Bakhmut as a ‘meat grinder’, destroying Ukrainian military potential, and that capturing the place was not in the plan. And that Prigozhin is a ‘hired hand’, the face of a Russian ‘Private Military Corporation’ set up by two agencies within the Russian government to be used like the ‘Collective West’ is using their ‘PMO’s’. Prigozhin is not a military man, but the ‘face’ of a shady group serving the Kremlin. The ‘Telegraaf’ newspaper in the Netherlands spun the rather distasteful nervous breakdown of Prigozhin by telling its readers that ‘Putin’s Chef’ had ‘threatened’ to mobilize the ‘feared Chechen forces’, as if those were his to command as well. In reality, Prigozhin doesn’t command any forces, if you ask me. And most certainly not Kadyrov’s elite troops. It is my understanding, from the follow up, that Surovikin explained to him what his role in the ’Special Military Operation’ is, and always has been, even if he was never informed about the details.
Now, if Prigozhin was kept in the dark, understand that I was not informed either. And nobody commenting on the progress of the war from a Russian perspective was, save from some ‘spokes people’, who said very little. Compare this with how the ‘Collective West’ is going about this. Utter chaos, leaks, improvised actions, mounting a ‘Mad Max’ hodgepodge of armored vehicles manned by all kinds of volunteers and slaves, sporting a wide variety of tattoos and regalia reminding us of their ideological roots in Nazi battlegroups, a background as soccer hooligans, or in‘ Freefight’ entertainment and video games. Everything paid for by the tax payers in the ‘Collective West’, as those hapless folks struggle to make ends meet, and avoid going bankrupt.
Tell me again what ‘winning’ looks like from ‘our’ perspective. Scan your surroundings, keep your eyes peeled, and listen. We live in ‘Interesting Times’, but that actually is some sort of translation of a Chinese wisdom: ‘Better to be a dog in times of tranquility than a human in times of chaos’. Increasingly it is starting to feel like these Chinese have a point.