Well I stumbled into something that seems to energize folks. I had intended to do a one & done the other day with my post on the definitive thinking in all of this.

Then I followed it up with a post citing something astute and prescient that Noam Chomsky said about it. That riled up some folks. I went even further and asked you to watch a speech Vladimir Putin gave on the situation.

In the aftermath, there are comments on the most two recent posts, but also about 40-50 unsubscribes from the newsletter. I’ve had a number of excoriating emails, all from people on the newsletter, but not paid, or even free Members.

I’ve only had a single membership cancellation, and that was a free-level member. Conversely over this period, I’ve gleaned 7 new paid memberships—six of them annual at $50, and one of them monthly, at $6/mo.

Doesn’t seem to me like I’m doing too much wrong here. I’ve always thought of this blog as a revolving door. That was especially true during the intense Paleo blogging days. Get what you need, move on. Come back and visit now and then. I’ve never wanted to create or engender dependency. The best business strives to put itself out of business by making its services no longer needed by those it serves to help fix problems.

One very good thing about this blog going membership-mostly is that comments are fewer and high quality. I shut some comment ability down so that even on public posts where anyone can comment, you have to be at least a free member to comment. Trolls with their made-up email addresses went away overnight with that one check of the box.

So, the inspiration for this post comes from none other than Chief Master Sergeant Tim Steele (USAF, ret). He’s vacationing in Cabo right now, so he probably won’t get to reading it until after the poolside massage and an undisclosed number of margaritas.

Tim: I don’t think I’ve ever seen a world event that has so unified people of America, nobody on the street that’s watching live coverage and interviews with fleeing Ukrainians is thinking, or saying, “Good on Putin!” […]

Me: My problem is the single-narrative nature of it all, Tim.

Hell, In my little gated complex here of maybe 80 townhomes, 60% are owned by Russians and Ukrainians and I see more of a variety of disagreement amongst them at the community pool than the whole rest of the world.

There’s a great meme out there I saw showing a map of Europe, and you have to point out which one is Ukraine before you get to comment on it.

It’s a pretty deep history. […]

Tim: What is the sentiment at the pool?

After watching (reading) the entire video you posted here, none of what Vlad is saying is new to me. All of his talking points, ie Libya, Syria, Irag, etc… have all been exposed by our own media. Shameful, yes, but not deep-state secrets.

It’s almost as if he’s now saying in Ukraine, “Hey, America gets to do it, now it’s my turn.”

As we both learned from our time in the military, what you see on the news is only a fraction of what’s really going on, and we never really know the motivations. I think we have a long ways to go before this is over. Glad you are writing about this, history in the making.

https://www.freetheanimal.com/2022/03/from-the-horses-mouth-vladimir-putin.html

I enjoy the pushback I’ve been getting. To answer Tim’s question specifically, the general sentiment seems lack of panic. Of course, I can’t understand all that’s being discussed unless they’re speaking English or speaking with me. Russian and Ukrainian are different languages and although most Ukrainians speak Russian the same is not true of the latter.

Just now I was speaking to a Ukrainian who’s actually a US resident for the last 5 years (green card), headed back to Florida tomorrow. He’s shocked at the whole thing, but not really panicked. His friends and family, including mom, are safe.

Automatic Good vs. Automatic Bad

It’s not as though I’m cheering Russia here…not really cheering Ukraine, either. I’m criticizing the typical us-vs-them-think where there’s little effort to understand the interests of each party in a conflict. In other words, it’s all couched in moral terms—good guys vs. bad guys—when there are not really any morals in geopolitics or diplomacy, only interests.

Overall, Young seems inclined to analyse this situation by making moral assessments about who is good and who is bad, but in this context booing the villain is unhelpful. Despite the emotional tenor of our times, geopolitics is not a morality play. These decisions are only about the strategic interests of the country you are defending. To paraphrase Lord Palmerston, there are no perpetual friends or enemies, only perpetual interests. Our interests are not the same as those of our adversaries, so we either need to find a way to reconcile them in a satisfactory manner or prepare for an eventual war.

https://dailysceptic.org/2022/03/03/a-response-to-toby-youngs-babyish-piece-about-ukraine/

When is the last time you heard or read the word oligarch when not in reference to a Russian? It’s as though Russianoligarch is one word. Remember back in the Paleo Daze when it was joked that hearthealthywholegrains and arterycloggingsaturatedfat are two instances of one word? I first saw that reference made by Mary Dan Eades, MD in a video interview.

The meaning of oligarch is essentially someone of great wealth combined with high political influence.

Is Bill Gates an oligarch, then? How about George Soros? Warren Buffett? How many other Americans? And what do you call a politician on a $200k annual salary that’s worth hundreds of millions? I’d say that as Speaker, Nancy has some pretty solid political influence.

Was billionaire Trump an oligarch?

What I’m saying is that when we turn normal descriptive words into pejoratives, it exposes bias and at least a diminishing of objective critical thinking. I’m as guilty as anyone…socialist and communist as just two examples I use pejoratively for automatic judgement.

To be sure, Russia’s development over the three decades since the fall of the USSR is pretty appalling given its vast landmass with the greatest natural resources on earth. It’s difficult to look far beyond its governmental structures as the cause of that; such that, USSR was the tree, Russia didn’t fall from it, and hasn’t rolled much.

In this morning’s The Arrow #61, Mike Eades, MD gives quite a comprehensive take on not only the whole quotidian thing, but specifically the sorry state of, let’s say, organized crime-like business and honest-dealing aspects of Russia. Take a read.

But it doesn’t mean they don’t have understandable and legitimate geopolitical, political, and diplomatic interests beyond their immediate borders—as though it’s just sit down, shut up, and stay home or we’ll call you an evil empire.

That’s what Ronald Reagan called the Soviet Union in his speech to the National Association of Evangelicals in 1983 and wow did that bunch lots of panties. I was only 22, a college student, and can recall it as though it was yesterday.

Whether that moral condemnation is justified or not, it’s factual that the USSR was expansionist, interventionist, and expeditionary. They had their fingers in everything all over the globe and closest to our shores was south and central America, and Cuba—where Castro even made a bastard son Trojan Horse for Canada.

The USSR collapsed quickly and spectacularly when Gorbachev announced it on Christmas day, 1991, another thing I remember as though it was yesterday. I was in my last few months in the US Navy, still on assignment with the French.

So, since 1992—30 years—what has Russia got itself mixed up in militarily?

That arrow pointing down is Syria, the only military involvement that was not a former USSR satellite, though it was a strong ally of the Soviet Union and later, Russia.

You can Google around for the reasons behind all of these actions and if you do so honestly, you might come away thinking that it was all about the understandable interests (remember that word?) that are close by.

I spoke of Mike Eades’ newsletter that came out this morning which you should read if for nothing but his section covering this. I don’t think we have huge disagreements on this, and certainly not of the “spiritual” sort. But he covered one aspect I wish to quibble with, and he likely covered it because it has been mentioned a lot by those of us asking the same questions and pointing out the same things.

It used to be important where missiles were located as they had a fairly short range. Which is why we didn’t want them in Cuba back in the early 60s. Now that can hit from anywhere. Putin should know that. It wouldn’t matter if they were 50 miles from his border or 5000.

Well, the fact is, the first ICBM (intercontinental ballistic missile)—by definition having a range of 3,400 miles or greater—was developed by the Soviet Union and was tested 28 times between 1957 and 1961. The R-7 Semyorka, though it was a derivative, the R-7A, that was ultimately deployed in 1959.

The point is, it was already possible in the late 1950s to deliver missiles with nuclear warheads from a shit-ton distance away.

In response to the presence of American Jupiter ballistic missiles in Italy and Turkey, and the failed Bay of Pigs Invasion of 1961, Soviet First Secretary Nikita Khrushchev agreed to Cuba’s request to place nuclear missiles on the island to deter a future invasion. An agreement was reached during a secret meeting between Khrushchev and Cuban Prime Minister Fidel Castro in July 1962, and construction of a number of missile launch facilities started later that summer.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cuban_Missile_Crisis

So, again, interests, all while the narrative was moral (evil bastards!). The Soviet Union didn’t need to be 90 miles away to deliver a nuke. They could already do it from thousands of miles away.

So why Cuba?

Three words: projection of power.

My thinking on this is tangential.

Alfred Thayer Mahan (/məˈhæn/; September 27, 1840 – December 1, 1914) was a United States naval officer and historian, whom John Keegan called “the most important American strategist of the nineteenth century.” His book The Influence of Sea Power Upon History, 1660–1783 (1890) won immediate recognition, especially in Europe, and with its successor, The Influence of Sea Power Upon the French Revolution and Empire, 1793–1812 (1892), made him world-famous and perhaps the most influential American author of the nineteenth century.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfred_Thayer_Mahan

Naturally, his books are required reading for Navy midshipmen and young officers.

What it boils down to is influence. It’s sort of a sales pitch. The US armed forces enjoy an enormous network of military bases around the world and we have since the end of WWII. Well, there hasn’t been a #3 yet, so maybe the cost has been worth it. The bases are typically fucking enormous and impressive. I’ve been to many of them by air and sea.

They serve so many purposes, understanding basic geopolitics in terms of influence and the projection of power.

There’s another aspect that’s most particular to the Navy. Earth’s oceans are 2/3 of its surface area. We can get a beautiful and impressive warship to a million different places. Sure, there is the R&R, get drunk, get laid aspect of it, but the primary gentle-strategic one is show the flag. I arranged various details for port visits in the 50-million-square-mile 7th Fleet AOR (area of responsibility) and what wasn’t for repair or refueling was typically tagged show the flag.

I hope that gives everyone added perspective. The USSR wasn’t likely trying to establish their missiles on Cuba back in 1962 to be able to shoot at us. They were making a statement, projecting power, and showing their flag a mere 90 miles from our shores.

Now, I thought about doing a similar map for the USA with red arrows showing their military excursions, but you already know there are about 2 dozen since 1992 when the USSR fell and they cover virtually the entire fucking globe as chief police officer and financier, profits going to “defense contractors” and their shareholders.

Save me the trouble and just be honest and astute about the distinction, wouldja?

Bird’s Eye Perspective.

Here’s your visual perspective on Russia geographically. It’s the same chart or map you saw all your life.

It’s an illusion it terms of its size. School time, from a former US Navy ship’s navigator. Almost all charts and maps are created with what’s called a mercator projection. Imagine a globe of the earth made of plexiglass and on it, you put semi-transparent stickers representing each country in various differing colors, and they are all accurate by total area in whatever units. In the center of the globe, you have a light source.

Then you form a cylinder of trace paper and place it around the globe where the cylinder contacts only the equator. You turn on the light and trace the projection. If you think about that in your mind’s eye, you might be able to intuitively see the problem. The farther you get from the equator, the higher the distortion. And, since the vast majority of earth’s landmass is in the northern hemisphere, that’s where the distortion becomes most pronounced. Here it is, adjusted.

See how Greenland is even more massive than Africa in the projection, yet in landmass is puny by comparison. In fact, Africa is so damn huge, nearly the entire rest of the world can fit inside it.

Of course, the other winner is Russia. Looks fucking enormous on the distorted mercator projection but in reality, just moderately larger than the USA.

Here’s an animated version that is even more striking.

…Alaskans can stop talking, now…

There’s another kind of projection called gnomonic. Take your same plexiglass globe with the light in the center and instead of the cylinder touching the equator, you pick a center anywhere and touch that point with a totally flat tracing paper. It’s a plane touching a sphere. Then you project and trace.

The chief technical difference is that the shortest distance between two points plots as an arch on mercator, and as a straight line on gnomonic. The practical difference is that mercator is perfectly functional for small areas because all of the distortion is relative and in any small area, say 100×100 miles, it will be just fine. But the distortion goes to infinity way up north and way down south, so for arctic or antarctic navigation, gnomonic projection is used.

Now I get to the point. You’ve already seen how distorted the size of Russia is. Now, how about if you had a gnomonic bird’s eye view of the real geopolitical situation and perhaps their understandable, legitimate concerns.

That’s a gnomonic projection centered on Russia and if you’re one of those old-fashioned geeks that still have a globe around—as we all had as kids born before 1970—you can go haul it out, dust it off, spin it to where you’re looking squarely at Russia, and look around it.

Has your perspective changed a bit? Honestly?

Why Is NATO Important Anymore?

I’ll let someone else do the heavy lifting and cheers to my Member-commenter who shot this my way this morning.

This is the primary source of our trouble with Russia today. For the last 30 years the U.S., and by extension NATO, have failed to acknowledge that Russia has legitimate interests in its near abroad. The Georgian conflict, which occurred after discussion of Georgia joining NATO, was a good example of this. Faced with a potential NATO member on its southern border, it was always likely that Russia would see the breakaway entities of Abkhazia and South Ossetia as buffer republics with whom it could cooperate. Georgian entry into South Ossetia meant that the Russians did cross the border while pushing them back into their own country. It is reasonable to ask what role foreign advisors played in this conflict, given that it was an opportunity to gauge the nature and strength of any Russian response.

Discussion about Ukraine joining NATO was even more consequential. Not only is Ukraine a large country directly bordering Russia, the Russians were leasing the naval base at Sevastopol in Crimea, which is the home of the Black Sea Fleet and their primary warm-water port. Although the lease was extended by another 25 years in 2010, a NATO-allied Ukraine would eventually make this position untenable for everyone given that, in the event of hostilities, NATO would certainly neutralise the base as a matter of urgency. At this point, detaching Crimea from Ukraine would have become a strategic priority for Russia, hence the 2014 referendum which achieved this without bloodshed but did not resolve the problem of a potential NATO force on Russia’s western border.

NATO forces in Ukraine have always been a red line for Russians. George Kennan knew this, and nothing has changed. The Russians, quite reasonably in my view, regard hostile NATO troops on their longest western border as an existential threat. Why, then, has the West continued to toy with this idea when it is bound to lead to conflict? My thinking is that the West has been hoping that continuing or increased economic sanctions would weaken Russia to the point that it could do nothing to oppose Ukrainian membership of NATO. But that hasn’t worked.

https://dailysceptic.org/2022/03/03/a-response-to-toby-youngs-babyish-piece-about-ukraine/

I visited that naval base at Sevastopol in Crimea in 1990 as a US Navy dude playing navigator of the French ship, Colbert. Fun times were had by all. Due to the fountain of vodka on offer, there are parts I don’t remember. The Russian/Soviet Navy hosts were gracious, kinda like a typical human being. It’s a lesson in not demonizing other people doing life that I’ve forgotten far too often.

That’s just the one part, but what most interested me about this article—making it wordperfect—was this section, and you should read it twice because it’s the largest point I wish to make here and basically, my whole largest point throughout my posts so far.

Russia aside, it is not at all clear that continued NATO expansion is beneficial to its member states. The original strength of the alliance lay in the fact that it had a limited membership agreed on the defined objective of containing Soviet expansion. But the world has changed since 1949, which has given rise to two problems that haven’t received enough attention. First of all, if NATO is still a defensive alliance, who or what is it defending itself against? The spontaneous response to this would be to identify Russia as the adversary, but this in turn implies that the existence of NATO itself casts Russia in the role of perpetual enemy. Unsurprisingly, the Russians have worked this out for themselves and concluded that their own national interests are likely to play out against a background of low-level Western hostility.

The other problem is the divergence of interests amongst NATO members themselves. In 1952 it made sense to include Turkey in the alliance: the country controls access to the Black Sea and its sheer size made it a regional power. Seventy years later it’s harder to see how our interests are aligned with those of Turkey. The renewed prominence of Islam in Turkey’s political calculations sets it at odds with its Western neighbours. Similarly, further NATO expansion risks drawing in countries whose own perception of their national interests may involve relying on NATO support for actions that were unanticipated by larger allies.

This issue becomes more acute as we consider membership for the larger countries bordering Russia. How precisely is our own security enhanced by including Georgia and Ukraine in NATO? This would certainly antagonise Russia while committing us to the defence of countries which, to speak frankly, have an axe to grind with their large neighbour. It is entirely possible that a limited regional conflict could be incited in the expectation that it would draw in the rest of NATO, as required by Article 5, and involve them in a direct attack on Russia. The unwieldy nature of an ever-expanding NATO carries significant risks that are not widely appreciated.

Where does this leave us now? The short answer is that we need to stop digging.

https://dailysceptic.org/2022/03/03/a-response-to-toby-youngs-babyish-piece-about-ukraine/

That last sentence put coffee spittle on my screen this morning. That’s formally known as the first rule of holes.

Incidentally, that piece is written by Lynne Sash.

After a degree in International Relations, Lynne Sash worked in the U.K. for 30 years providing international research and strategy consultancy services for the engineering, defence, and healthcare industries. In 2019 she returned to Iowa, where she is assembling a library of ‘cancelled’ books.

Gotta smile at that last phrase.

Her piece is quite reminiscent of my first take on this, which was to mind our own business. Instead, the whole world is busy trying to cancel anyone who’s RUSSIAN!!!

On that score, watch this short video by Paul Joseph Watson ridiculing that aspect of what I might start calling Covid Mask, Lockdown, and Vaccination 2.0.

I write for fun and profit. I strive to offer up iconoclast, counter-narrative to just about anything where everyone is certain they’re right because everyone agrees. If I’m not making you think and question what you believe you know, I’m not doing my job.