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naraburns  nihil supernum  1yr ago (text post)   31609 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of January 16, 2023

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One should understand that Europe's and even America's production capacities have atrophied badly over the decades.

In sharp contrast to Russia's, which is on such a fanatical war footing and so replete with materiel that it can afford to throw heavy anti-ship missiles into apartment buildings?

This is a war of attrition alright. Ukraine is not a player in this sense; its only contribution is manpower (plus publicity, such as cringeworthy woke-style attempts to cancel Atomic Heart developers and harass other random Russians online). The competitors are Russia (not even other "Authoritarian Axis" nations, which are increasingly distancing themselves from this clusterfuck) and NATO, with support form NATO-in-all-but-name allies like Japan. The question is: would NATO accept to lose to Russia in a war of attrition, with all that means for its credibility and for viability of major land grabs, or would it rather accept some upfront cost to de-mothball military production lines – that, I should note, may come in handy in a world war against China?

This doesn't look like a hard choice to me.

In the beginning of this war I've translated some Atomic Cherry posts. I think he's still very good. He predicts a major offensive by AFU in 2023, enabled by Western aid. Translation technology is good enough now that I'd rather not waste space here.

The question is: would NATO accept to lose to Russia in a war of attrition, with all that means for its credibility and for viability of major land grabs, or would it rather accept some upfront cost to de-mothball military production lines

Because the actual enemy of USG and it's satrapies are the people who would gain wealth by producing things such as arms. Deindustrialization of the west wasn't an accident and it wasn't the result of "economic forces" - it was the result of a series of deliberate choices. Reversing that trend after the Regime has gone mask off would be very high risk.

USG

What you mean by USG here?

US Government

Pretty sure he means the Octopus, or what Moldbug calls the 'Cathedral'.

Empires usually don't fall by being steam rolled by an enemy. The risk for the American empire isn't Russians steam rolling across the world, it is an inability to maintain the empire. The taliban lost engagement after engagement, but won in the end due to them being too expensive to subdue. The US Marine Corps can't defend feminism in Iraq and fight high intensity wars in the Pacific. Social workers with guns patrolling deserts for years on end are a world away from amphibious jungle operations.

The US military spending in 2005 was 1.5 times the 10 following powers combined, today it is on par with their spending. Meanwhile, the US has much higher spending on wages, a less efficient industrial base, huge costs for pensions, medical care and education and much more expensive logistics as the US wants to retain a global footprint. After 20 years of investing in wars in the middle east the US has never had such old equipment and needs major investments just to keep currrent levels.

Keeping parity with China while China has the world's largest civilian ship building industry, low paid sailors with much higher recruiting standards and sailors that can take the subway home when they reach port is going to be tough for the US with sailors serving halfway around the world. Especially while having most of the logistical responsibility for Ukraine, who are fighting a war with poorly trained troops and a non-existent supply chain for western systems.

The question isn't can the US stop Russia, the question is can the US handle a whole host of simultaneous crises.

Humiliating and economically and molitarily destroying a threat to Western Europe, a major China supporter and potentially crucial resource supplier is handling a whole host of simultaneous crises. Let's stop pretending this doesn't make geopolitical sense.

The US Marine Corps can't defend feminism in Iraq and fight high intensity wars in the Pacific.

I suspect they very much can and that Chinese military will not substantially outperform the Russian one, but in any case the materiel going to Ukraine is chump change in comparison to its benefits, whether political or logistical. Everyone is upping their defense budgets; do you think it'd have been such an easy sell without supporting Ukraine?

I wish Western "anti-Interventionists" and such were honest about their beliefs, instead of coming off as two-bit dictator stans with motivated reasoning. What the US is doing now is executing a rational strategy for a soon-to-be total hegemon. This is the birth of the empire; mopping up Taliban will become trivial after these big wars with nuclear-armed sources of systemic interference are done. If you have any real criticism of Pax Americana, do make it.

Humiliating and economically and molitarily destroying a threat to Western Europe, a major China supporter and potentially crucial resource supplier is handling a whole host of simultaneous crises. Let's stop pretending this doesn't make geopolitical sense.

Look at Marseille, what is the biggest threat to the city? Russians plowing through half of Europe and temporarily holding it for a period of time that will be insignificant in the grand scale of things? Rather, it is globalist interests who want to replace the nations of Europe with a global market run by a handful of financial interests who bombed Libya to pieces and flooded Europe with migrants. The invasion of Iraq was a much bigger threat to Europe than Russia and China ever were. China has no chance whatsoever to actually occupy Europe or North America. It isn't a threat. The main threat is due to the same financial interests who now want another third world war, wrecking their own countries by outsourcing production to China to dump their working class. '

The same globalist interests that opened up for islamic immigration leading to waves of terrorism in the west on top of vast problems with rape, were the same people who's pointless war in Afghanistan caused a surge in the supply of heroin in the west. The war in Afghanistan caused a large wave of migrants, and the war was neatly summarized by NATO troops loading hundreds of migrants onto cargo jets to fly them to people who had nothing to benefit from this war. I am not really pro taliban, but their delivery of karmic justice to the people who cut the heroin price in half in Europe while getting eight people in Sweden stabbed by an Afghan refugee is something I applaud.

The US empire is crumbling which the increased spending on the military shows. Empires require expansion, and there are few good provinces left for the US to incorporate. Meanwhile, the imperial core is withering and the cost of maintaining the empire is surging. The current rhetoric is around increasing spending to defend Taiwan, not to go on some new venture of expansion. Slowed growth with increasing maintnance costs and lower cohesion in the core are solid signs of an empire in decline. Russia and China are not going to steam roll the US just like the British Empire wasn't steamrolled by another power. It simply became impossible to maintain.

Empires require expansion, and there are few good provinces left for the US to incorporate

The reason empires require expansion is because the parasitic imperial class grows (it takes an interest in the system as a whole to slow this growth and everyone in the system is interested only in maintaining his position in the system - hence, no one checks the growth of the parasitic load). The US empire is mainly a system of parasitism on Americans rather than one where foreign conquest yields returns.

Even the foreign clients are much like domestic USG clients - an excuse to take money from Americans, take a cut and give it to the foreign client in exchange for their main service - hostility to USG enemies (Americans).

This makes the historical comparisons difficult - this is rather a unique historical situation.

Of course the one way that USG actually does collect a benefit from running its empire is that the empire uses dollars and USG controls those and can issue them at will - that acts as a silent tax on the entire empire that can't be evaded.

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