Connexion
La centrale nucléaire de Zaporojié a perdu son alimentation électrique externe et des générateurs diesel ont été mis en marche.
L’article La centrale nucléaire de Zaporojié a perdu son alimentation électrique externe est apparu en premier sur STRATPOL.
Des exercices conjoints d’entraînement au combat d’armes nucléaires et de soutien nucléaire ont débuté entre les unités militaires russes et
L’article La Russie et la Biélorussie lancent des exercices conjoints sur l’emploi de l’arme nucléaire est apparu en premier sur STRATPOL.
Quatre ans après son lancement, l’opération militaire spéciale (SMO) semble être une opération dans laquelle la Russie atteint lentement mais
L’article L’élite européenne vaincue et le coup de désespoir (par Pepe Escobar) est apparu en premier sur STRATPOL.
Le Bureau 1440 a lancé les 16 premiers satellites du même nom, considérés comme la réponse russe à Starlink. L’entreprise
L’article Le Bureau 1440 a lancé les 16 premiers satellites du projet Rassvet, le Starlink russe est apparu en premier sur STRATPOL.
Do not be put off by the several minutes at the start of this podcast without video image only sound. The producers were obviously in a great hurry to prepare the podcast for uploading on the internet and sacrificed a bit of visuals. Be assured that I am speaking from the very start.
My nearly 20 minute long interview with News X World this morning was prompted by the breaking news coming from Trump – that, in his words, the latest productive talks with Iran have shown that a deal may be possible and accordingly he has suspended for 5 days his most recent threats of ‘obliterating’ Iranian power generating plants if they do not open the Straits of Hormuz to normal tanker traffic within 48 hours. Meanwhile, the Iranians deny that any talks have taken place with the United States.
What are we to make of this? As I say in the interview, I believe this is a surrender by Trump which he tries to mask in the language of successfully negotiating a deal, suggesting that he remains in control of the situation even when he does not.
Of course, with Trump you never know what is real and what is illusion. It is also possible that he is just buying time until more US forces arrive in the region and he can proceed with his attack on Iran, saying then that the negotiations failed.
Nonetheless, I stick with my interpretation of a surrender. If Trump declares that U.S. objectives of degrading Iranian defenses worked and there is no longer a threat of their building a bomb or continuing production of their missiles then, logically, he can accede to the most important concession which Iran is demanding of the US today, namely that the more than decade long economic sanctions be lifted. This would provide the country with a big inflow of export earnings, all the more so that their strikes on neighboring Gulf States and their restriction of tanker flows through the Straits of Hormuz have significantly raised the price levels and demand for their hydrocarbons. Thus, Iran could earn its own ‘reparations’.
Quite exceptionally, the News X World host asked for my advice to investors and I offered my thoughts on gold, stocks and Certificates of Deposit under present volatile conditions. I can foresee numerous comments from readers on that issue.
gilbertdoctorow
Dans la nuit du 20 au 21 mars, l’Iran a tiré deux missiles balistiques en direction de l’île de Diego
L’article L’Iran lance deux missiles balistiques en direction de Diego Garcia, mais il est encore trop tôt pour dire qu’ils peuvent atteindre l’Europe ! est apparu en premier sur STRATPOL.
Le PDG de Rosatom, Alexeï Likhachev, et le directeur général de l’AIEA, Rafael Grossi, ont tenu une série de réunions
L’article Le PDG de Rosatom et Grossi de l’AIEA ont discuté pendant deux jours à Moscou est apparu en premier sur STRATPOL.
Le président français Emmanuel Macron a annoncé avoir ordonné une augmentation du nombre d’ogives nucléaires dans l’arsenal du pays. Lire
L’article Macron annonce une augmentation à venir de l’arsenal nucléaire français est apparu en premier sur STRATPOL.
Les plans de Kiev de faire exploser les gazoducs turco-russes en mer Noire pourraient provoquer une escalade du conflit en
L’article Kiev discrédite Trump et met l’Europe de l’Est sous pression est apparu en premier sur STRATPOL.
Paris et Londres travaillent activement à fournir à Kiev une bombe nucléaire, selon un communiqué du bureau de presse du
L’article La France et le Royaume-Uni veulent fournir l’arme nucléaire à l’Ukraine, selon le renseignement extérieur russe est apparu en premier sur STRATPOL.
Le président américain Donald Trump a considérablement durci sa position envers Téhéran, déclarant qu’il disposait d’un maximum de 15 jours
L’article Trump intensifie sa pression sur l’Iran et raccourcit son ultimatum est apparu en premier sur STRATPOL.
La question des armes stratégiques a été soulevée avec force lors de la Conférence de Munich sur la sécurité, notamment
L’article Les Européens envisagent de se doter de leur propre parapluie nucléaire est apparu en premier sur STRATPOL.
Le 2 février 2026, Dmitri Medvedev a mis en garde contre un risque qui, à force d’être répété, devenait banal
L’article Le compte à rebours nucléaire que personne ne veut arrêter ! est apparu en premier sur STRATPOL.
La date d’expiration du nouveau traité de réduction des armements stratégiques (New START) est fixée au 4 février 2026. Les
L’article Le New START de limitation des armements stratégiques expire faute de réponse des États-Unis est apparu en premier sur STRATPOL.
Le président américain Donald Trump a déclaré que l’Iran n’avait plus beaucoup de temps pour conclure un accord nucléaire. Il
L’article Trump menace l’Iran de frappes imminentes est apparu en premier sur STRATPOL.
Au menu cette semaine: 00:00 Géopolitique profonde 05:25 Économie 11:45 Politico-diplomatique 18:15 Terrorisme 21:30 Empire du mensonge 24:50 Considérations militaires
L’article Bulletin STRATPOL N°271: Bilan 2025, prospectives 2026. 02.01.2026 est apparu en premier sur STRATPOL.
L’Europe de l’Est pourrait être confrontée à une répétition de la catastrophe de Tchernobyl. Des experts spécialisés dans le nucléaire
L’article L’Europe de l’Est est-elle menacée par un « Tchernobyl II » ? est apparu en premier sur STRATPOL.
Au menu cette semaine: 00:00 Joyeux Noël. Géopolitique profonde 06:35 Économie 16:30 Politico-stratégique 21: 40 Armement 23:00 Empire du mensonge
L’article Bulletin STRATPOL N°270: JOYEUX NOËL, JEAN-NOËL ! Petit chaudron sympa à Gouliaïpole. 26.12.2025 est apparu en premier sur STRATPOL.
Au menu cette semaine: 00:00 Géopolitique profonde 22:05 Économie 25:05 Politico-diplomatique 30:55 Terrorisme 33:20 Armement 35:40 Empire du mensonge 43:20
L’article Bulletin STRATPOL N°269: Nouvel attaché de presse : JN BARROT, Poutine persiste et signe. 19.11.2025 est apparu en premier sur STRATPOL.
This utterly false representation which we’ve discussed many times, still continues with gusto. It has morphed into a hard-headed unwillingness to examine the matter with care. Hopefully, this explanation by FM Lavrov calms the turbulent waters.
Eva Bartlett reports:
MOSCOW, December 15. /TASS/.
“Former Syrian President Bashar Assad did not coordinate his approaches with Russia prior to his resignation, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov revealed in an interview with the Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting (IRIB).”
“He did not coordinate any approaches. We maintained close relations with Assad and extended assistance to his government in 2015, when Damascus was effectively besieged and at risk of falling to opposition forces. We established military presence there – air force and naval bases – and actively worked to dismantle terrorist strongholds. Our efforts were collaborative, involving other international partners, primarily Iran and Turkey. Overall, the process was quite positive,” Lavrov stated.
Reflecting on the Syrian National Dialogue Congress, Lavrov noted, “The agreements we reached with our Iranian and Turkish colleagues faced repeated setbacks. These agreements were not entirely dependent on the Assad government. I prefer not to draw definitive historical conclusions now, but many opportunities were missed regarding national reconciliation, consensus, and inviting all political and ethno-confessional groups to participate in dialogue.”
He also recalled the situation a year ago when certain events unfolded in Syria. “At that time, we had no combat units on the ground – only two bases, one air and one naval. The rapid advance of the opposition, led by Ahmed al-Shara’a, was unexpected. They seized territory with little resistance,” Lavrov explained.”
https://tass.com/politics/2059011
Usually, the creativity is findable and if not, an understanding of the world is there. Moving into 2026 feels like a dark hole.
President Putin stated this morning: “There is no such thing as a civilized family in the West today – only total degradation.”
The good news is that Lavrov and Putin, in separate conferences, are basically making a new Putin 2007 Munich Style speech:
Lavrov
‘The UN is MUCH easier to reform than European bureaucracy’ — Lavrov
Brussels ‘beating every record there is’
Its elites have been ‘trying to usurp all legal rights of sovereign governments’
Putin
West started to ignore all the rules and the UN Charter
‘Look at what happened in Yugoslavia; they used force, they acted as they pleased’
‘They just destroyed Yugoslavia and the Serbs — so one nation was separated from several countries’
Last year, this time we saw babies starving and dying because of cold and exposure in West Asia-Middle East. This year, we are beginning to see that again. Trump’s peace process in West Asia and Gaza is a complete failure, and was probably built that way. Instead of bringing an end to the murder of Palestinians, the agreement just slowed down the pace of killing and it is picking up again now, widely, across the region.
Trump’s attempt at a peace process for Ukraine is a complete failure .. stacking another failure upon the first. Looking at the Russian speeches this morning, we are moving into another year of a Ukraine war. Hey Ho! Up to the last Ukrainian. Here comes Odessa! (And here ends Europe). No, it is not that the US administration is ‘leaving Europe’, it is only that they ae squeezing them as hard as what they try to squeeze the rest of the world. Of course Europe will bow the knee and even crawl on their bellies.
The current Russian and Chinese announcements are serious and we will post up the transcripts as available. If you’ve never paid attention, this time it is necessary.
Now the west wants a war with Venezuela, or alternatively wants to besiege them to death and steal another few countries as well. This will stack another failure, but will kill a lot of people. Mr Lavrov noted the disgust for this jingoism in his final speech with the Iranian representatives.
I saw an early, unedited copy of Michael Hudson’s new transcript of a Nima interview this morning. He starts by talking about the asymmetry of security. “For the United States, security means the ability to control the whole rest of the world, the environment, other countries. And to the extent that they have sovereignty of their own to act independently, the United States foreign policy feels insecure. But the problem is that when it solves this insecurity by surrounding Asia and the whole rest of the world with this 800 military bases throughout the world, well, this threatens other countries’ security. So there’s a basic asymmetry built into the whole concept of U.S. security to begin with. And that’s the point that Vladimir Putin has spent almost a year now trying to explain to Donald Trump’s team. … the idea is you can’t make America’s insecurity mean the actual military insecurity of other countries.
In looking back over the past year, I can only mourn and lament with Berletic: “Trump Announces Total Blockade on Venezuela (while expanding false pretexts) as Lead up to War Continues…
When I warned everyone Trump filling his administration with neo-con warmongers like Rubio, Hegseth, Waltz, etc. was always going to lead to more senseless, illegal wars of aggression abroad because Trump himself was a neo-con who only told Americans what they wanted to hear during campaign season – this was what I had known would come (along with bombing Iran, Yemen, continuing the war in Ukraine etc) – and desperately tried to warn people about… And here we are.”
China speaks, but it is not available in the normal course of events. We need to look for it. There are problems as well, with Japan being used as the current stalking war horse. Chinese FM Wang Yi declared that China will work with ASEAN to align development strategies, and resist unilateral bullying and cold war rhetoric.
The one area in Africa, the coalition of Sahel States that provided joy to all of us because of its anti-colonial actions, is in this position – The West is attempting to destabilize the situation in Burkina Faso, Mali, and Niger, the countries with which Russia’s cooperation is gaining momentum, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Vershinin.
Looking forward, only after some meditation while cleaning. One can medicate and meditate while scrubbing, sweeping, wiping, and cleaning, and that is my solution for the blue funk. 
And contemplating the fact that the Shining City upon the Hill is now a Rogue Mess, together with their Chosen Nation.
Europe’s choice is to surrender or die.
By Rotislav Ishchenko at ukraine.ru.
(machine translation)
Alastair Crook, a retired British diplomat, has stated that the European Union is preparing a provocation on a scale comparable to Pearl Harbor, with the aim of drawing the United States into a war with Russia.
In principle, this is not news. We have been writing for two years that the British, realizing that Ukraine has failed and will be buried, have placed their bets on a pan-European war (under the auspices of the United States) against Russia. While Joseph Robinette Biden Jr. was trying to figure out who he was and how he got here, the mechanism for expanding the war was clear: a provocation in the Baltic Sea (less likely in the Black Sea or on the Belarusian border), which would leave Russia with no chance of resolving the crisis without shooting, and an outcry about the “attack” to the country of the EU and NATO, a statement of military support (sending troops and equipment, but without a formal declaration of war against Russia) by the leaders of the EU. In the last act, the United States and Britain enter the scene, demanding that Russia cease fire and threatening to provide all possible support to their allies.
I would like to point out that the mechanism of provocation assumed that in all cases, Russia would initiate military action against a specific country. Moscow, on the other hand, was only faced with the choice of whether to attack the Baltic states, which had blocked Kaliningrad, or to hope for a miracle, sink the transports carrying French and German troops and equipment bound for the Baltic ports, or to express protests, attack the territories of the United States and the United Kingdom in response to their ultimatum, or to agree to a ceasefire and negotiations mediated by them. In the end, acquiescence inevitably led to capitulation (since as soon as one set of demands was met, the West would immediately set forth another), and escalation inevitably led to a global nuclear war.
It is no coincidence that Trump claimed that Biden was leading the country towards a nuclear armageddon. Whether Biden was aware of his actions or was being manipulated by his entourage, the decision-makers in the United States (as well as the majority of the British establishment and the European bureaucracy) believed that Russia would not engage in a nuclear conflict and would retreat. However, there were other politicians in the West who had no doubt that if Russia was pushed to the wall, nuclear mushrooms would grow all over the West – no one would leave without a share. These people came to power in the United States with Trump, and their supporters are gradually pushing back against the European left-liberal supporters of war.
As a result, the United States fell out of the scheme, and Trump openly stated that if Europe wanted to go to war with Russia, it could do so on its own, without the United States. It’s not that the Europeans were particularly eager to go to war, but rather that they couldn’t help but go to war with Russia, as acknowledging defeat in the Ukrainian crisis would completely undermine the left-liberal European elites. To understand why this is significant, it would have political, economic, and social implications on a scale similar to those that shook Russia after the October Revolution and before the outbreak of World War II. The Europe we know will disappear, and a new Europe will be born in agony, compared to which the 1990s in Russia were like a light rain during a summer picnic.
But the Europeans also can’t go to war with Russia. They don’t have the armies, the warehouses, or the ability to quickly deploy the necessary military production. Without the United States, the EU is a paper tiger. Although no, a paper tiger is scarier than the EU without the United States. This is why Alastair Crook emphasizes that the provocation must be so severe and widespread that neither Trump nor other American and European politicians who support de-escalation can avoid going to war with Russia.
By the way, as a loyal subject of His Majesty, Alastair Crook does not mention Britain’s leading role in developing this plan and preparing the provocation. The blame lies with the EU, which intends to drag the United States into a war with Russia, while the United Kingdom simply passed by.
It’s understandable. Most likely, the provocation is unavoidable. The British and the European bureaucracy can’t help but try to seize their last chance. I once wrote that nothing would stop them. They might even detonate a nuclear device in Kyiv to blame Russia. However, the Ukrainian government is not fully in control of the situation. The internal opposition to Zelensky, unable to oust him yet, is attempting to preserve at least some form of Ukraine by pushing Zelensky overboard.
In such a situation, the preparation of a large-scale nuclear provocation, which requires deep secrecy, is extremely difficult, as hundreds of people must be involved in its organization (transportation, storage of the relevant munition, its transfer across the border, security, and other activities cannot be carried out without the involvement of a large number of people). Even if you simply replace the customs officers and border guards at the border with trusted individuals, it will immediately become widely known that something large and secret is being transported.
However, recently, the Ukrainians and the British have started practicing a naval provocation, attacking tankers from any country carrying Russian oil. Russia has already begun responding to the Odessa port and the ships arriving there. In principle, the British Navy and its Ukrainian counterparts can organize a “Lusitania” (with influential Americans on board). However, it is more difficult to prove Russia’s “guilt.” As Poland’s experience shows, it is no longer enough to simply claim that Russia wanted to blow up railway tracks and cause a major disaster; convincing evidence is also required.
Actually, this is the catch: how to organize a provocation in such a way as to shake the imagination of “all people of good will”, and provide “convincing evidence” of Russian “guilt”, and not inherit anywhere, and leave the United States no choice? The task is difficult, but, as experience shows, it is solvable. If British diplomats (even retired ones) start issuing warnings and distancing themselves, it means that the preparations for some large-scale atrocity have entered the final stage or are basically complete, and the London warmongers only need to give the command to launch the operation.
In principle, the supporters of escalation don’t have much time. By March, even if the Armed Forces of Ukraine don’t completely disintegrate and Zelensky still controls some part of Ukrainian territory, Trump should withdraw the United States from the Ukrainian crisis and reorient towards the Indo-Pacific region and Latin America. Moreover, he has announced the beginning of a military operation against Maduro in Venezuela in the near future. If the British and European bureaucrats let the United States out of the Ukrainian crisis and allow it to get involved in others, it will be impossible to bring it back. Washington cannot afford to run around the world like a mad rabbit, and it cannot handle two or three major crises in different parts of the world, either organizationally, resource-wise, logistically, or financially.
In the West, they like to coincide political actions with traditional holiday dates. This way, they are better remembered and evoke more emotions. We are just entering a period of holidays: Catholic Christmas, New Year, Orthodox Christmas, and Epiphany. In general, from mid-December to the end of January, almost any day is suitable for the organizers of provocations. All they need to do is manage and dare.
After February, although the danger will not disappear (it will not disappear until a final global settlement is reached), it will significantly decrease, and the further into 2026, the lower it will be.
Featured Image: Children play on a sculpture of the mythical beast Jiliang, a divine horse mentioned in the Shan Hai Jing, by Qiu Qijing on display at an exhibition on the Kunlun Mountains Photo: Courtesy of Qiu Qijing
Editor’s Note:
Perched on the Qinghai-Xizang Plateau, a stone has captivated scholars by reshaping the narrative of early Chinese history. The Garitang Keshi, which can be translated as “Garitang Engraved Stone,” has been identified as an authentic relic of the Qin Dynasty (221BC-206BC). It records an imperial mission by Emperor Qinshihuang, who unified China for the first time, to seek the elixir of life from the mythical Kunlun Mountains. Scholars highlight the stone as a geographic anchor that places the legendary “Kunlun” near the source region of the Yellow River, making it irrefutable proof of the exchanges between the Central Plains and the plateau over 2,200 years ago. This series will illuminate how this stone embodies the interconnected nature of Chinese culture shaped by ethnic exchanges, decode the multidisciplinary science behind the find, and explore the evolving legend of the Kunlun myth. This third part of the trilogy attempts to explain how the cultural concept of Kunlun was born as well as its contribution to Chinese civilization.
It is not difficult to identify the two Chinese characters for Kunlun on the inscribed surface area on the Garitang Engraved Stone. The stone is situated on the northern shore of Gyaring Lake in Maduo county, Northwest China’s Qinghai Province, at an altitude of 4,306 meters, and has been determined by archaeologists to be engraved during the Qin Dynasty (221BC-206BC).
As the source of many Chinese tales, the Kunlun Mountains have long been seen as the origin of the Chinese civilization. For ancient Chinese people, “Kunlun” transcended geography and became a cultural symbol, even though the geographical coordinates of “Kunlun” consistently moved westward from the early locations like the Qinling Mountains to the later Pamir Plateau.
Kunlun culture in China centers on the mythical and sacred Kunlun Mountains, viewed as the “Ancestor of Ten Thousand Mountains,” a celestial dwelling for gods like the “Queen Mother of the West,” a gateway to immortality, and a source of divine wisdom. It features in ancient texts like the Shan Hai Jing.
The Shan Hai Jing (The Classic of Mountains and Seas), a major source of Chinese mythology that dates back more than 2,000 years, describes the sacred geography before the Qin Dynasty and the many mythical creatures living in the Great Wilderness. Although these creatures are only mentioned in a few lines, they have fascinated artists for centuries, who have depicted them in different forms in art.
For Chinese sculptor Qiu Qijing, Kunlun mythology is not just something that inspires his art installations such as Zhu Long (dragon) or a mountain guardian with no feet and a red body, but an artistic pursuit that he spent years on.
“My creative journey with the Shan Hai Jing began in 2012 with a serendipitous discovery of traditional classical painting albums, which revealed a multitude of mythical creatures that largely trace back to this ancient text,” he told the Global Times. This encounter sparked over a decade of dedicated work on large-scale sculptures based on these divine beasts.
As his research deepened over time, he discovered the traditional text also delved into philology and had profound philosophical connotations, embodying the exceptionally deep wisdom of ancient people – “a wisdom that remains highly relevant as we re-examine present and future possibilities,” Qiu noted.
For over a decade, Wu Xinhua, a researcher at the Institute of Archaeology of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, has been traversing the Kunlun Mountains on foot. He said that “Kunlun is by no means just a mountain. Kunlun culture can be considered one of the spiritual symbols of Chinese civilization.”
View on the Kunlun Mountains Photo: Courtesy of Qiu Qijing
Cultural symbol
Major civilizations around the world are almost all river valley civilizations, characterized by a prominent reverence for mountains and rivers. China is no different. “The difference lies in the fact that China has developed the unique worship of Kunlun and the culture surrounding it,” Wu added.
Wu, who is also former head of the Xinjiang Archaeological Team of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, has long been dedicated to studying Kunlun culture by integrating years of archaeological practice. He has published many articles elaborating on his understanding of Kunlun culture and the philosophy behind it.
Kunlun is a composite cultural concept, with its core meaning being “heaven” and its primary function being to “communicate with heaven.”
The concept of “all under heaven” did not originate from a mountain called Kunlun. Instead, it belongs to “a cultural or civilizational narrative, and the cosmology it represents inherently signifies a civilization’s understanding and construction of the origin and order of the universe, as well as its relationship with human life,” he stated.
Wang Xianhua, dean of the School of Humanities at the Shanghai University of Finance and Economics, agreed with this view, saying in an interview with the Global Times on Monday that “the Kunlun symbol can be considered a hallmark of Chinese civilization, representing the concept of ‘all under heaven’ in Chinese cosmology – the center of the world.”
If we regard Heyuan, the origin of the Yellow River, as where Kunlun locates as indicated by the Garitang Engraved Stone, the geographical scope of Chinese civilization would be viewed differently.
Kunlun is rooted in the concepts of the Mandate of Heaven and “all under heaven,” encompassing multidimensional connotations of Chinese history, culture, mythology, natural geography, and more.
The ancient Chinese consciously established geography and measured time based on astronomical observations. In ancient Chinese mythology, the story of Kuafu, a giant who indefatigably chased the Sun, is undoubtedly a vivid reflection of early civilized societies’ observations of celestial phenomena and measuring shadows. Meanwhile, Nüwa’s mending of the sky hints at the scientific progress of the ancients in refining the calendar. In fact, this astronomical foundation is what allowed Kunlun culture to take shape.
During the formative period of Kunlun culture, the exploration of “heaven” was a central element of spiritual life, reflecting the ancient Chinese people’s relentless pursuit of understanding the unknown and the natural world, according to results of studies which have become common sense among researchers.
The Shan Hai Jing serves as a quintessential representation of the mythical Kunlun, featuring figures such as Pangu, Gonggong, Nüwa, Fuxi, and the Yellow Emperor. Subsequent texts further recorded myths associated with Kunlun, gradually forming a comprehensive mythological system, said Qiu. Myths like “Houyi shooting the suns,” and “Nüwa mending the sky,” are all set around Kunlun, embodying the Chinese nation’s spirit of perseverance, tenacity, and courage in the face of adversity.
Kunlun also frequently appears in ancient literary and artistic works, serving as a common emotional anchor, spiritual refuge, and homeland for the Chinese nation. This is evidenced in verses such as Li Bai’s “The Yellow River, rushing from Kunlun, breaches its gates and roars for ten thousand miles,” and Su Shi’s “Who has seen the primal murk? The Yellow River’s pulse from Kunlun springs.”
Finding Kunlun
In the vast land of China, “Kunlun” is everywhere. It is not merely a geographical concept but also a key to interpreting the enduring vitality of Chinese civilization.
“Where are the geographical coordinates of Kunlun?” Wu pointed out that the concept of Kunlun existed before the discovery of the physical Kunlun Mountains, and its perceived location has not been fixed throughout history. In the early tribal era, any lofty mountain significant to a particular clan could be regarded as their own “Kunlun.”
From early locations like the Qinling Mountains to the later Pamir Plateau, the geographical coordinates of “Kunlun” moved westward. This shift reflected the continuous expansion of the Chinese civilization’s concept of “all under heaven.”
During the pre-Qin period, Kunlun served as a symbol of the “center of the world” and was closely associated with the core territories of the dynasty. Throughout the Xia (c.2070BC-c.1600BC), Shang (c.1600BC-1046BC), and Zhou (1046BC-256BC) dynasties, the Qinling Mountains, located at the heart of the dynastic domain, were regarded as “Kunlun.”
The Garitang Engraved Stone, dating from the reign of Emperor Qinshihuang, provides material evidence of practices aimed at tracing the source of the Yellow River and exploring Kunlun.
Approximately 2,100 years ago, during the reign of Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty (206BC-AD220), as the state intensified its management of the Western Regions, the Southern Mountains of the Western Regions (with the Yutian Jade River identified as the river source) were officially designated as Kunlun. This act can be seen as a state-level interpretation of “Kunlun as the center of the world,” establishing the Kunlun Mountains as a marker for the western frontiers of the empire.
“Why did the geographical coordinates of Kunlun continue to shift westward? The key lies in Kunlun’s ‘all-under-heaven’ nature. It was not merely a geographical marker, but also a symbol of national sovereignty and cultural influence,” said Wu.
Kunlun, symbolizing “the place that possesses all things” and representing a source of ancient civilizational achievements and wealth, naturally oriented the core direction of the Silk Road toward the East, toward China.
With the strengthening of the nation’s governance over the Western Regions, Kunlun gradually shifted westward to the area of today’s Kunlun Mountains. During the Han Dynasty, the establishment of the Yangguan Pass and Yumen Pass, which controlled the Hexi Corridor and the routes to the Western Regions, solidified Kunlun’s role as a cultural symbol marking the incorporation of the Western Regions into Chinese territory.
Essence of Kunlun culture
Studying Kunlun means understanding China’s unique cosmology and view of all under heaven, and the ethical values of Chinese civilization. It is also about deciphering the cultural code that explains its enduring vitality through centuries of challenges, added Wu.
The formation, development, and evolution of Kunlun culture represent a lengthy historical narrative spanning millennia, documenting the prolonged interactions, exchanges, and integration among the Chinese nation.
Jidi Majia, director of the Poetry Committee of the China Writers Association, who once worked in Qinghai for nine years, has spearheaded multiple sessions of the Kunlun Mythology and World Creation Myths International Academic Forum. This initiative aims to foster dialogue and exchanges among different civilizations worldwide, offering a renewed interpretation of Kunlun mythology.
“The discovery of the Garitang Engraved Stone confirms a truth: The source code sought by the ancients remains the direction through which we today unlock and traverse this hidden path,” he told the Global Times, highlighting the importance of research and attention paid to Kunlun culture.
The focus on and research into Kunlun culture have transcended mere academic interest, becoming a subject of our times that connects history with reality, traces cultural roots, fosters national spirit, and contemplates the future of civilization.
It not only centrally embodies the five distinctive features of Chinese civilization – continuity, innovation, unity, inclusiveness, and peace – but also represents a vital spiritual force for national rejuvenation that can be continually activated in the new era. “This is the fundamental reason why Kunlun culture transcends time and space to evoke such widespread and profound resonance,” Wu told the Global Times.
In artist Qiu Qijing’s mind, Kunlun is “the ultimate destination of the core spiritual beliefs of the Chinese nation. “I am really looking forward to my pilgrimage plan to Mount Kailash,” he said.
“Major hostilities erupted once again in early to mid-December in Southeast Asia along the borders of Thailand and Cambodia following a troubled “ceasefire” that included incidents and provocations for months since the last round of major fighting took place in July 2025.
Despite any resulting ceasefire, the fundamental issues driving the conflict remain entirely unresolved, primarily because these issues stem from foreign interests using regional conflict to complicate both Asia’s rise in general and China’s rise specifically.”
References:
Nation – Second Army Area suspects English-speaking foreigners flying suicide drones for Cambodian troops (Dec. 11, 2025): https://www.nationthailand.com/news/a… Reuters – Ukrainian operatives aided Syrian rebels with drones, Washington Post reports (Dec. 2024): https://www.reuters.com/world/ukraini… Nation – Three leaders’ statements diverge: US, Thai and Cambodian tones don’t match (Dec. 13, 2025): https://www.nationthailand.com/news/g… RAND Corporation – Extending Russia (2019): https://www.rand.org/content/dam/rand… Reagan Presidential Foundation – Fireside Chat with General Dan Caine, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff (Dec. 7, 2025): 
• Fireside Chat with General Dan Caine, Chai… Irrawaddy – China-Backed Pipeline Facility Damaged in Myanmar Resistance Attack (2022): https://www.irrawaddy.com/news/burma/… Naval War College Review – A Maritime Oil Blockade Against China (2018): https://digital-commons.usnwc.edu/cgi… CSIS – How Much Trade Transits the South China Sea?: https://chinapower.csis.org/much-trad… NEO – US Sows Chaos Across Asia as it Aims for China (Sep. 2025): https://journal-neo.su/2025/09/30/269… Bloomberg – Thailand Needs Hyperloop, Not China-Built High-Speed Rail, Junta Critic Says (2018): https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articl… Move Forward Party – Hyperloop Presentation (2019): • \7 ไฮเปอร์ลูป hyperloop คุณธนาธร ตอบคำถามน… iLaw – About: https://www.ilaw.or.th/en/about-us Harvard Atlas of Economic Complexity (Thailand): https://atlas.hks.harvard.edu/explore… China MFA – President Xi Jinping Meets with King Maha Vajiralongkorn Phra Vajiraklaochaoyuhua of Thailand (Nov. 2025): https://www.fmprc.gov.cn/mfa_eng/xw/z… China MFA – Wang Yi Meets with Princess Maha Chakri Sirindhorn of Thailand (Apr. 2025): https://www.fmprc.gov.cn/eng/wjbzhd/2… New Atlas – The Complete Guide: US Government Role in Thailand’s “Student Protests” (2020): https://landdestroyer.blogspot.com/20… Harvard AEC (Cambodia): https://atlas.hks.harvard.edu/explore… Phnom Penh Post – The dominance of the dollar in Cambodia: Causes, effects, solutions (Jan. 2025): https://www.phnompenhpost.com/opinion… AP – Cambodian leader’s son, a West Point grad, set to take reins of power — but will he bring change? (2023): https://apnews.com/article/cambodia-e… CBS News – U.S. warship docks in Cambodia, a top Chinese ally, for first time in 8 years (Dec. 2024): https://www.cbsnews.com/news/us-warsh… Diplomat – US Defense Secretary to Visit China-Linked Cambodian Naval Base (Jun. 2025): https://thediplomat.com/2025/06/us-de… Thai PBS – ‘Angkor Sentinel’ military exercises to return as US-Cambodia links thaw (Nov. 2025): https://world.thaipbs.or.th/detail/an… US PACOM – Royal Cambodian Armed Forces delegation visits USINDOPACOM for Bilateral Defense Dialogue (Jul. 2025): https://www.pacom.mil/Media/NEWS/News…
https://www.pacom.mil/Media/NEWS/News…
Is This the New Shape of War? The Venezuela Precedent***
What defines war today? It is no longer just the sound of artillery or the movement of armies. It has become something quieter and far more patient. Look closely at Venezuela. What you see there is a test, a blueprint for a new kind of conflict. This is a war of pressure and isolation.
Venezuela is the laboratory, and the experiment being run there threatens to become a standard playbook for how powerful nations can force weaker ones to obey. Think about the method. First, the story must be told. A country’s complex reality is simplified:
Here, come up with a drug trafficking BS story. It becomes an easy story of good fighting evil. This story is broadcast everywhere to justify what comes next. It makes the world believe that aggressive action is not aggression at all, but a necessary act of moral duty.
Then the true siege begins. But there are no visible walls. Instead, the blockade is built from financial rules and trade bans. A nation’s economy is slowly strangled. Its money becomes worthless. Food and medicine cannot get in. The goal is clear: make life so unbearable for ordinary people that they will demand change themselves.
The battlefield is the supermarket aisle and the hospital ward. The weapons are inflation and scarcity. Is this not a cruel way to fight?
The final stage is forced surrender. With the country brought to its knees, an ultimatum is delivered. The choices are surrender or more suffering. Give up control of your nation’s wealth. Hand over political power. The message is simple: you cannot refuse. When the survival of your entire society is at stake, how can you say no?
This is the dangerous new model being tested. If it works in Venezuela, what will stop its use elsewhere? Which nation will be next? Old targets like Nicaragua and Cuba would face this new, sharper tool. Even allies might one day feel its sting if they step out of line.
This strategy is clean for those who use it. It is easy to deny. It is brutally effective. Victory is no longer measured in captured land, but in a nation’s broken will.
Venezuela stands as a warning. The world must ask itself a simple question: Is this the future we accept? Is this the new, silent shape of war?
Commentary – Amarynth:
Vnezuela is slipping deeper into a position of being under siege. More oil tankers are not going into the area, because there is fear that more tankers will be seized in acts of undisguised piracy. https://diarioversionfinal.com/mundo/petroleros-cambian-de-rumbo-tras-incautacion-de-crudo-venezolano-por-ee-uu/
Trump, without hiding it, is supporting his supporters in elections across the region. In Honduras, Trump openly meddled in the election, trying to put a right-wing US puppet in power. The fraud was so blatant, after 2 weeks there is still no winner. The US backed a military coup in Honduras in 2009.
Chevron has just reduced the price of Venezuelan crude for US refineries following the seizure of the oil tanker. Venezuelan oil price fell below US$50 in November as tensions with US rise.
Venezuela announced that it is “immediately terminating any contract or negotiation involving the supply of gas” to Trinidad and Tobago and accuses the government of that island of being involved in the seizure of an oil tanker.
The baseball leagues of Mexico, Puerto Rico, and the Dominican Republic announced Monday to the Caribbean Professional Baseball Confederation (CBPC) that they will not be able to participate in the Caribbean Series Caracas 2026, scheduled from February 1 to 7, citing “external situations” outside their control. They say that Venezuela is perfectly able to stage the series, and this is an external circumstance.
I believe the fishermen do not go fishing, which deprives the Venezuelan people of everyday food.
The US is positioned in the area, its navy like a bully grandpa, aged and demented octopus. They overfly whatever they want to overfly and shoot whatever they want to shoot. I wonder sometimes who instructed whom? In Gaza, the zionists shoot fisherboats and kids on the beach. In Gaza, the Palestinians cannot move in or out. In Gaza, the Palestinians are deprived of food. In Gaza, the genocide continues, and a peace agreement is an attempted appeasement of genocide. If this trend of siege continues, we will see the entry-level picture of another genocide. The cry of ‘Maduro must go’ is the same as Assad must go, and Syria is in travail. It is the same cry that Hamas must go, and Hezbollah must lay down arms. Just as the drug accusations are nonsense, so is the idea that Venezuela will benefit if Maduro goes.
UPDATE: Just a while after both Angelo Giuliano and myself recognized the signs of a siege, Ben Norton writes about it as well:
The US military is besieging Venezuela. This is a naval blockade, aimed at starving Venezuela of supplies and preventing it from exporting oil.
The US goal is to "make the economy scream", to cause an economic collapse.
The Trump admin is waging a colonial war of aggression. https://t.co/qu0URAcdLJ
— Ben Norton (@BenjaminNorton) December 16, 2025
This is a little older but given the charade that we are watching in terms of a Ukraine plan, it is a perfect day. This is why Russia thanks the US because the US is part of the charade and Russia just does not have to do it. Reminder, these negotiations are being done and advertised and leaders are making statements and flying to and fro while discussing this with a sham president that has no authority to even speak, let alone carry out anything.
NIMA ALKHORSHID: Hi, everybody. Today is Wednesday, November 26, 2025, and our dear friend, Michael Hudson, is here with us. Welcome back, Michael.
MICHAEL HUDSON: It’s good to be back.
NIMA ALKHORSHID: Please subscribe and hit the like button to help us reach more people. And you can see Michael Hudson’s website (below his name): michael-hudson.com. You can go there and follow Michael.
MICHAEL HUDSON: It’s michael, hyphen, hudson, dot, com (michael-hudson.com).
NIMA ALKHORSHID: Michael, let me start with the [28]-point plan on the part of the United States. They have proposed [28 points]. It seems that they have reduced it, after the meeting [Marco] Rubio had in Geneva with Europeans and Ukrainians. They have reduced it, as Donald Trump mentioned. We thought that it would be 19 points, but Donald Trump today said that it’s going to be 22 points.
But after all, looking at the document, what is your take on what’s going on, with the document?
MICHAEL HUDSON: The important thing to realize is it’s not a peace proposal. It’s not a plan at all. It’s a bold attempt to shape the terms in which the public views the entire Ukrainian coup d’état at Maidan in February 2014, followed by the whole Ukrainian attack on the Russian-speaking population, and the last (almost three) years of war. It’s a fight to shape public opinion, and it’s (in that sense) a brilliant propaganda attack. President Putin and Foreign Minister [Sergey] Lavrov have given speech after speech explaining the whole history, explaining how the Russians intend to end the war when they win and they create a new government — free of the Nazis, free of the Russia-haters — and disarm Ukraine, and prevent it from joining NATO.
What NATO and the Americans have done is, instead of just giving a different speech and saying, okay, here’s your narrative, here’s ours, they’ve encapsulated their answer, and their counter-argument, and their counter-narrative, in the form of a point by point, listing by listing — as if it’s a proposed articles of agreement [document]. And, of course, these articles will never be agreed upon. There’s no way in which either Russia or NATO (Europe, and the United States) — not to mention Zelensky’s government in Ukraine — can accept them.
So, the purpose is not to get any agreement at all. It’s to make people think in terms of: How do we view what’s happening? What’s the war all about? Who’s responsible for it? And these points have been crafted by propagandists, to sort of win the hearts and minds of the people, in support of the Maidan coup.
The aim has been sort of leaked to the press, going all the way back — to reverse the way of, how World War II ended. What Europe wants to do is say: We want to refight the end of World War II. And already in 1944, Churchill was saying: As soon as the war is over, let’s attack the Soviet Union. Europe said: Well, let’s go back to that point — 1944 — okay? That’s 80 years ago. Let’s see whether we can refight, at that point. Now we can attack Russia.
That’s really what it’s about, and it’s an outrageous trick. It’s been carefully thought out and propagandized. So the peace proposal is not intended to bring peace. It’s just a propaganda charade at pretending to negotiate peace. And it’s really a propaganda effort. In a word, the aim is to essentially obfuscate what is really happening.
By the way, Foreign Minister Lavrov said yesterday at a French news conference that Europe’s “elites opted for war and have staked their entire political careers on the slogan of inflicting what they call a strategic defeat on Russia.” [Dialogue F-R YouTube channel, Nov. 21, 2025]
Well, that has failed; so NATO realizes it’s lost the war. It doesn’t have the arms to fight. You’ve seen the Russian advance, accelerating day after day. So NATO says: Well, okay, we’ll lose the war. How do we win the peace? And that’s going to be: How is history (and current voters) going to look at what’s been happening? What is all of this about? And if you look at the U.S. press (the New York Times and the Washington Post) and the British press, it’s which side of the fight is analogous to the Nazis and [Adolf] Hitler? In the New York Times yesterday, you have [Thomas] Friedman talking about, well, how can Trump appease Hitler? Trump is “Putin’s puppet.”
These agreements are really Russia’s demands. (Well, of course, they’re not Russia’s demands before. You can read the Russian demand, and what Putin and Lavrov have said.) So, I think we can [discuss], if this were really an agreement to discuss: Where do we go from here, and how do we think about solving this fighting in Ukraine?
Article 1 should be: Were there any war crimes committed? That’s what it’s all about. And a basic issue is, well, if they were, by whom, and against whom? And who are the victims? And what were these crimes? Well, Russia has already announced that when it conquers Ukraine and installs a non-Nazi government, it’s going to hold a modern Nuremberg trial. It’s going to convict parties that have committed war crimes. That is what terrifies the NATO leaders, not to mention the kleptocrats in Zelensky’s regime that have enriched themselves and been embezzling the loans — from Europe, the United States, and, especially, the International Monetary Fund — to buy properties offshore, and Bitcoin, and the things that kleptocrats do to hide or conceal the money they’ve taken.
Well, for the Russians, it’s vitally important to establish the historical record, because that’s the key to what is going to be the body of international law following on from all of this.
Again and again, President Putin and Lavrov have said: We thought that the Nuremberg trials had established the international law of war crimes. We’ve been attacked. Russia is not the attacker. The Maidan [the coupists] was the attacker. The Ukrainian attack on the Russian-speaking population — the civilian population — was a war crime, breaking the rules of war. We came in to protect the Russian speakers. The populations of Luhansk and Donetsk have voted to become part of Russia, which were, in practice, [Russian] all the time during the Soviet Union, when there wasn’t any real separate Ukrainian nation.
The Russians are basing their actions, and their intentions, on international law. To do this, they have to have a Nuremberg trial — a war-crime trial — to reiterate: What is the appropriate international law to deal with the situation, such as we’ve been fighting, for more than two years, in Ukraine? And the West says: Well, it was Russia that’s the attacker. Russia has committed the war crime. That’s the travesty of what’s happening.
But it’s the aim of the U.S. and NATO narrative to turn the war into a new Cold War propaganda weapon against Russia, aimed at turning the world against Russia and supporting Western Europe. So, in practical terms, it’s to protect the Ukrainians and neo-Nazis, and the European backers; to whitewash all the corruption that’s been occurring during this.
And a major aim of the Ukrainian Nazis has been to avoid punishment. They want to leave Ukraine with the money that they’ve embezzled, and stored away, and go to their British mansions and Mediterranean castles.
So, the U.S.-NATO proposal calls for blanket amnesty. And if there, indeed, were a war crime, then there shouldn’t be an amnesty for everyone. If a criminal breaks the law, then the criminal must be arrested, and put away, not merely to punish them for what they’ve done in the past, but to protect the present population from having them continue to commit crimes.
Well, that (committing crimes) is exactly what the NATO-West wants to do against Russia, against China, against Venezuela, against Iran, and against any country that is resisting the U.S.-dominated world order. So, all of this jockeying, for how do we determine the terms of peace? Is it all, we’re just going to forget everything? Are we going to blame Russia, or are we going to blame the United States and NATO? All of this is what’s at stake, in all of this.
I can elaborate. The original proposal called for Ukraine to investigate corruption. The Wall Street Journal, a few days ago, reported that the Ukrainians insisted on changing the language to say that all countries will receive “full amnesty for their actions during the war.” Well, the actions are not only the war crimes — staging false flags, like the Bucha staged [war crime] — but the crimes of embezzlement. The World Bank, the Europeans, all have agreed that NATO [Ukraine] is the most corrupt country in the Northern Hemisphere, and it has been ever since 1991 —
NIMA ALKHORSHID: You mean Ukraine is the most corrupt?
MICHAEL HUDSON: Yes, what did I say?
NIMA ALKHORSHID: You said NATO.
MICHAEL HUDSON: I’m sorry. Well, Ukraine is the most corrupt, although its corruption has been with the full participation and support of Europe. And I would imagine that any trial is going to involve the actions of [Emmanuel] Macron, and [Friedrich] Merz, and [Keir] Starmer (and the British — in breaking up the agreement that the Ukrainians and Russians had made to end the war all the way back in 2022 — the agreements that were all broken, and turned out to want a ceasefire just to rearm Ukraine with more NATO arms to go on fighting against Russia). That’s something that Russia is never going to fall for again.
So, the whole idea of a ceasefire, as if that’s what these proposals are about, there never was a possibility of that. And so, if that was never a realistic possibility, why are they doing it? It doesn’t have anything to do with creating an actual peace, as I said. It’s a way to shape the categories of how people think about this whole conflict between NATO and Russia, the whole expansion of NATO since the Americans had promised NATO would not expand, if Russia ended its military occupation of Central Europe and agreed to dissolve the Soviet Union. All of that has already happened, and I don’t think Russia has any intention of trying to trust the West again.
So, the reality is that any real peace agreement, logically, has to be created after the fighting stops — not before it stops — and especially not when one side is defeating the other overwhelmingly. Trying to freeze a conflict when Russia is overwhelmingly winning is trying to solve the Ukrainian problem by just making the loser set the terms of the peace.
NATO and the United States have lost the war that they started in Ukraine — hoping that the war would drain Russia’s economy; would create an economic crisis; would persuade Russian voters that we need a regime change, we’ve got to replace Putin for having started this war, and put in a new group. The idea of a “new” group is the same neoliberal kleptocrats that they put in in the 1990s — privatize Russia, ideally break it into parts (the whole strategy against Russia) — and that’s just a fantasy.
So, how can they, at least, try to convince the population that this fantasy is a realistic probability, and even a moral probability?
Their solution is to say (well, the big picture): Who are the counterparts to World War II’s Nazis in this? And we’re seeing a replay of the ending of World War II. And since Russia is organizing the peace, it’s in a position to hold these (what I call the new) Nuremberg trials.
And the NATO aim is to make people take seriously the idea that Putin is a modern Neville Chamberlain making peace with the Nazis — (I’m sorry, not Putin) to make Donald Trump look like a Neville Chamberlain — just surrendering to Russia. That’s what Friedman had written in the New York Times. It’s what the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, and network television in the United States keep saying: We’re back in what started all of World War II, when Chamberlain did not protest against Russia’s moving into Czechoslovakia to defend the German population there.
Well, if trying to say that Trump is a Chamberlain means — you have the leaders of the Republicans in Congress, Mitch McConnell, especially, says there’s no way in which the U.S. Congress can possibly agree to even the proposal that Trump and his staff have put on the table. So Congress has already announced [that] any agreement is going to be a no-go. The Ukrainians have said: We absolutely will not cede any territory to Russia. Even though Russia has conquered it, even though we have no army to defend it, we’re not going to agree with that.
Well, the defeated party does not get the right to determine the terms of peace, and who won and who lost. That’s what war is about. As [Carl von] Clausewitz said, it’s a continuation of policy by other means — by military means. Russia has been obliged to use an enormous expenditure, and troops, to achieve this military policy of ending the NATO expansion towards trying to destroy the Russian economy, and hurt it in any way it can; especially by cutting off its trade with Europe in oil and gas, and other things; to seize Russia’s savings that it had kept in the West and [in] Euroclear (its foreign-exchange reserves that it was using).
That’s the first issue.
The second article up for discussion should not be put in terms of blaming one party or another. It should be: Who owes reparations to whom, and how are reparations going to be paid? Well, trying to frame the narrative, the current text says Russia owes reparations to Ukraine; but it’s Ukraine that should pay reparations; and Europe-NATO should pay reparations to Russia for initiating the war, for breaking the rules of war, for destroying enormous amounts of civilian property in the Russian-speaking portions of what was Ukraine.
And this is the cover story for the U.S. and Congress backing the NATO-Euroclear seizure of more than 200 billion euros (even more in dollars) of Russian assets. They say: Make these assets a loan to Ukraine. Well, Ukraine’s already broke. It’s unable to pay the IMF loans.
The IMF loans, in fact, were made — illegally — against the basic principles of the IMF, saying the International Monetary Fund will not make loans to a country at war, or to support a belligerent. The IMF said: This is not war. You know? This is … we’re defending ourselves. The war is … Russia, not Ukraine.
So the pretense that somehow [Russia] is liable? The hope [of the belligerents] is going to be that when Russia carves out its portions — of those Ukrainians that want to be part of Russia, and vote to become part of Russia — that the whole idea is to destabilize the next decade of legal argument, saying Russia owes money to the West. Well, if Russia would have thought of not giving speeches, but let us put a 28-point plan in, it would have said, how much does the West owe Russia? What’s going to be the cost?
There’s no question that Russia is going to spend more than 200 billion euros (and dollars), the equivalent in rebuilding all of the real estate that you’ve seen destroyed in the fighting that’s gone on so far — which is entirely on Russian-speaking land.
The way that the Trump administration shaped the agreement was: Well, alright, we’ll give 100 million of this (half of the money) to Donald Trump’s group, so American companies can come in, and they can rebuild Ukraine, and make enormous profits — Russia has no intention of letting American real-estate companies rip off profits, and emulate the Zelensky kleptocrats in just embezzling the money for themselves — and building the kind of shoddy building that Trump is known for, the shoddy Trump Tower, whose architects tell me he cut costs everywhere, and it’s just junk. The Russians build much stronger buildings, to last, and at less expense than Trump’s real-estate ripoffs that he made his career on building.
So, all of this, the phrasing of the peace agreement is designed to justify Trump’s, and the Americans’, and the Western Europeans’ attempt simply to grab what was Russia’s foreign-exchange reserves for themselves, and prevent Russia from having the resources to spend — the balance-of-payments drain — that it’s going to take to buy the raw materials, the equipment to rebuild the buildings with plumbing, all of the imported goods, the facilities that you need to make new apartment houses, houses — the vast amount of reconstruction that Russia is going to have to spend (and has promised to spend in Luhansk and Donetsk), and the other territories that it takes as it moves west, again, to those populations that want to remain part of Russia — leaving the Ukrainian West that does not want to be part of Russia isolated, demilitarized, denazified, and disarmed, not to ever again become a proxy battlefield for NATO, led by the United States and the neocons in their fight against Russia. It wants to prevent that permanently; not simply to have a short-term ripoff that is being proposed by the United States.
I’m amazed that the Russians have not been more vocal in calling a spade a spade in all of this.
You may have other points of the agreement that you’d want to bring up. And if you go over point by point, I’ll be glad to answer them.
But again, to me, the key is, Russia’s 200 billion in reserves is, the subject of this false narrative, of the premise: that Russia is the attacker — not NATO — and that Russia has attacked civilians — not Ukraine has attacked civilians.
Russia was very careful to focus on military targets, that extended to energy companies, to electrical systems. Russia had proposed a mutual agreement between it and NATO-Ukraine not to bomb each other’s energy; and President Trump said: No, no. We have to bomb Russia’s oil refineries because we want to block Russia’s ability to export oil. We want to create an oil crisis so that the United States can use oil as the key controller of American foreign policy. This is what you and I have discussed for the last few months on your show. So, of course, Trump said: No, no. Ukraine, don’t agree not to bomb energy systems.
So, Russia realizes that it’s energy that has been powering the NATO arms factories, that’s been powering the Ukrainian war machine, and that its basic military tactic is indeed to focus on destroying this military ability to fight; and energy is as much the key to military conquest as it is to Gross National Product. Energy is what makes the factories go; it’s what heats apartments; and it’s made life unlivable for much of Western Ukraine — and that was the choice of Trump’s foreign policy.
So, these are the two shaping narrative structures of the propaganda effort that’s been put in place. Do you have any questions you want to follow on to fill out this big picture?
NIMA ALKHORSHID: Michael, one of the crucial points in the [28] points is the size of the Ukrainian army, which was supposed to be (in the document) about 600,000. Then the Europeans changed it to 800,000. And right now, it seems that there is no limitation for that.
Who’s going to pay for this army? You know, it’s a huge army, if they go in that direction — because this army should be supported by someone, you know, other countries, Europeans, together with the United States — which literally means that NATO is going to arm this Ukrainian army, again and again, to fight Russians. The same attitude.
Do you think that Russia would accept that?
MICHAEL HUDSON: This is the opposite of demilitarizing the enemy.
Remember the end of World War II? The Morgenthau Plan in the United States was to say, make Germany never industrial again — make it an agricultural country, make it a theme park, but it won’t be an industrial country — so, that was [Henry] Morgenthau’s plan, and that was turned down by the United States. But the idea was for Germany, and also for Japan: Japan and Germany were to demilitarize and never be able to rearm, because they were incorrigible aggressors. And that is the principle (exactly the same principle) that Russia is trying to do [in Ukraine].
NATO says: We have to triple the size of what the Ukrainian army was when we began this war; and we have to leave the Nazis in control. There won’t be any war-crimes trial. We have to leave the Ukrainian government. It may not be [led by] Zelensky, it’ll be one of the [Stepan] Bandera followers. It will be the Nazi-led army so that, if we fail (so far), we can come again — and this time, we’re really going to hit you, with long-[range] missiles, and we’re still going to bring down the [Russian] government — until the Russian population says: It’s worth anything to surrender to the West and let them take over. We can’t fight anymore.
This is the evil fantasy that is being promoted.
Of course, Russia is going to say: We are the victors. We get to disarm the government. We get to put in place a post-war constitution of the restructured Ukraine (whatever is left of Ukraine), so that it will not have a standing army; it will not have Western weapons. And if the Western countries, if NATO or the United States provides weapons to [Ukraine], President Putin has already said: If a missile, or a weapon hurts the Russians, we will retaliate not simply against Ukraine; we’ll retaliate against the country that has supplied Ukraine with the weapons.
Well, Donald Trump has said, quite realistically: There’s no way Ukraine is going to win. It’s a black hole. We are not going to give weapons to Ukraine. It doesn’t pay —
We want to fight China. This is a race war. It’s the Anglo-Saxon West against the global majority; and China is the key, our long-term enemy. We want to do to China what we tried to do to Russia, and failed; so we’re not going to spend any money on arms on Russia, because we’ve depleted all of our arms, and NATO has depleted its arms. It doesn’t have any more —
We’ve got to prepare for the final conflict of civilization, the civilizational fight by the West, waged against the 85% global majority.
That’s Trump’s position; so Trump is not going to provide American arms to Ukraine. It’ll be the European countries. And it will be these countries, against which Russia will retaliate — and destroy not only their arms factories, but the political and military capitals, and ports, and power supply itself. The European NATO leaders, having agreed to fight to the last Ukrainian, are now saying: We’re going to fight to the last European, in an attempt to, somehow, hurt Russia, a little bit.
So, European history, essentially, is going to end, if this plan is put into operation — Russia has made that very clear. It says: There must be a better solution. Let’s just have nothing to do with Western Europe. Let it go its way. It can join the United States in some kind of political alliance — maybe France can become the 52nd state, Germany the 53rd state, you know, after Canada and Mexico. Right down the line. It doesn’t matter.
Russia wants to separate itself from the West and turn east. The West wants to move eastward, via Russia, towards its own fight against China. That is the long military dynamic — and it’s a crazy dynamic. It’s crazy because there’s no chance that the West has of winning. Its arms don’t work. The American ATACMS missiles that were just fired at Russia were all shot down by the Russian defenses. And then the Russians retaliated by a missile that killed the troops that were sending the missiles [their] way. I don’t know how you can get a clearer example of — this is a microcosm of what would happen if there are further NATO attempts to attack Russia.
But you can see that they don’t have the arms, they don’t have the money for the arms, and yet the leaders — Macron, Starmer, Merz, the Dutch leaders — and the French general, last week, said France should be willing to sacrifice its youth of the future to fight Russia: We need an army to go into Ukraine towards Russia and invade it. Your children are going to die. It’s all worth it because we hate Russia, don’t you?
Well, how are they going to get the population, ever, to say: Okay, we’ll send our kids to war and they can fight to the last French infantryman, just like the Ukrainians are fighting to the last Ukrainian? Of course, we will agree that this is a moral fight against Russia?
I don’t see any way of convincing the French population of doing that. So far, you’ve had all of the yellow-vest protests against the Macron government. What more can they do? What do you do when a government is fighting a war in Ukraine, against Russia, that the populations of Germany, France, the rest of the European countries, do not support?
Their only outlet has been to support the nationalistic parties, such as the Alternativ für Deutschland, [Giorgia] Meloni in Italy, and similar parties in England and abroad. That’s not very effective in stopping this whole military plan of attack, and the whole rearmament, and the whole resumption of the new Cold War — which, really, is trying to refight the end of World War II. That’s, really, what it’s all about.
Well, Russia is going to be the winner. The winner gets to set the terms, and NATO will lose; but it can say: Well, if we can generate in the public mind enough resentment against the Russian victory, against the Russian denazification, against the Russian demilitarization of Ukraine; then we can fan these simmering embers of resentment into a new anti-Russian mentality.
It’s all about the narrative, once again. That’s what they’re trying to do in all of this; and that’s why they keep calling Trump Neville Chamberlain, and turning Trump into “Putin’s puppet.” It turns history inside out, and, with it, the whole idea of right and wrong, and good and evil, as described by the whole spirit of civilization for the last few hundred years of drawing up laws of warfare — laws to prevent armies from attacking civilians, false-flag operations. The whole behavior, and breakdown, of the system of international law that’s occurred over the last few decades — really since 1990 (quite a few decades now) — all of this is a breakdown.
That’s what we’re dealing with: the breakdown of the West, and the attempt by Russia, China, and Eurasia to create its own laws of civilization — on how they would define civilization — and these laws are pretty universal; and they’ll pick up what the West’s ideals used to be, but which the West has abandoned now.
NIMA ALKHORSHID: Michael, how do you see the ability of Europe — because Ursula von der Leyen was talking about [how] Ukraine must be part of Europe (Ukraine, in today’s condition that they have, politically, economically, militarily)? Is Europe capable, or able to let Ukraine in?
MICHAEL HUDSON: The question is: What will Ukraine be?
If Europe lets Ukraine in, is there going to be free migration within Ukraine? You’re going to have the Ukrainian males who are able to bribe their way, or otherwise escape from the suicidal service in the army, [and] have already gone into Poland, and Central Europe, and into Germany. From what I read in the newspapers, they’ve made themselves fairly unpopular there, by being very demanding, saying: You have to support us. We’re victims.
Can Europe afford this whole migration crisis?
Well, the whole spirit of the nationalist parties, and of the voters, is very much like the United States. It’s anti-immigration. They’re saying: Western Europe for the Western Europeans; or, at least, they’re saying: France for the Frenchmen, Germany for the Germans, Britain for the British; but not for these countries to support, first of all, the influx of populations from the Middle East (where the United States [has] destroyed), from North Africa, from the Islamic countries — and now from the Ukrainians.
In order to fund the war, you’ve had Chancellor Merz in Germany say: We’ve got to cut back social spending. We’ve got to end the subsidies that we have given to German families — so that they can afford the higher gas and oil prices to heat their homes, and to cook, and to drive their cars — that we’ve been giving, when we cut off the trade with Russia. We cannot afford that, if we are going to spend our money on creating arms to give, or sell, or otherwise provide Ukraine with.
Well, what do you think the Germans are going to say? It’s okay? We’re willing to freeze in the dark and eat cold cereal instead of cooking, as long as we’re hurting Russia?
Can they really be convinced to hate Russia that much?
The neocons find this believable because they hate Russia that much. They’re not willing to fight Russia — and the Banderites (the neo-Nazis in Ukraine) are not the armies, primarily, that are fighting. The Azov Battalion, and others, tend to stay in the back and send the Ukrainian farmboys to fight, not the Nazis themselves. They’re shooting their own soldiers in the back, if their soldiers seek to retreat, instead of moving forward and simply being killed by the Russian drones.
So, you’re having an internecine Ukrainian war, by the Nazis, against the non-Nazi Ukrainians.
And you’re going to have this kind of counterpart all throughout the European countries, between the neocon governments representing NATO (the EU union represents NATO, not the elected voters) and the voters in the European countries. All of that is breaking up the European Union itself. And that’s going to be one of the results of this war.
It will not be up to Russia to do what it’s doing in Ukraine, and rewrite the European constitution and restructure the European economies, like it intends to do in Ukraine.
But you can see that in this fight over how to depict the culmination of the Russian military victory and restructuring of Ukraine; and the loss of the war by NATO, by the United States, and the loss of its whole plans to destabilize Russia — to deplete its arms supply, in order to try to make Russia deplete its arms supply (which has not occurred) — the failure of all of its unrealistic forecasts.
And this is what’s at stake: Can it maintain the fictitious view of reality that led to all of this failure, in the first place, ever since the 2014 Maidan coup d’état?
That’s what is the big picture of destabilization that’s occurring. And at what point will the European countries say: We’ve been suckered into fighting on behalf of NATO (which is really the U.S. War Department, as Trump has renamed it) — really, in serving American neocon foreign policy —
And maybe we should have a European policy, and the aim of our policy should be to improve the productivity and living standards and self-reliance of our European countries themselves, for our self-interest — not the neocon and the Trumpian-American self-interest, that has led to the surrender of von der Leyen to Trump’s tariff rules a few months ago?
They’re going to put European interests before foreign interests; and that’s going to mean, at some point, the loss of Europe to the United States.
This has been discussed by Putin in some of his press conferences. And he said, I think, realistically: You know, it’s going to take about 30 years for there, really, to be a restoration of trust, and trade, and investment, mutually, between Western Europe and Russia. For the time being, we’re turning eastward, with countries whose values we share.
And this ending of the Ukraine war, like the beginning of the Ukraine war, has been all about values.
And I think Lavrov had a wonderful statement, a few days ago, in the meeting with Belarus that Russia has once a year. He said: If we talk about what was, and what they want to restore (meaning NATO), these are all exhausted Euro-Atlantic models. NATO [North Atlantic Treaty Organization] and the OSCE [Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe] are Euro-Atlantic structures. The European Union has long ceased to be a European forum where the interests of Europeans are represented. It’s become an appendage to NATO. And what they call fighting for their values, is fighting for, what turns out to be, Nazi values.
That says it all, in a nutshell.
Again, yesterday, Lavrov said, in a French interview, that the whole drama began with the West’s attempt to have NATO absorb Ukraine, create a military threat to Russia right on our borders; and in breach of all the promises given to the Soviet Union, and contrary to all the understandings concluded then with the Russian Federation. As part of the OSCE framework on the indivisible nature of security, and the fact that no organization, no country in Europe will seek to strengthen its security at the expense of others, it was approved at the highest level — NATO acted in exactly the opposite way.
That’s the Russian position that’s going to shape how it restructures the domestic legal system and political system of Ukraine, and the value system in which it’s doing this. If you read what they’ve said, you realize the total disconnect between the so-called “peace proposal” propaganda effort, and what Russia intends to do. Russia has been sort of slow to raise the ante, and say: This isn’t simply about what military side is going to win; it’s a fight over the values of civilization. And Lavrov has said that Western Europe no longer has the values that shaped the Enlightenment, and shaped European Idealism at a point when Europe achieved world political and economic ascendancy in the 19th and 20th centuries.
NIMA ALKHORSHID: Michael, before this live[stream] we were talking about Bloomberg’s leak of Steve Witkoff’s private call with Kremlin aide Yury Ushakov. What are they trying to do?
Looking at the social media, the way that they’re attacking Steve Witkoff, they’re calling [him] a KGB agent? He’s an agent of the Trump administration! He’s Russia’s puppet, “Putin’s puppet?” What’s going on with the case of Witkoff? It seems that the establishment is attacking him, and these people are getting in line with the establishment.
MICHAEL HUDSON: Well, you mentioned the establishment. It’s obvious that the phone calls and the emails that Witkoff was handling were all copied by the National Security Agency. Essentially, they’re doing to Witkoff what they did to Donald Trump in his first administration, [when he] tried to appoint the general that was going to clean up the CIA, and clean out the bad actors. The NSA leaked it to the FBI saying, oh, look at what the general said. They pretty much falsified the charges against him.
I’m blocking out the general’s name, but you must remember who he is. At any rate, they’re trying to do the same with Witkoff. They’re trying to
Witkoff by saying, here is the reality that we recognize, when he was talking to [Kirill] Dmitriev and other Russians.
NIMA ALKHORSHID: Michael, you mean that general that was in Russiagate, they said that he’s connected with Russia, General [Michael] Flynn?
MICHAEL HUDSON: Yes, General Flynn. The one thing that the deep state wanted to do was to prevent General Flynn from being appointed to clean out the CIA, to clean out the neocons. That’s what Trump wanted to do. They framed him up, and they got Trump’s awful vice-president [Mike Pence] to say, and his idiot son-in-law [Jared Kushner] to say: No, you’ve got to get rid of General Flynn. The FBI doesn’t like him.
Well, of course the FBI and the deep state doesn’t like him because he wanted to clean out the neocons. And Trump was gullible enough to trust his idiot son-in-law and the vice president that was urging him. And he listened to the neocons who he wanted to get rid of for the advice: Don’t have anyone strong enough to get rid of us in power. He was suckered.
And I think he decided not to do that again. And that’s why he’s focused, in his second term, on appointing politically loyal cabinet members, and army members, and NSC members, and State Department members. The problem is that appointing political loyalists, they’re not (all) that savvy as to how to really conduct foreign relations and foreign policy, or even military policy. So that’s the trade-off that is sort of tearing his second term apart.
Well, they’re trying to say: Witkoff, by saying that Russia is winning, Witkoff is also “Putin’s puppet.” Well, any attempt at reality is defined [by neocons] as “pro-Russian,” because reality is the Russians have defeated Ukraine. They are marching towards victory, that they will probably conclude at the end of next spring, at the latest, in Ukraine. They will get rid of the Nazi government. They will replace it with a new government. They will write a new constitution.
All of that (obvious) military victory is a realistic expectation, and yet that’s called pro-Russian. Well, if reality is pro-Russian, then that means that NATO and America is the sphere of unreality. And the only way that you can ever get unreality to somehow dominate the electoral political process is by shaping a narrative in a way that distorts reality, that distorts the reality that recognizes Russia’s military victory in Ukraine; and, by the same token, [distorts the reality] that recognizes the futility of ever sending millions of Ukrainians to die, or to emigrate, or to suffer, to fight to the last Ukrainian.
What will the Ukrainian population think when the war is over? The voters — not the neo-Nazi leaders and the kleptocrats — what will they think? To say: How did we ever get our children, and our relatives, killed in this futile fight that we’ve lost, and had no chance of winning, because we were outgunned, outmanned? And all of this was just to, somehow, weaken Russia, not to help us? What interest did we have in fighting against the Russian language, in burning the library books that are written in Russian, in blaming, banning the Russian speakers, banning Russian music, and all of that?
Last time I was in Latvia, I remember, we were invited to a concert, and it was Dmitry Shostakovich’s opera, Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk. This was many years ago, when I was there performing Russian operas. All that, now, is swept away by the anti-Russian Baltic feeling, by banning the Russian-speaking population from voting and really having a voice in the electoral process. So that’s what all of this is about.
When they’re saying that Witkoff is pro-Russian, and that what he is saying — that Russia’s winning — is pro-Russian — it’s as if that’s a bad word. Instead of saying: Witkoff is recognizing economic reality. Thank God that we have Donald Trump appointing him, [who] is willing to face the reality that, as Trump has said (again and again), Ukraine is losing. And if Ukraine doesn’t agree to end the war now, on whatever terms it can, it’s going to be in an even worse position later. Well, Trump is right.
NIMA ALKHORSHID: Yeah, exactly. Thank you so much, Michael, for being with us today. It was great to talk in detail [about] what’s going on in terms of Trump’s [28]-point peace plan, and what’s next, happening behind the scenes. Yeah, great pleasure, Michael.
MICHAEL HUDSON: Thank you very much. I’m so glad we had this discussion.
Netanyahu’s idea is “Make the Midde-East in Israel’s image.” Opening speech on the video, by Jeffrey Sachs.
We’ve been talking about an attempt at Pax Judaica that is operating in the region now. What seems to be happening in Australia is that the country is being punished for standing for a Palestinian State some months ago. The investigation itself is a zionist affair and the Australian law enforcement is being pushed out. This is in order to own the narrative. When Syria fell, it was unbelievable how the narrative was created and I watched with dismay. This narrative is now on steroids. Israeli intelligence now claims far and wide that Iran is the prime suspect in the Bondi Beach attack. At least the Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese rejected ICC‑wanted Benjamin Netanyahu’s claim that Australia’s recognition of Palestinian statehood was behind the shooting. Asked by the ABC if he saw a link between the decision and the Bondi Beach shooting, Albanese replied: “No, I don’t.”
The brave man who attacked the one shooter at Bondi Beach and took his gun away, is being lauded, but nobody says his name. His name is Ahmed al Ahmed. With the vile narrative building from the zionist entity, we of course can’t say that Ahmed did something very brave and was shot twice himself. Then the narrative falls apart.
Israeli soldiers capture the moment they light the first Hannukah candles in Mount Hermon, Syria.
For Hannukkah, I’ve never seen so many giant Hannukkah candles in the open. I’ve seen these candle holders in Russia, in Ukraine, in the US and in many locations. Here Israeli soldiers capture the moment they light the first Hannukah candles in Mount Hermon, Syria, area that does not belong to them.
The narrative continues in the US and in Britian.
This story, from Syria, to now, is one story. It is one initiative and one set of hasbara to attempt to adjust the worldview toward zionist-israel. They want all of us to forget the consequences of their genocide and as such, they want to walk free.
Giant Hanukkah menorah in Moscow was not lit this year, first time since 1991. The office of Russia’s chief rabbi said the ceremony was not approved by city officials ‘for security reasons’
PIG HEADS THROWN ON MUSLIM GRAVES NEAR BONDI TERROR ATTACKS
We of course also do not see anything about children shot and fishermen shot and bombed and any other horror in Gaza. That is suddenly verboten to talk about, while the narrative is being constructed in order to resucitate the ‘poor jew under assault’ story. Last night’s bombing, shooting, more tanks in Gaza and more children and Gazan’s killed is not in the headlines. The attacks on Lebanon is ongoing.
But the 10 year old child (rip) killed at Bondi Beach, have huge photos in all media.
NETANYAHU:
“We have never killed children in Gaza.
This is antisemitic propaganda.” pic.twitter.com/AvRopbWZjA
— Sulaiman Ahmed (@ShaykhSulaiman) December 10, 2025
To tie this to Syria, looks like two stories, but it is one, and is an intellectual and social assault on all of us. IOF soldiers celebrated the Hanukkah holiday by lighting torches atop the ruins of Gaza’s Indonesian Hospital, the main medical facility in northern Gaza that once served thousands of Palestinian civilians, and now lies in ruins.
Here is an update. It is a speech by Netanyahu (apologies).
Australia “caused” antisemitism by recognizing a Palestinian state.
Albanese “let the disease spread” by not following Israel’s preferred policy.
The Bondi attack happened because Australia showed “weakness.”
Western governments must act according to what Israel expects, or terrorism will “consume you as well.”
There were no condolences, no expressions of solidarity, only political coercion using a domestic Australian tragedy as leverage. I believe this attack is not innocent but was created to confirm that everyone must obey the dictates of the zionist entity. Netanyahu’s message to the West is “Follow our political line or your citizens will die, and it will be your fault.” That crosses every line of respect between sovereign states and sounds like a direct threat.
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Syriana Analysis: In tonight’s live stream, I break down the mysterious incident involving US forces in Syria in which three American service members lost their lives – and why the official version of events does not add up.
While US officials publicly point to the so-called “Islamic State” as the culprit, multiple indications suggest something very different: that the individual who opened fire in the ambush was actually a member of the Syrian security apparatus operating under the Jolani-led authorities. In other words, part of the same structure that has been indirectly empowered and protected by Washington in post-Assad Syria.
We will look at: • The timeline of the incident and how the story changed • Why blaming “IS” so quickly helps maintain a convenient narrative • How local security forces linked to Jolani interact with US troops on the ground • The broader relationship between the Jolani system and US policy in northern Syria • What this reveals about the real nature of American presence in Syria after the fall of Assad
This episode is not about sensationalism. It is about connecting open-source information, leaks and local testimonies to understand how a supposed partner structure can become a direct threat – and why this is almost impossible to admit in official statements.
Development of hydrogen drones in China
At the 7th Zhejiang International Intelligent Transportation Industry Exhibition on December 11, it was announced that the Chinese Tianmu Shan-1 drone has set a world record and entered the Guinness Book of Records.
The UAV completed a non-stop flight of 188,605 km on November 16. The duration of the continuous flight was 4 hours, 17 minutes and 55 seconds.
The drone was developed by the Tianmu Laboratory at the Beijing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics. It was manufactured by Hangzhou Tianmu Hydrogen Peng Technology. The device has entered mass production. An important feature of the drone is its own hydrogen fuel system: the specific power of the fuel cell is 1500 W/kg, and the hydrogen utilization rate is 97.5%. The body is made of lightweight carbon fiber, and it has a lightweight hydrogen storage system.
Declared characteristics
• wheelbase – 1600 mm
• empty weight – 19 kg
• payload – 6 kg
• flight duration without payload – 4 hours
• control range within direct visibility – 100 km
• operating temperature range: from -40°C to +50°C.
Application areas
• reconnaissance, patrol and monitoring (including pipelines, power lines, highways);
• maritime and island logistics;
• emergency and search and rescue operations in urban environments;
• transportation of small-sized cargo.
Chinese developers noted that they have created a complete line of onboard hydrogen energy systems with a power range from 100 W to 40 kW, as well as a specialized flight control system and a ground station exclusively for hydrogen UAVs.
Professor Marandi has his own show now on … tadaaa … Al Mayadeen.
(I said previously it was Al Jazeera, but I was mistaken).
For over four decades, Iran has been one of the most discussed and most distorted countries in the global media. Western and regional outlets have consistently portrayed it as unstable, irrational, dangerous, or perpetually on the brink of collapse.
But how much of that narrative is grounded in reality, and how much is manufactured? In the first episode of Demystifying Iran, we break apart the dominant myths that shape the world’s understanding of the Islamic Republic.
Through rigorous analysis and perspectives sourced from inside Iran, not filtered through think tanks, exiles, or geopolitical rivals, we explore:
Myth 1: The “Imminent Collapse” of Iran How a resilient political system, forged in revolution and war, continues to defy Western predictions.
Myth 2: Iran’s “Proxies” and Regional Aggression Why Resistance movements are not proxies, but part of a strategic alliance built around shared principles and political agency.
Myth 3: “Mad Mullahs” and Nuclear Bombs How Orientalist caricatures obscure Iran’s legal rights, strategic logic, and binding religious rulings against nuclear weapons.
This episode reveals how decades of Western, regional, and Zionist discourse collapsed an ancient civilization into a two-dimensional cartoon, “nuclear sites and instability”, and how that caricature has enabled wars, sanctions, and violations of sovereignty. Demystifying Iran challenges viewers to step outside the narrative loop and hear the perspectives long excluded from mainstream coverage.
Every day, President Claudia Sheinbaum gives a morning presidential press conference and Mexico Solidarity Media posts English language summaries, translated by Mexico Solidarity’s Pedro Gellert Frank.
The bold section explains Mexico’s Tariffs. No, Mexico is not in cahoots with Trump on Tariffs. LAC countries that stand with Palestine are of course attacked. Mexico is one of those and following Mexico, I saw diverse attacks on water supply to Texas, and on agreements with other airlines where they accused Mexico of being in support of its own airline, I kid you not. I sometimes think that the US has offices full of people scrambling to find the next accusation – The Office of Accusations, right next to the War Department.
The Plan Mexico referred to in the bold section is a long term plan to support Mexico’s local industry. You will also notice that these tariffs were discussed with China and the other countries. There is a plan here and it is a bad faith move for RT to publish that Claudia Sheinbaum is following Trump in Tariffs.
A few more issues:
Between 2018 and 2024, Mexico’s minimum wage rose from $4.75 to $15 USD a day—effectively doubling in real terms within just six years. Over the same period, poverty fell from 42.9 percent to 29.6 percent, lifting nearly 13 million people out of poverty. Estimates suggest that minimum wage increases explain around 70 percent of this historic reduction. https://www.ids.ac.uk/opinions/lessons-from-mexicos-wage-policy-that-lifted-millions-out-of-poverty/
This process is continuing on various lines and women working in the border maquilladoras are beginning to take home a a real wage instead of working for nothing for the US. Of course, the US does not like to pay a fair price for their goods and are fighting this.
The US press ascribes this decrease of poverty not as a Mexican success, but as a result of remittances from Mexicans in the US, sent to Mexico. But remittances have always been there and Mexicans are flooding back to Mexico in numbers. Nobody wants to stay where ICE, Trump’s personal military force, is active. I believe that there are specific offices in Mexican embassies and consulates in the US that helps to very quickly reinstate Mexican citizenship for those who accepted American Citizenship throughout the years.
AMLO, the previous president and founder of Morena, the leftist pinkish party, did some press releases and interviews recently where he released his book on this period. He was asked a question whether he would return to politics and said that if Mexico’s sovereignty was threatened, he would go back to the streets. The other comment here is that the total excoriation of ‘the Jew’ instead of a reasonable view has a harsh price. Sheinbaum comes from a Jewish family by way of her grandparents. And now, it is used as an insult. Sheinbaum is Jewish like my non-existent cat is Jewish. She is a girl of the street, those same streets that AMLO fought in, to change Mexico from a colony of the US, to a country that can begin to stand on its own sovereignty, and on its own feet. The movement out of neoliberalism is what AMLO laid the foundation for and what Sheinbaum is now accomplishing, step by careful step.
https://mexicosolidarity.com/peoples-mananera-december-11-2/
Mexico is in Fashion: Community Tourism and a Record Number of Visitors
The community tourism strategy was presented, aimed at strengthening local economies and showcasing the country’s cultural wealth through nine travel routes. The announcement comes in a historic year, given that from January to October 2025, Mexico received 8.3 million international visitors, generating an economic spillover of over 28 billion dollars.
President Sheinbaum summarized the moment as follows: “Mexico is in fashion for its cultural legacy, for the recognition of its original peoples, and for the Transformation that allowed 13.5 million people to be lifted out of poverty.”
IMSS: From Decades of Neglect to the Largest Expansion in its History
Up until 2018, the Mexican Social Security Institute (IMSS) was plagued by a severe lag. During 36 years of neoliberal policies, only 4,000 hospital beds were installed, while 80% of its hospitals dated back to the IMSS’ first few decades. This neglect and the attempts at privatization explain the system’s saturation. Now the country is on a different path. “In 12 years, we are going to install over 12,000 hospital beds, almost three times what was done in 36 years,” Sheinbaum said.
The IMSS’s strengthening continues with better salaries for staff, the expansion of the IMSS-Bienestar program, 11,000 new spaces for patient care, and the training of more doctors and specialists, to guarantee a strong and accessible public system for all.
Water Treaty: Negotiations Advance, and Clean-up of the Tijuana River is Ordered
The President reported that negotiations with the United States are progressing well, although water deliveries have been limited by drought.
In relation to the Tijuana River, Sheinbaum noted that an agreement already exists. Mexico is operating a new treatment plant, and the United States will expand its plant in San Diego. Mexico, for its part, will build rain collectors and expand its plant to improve clean-up.
Mexico and the US: Migration, Security, and Commerce, the Three Pillars of the Bilateral Relationship
President Sheinbaum affirmed that the agenda with the United States rests on three key pillars:
• Migration. Orderly flow of migrants and protection for Mexicans within the United States.
• Security. Joint strategy against drug, weapons, and human trafficking.
• Commerce. Strengthening economic agreements, modernizing customs, and improving the operation of cargo and air freight.
Pemex Finishes Strong: Inherited Debt Exposed, Financial Recovery Reported
Sheinbaum presented a chart of “the damn corrupt debt from Calderón and Peña,” recalling that before 2018, Pemex was indebted under a privatizing scheme:
• Under Felipe Calderón, the debt rose from 43.3 billion pesos to 60.5 billion pesos (US$2.39 billion to US$3.35 billion).
• Under Enrique Peña Nieto, the debt again mushroomed, from 64.3 billion pesos to 105.8 billion pesos (US$3.56 billion to US$5.85 billion).
Pemex is closing this year with very good results. The Treasury instrumented a refinancing of interest payments, a “very good” operation, so much so that credit rating agencies upgraded Pemex’s rating.
Finally, Sheinbaum reported that the Olmeca Refinery has already produced 300,000 barrels, showing concrete results of the 4T’s energy strategy.
Sheinbaum Denounces Water Hoarding in Chihuahua and Announces Working Groups
The President reported that in an area of Chihuahua, excessive water concessions were granted and there are unregistered wells, leading to hoarding and inefficient use of the vital liquid. She pointed out that this is why some local actors opposed the General Water Law, whose purpose is to order and regulate consumption nationwide.
Working groups will be established to review the legality of wells, evaluate crop substitution, and, when necessary, relocate businesses to ensure fair and sustainable water use.
Mexico Reaffirms its Stance: Non-Intervention and Respect for Self-Determination
Sheinbaum avoided commenting on the Nobel Prize awarded to Venezuelan opposition figure María Corina Machado. However, in relation to the tension between Venezuela and the United States, she reiterated Mexico’s historical position of absolute respect for national self-determination, non-interference, and non-intervention.
The European ruling strata now stand isolated, widely unpopular and bereft.
Alastair Crooke at Strategic CultureA National Security Strategy (NSS) is produced periodically by U.S. Administrations (Trump authored one during his first term). Mostly these documents lay out an idealised version of an Administration’s foreign and security policy, and do not have great practical import – because of what is left out – i.e. entrenched U.S. political and economic interests; the deep foreign policy consensus overseen by the curator class of the deep security state; and the policies espoused by the mega donor collective.
Nonetheless, this recently-released NSS reads rather differently by putting a distinctive ‘America First’ gloss to U.S. foreign policy, eschewing global hegemony; ‘domination’ and ideological crusades in favour of pragmatic, transactional realism focused on protecting core national interests – homeland security, economic prosperity, and regional dominance in the Western Hemisphere. The U.S. thus will “no longer prop up the entire world order like ‘Atlas’ and expects Europe to shoulder more of its own defence burdens”.
It critiques the U.S.’ earlier pursuit of global primacy as ‘a failure’ that ended up weakening America – and situates Trump’s policy as a ‘necessary correction’ to the earlier stance. It therefore accepts the tilt towards a multipolar world.
Two key foreign policy aims are nuanced rather than radically recast:
First, China is downgraded from ‘primary threat’; ‘pacing threat’ to economic competitor (Taiwan is treated as an instrument of deterrence).
And in respect to Russia, it says,
“It is a core interest of the United States to negotiate an expeditious cessation of hostilities in Ukraine, in order to stabilize European economies, prevent unintended escalation or expansion of the war, and reestablish strategic stability with Russia, as well as to enable the post-hostilities reconstruction of Ukraine to enable its survival as a viable state”.
The document does not mention ‘strategic peace’ with Russia, but only a ‘cessation of hostilities’, i.e. a ceasefire. The careful choice of language used may signal that Trump does not intend a full settlement with Russia on its security concerns, but only a truce, a “cessation of hostilities”.
It terms European relations with Russia as “deeply attenuated”:
“The Trump Administration finds itself at odds with European officials who hold unrealistic expectations for the war perched in unstable minority governments, many of which trample on basic principles of democracy to suppress opposition. A large European majority wants peace, yet that desire is not translated into policy, in large measure because of those governments’ subversion of democratic processes. This is strategically important to the United States precisely because European states cannot reform themselves if they are trapped in political crisis”.
Essentially, Ukraine is pushed on the Europeans as their responsibility from now on. More generally, Allies are expected to foot the bills – as the U.S. builds at home.
One of the biggest NSS shifts is that America is defined now as a fortified hemisphere power in place of a global hegemon:
“We want a Hemisphere that remains free of hostile foreign incursion or ownership of key assets, and that supports critical supply chains; and we want to ensure our continued access to key strategic locations. In other words, we will assert and enforce a “Trump Corollary” to the Monroe Doctrine”.
In terms of military presence, the Strategy states that this entails “a readjustment of our global military presence to address urgent threats in our Hemisphere”.
Perhaps the most meaningful aspect in terms on practical impact is the reference to “ending NATO as an ever-expanding alliance” – and to Europe, which is critiqued in the most astringent terms:
The NSS is highly critical of Europe’s economic stagnation, its demographic decline, the loss of sovereignty to EU institutions and its “civilizational erasure”:
“We want Europe to remain European, to regain its civilizational self-confidence, and to abandon its failed focus on regulatory suffocation”.
The document declares the liberal/technocratic elites of the EU and many Member States to be a threat to Europe’s future, regional stability – and to American interests. It makes it clear that supporting the Patriotic Right in Europe, and “cultivating resistance” to Europe’s current trajectory are in the American interest.
It calls out population replacement (immigration) as the gravest long-term threat to Europe and American interests, openly questioning whether some European nations will remain reliable allies given their current trajectory.
The transatlantic relationship therefore remains in place but is no longer the centrepiece of U.S. foreign policy.
The European elite’s panic:
European leaders, including former Swedish PM Carl Bildt, called the NSS reference to Europe as being “to the Right of the extreme Right”. In the U.S., Democrats, such as Rep. Jason Crow, deemed it “catastrophic”. for alliances, i.e. for NATO.
To understand fully the panicked outcry issuing forth from Europe, a little context is required:
Liberal-woke identity politics allowed no ‘otherness’, not difference of opinion.
Washington Post columnist and MSNBC contributor Jennifer Rubin (long cited by the Washington Post as their ‘Republican columnist’ for ‘balance’), writing in September 2022, rejected the very notion of an argument having ‘sides’ since any contrary argument imputed a rationality to conservatives:
“We have to collectively, in essence, burn down the Republican Party. We have to level them – because if there are survivors, if there are people who weather this storm, they will do it again … The Kabuki dance in which Trump, his defenders and his supporters are treated as rational (clever even!) comes from a media establishment that refuses to discard … this false equivalence”.
And then-President Biden, in a speech that same month, said pretty much the same as Rubin: In a set-up bathed eerily in red and black light, at the historic Independence Hall, Biden unequivocally extended the threats from abroad to warn against the threat of a different terror, closer to home – from “Donald Trump and the MAGA Republicans”, who he said, “represent an extremism that threatens the very foundations of our republic”.
The core precept to this apocalyptic message duly crept across the Atlantic to capture and convert the Brussels’ leadership class. This should not be surprising: The EU’s regulation-based internal market was precisely intended to replace all political ‘contention’ with Tech-Managerialism. The Euro-élites were in desperate need of a Values System to fill the EU identity lacuna. The solution, however, was at hand:
“Appetites of the autocrat cannot be appeased. They must be opposed. Autocrats only understand one word: “No.” “No.” “No.” (Applause.). “No, you will not take my country.” “No, you will not take my freedom.” “No, you will not take my future … A dictator bent on rebuilding an empire will never be able to ease [erase] the people’s love of liberty. Brutality will never grind down the will of the free. And Ukraine — Ukraine will never be a victory for Russia. Never”. (Applause)”.
“Stand with us. We will stand with you. Let us move forward … with an abiding commitment to be allies not of darkness, but of light. Not of oppression, but of liberation. Not of captivity, but, yes, of freedom”.
Biden’s later speech (above) in Warsaw – complete with lighting effects and a dramatic backdrop reminiscent of his Liberty Hall speech – sought to portray the domestic MAGA opposition as a grave security threat to America and lent on radical Manicheanism to depict – this time – Russia (Russia being the external counterpoint to the related U.S. MAGA threat). This was his framing to the epic battle between the forces of light and of darkness that needed to be fought endlessly and won crushingly.
Once again, Biden was trying to cement America’s deep-seated missionary ethos as the ‘City on the Hill’ a beacon to the world – to a ‘forever’ cosmic war against Russian ‘evil’. He hoped to tie the American ruling class to the metaphysical struggle for the ‘light’.
David Brooks, author of Bobos in Paradise, (himself a liberal New York Times columnist), admits that initially he was taken by this liberal ideology, but later admitted this was a big mistake: “Whatever you want to call them [the liberals] have coalesced into an insular, intermarrying Brahmin élite that dominates culture, media, education, and tech”.
He acknowledges: “I didn’t anticipate how aggressively … we would seek to impose élite values through speech and thought codes. I underestimated the way the creative class would successfully raise barriers around itself to protect its economic privilege … And I underestimated our intolerance of ideological diversity”.
Put plainly, this thought-code precisely gave the Euro-élites their shiny new cult of absolute purity and stainless virtue – filling the for the EU its all too evident identity-gap lacuna. It resulted in the summoning of a vanguard whose proselytizing fury is to be focused on ‘the Other’.
Von der Leyen, in giving her ‘State of the Union’ address to the European Parliament in 2022 echoed Biden almost exactly:
“We should not lose sight of the way foreign autocrats are targeting our own countries. Foreign entities are funding institutes that undermine our values. Their disinformation is spreading from the internet to the halls of our universities … These lies are toxic for our democracies. Think about this: We introduced legislation to screen foreign direct investment for security concerns. If we do that for our economy, shouldn’t we do the same for ‘our values’? We need to better shield ourselves from malign interference … We will not allow any autocracy’s Trojan horses to attack ‘our democracies’ from within”.
Despite the cleaving together of the American ‘Bobos’ with the EU liberal warriors, many around the world nonetheless were astonished at the sheer alacrity by which the leadership in Brussels embraced the Biden ‘line’ advocating for a long war against Russia – a compliance that appeared so clearly to run contrary to European economic interests and social stability.
Simply put, it was a war of choice that seemed to be rooted ultimately in radical Manicheanism.
The initial formation of NATO in 1949 was generally opposed by the European Left due to its explicit anti-communist stance. However, with NATO’s bombing of Belgrade in 1999, the military alliance metamorphosed for some on the broader Left (including social democrats and liberals) as an instrument for liberal transmission and consolidation of ‘our democracy’ (this was Biden’s language at the time).
The fusion of the EU leadership to NATO and with the Biden project was complete. Germany’s Foreign Minister at the time Annalena Baerbock – every bit as intent on “ruining Russia”as Biden – in an address in New York in August 2022, sketched out a vision of a world dominated by the U.S. and Germany. In 1989, President George Bush famously offered Germany a “partnership in leadership”, Baerbock claimed. But at the time, Germany had been too busy with reunification to accept the offer. Today, she said, things had changed fundamentally: “Now the moment has come when we have to create it: A joint partnership in leadership”.
Harking on the ‘leadership partnership’ being understood in military terms, she said:
“In Germany, we have abandoned the long-held German belief in ‘change through trade’ … our goal is to further strengthen the European pillar of NATO… and the EU must become a Union capable of dealing with the United States on an equal footing: in a leadership partnership”.
Thus, the European élite’s outcry at the NSS’ devastating critique of Europe is not just that of America very obviously turning its back on an European ruling class who had dropped all to fawn on America. The NSS castigates their subversion of democracy – and even questions whether they will be suitable as allies for the future.
NATO is now declared to be “not forever”.
The European ruling strata now stand isolated, widely unpopular and bereft.
Deputy Foreign Minister and Russia’s Sherpa for BRICS Sergey Ryabkov took part (https://mid.ru/en/foreign_policy/news/2065247/) in the end-of-year sherpa/sous-sherpa meeting of BRICS countries under the Brazilian chairmanship in Brasília on December 11-12.
The participants reviewed this year’s cooperation outcomes. More than 260 political, economic, and humanitarian events, including the #BRICS Summit and nearly 20 ministerial meetings, took place this year.
The contribution of the 
Brazilian chairmanship to ensuring continuity of the BRICS strategic partnership was noted, along with progress achieved across all key areas such as politics and security, the economy and finance, and cultural and humanitarian exchanges.
The launch of the BRICS Partnership for the Elimination of Socially Determined Diseases, the adoption of leadership statements on climate finance and global governance in the field of artificial intelligence are among the year’s achievements.
Additional momentum was observed in cooperation in energy, healthcare, transport, science, and innovation.
Dialogue continued on the 
Russian chairmanship’s initiatives in 2024, including the creation of an independent settlement infrastructure, an investment platform, and a BRICS grain exchange.
Special emphasis was placed on the institutional development of the association and on enhancing the cooperation mechanisms’ effectiveness.
Our 
Indian partners outlined the key priorities of their chairmanship in 2026. In particular, they plan to focus on:
• promoting multilateralism, reforming global governance institutions,
•ensuring energy and food security,
• fostering innovation and technological cooperation,
• combatting terrorism, transnational crime, poverty, and climate change.
The meeting also featured a separate session with delegations from BRICS partner states, during which prospects for cooperation in expanded BRICS formats were discussed, as well as opportunities to strengthen solidarity on international platforms to enhance the role of the World Majority in decision-making on key international issues, including sustainable development and improvement of multilateral institutions.
Posted specifically for Diego Sequera’s input.
As Washington targets Latin America, with a Monroe Doctrine on steroids, LATAM Nations navigate coercion, alliances, and the quest for a possible yet increasingly difficult, post-hegemonic future. In this episode of Critical Perspectives, Vanessa and I discuss an on-the-ground report from journalist Diego Sequera, who reveals how Venezuelans, navigating Western media hysteria and covert threats, are maintaining normalcy and fortifying national sovereignty through a culture of resilience and everyday resistance.
… a crime was committed; one that should have brought the sky crashing down and split the heavens in two… but it passed.
Terrorist Israeli Ocupation soldiers shot dead a ten-year-old boy, Zaher Nasser Shamiya. He fell to the ground.
But wait, killing him wasn’t enough. While his body was still warm, still trying to understand the pain, a tank advanced toward him.
It drove over his tiny frame.
It crushed him.
It split him in two on the eastern side of Jabalia, as if his soul had become part of the road beneath it.
Had this crime occurred anywhere other than Gaza, the sky would have collided with the earth, and capitals around the world would have shaken.
But in Gaza, the world grows more vile, more unjust, more willing to accept the unbearable, more numbingly cruel.
It is only us…only we who carry all the rage.
Only we who hear the impact.
Only we who see the blood writing truth across the asphalt.
Genocided Gaza-December 2025
One of the days of what they dare to call “a ceasefire”.
…
Trump is still bloviating that there is peace in the middle east. The word peace is coopted as the word terrorist is coopted.
Pepe Escobar at Sputnik
FLORENCE, Italy – The new US National Security Strategy, the December 2025 version, is an intriguing, quirky, Bosch-style hybrid beast. It does not exactly look as it seems.
A tsunami of headlines across the discombobulated West focused on an apparent drive towards normalization between Washington and Moscow. But that’s far from the main focus of this Beauty and the Beast creation.
For starters, which Centaur designed the NSS Beast? Could it possibly be Trump? Unlikely. Could not be the clownish Secretary of Forever Wars. Could not be Marco Rubio – who can barely point to anything outside of Venezuela and Cuba on a map. So, who did it?
The fire in the belly of the NSS Beast is on the Russia-China strategic partnership: to try to undermine it by any means necessary. Trump, instinctively, and the old money, classic American ruling classes may have finally concluded that it’s idle to invest in a frontal war against twin, strategically-aligned peer competitors Russia-China. So it’s back, once again to Divide and Rule. And for everyone else, Plunder.
The NSS apparently offers Moscow a series of geoeconomic and geopolitical carrots while meticulously embedding the sticks in hybrid formats – prone to either provoke Russian elite fragmentation by attracting them back to the American market and American “values”, or to plunge the Russian Federation into ethnic “tensions”, coordinated by cyber-warfare.
There are no guarantees Team Trump 2.0 will be sophisticated enough to pull it off. In a nutshell, in no-diplo language, this would amount to simultaneously “isolate” Moscow all over again while “containing” China. Moscow and Beijing won’t fall for it.
What is clear so far is that with the new NSS, the Forever War ethos remains. But now rebranded: wars will be mostly hybrid, indirect and low cost.
Welcome to Managed Multipolarity
Even stripping down the NSS to the role of yet another narrative – the Empire of Chaos is a master producer of narratives – substantial rhetorical shifts seem to be afoot. The former “indispensable nation” now is characterized no more as a Global Robocop enforcing its hegemony, but as a Regional Robocop, in selected latitudes (mostly the Western Hemisphere). Europe and West Asia have been downgraded to the status of second-tier priorities.
To compound the (pragmatic?) realpolitik shift, this is now, at least in thesis, a Non-Ideological Empire. “Autocracies” are fine, as long as they play the imperial game; now it’s the EU chihuahuas who are branded as “anti-democratic”. Trump 2.0 will support a slew of “patriotic” European parties: that predictably set off serial heart attacks all across the vassalized Brussels sphere.
The NSS also brands its own version of the multipolar world. Call it Managed Multipolarity – as in Japan “managing” East Asia and Israel-Arab vassals “managing” West Asia via the Abraham Accords, with “counter-terrorism” enforced by the slimy Gulf petro-monarchies. In both cases, we will have the Empire of Chaos leading from behind.
NATO has been thrown, for all practical purposes, into Beggars Banquet territory. The Empire monopolizes everything: weapons, distribution of funding, nuclear guarantees. It’s up to the vassal collection to adjust to every imperial demand, especially 5% of their puny budgets for weapons purchases.
There will be no more NATO expansion: after all the real priorities are the Western Hemisphere and the “Indo-Pacific”, that non-existing formulation applied to the real-life Asia-Pacific.
The NATO/EU combo from now on qualifies at best as a nuisance – like mosquitoes in a five-star resort. Even with Article 5 and the nuclear umbrella still in place. Yet it’s up to the Euro-chihuahuas to pay, and pay and pay. Otherwise, the Empire will punish you.
The Global South/Global Majority can barely contain their expectations when the day will come – and it will come – of Russia sealing the definitive strategic defeat of the collective West in the black soil of Novorossiya.
In a sense, the NSS is already anticipating that day, with the new narrative making it clear the Empire has already moved on.
Containing China all over again
Latin America, as in the Western Hemisphere, will be under maximum pressure per the NSS – which explicitly reasserts a “Trump corollary” to the Monroe Doctrine. The Empire wants its own backyard back – the whole combo, so it can be properly looted.
This is all about natural resources: it applies to Venezuela and Colombia, but also, ominously, to Brazil and Mexico. “Non-hemispheric rivals” – as in China – will be “countered”. Hybrid War in effect – all over again.
The NSS narrative does its best to mask the obsession with China. The mask falls when it addresses the First Island Chain”:
“We will build a military capable of denying aggression anywhere in the First Island Chain. But the American military cannot, and should not have to, do this alone. Our allies must step up and spend – and more importantly do – much more for collective defense.”
Translation: the “First Island Chain” – from the Kuril islands in Russia, through Okinawa and Taiwan, across the Philippines, and down to Borneo – will be the Apex of Militarization in Asia-Pacific. The NSS being a narrative, it presents this Cold War encirclement strategy as a protection shield. Beijing will not be fooled: this is for all practical purposes China containment in Asia-Pacific on overdrive.
Is Beijing impressed? Not really. Especially when China’s trade surplus for the first time has shot up beyond $1 trillion, even considering the fall of exports to the US under Trump’s Tariff Temper Tantrum. Make Trade, Not Containment.
Back to Chihuahuastan. The whole planet now knows that the EU/NATO combo is preparing for war with Russia before 2030; it could even be next year. And they are also considering a pre-emptive attack against the world’s number one nuclear and hypersonic power.
Away from the comic relief inbuilt in the European slow motion political suicide, in real life both the US and vassal Japan refused to join the European obsession in stealing Russian funds.
The collapse of the EU – an artificial construct to start with – is as inevitable as death and taxes: looming in the dark horizon is a toxic cloud of Brexit-style exits; an ungovernable euro-zone; serial capital flights; rising and rising bond yields; unsustainable public debt; a collapse of the single market; institutional paralysis; and total, irretrievable, final loss of the legitimacy they never had in the first place.
A book just published in Italy by a young economist, Gabrielle Guzzi, tells it all in the title: Eurosuicidio. Spengler remarked that every civilization sooner or later dies; this current European project may be the swansong – political, military, spiritual – of a geographical area, a peninsula of Eurasia, playing its final role in History, after learning nothing from two previous suicide attempts:
WWI and WWII.
Does the Empire care? Not at all. The Beauty expires as the Beast moves on.
PressTV Interview with Peter Koenig
Background
Venezuela has strongly condemned the US seizure of an oil tanker off the country’s coast in the Caribbean, calling the move an act of international piracy. Diosdado Cabello Rondón, Venezuelan Minister of Interior, Justice and Peace, said the real reasons behind the prolonged aggression against Caracas have now been exposed. He said fighting drug trafficking is just a justification. Cabello said the reason has always been about Venezuela’s natural wealth, its oil, its energy, and the resources that belong solely to the Venezuelan people. He added that Caracas will appeal the seizure to all available international bodies. The condemnation follows a statement by US President Donald Trump, announcing the seizure of an oil tanker off Venezuela’s coast.
PressTV Iran: Trump said, US military forces conducted a large-scale operation to seize the oil tanker, without offering any more details. U-S Attorney General Pam posted the video of the seizure on social media, claiming that the vessel had been involved in an illicit oil shipping network supporting foreign terrorist organizations.
She also alleged that the tanker was used to transport sanctioned oil from Venezuela and Iran. Reacting to the seizure, Iran’s Embassy in Caracas has expressed solidarity with Venezuela and condemned the U-S takeover of the vessel as an act of piracy.
The Iranian embassy called it a violation of Venezuela’s national sovereignty and a blatant breach of international laws. Trump recently threatened Venezuela with an imminent land invasion, accusing the country of aiding the flow of drugs and migrants into the United States which Caracas denies.
————–
PressTV: Mr. Koenig, what is going on here?
What legal possibilities does Venezuela have to claim its vessel back?
>PK response:
This is clearly a crime on High Sea; it could be a modern version of the movie series Pirates of the Caribbean.
Seriously. Mr. Trump has way passed the Rules-based-order, also invented by the ever-domineering west, and has gone to the “Trump-based Order” – making local as well as international laws as he sees fit.
Storming by helicopter and taking over a Venezuela Oil tanker is a crime of first degree. The problem is, will the Venezuelan government find an international Court that is willing to take on their case, not being afraid of sanctions from Trump, and as you know sanctions can take all kinds of very nasty forms – or will they just bow to the United States, or to Trump’s will?
What other means, legal or political, does Mr. Maduro have to claim back the oil vessel? – If he has not already done so, which I believe he has – he may want to consult with his closest allies, China and Russia.
It is no secret, I believe to no one in the world, that the real reason for wanting to take over Venezuela are her enormous hydrocarbon reserves and other immeasurable natural resources.
What is amazing, that while protests can be heard, nobody, but nobody intervenes, not from the west, nor from the east. International “silence” so to speak, the non-interference – gives Trump Carte Blache to do whatever he wants and wherever he wants. And it is OK. – Or is it? Cleary not.
The contradiction glares in your eyes: President Trump just a few days ago pardoned Juan Orlando Hernández, the former President of Honduras, who is a known and proven drug dealer. He was convicted in the U.S. of being a major international drug trafficker, who helped flood the US with 500 tons of cocaine.
In a nutshell: On 8 March 2024, Hernández was convicted of three counts of drug trafficking and weapons conspiracy, and on 26 June of that year, he was sentenced to 45 years of prison. On 1 December 2025, he was released from prison after being formally pardoned by President Donald Trump.
Yet, Trump pursues Venezuela for major drug trafficking and networking of terrorism, without any proof.
The U-S Attorney General, Ms. Pam, as well as Trump’s War Minister, Pete Hegseth, are all part of Trump’s entourage. They will not contradict their master, even if they think something may be not quite right.
That is submission to the bully, for respect — or for fear?
The world lets Trump get away with murder. Literally. Through his war Minister, Pete Hegseth, within the last couple of months he has killed more than 100 innocent people by blowing up their boats in the Caribbean – under the pretext they were drug smugglers. Killed without trial, without justice, because the self-styled emperor orders it.
Our civilization has fallen back into pre-Middle Ages, when killing was a matter of being the “stronger”.
Well, today, a braindead society buys anything. And, indeed may become a pre-Middle Age populous. See this
https://www.globalresearch.ca/thinking-capacity-damaged-covid-mrna-vaccines/5908325
It may be part of this epoch of Dystopia – the 2030 Agenda – the world passes through right now.
This Epoch of Dystopia, George Orwell’s “1984” prediction, is not “sustainable”. to use one of the elite’s “passwords”, and, therefore, will not succeed.
And Trump will not succeed conquering Venezuela.
——
Peter Koenig is a geopolitical analyst, regular author for Global Research, and a former Economist at the World Bank and the World Health Organization (WHO), where he worked for over 30 years around the world. He is the author of Implosion – An Economic Thriller about War, Environmental Destruction and Corporate Greed; and co-author of Cynthia McKinney’s book “When China Sneezes: From the Coronavirus Lockdown to the Global Politico-Economic Crisis” (Clarity Press – November 1, 2020).
Peter is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG). He is also a non-resident Senior Fellow of the Chongyang Institute of Renmin University, Beijing.
By Will Schryver at his substack, imetatronink
One of the most common claims about the Trump 45 administration is that “He didn’t start any new wars.”
This is demonstrably FALSE.
During his first term, Trump became the ultimate causal agent for every one of the current conflicts with Russia, China, Iran, and Venezuela.
He not only maintained the trajectory of these conflicts as established by previous US administrations, but he dramatically raised the stakes and quickened the pace of the march to war.
In Ukraine, between 2017 and 2021, the already commenced preparations of #TheMotherOfAllProxyArmies were expanded and accelerated to an unprecedented degree.
Almost two-dozen covert US intelligence bases were established throughout eastern Ukraine. Large numbers of Ukrainian armed forces personnel were rotated through US/NATO training programs. Ukrainian officers were instructed in the use of US/NATO communications and intelligence / surveillance / reconnaissance (ISR) data. A chain of command was established from Kiev to US/NATO headquarters at Ramstein Air Base in Germany. US heavy weaponry was pre-staged in Poland, and preliminary deals were made with former Warsaw Pact countries (many of them now NATO members) to provide legacy Soviet artillery, armor, ammunition, and fighter aircraft to Ukraine.
Ukrainian troops were introduced to the use of Javelin Anti-Tank Guided Missiles, M-777 155mm howitzers, and HIMARS Multiple-Launch Rocket Systems.
Some of the legacy Soviet aircraft types in the Ukrainian Air Force were modified to carry and launch US/NATO missiles.
The massive fortification complex in the Donbass region was extended and strengthened.
A few thousand US/NATO “contractors” were integrated into the Ukrainian military – with preference given to the hard-core neo-Nazi brigades, who were considered to be the “elite” units in the AFU.
The strategic focus during the entire Trump 45 administration was to complete the preparation of the Ukrainian military to attack and crush the Russia-leaning separatists in the Donbass, and to then retake Crimea, which the Russians had seized in the aftermath of the 2014 American-led coup d’état in Kiev – and which was formally reassimilated into the Russian Federation as a result of an overwhelming popular referendum vote.
Trump has even bragged about the fact that he was the one who began to arm the Ukrainians to a far greater extent than Obama had ever done.
“I was the one that gave the Javelins. Remember the famous Javelins? That was me. It wasn’t Obama. It wasn’t Biden. It wasn’t anybody else. It was me. And they wiped out a lot of tanks with those Javelins. The expression was, ‘Obama gave sheets’. And I gave Javelins. That was a big deal at the time. That was at the beginning, when people said, ‘Wow, that’s something!’ Well, that was American equipment. Without American equipment, this war would have been over very quickly.”
President Donald J. Trump, Oval Office News Conference, February 26, 2025
This is the irrefutable fact: the Trump 45 administration both hastened and made inevitable the war whose final fuse was lit in early February 2022 when the Ukrainians commenced a broad-front artillery escalation against what they claimed to be Donbass militia positions, but which were indistinguishable from random civilian targets.
All of these factors combined compelled the Russians to move decisively (and sooner than they wanted) to extend their strategic depth in the region.
All those who claim Trump has no culpability for the war in Ukraine are either ignorant of the abundant objective facts, or in denial thereof.
Several prominent geopolitical voices were raising the alarm about war in Ukraine even before Victoria Nuland, John McCain, Lindsey Graham et al. goose-stepped through the streets of conquered Kiev in 2014.
And all during the civil war that then ensued, until the Russians intervened in late February 2022, US/NATO intelligence and special forces operatives were active in Ukraine, in support of the Kiev government’s military movements in the Donbass.
The crisis became increasingly acute over the course of the first Trump administration, even as the twin objectives of subduing the Donbass and retaking Crimea became increasingly apparent.
As I posted on Twitter in April of 2021:
Ukraine has two options: accept its role as a buffer state, or be dismembered. If the US goads them into an attempt to subjugate the Donbass, Russia will slice away eastern Ukraine and assimilate it — and there is *nothing* the US can do to prevent it.
Fact is, the big geostrategic nation-state wars are always decades in the making. So it was in the case of the war in Ukraine.
But the unavoidable trajectory of war was set in stone during Donald Trump’s FIRST rodeo in the White House. Trump owns the Ukraine War more than Joe Biden’s Autopen. At least Trump laid claim to a modest degree of cogency in his first term.
The apparition of Joe Biden, dazed and confused, simply watched dumbfounded as long-fated events flashed before his empty eyes.
One of Trump’s first actions after he was inaugurated in 2017 was to announce a sale to Taiwan of Harpoon anti-ship missiles, SM-2 and SM-3 naval air defense missiles, MK-48 torpedoes, and advanced radar systems.
In 2019, to much fanfare, Trump announced the sale to Taiwan of 66 F-16V fighters.
In 2020, Trump announced the sale of even more Harpoon ASMs, HIMARS systems, and MQ-9B drones.
Trump also, over the course of his first term, sent a total of about 300 US Army and Marine special forces operators to Taiwan. Since Trump’s second term began, that number has been increased to over 500 – including substantial contingents on Penghu and Kinmen Island, which is just six miles from the Chinese coast.
This permanent basing of a full battalion of US troops in Taiwan was unprecedented prior to Trump’s first term. And, understandably, it is regarded by China as an unprecedented provocation. Consequently, Chinese preparations for a possible war in and around its home seas have greatly accelerated.
And, in what is arguably his most strategically ill-advised move of all, Trump 45 started the trade and rhetoric war with China that continues to the present day.
There are now even widespread rumors that the US Department of War is preparing a naval blockade of energy imports into China — an act of utter madness.
Trump, in concert with the Israelis, started the major war with Iran that continues to this day — albeit currently in one of its typical intermissions.
In what I consider to have been the most brazen act of war in his first administration, Trump ordered the assassination of Iranian General Qasem Soleimani, on January 3, 2020, at the Baghdad airport.
Soleimani was on a diplomatic mission to Baghdad at the invitation of Iraqi Prime Minister Adil Abdul-Mahdi, who had been acting as the intermediary between the Saudis and the Iranians, who were working to de-escalate drone and missile attacks by Iraqi militias against American bases in Iraq, and the Green Zone in Baghdad.
Soleimani was traveling to deliver Iran’s official response to a Saudi Arabian mediation proposal.
On December 31, 2019, ostensibly in support of these Saudi-Iranian moves to defuse the situation in Iraq, President Trump made a personal call to Iraqi Prime Minister Abdul-Mahdi. The Iraqi leader then called Soleimani to arrange a meeting in the Green Zone in Baghdad, scheduled for the morning of January 3, 2020.
Soleimani and his small entourage traveled openly on a commercial flight, and were met at the airport by Iraqi militia leader Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis and a few other Iraqis. As Soleimani, al-Muhandis, and eight others were traveling from the airport to the Green Zone in two vehicles, an American MQ-9 Reaper drone fired Hellfire missiles and blew them all to smithereens.
President Trump directly ordered the attack, and afterwards publicly gloried in his perfidy.
Soleimani was considered a national hero in Iran, and was arguably the second-most powerful and influential political figure in Iran at the time, behind only the Ayatollah Khamenei.
The Iranians were justifiably outraged.
On January 8, 2020, Iran launched a ballistic missile attack against the American Ayn al-Asad airbase in Iraq. About 15 Iranian ballistic missiles targeted the base with shockingly impressive accuracy, although it was clear the strike was mostly demonstrative in nature, and the Iranians deliberately avoided killing US troops.
Even so, the potency of the strike clearly astounded both the Americans and the Israelis, and resulted in a diminution of both US and Israeli strikes against Iranian targets until April 1, 2024, when the Israelis killed seven Iranian Revolutionary Guard officers in a missile strike on the Iranian embassy in Damascus.
Two weeks later (April 13-14, 2024), the Iranians launched a massive and unprecedented missile strike against Israel. This then led directly to the series of exchanges between Israel and Iran which took place over the course of the ensuing months, culminating in the so-called 12-Day War between the US/Israel and Iran from June 13-24, 2025.
Of course, it must be understood that this war between the US/Israel and Iran is NOT over yet. It is just on a brief hiatus, and there are indications in recent days that Israel is planning new strikes against Iran.
But make no mistake, the catalyzing event for this greatly escalated war with Iran was Trump’s treacherous murder of Qasem Soleimani on January 3, 2020.
Trump began publicly expressing his desire to go to war against Venezuela, and to seize its oil, no later than July 2017. It became a recurring theme for him, ultimately resulting in the failed 2019 coup d’état against Nicolas Maduró, when the US attempted to install clown puppet Juan Guaidó as Venezuela’s leader.
Trump is quoted as saying:
“I don’t understand why we’re not looking at Venezuela. Why are we not at war with Venezuela?”
“That’s the country we should be going to war with. They have all that oil and they’re right on our back door.”
Trump’s bellicose language towards Venezuela continued all through his first term, and as a result, Venezuela’s longstanding friends Russia, China, and Iran began to more aggressively strengthen Venezuela’s military capabilities in anticipation of an eventual US attack and potential invasion of the South American country that holds the largest proven oil reserves in the world.
Now, as I write here on Thanksgiving Day 2025, the United States has positioned a massive naval fleet and Marine landing force off the coast of Venezuela, and it appears almost certain that military operations against the Maduro regime will commence imminently, with the overt aim of installing a new puppet government whose putative leader, CIA-groomed Nobel Peace Prize winner María Corina Machado, has explicitly called for an American invasion of the Bolivarian Republic, and pledged to permit the US to take control of Venezuela’s oil, gold, and other mineral wealth.
SOUTHCOM has even provided a slick promotional video for the upcoming war against Venezuela:
Trump, consumed by his own lust to become a celebrated recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize, has been claiming for months now to have ended no fewer than eight imaginary wars.
In reality, President Donald J. Trump has exhibited one of the most itchy trigger fingers of any US president in my lifetime (Eisenhower was still president when I was born).
Incredibly, he has chosen to pick fights with the most powerful adversaries the US has faced since the Second World War: Russia, China, and Iran. And, worst of all, he has catalyzed the formation of an unbeatable military and economic alliance between those three ascendant civilizational powers, even as American military power has eroded to its post-WW2 nadir.
Of course, most Americans possess a knowledge and understanding of war and US military might as it has been portrayed for decades in Hollywood movies and video games. And therefore, when Trump waxes grandiloquent about the United States being the greatest military force in human history, American vanity is easily persuaded that there is no nation on earth the US cannot trample underfoot with one hand tied behind its back.
Neither Donald Trump nor many Americans realize there are no easy wars left to fight. But that sobering truth will be laid bare for all to see between now and the end of the final term of The Imaginary Peace President.
This is what we talk about if we talk about Pax Judaica.
Angelo Giuliano
From the ground in Caracas, the view is one of controlled information. The local media offers a single clear voice, that of President Maduro, while other officials remain silent. This structure suggests he holds the direct line to Washington. Beyond that, certainty is hard to find.
A story is spreading on international news, claiming Maduro is negotiating his surrender and exile. Here, that narrative is widely seen as a psychological operation, a classic pre conflict tactic meant to seed confusion and a sense of inevitable defeat.
Yet, the serious posture of the Venezuelan government indicates that high level talks are probably happening. They are almost certainly not about surrender, but may be focused on preventing a catastrophic escalation.
If that is the case, what could be discussed? Based on the United States government’s aggressive stance, Washington appears to face four deeply problematic options, all stemming from a stalled regime change policy.
The US could simply walk away, but a retreat after years of maximalist rhetoric seems a profound political risk. It could launch a military strike, but such an illegal act risks global condemnation and historic embarrassment if it fails. It could attempt a strangling blockade, a lengthy act of economic war with a high military cost. Or it could order a full invasion, risking a protracted conflict it likely does not want.
Given the severe downsides of each confrontational path, observers are left to speculate about a quieter fifth possibility. A negotiated off ramp built on saving face.
This would follow the recent model seen between the US and Iran. It might involve a pre arranged, symbolic action. A single strike on a low value target. Maduro could then frame himself as the defender who withstood foreign aggression.
A US president could present the action as decisive strength.
No real war would be fought. Both sides could claim a form of resilience. It would offer the US a path to de escalate from a failing policy without an overt admission of defeat.
The notable silence in Caracas, therefore, may not signal weakness. It might reflect the tense quiet of exploratory talks, where the discussion is not about victory, but about whether a mutually acceptable retreat can even be designed. The psyop story of surrender is likely just noise.
The real, hushed conversation could be about finding a face saving exit before it is too late.
In the closing years of World War II, the United States, with the reluctant cooperation of New Zealand, embarked on one of the most reckless military experiments in history: Project Seal, a secret programme to develop a “tsunami bomb” — a weapon designed to wipe out entire coastal cities using nothing but water.
Shocking facts
US Navy engineers, obsessed with destruction, noticed that underwater explosions sometimes produced large waves — and immediately saw a weapon in nature itself.
They quickly enlisted New Zealand scientists to turn this horrifying idea into reality.
Between 1944 and 1945, around 3,700 underwater detonations were conducted off the coast of Auckland, using explosives ranging from a few grams to hundreds of kilograms.
Their goal was to create a man‑made tsunami capable of obliterating enemy cities.
Calculations suggested that 2 million kilograms of explosives, detonated offshore in a carefully arranged pattern, could produce waves 10–12 metres high, enough to drown entire populations.
The US pursued this with clinical precision, treating civilian death tolls as mere numbers on a test log.
Preliminary tests were even carried out across the Pacific near New Caledonia, showing that the Americans were willing to spread destruction far and wide, all under the cover of “research.”
Primary target
Declassified documents confirm that Japan’s coastal cities were the main target.
The plan was simple and brutal: flood ports, bypass defences, and inflict catastrophic casualties without using atomic weapons.
Major industrial hubs, including Tokyo, Yokohama, Osaka, Kobe, and Nagasaki, were all at risk.
US planners hoped that a massive offshore detonation chain could send a 10–12 metre wave crashing into Japanese ports and cities shortly before a planned Allied invasion.
Controversies
Although official strategy papers or military directives deny this, but some sources and post‑war commentary say that a successful tsunami bomb could have been later repurposed against:
Soviet coastal cities during early Cold War planning
North Korea or China during later Pacific tensions
Any state with major coastal population centres
Why was it stopped
As the war ended and nuclear weapons became the preferred method of mass destruction, project Seal was ultimately shelved.
For decades, the US kept these files classified, concealing its willingness to weaponise nature itself.
Even today, historians warn that the “tsunami bomb” concept demonstrates how far the US military was willing to push ethical boundaries to achieve strategic dominance.
This video explains in depth what happened.
There were some of our reliable journalists who continually blamed Russia for losing Syria. I was not of that opinion, as I watched Mr Lavrov at the very final regional meeting before the gates of Idlib opened. There was significant pushback on my stance, as it was more comfortable to blame Russia for ‘losing’ Syria. I also did not believe that Russia would leave the issue, but would let it develop. The criticism was around ‘Russia is only trying to keep its warm water ports’, and completely forgotten was the fact that Russia rescued at least Bashar al-Assad and offered many Syrians safety around the Russian area. This opinion, that Russia did not rescue Syria, spreading ‘Russia Sold out Syria’ became the prevailing orthodoxy. It was not correct then, and it is not correct now.
Recently, another lengthy interview was published on the issue, and I waited a moment to debunk it, as it was beginning to need serious debunking. To my joy, others recognized that the orthodoxy is becoming destructive. Throughout the time, I watched a number of journalists who remained quiet on the matter and, of course, wondered why. These are now stepping forward: journalists like Eva Karene Bartlett and, specifically, Marwa Osman, both highly competent, who have never spoken out in this way.
One can forgive those who were making up and pushing the idea of ‘Russia sold out Syria’ over and over again, because they’ve done good work. Still, during that time, no matter what was presented, they insisted on claiming a higher-than-all perception and continued with Russia Bad under the guise of: We Will Speak the Truth, no matter what. OK, but if your truth sucks and is a made-up view, to serve your world-view? There is no problem with critiquing Russia, but why not instead tell who was behind the fall of Syria instead of continually critiquing from a ‘better than’ perspective?
Here is Sharmine Narwani from the Cradle, who did a thorough and correct look-back on the fall of Syria, why Russia did what she did, and the current development trajectory. I am grateful for this work. Throughout this time, I had a sense that Russia was staying because it was blocking something, which turned out to be the correct and justifiable stance.
Eva Bartlett says: “Sharmine Narwani’s words are a rational counter to the “Russia sold out Syria” voices.
“Sharaa goes to Moscow to meet with Putin. And of course, those who are against the terror that Syria experienced and the regime change were appalled: ‘Putin’s working with the Zionists. Putin’s okay with al-Qaeda!’
No. No. Countries act in accordance with their national interests. And they’re opportunistic. Opportunism is what you need to be as a political leader of a country…”
*Note: Sharmine was going to Syria early on in the global war on Syria. If I recall correctly, she went there in 2012 or 2013, I myself started going there in 2014 (https://ingaza.wordpress.com/syria/syria-my-published-articles-from-and-on-syria-2014-2022/). She has credibility on the ground, she took a very unpopular, honest, stance back then, writing excellent articles countering the propaganda. She’s credible now.]”
A year after the fall of Bashar al-Assad and Abu Mohammad al-Jolani’s rise to power, Syria remains a politically volatile state. West Asian geopolitical analyst and Cradle columnist Sharmine Narwani joins TMJ News to reveal the power plays unfolding behind the scenes: Russia’s sudden return near the Golan, Israel expanding its reach in the south, Gulf and Turkish maneuvering, U.S. calculations, and the IMF positioning itself for influence. What does the future of Syria look like as foreign powers get involved?
Time Stamps:
00:00 One year of Jolani in Power
08:30 Syria and the Abraham Accords
16:02 Why Russia is Back in Syria
22:55 MAGA vs. MIGA
25:58 What Media get Wrong about Syria
Deep Dive: The 2025 US NSS’s “China Containment Playbook”—Every Sneaky Trick, Hypocritical Line, and Desperate Gamble Exposed! 
After reading lots of interpretations of the latest National Security Strategy (NSS) from the White House, presenting it as a major readjustment of its global military presence towards the Western Hemisphere, downgrading its focus on China – let me share my 50 cents on what the NSS (not the PR fluff) truly signifies
First of all: The NSS primarily serves as an outline of the White House’s core principles and interests. This will eventually lead to an update from the DoD regarding the:
– The National Defense Strategy (NDS)
– Nuclear Posture Review (NPR)
– Global Posture Review (GPR)
That’s where the real $$$ sausages are made—specifically in determining troop and equipment deployment worldwide…
Having said that, let’s break down the actual strategy buried in the 33-page document: a hyper-focused, ally-exploiting, tech-stealing, war-prepping campaign to stop China’s rise. The US isn’t just “competing”—it’s doubling down on Cold War 2.0 and WW3 preparations, with a budget, a bloc, and a boatload of delusions. Let’s go line by line (with quotes from the NSS itself!):
1. Economic Containment: “Fair Trade” = Forcing China to Lose
The NSS’s Asia chapter leads with a jaw-dropping rewrite of history:
“President Trump single-handedly reversed more than three decades of mistaken American assumptions about China: namely, that by opening our markets to China, encouraging American business to invest in China, and outsourcing our manufacturing to China, we would facilitate China’s entry into the so-called ‘rules-based international order.’ This did not happen.”
Let’s unpack the lies:
→ This is Typical Western Victim Blaming—US corporations begged to outsource their pollution at poverty wages to China in the 90s/00s, they chose profit over American workers for maximum return—not “mistaken assumptions.” Apple, Nike, Walmart got rich off China’s factories; now the US blames China for “stealing” jobs it willingly gave away
1990s-2000s: “Globalization is win-win!” (When profits flowed West)
2020s: “We’re victims of our own business decisions!” (When competition got real)
→ The NSS demands “balanced trade” but defines it as China reducing exports to the US (China’s exports to the US fell from 4% to 2% of its GDP since 2017) while the US keeps blocking Chinese goods
The goal here isn’t “engagement,” it’s economic decoupling, supply chain purges, and tech blockade. Tariffs? Permanent. Trade? Only “reciprocal” (i.e., zero tolerance for surplus). China’s development isn’t seen as organic—it’s framed as theft, espionage, and U.S. elite betrayal
Worst part? The US is forcing allies to join the economic war:
“We will work to align the actions of our allies and partners with our joint interest in preventing domination by any single competitor nation.”
Translation: “Japan/SK/Australia—stop buying Chinese batteries, stop using Huawei 5G, stop trading with China on your own terms. If you don’t, we’ll yank access to our markets”
2. Military Buildup in Indo-Pacific: “Deterrence” = Prepping for War
The NSS’s most dangerous section is its Indo-Pacific military plan—buried under “Prevent Military Confrontation” rhetoric, but actually a blueprint for encircling China, preparing for war
The NSS fixates on Taiwan not for “democracy,” but for geostrategic control:
“Taiwan provides direct access to the Second Island Chain and splits Northeast and Southeast Asia into two distinct theaters. Given that one-third of global shipping passes annually through the South China Sea, this has major implications for the U.S. economy”
Translation: Taiwan is a military chokehold, not a “democracy” The NSS drops the “One China Policy” for a vague “declaratory policy” that “does not support any unilateral change to the status quo”—which is US-speak for: “We’ll arm Taiwan to the teeth, but blame China if it defends its own territory”
The strategy doubles down on arming Taiwan indirectly:
“Encourage our First Island Chain allies and partners to invest in capabilities aimed at deterring aggression.”
Which means the U.S. expect its allies Japan/SK/Australia to send weapons to Taiwan via “backchannels” (already happening with Japan’s “transferable defense equipment” laws)
First Island Chain: A “Distributed Deterrence” Prison for China
The NSS admits US bases in the First Island Chain are now within China’s missile range—so it’s shifting to a “distributed” model:
“Build a military capable of denying aggression anywhere in the First Island Chain… press our First Island Chain allies and partners to allow the U.S. military greater access to their ports and other facilities.”
What this means in practice:
Japan: US troops will expand access to Okinawa, Kyushu, and Amami Oshima (100km from Taiwan) + Japan’s defense budget hits 3% of GDP (up from 1%) to build “counterstrike missiles” targeting China
Australia: AUKUS subs (3 initial, up to 8) will patrol the South China Sea by 2035—costing Australia $2400B (more than its annual GDP) while US defense contractors cash in
Quad: India will get US drone tech and naval patrols in the Indian Ocean to block China’s Maritime Silk Road
The NSS even brags about low-cost weapons to “outcompete” China:
“Produce the most capable and modern systems and munitions at scale… low-cost weapons that can defeat most adversaries.”
Translation: The US will be flooding the Indo-Pacific with cheap drones/missiles—turning the region into a tinderbox
3. Ally Coercion: “Burden-Sharing” = Making Others Pay for US Interest and China Paranoia
The NSS’s “Burden-Sharing and Burden-Shifting” section is a masterclass in imperialist grifting:
“The days of the United States propping up the entire world order like Atlas are over… NATO countries to spend 5 percent of GDP on defense… our allies must assume primary responsibility for their regions.”
Let’s do the math:
Japan’s GDP is $5T—5% = $250B/year (triple its current defense budget). The Japanese public already opposes rearmament (62% against, per 2025 polls)—but the US is twisting arms
South Korea: The US wants Seoul to pay $10B/year for US troops (up from $1.2B) + build “anti-China” missile defense systems that threaten Pyongyang (and destabilize the peninsula)
Europe: Even though the NSS says Europe’s “civilizational erasure” is a bigger threat, it still demands Europe send weapons to Indo-Pacific allies (Germany’s already shipping tanks to Australia) and block Chinese tech
The kicker? The US offers “carrots” that are just traps:
“Potentially through more favorable treatment on commercial matters, technology sharing, and defense procurement—those countries that willingly take more responsibility for security in their neighborhoods.”
Translation: “If you spend your tax money on our weapons and block China, we’ll let you sell more cars to our market. If not, we’ll hit you with tariffs (looking at you, Germany’s auto industry)”
4. Tech War: “US Standards” = Stealing Innovation and Blocking Progress
The NSS obsesses over AI, biotech, and quantum computing—because it knows China’s tech rise is irreversible
“Ensure that U.S. technology and U.S. standards… drive the world forward… protect our intellectual property from foreign theft.”
The hypocrisy is staggering:
The U.S. vows to dominate AI, quantum, and biotech—not through competition, but choke points: export controls, forced tech repatriation, and weaponized finance. “Protect IP” = block Chinese access to global tech ecosystems. All while screaming “free markets”… unless China wins
The NSS calls for “deregulation to spur innovation”—but bans Chinese students from US STEM programs, blocks Chinese firms from accessing US chips, and sabotages Huawei
Meanwhile the NSS admits it’s losing:
“China’s state-led and state-backed companies excel in building physical and digital infrastructure… China has recycled perhaps $1.3 trillion of its trade surpluses into loans to its trading partners.”
Meet the “America-First Infrastructure” Smokescreen:
While mocking China’s $1.3T in global loans, the NSS offers nothing comparable—only vague promises of “U.S. quality, no strings attached.” Yet it demands sovereign nations choose: American-led sovereignty or “foreign influence” (read: Beijing). Funny—when the U.S. blocks ports or buys mines, it’s “security.” When China does it? It’s a “Debt trap”
After reading through the NSS, my conclusion is more of a question: Is the 2025 U.S. National Security Strategy a WW3 Playbook?
Cos it’s not about WW3—it’s for WW3… just with someone else’s blood 
The US thinks rebranding containment as “fair competition” and hiding its military in Hawaii will stop China. The 2025 NSS describes a last-ditch effort to cling to dominance by weaponizing allies, blocking innovation, while preparing for WW3
This isn’t containment—it’s strategic divorce. The U.S. no longer pretends to lead a “liberal order.” It’s building a Fortress America bloc: militarily networked, economically protected, and ideologically nationalist. Allies are subcontractors. The Global South? A battleground for economic and military allegiance…
The NSS doesn’t explicitly say, “We’re in WW3, sacrifice allies to exhaust Russia/China,” but that’s the only logical conclusion from its policies. It’s a strategy of imperial self-preservation: the U.S. knows it can’t win a direct war with China/Russia, so it’s using allies as human shields and economic proxies to bleed its rivals dry. Then, just like in WW2, it will step in—richer, stronger, and unbloodied—to write the rules of the new world order
There comes a time when one has to give credit where credit is due. This does not mean sudden trust, it does not mean that one throws knowledge away and suddenly become love partners with the Arab states, it only means we give credit where it is due, at this moment. The future will tell. The Doha forum unfortunately had everyone and the kitchen sink taking part. We had Kaja Kallas and such people taking part. But, the Qatar and Türkiye leaders spoke truth, clearly, with no ambiguity.
Gaza Ceasefire Lacks Stability, Say Regional Leaders
This is from https://interbellumnews.com/conflicts/palestine/qatar-t%C3%BCrkiye-warn-gaza-ceasefire-is-fragile-incomplete
Top mediators Qatar and Türkiye issued a stark warning that the nearly two-month pause in Gaza is fragile and incomplete, stating that a genuine ceasefire cannot be achieved without the full withdrawal of Israeli forces and an end to the ongoing violence that continues to claim Palestinian lives.
Speaking at the Doha Forum on Saturday, Qatari Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani emphasized that the current situation amounts to merely a “pause” in hostilities. He asserted that stability, freedom of movement for Palestinians, and a complete Israeli military withdrawal are non-negotiable prerequisites for a lasting peace. This call was echoed by regional leaders who stress that without addressing the core issue of Palestinian rights and sovereignty, any agreement risks repeating cycles of violence.
Despite the truce that began on October 10, the Israeli military campaign has not ceased, with Palestinian authorities reporting over 600 violations in seven weeks. Since the truce started, Israeli attacks have killed at least 360 Palestinians, including 70 children.
Just on Saturday, seven people were killed in separate incidents across northern Gaza. This ongoing violence underscores the mediators’ point that the current arrangement fails to provide genuine safety for Gaza’s civilian population.
Furthermore, key provisions of the first phase of the U.S.-brokered plan remain unfulfilled. The agreed-upon daily target of 600 aid trucks entering Gaza has never been reached, and the Rafah border crossing has not been reopened for two-way movement as stipulated. Egypt, alongside other nations, has condemned an Israeli plan to open Rafah exclusively for Palestinian departures, warning it could facilitate permanent displacement and blocks aid entry, a move seen as a breach of the peace plan.
The proposed second phase of the deal, which has yet to begin, involves a complex set of interlinked challenges that mediators are urgently trying to solve. The phase calls for a full Israeli withdrawal, the deployment of an International Stabilization Force (ISF), the establishment of a new Palestinian governance mechanism, and the disarmament of Hamas.
The issue of Hamas’s disarmament presents a major stumbling block. The group has stated it will not disappear and remains a central part of Palestinian political life, and is only open to handing over weapons as part of an internal Palestinian political process, not as an act of surrender to Israel.
Experts warn that attempting forcible disarmament would be a “recipe for disaster,” likely leading to renewed conflict. A viable plan would require a sequenced, Palestinian-led process that offers reintegration pathways for fighters.
Parallel to this, efforts are underway to build a post-war security infrastructure. Egypt, with EU support, has begun training thousands of Palestinian police officers intended to form a future Gaza security force loyal to the Palestinian Authority. This force is envisioned to work alongside, and eventually take over from, the proposed ISF. However, the composition and mandate of the ISF itself are still unresolved.
While Türkiye has indicated a willingness to participate, Israel openly opposes its involvement. The force’s primary goal, as stated by Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan, should be to separate Palestinians and Israelis, with other details to follow.
With the humanitarian situation still catastrophic and winter approaching for a displaced population lacking shelter, mediators are pressing for immediate action. Norway’s foreign minister insisted that the stabilization force and a governing peace council “must be formed this month,” warning the current pause “cannot hold for many more weeks in its current phase”.
—
Qatar’s Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani and Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan discussed the future of the Gaza ceasefire at the Doha Forum 2025.
Al Thani emphasized that the current pause in fighting is not yet a full ceasefire, highlighting the need for Israeli withdrawal, stability in Gaza, and free movement for residents.
Both leaders stressed ongoing collaboration between Qatar, Turkey, Egypt, and the US to advance negotiations and establish an International Stability Force (ISF) to separate Palestinians and Israelis at the border.
Fidan noted that the ISF’s mission must be realistic, supported by local Palestinian police, and coordinated with a peace board for long-term stability.
This is the speech that I concur with. Veracity? Future will tell but so far the Arab states held strong to a Palestinian State.
This is a “Danny” title. I post this to hear Ben Norton’s comment both on Venezuela and on the new US National Security Policy.
Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac “didn’t purchase the high-risk mortgages due to pressure, but because they were participants reading from the same script as Goldman, Sachs. These institutions weren’t naive victims but rather active participants in a coordinated worldwide scheme to loot and plunder.”
By Larry Romanoff at Blue Moon of Shanghai.
Three Perpetrator-Victims:
1. Fannie Mae and Freddy Mac
This is a crucial piece of the 2008 puzzle. The institutions of Fannie Mae (Federal National Mortgage Association) and Freddie Mac (Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corporation) were Government-Sponsored Enterprises (GSEs). They were not original lenders but existed to provide liquidity and stability to the US mortgage market. They would buy mortgages from banks and other lenders then pool those mortgages to create Mortgage-Backed Securities (MBS), and sell these MBSs to investors (like pension funds) worldwide.
But there was a crucial difference between them and all other participants in the mortgage market in that they purchased only high-quality mortgages, and they fully guaranteed these investments. Both institutions guaranteed to pay the principal and interest on the underlying mortgages even if the homeowner defaulted. Thus, a 100% guarantee of the value of the investment. It is a matter of record that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac owned or guaranteed about half of all US mortgages, a figure that rose to over 80% after the crisis began. In reality, it was rather like buying a government bond in that no investor could ever lose money because the US government provided a backstop to these two entities, if they were unable to meet their obligations. Their “securitisation” process served two vital functions. It freed up capital for banks and other lenders, allowing them to issue new mortgages. Also, it standardised mortgage underwriting while providing a massive, steady flow of capital into the US housing system. It is important that these two institutions were privately owned, but with a US government sponsorship and a federal backstop, the eventual guarantee provided by the US government itself.
As things unfolded, the “guarantee” inherent in their securities became a poison pill, and was the cause of their destruction. Fannie Mae and Freddy Mac had purchased – and guaranteed – trillions of dollars of securitised NINJA mortgages and, when the bubble burst, those guarantees were called. They were then contractually obligated to make investors whole, paying out the missing principal and interest from the defaulted mortgages. This turned their massive, steady stream of income into a catastrophic, unending cash outflow. They were actually hit by a double whammy. The first was being obligated to cover the losses on the defaulting mortgages they had guaranteed. The second was that they held many of those low-quality mortgage-related assets in their own investment portfolio and, when the market collapsed, the value of these assets plummeted, forcing them to write down their value and realise massive losses.
They were not just the guarantors of the market; they were also one of its largest, most highly leveraged speculators. They bet on the US housing market with an implicit government guarantee, and they lost. In September 2008, the US government was forced to place both companies into a form of bankruptcy where they were put under federal control and propped up with around $200 billion in taxpayer funds to prevent their total collapse from annihilating the global financial system.
Prior to the bankruptcies, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were classified as Government-Sponsored Enterprises (GSEs) but, in reality, they were publicly traded, private businesses. They had a diverse base of institutional shareholders. Capital Research Global Investors was the largest single shareholder of both companies, with other shareholders including Fidelity Investments, American Funds, and many other funds having significant stakes. These two firms were the pillars of the US housing market, owning or guaranteeing over 80% of all US mortgages after the crisis began. Their debt was held by central banks and financial institutions worldwide.
A Look Backward at Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac
A “standard narrative” was being promoted that Fannie and Freddie caused the subprime crisis by buying risky loans, but the reality was different. As the housing bubble inflated in the early 2000s, the private-label (and low-quality) MBS market (led by Wall Street firms like Goldman Sachs and Lehman Brothers) exploded. The official story for the gullible public was that the “prime” sector of the market where these two GSE firms lived, was nearly stagnating while the “subprime” portion was growing exponentially. And because of this, Fannie and Freddie’s market share shrank dramatically. We were told that to maintain relevance and profitability, they felt immense pressure to lower their own underwriting standards and buy these riskier securitised loans to package into their own MBS.
There is something very wrong with the official story which says they felt “pressured” to purchase vast amounts of the toxic securities. It is not possible their purchases resulted from pressure of any kind. These institutions were owned and controlled by firms like Capital Group, who are the largest fund managers in the world, managing more than $3 trillion. Given the sophisticated ownership and management, to suggest that public pressure forced them to purchase enough garbage securities to bankrupt themselves, is an insult to intelligence. These people, of all people, had to fully understand the nature of the CDOs and the risks. They were not children.
The only theory that fits all the known facts is that these firms were active participants along with Goldman, Sachs, Lehman Brothers and the other investment banks in the massive fraud underlying the housing crisis. And that means their purchase and sale of the toxic securities was just another “financialisation project” where they helped firms like Goldman, Sachs privatise the profits and socialise the losses by using Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac as tools. Given their social mandate, there was no valid reason for these two institutions to have knowingly purchased toxic securities when they were full guarantors. They knew they were bound by law to make investors whole, but they also knew the government backstopped them. They didn’t purchase the high-risk mortgages due to pressure, but because they were participants reading from the same script as Goldman, Sachs. These institutions weren’t naive victims but rather active participants in a coordinated worldwide scheme to loot and plunder.
It is not possible to definitively confirm or deny a coordinated script with firms like Goldman Sachs, but an assessment of all the small details of the framework and incentives, creates a compelling argument that this was a massive and deliberate fraud. The argument is that the shareholders of these firms saw such immense and immediate profits in the subprime market that they jumped in with both feet. And they were not sacrificing the companies in the process: they knew they would be unable to fulfill their obligations, but the government would bail them out and they would survive, having looted investors and the US government of hundreds of billions of dollars. And that is precisely what happened. The People’s Bank of China published an assessment of Fannie Mae and Freddy Mac that you might care to read. [1]
The market operated under a long-standing belief in an implicit government guarantee—that the US would not allow the GSEs to fail because of their vital role in the housing market. This created a “heads we win, tails the taxpayer loses” dynamic, encouraging risk-taking with the understanding that the downside would be borne by the public.
Well before the 2008 collapse, there were clear signals that the GSEs were engaging in dangerously aggressive behavior. Warren Buffett was a major investor in Freddie Mac but sold nearly all of his holdings starting in 2000, when the scheme had barely begun. Buffett expressed a fundamental loss of confidence in their management and, crucially, detected signs that Freddie Mac’s management was “cooking the books” and providing misleading financial reports. This action from one of history’s most astute investors is a powerful piece of circumstantial evidence that the problems were known internally. Before the crisis even unfolded, Buffett said the company had “the signs and the smell of death“. [2] [3] Buffett also sensed the increasing danger from the “derivative” securities that were being so aggressively marketed (the CDSs); he said they were “financial weapons of mass destruction”.
Insiders were also keenly aware of the impending doom. Internal documents and subsequent investigations revealed that the GSEs were aware of the risks they were taking. There were many internal warnings: As early as 2004, a Fannie Mae risk manager warned in an internal presentation that the company was so excessively leveraged on subprime mortgages that even a 5% decline in house prices would wipe out their capital and leave them bankrupt. That warning was ignored, but it wasn’t a case of ignorance. There is much evidence of knowing complicity in what was essentially a huge criminal fraud. The executives and shareholders of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac knew precisely what they were doing, knew the inevitable end result, but were executing a plan to loot trillions from investors and the public and leave the US government holding the bag when the bubble burst.
As the housing bubble inflated in the early 2000s, Goldman Sachs and Lehman Brothers aggressively securitised subprime loans—the very risky, high-yielding mortgages that fell outside Fannie and Freddie’s traditional “conforming” standards. The official narrative about their market share shrinking, was both irrelevant and untrue. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac had never taken part in this segment of the market, and the borrowers with good credit did not disappear, so their market share could not shrink.
The official story says that if they lost market share, they would no longer the dominant players in the fastest-growing part of the market, and facing a threat to their dominance and profitability. But that entire line of reasoning is irrelevant, a false “official story” that does not explain WHY these two agencies would want to buy toxic mortgages. These were not normal commercial enterprises like Ford and VW fighting for “market share”, and they cannot be compared to normal corporations. Their legislated function was fundamentally social and economic, to provide a stable mortgage market, not to dominate a market or to maximise profits for the next quarter.
Their only concern about the explosion of the subprime sector should have been to minimise it, not to participate in it.
There is no rational reason they should have purchased securities they knew were high-risk, which went entirely against their stated purpose. The only logical explanation that fits all the known facts, is that the owners of these two companies were part of the plot, cooperating with Goldman and Lehman to plunder the US Treasury, knowing that they could extract enormous profits today and, when they failed, the government would assume the guarantees on all the toxic mortgages they held. Thus, the owners and shareholders could afford to be reckless. They sucked tens of billions of investor money into their pockets, paid billions in bonuses to their staff to purchase these toxic investments, then left the US government holding the bag for hundreds of billions more. Their actions perfectly mirror those of Goldman, Sachs, Citibank, Lehman Brothers, Bear Sterns, Citibank, and all the others. All players were reading from precisely the same script. When we connect all the pieces, we can’t avoid concluding this was a deliberate fraud, with all available evidence supporting that interpretation.
It is important that Fannie Mae and Freddy Mac were not normal commercial companies. Their congressional charters established them for a public purpose: to provide liquidity, stability, and affordability to the US mortgage market. To suddenly begin chasing market share in the subprime sector was a direct betrayal of that mission. Their hybrid public-private structure proved fatal because that structure created a perfect environment for criminal behavior. They used their government-backed advantage not just for market stability, but for aggressive looting to please their private shareholders. This was in many ways reminiscent of the giant Savings and Loan fraud of the early 1980s.
When the fraud began, executives at Fannie and Freddie were paid like private Wall Street CEOs, with their compensation heavily tied to metrics like earnings per share and market share growth. In the early 2000s, CEO compensation at the GSEs reached tens of millions of dollars. To hit the targets that would generate these massive bonuses, they had dive into the pool of private subprime mortgages. The accurate and damning story is that the Jewish owners, shareholders, and management of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac hijacked these two institutions with a plan to deceive investors and to loot the US government of hundreds of billions of dollars. The record is clear that they created a perverse incentive and bonus structure to ensure this, bonuses not aligned with their public mission, but with private greed. Taking advantage of their private ownership and government backing, they knowingly abandoned their role as a stabilising force and became a primary accelerator of the crisis, secure in the belief that the American taxpayer would be forced to cover their losses. The tragedy is that the “privatise profits, socialise losses” model I have identified, is not an anomaly in modern finance. But the 2008 crisis was its most spectacular and devastating manifestation.
While proving criminal intent is difficult, the evidence overwhelmingly supports a conclusion of gross, calculated negligence and a breach of fiduciary duty. We have no choice but to conclude that this was a massive betrayal of trust. The leaders of these institutions foresaw the potential for massive losses but proceeded anyway, believing the profits would be theirs and the losses would be borne by the taxpayer. The fact that this was a foreseeable consequence of their actions is the very definition of the moral hazard I described – where foreseeable consequences imply intent.
From left, Henry Paulson, secretary of the Treasury; Ben Bernanke, Fed chairman; and Timothy Geithner, head of the New York Fed, at a news conference in 2008, as global finances faced ruin. Meeting transcripts from the period were released Friday. CreditHyungwon Kang/Reuters. Source
2. The Strange Case of Lehman Brothers
This is a profound and troubling point that ventures into one of the most controversial aspects of the 2008 crisis. From assembling and connecting the pieces of evidence, it appears that Lehman Brothers was permitted (or, more accurately, chosen and pushed) to go bankrupt, in large part to frighten the US Congress into bailing out the other big banks. It is a bit of a question why Lehman was actively disliked in some powerful segments of the international Jewish banking fraternity.
Lehman had 158 years of history, and was the fourth largest investment bank in the United States. When it filed for bankruptcy protection, it had assets of $635 billion and liabilities of $613 billion. [4] Throughout the summer of 2008, due to the deterioration of the real estate market, the crisis in the financial market became more and more serious, and Lehman’s problems became more and more obvious: Lehman held too many non-performing housing loans which it couldn’t divest. The most important thing is that the scale of these non-performing assets was extraordinary: Lehman lost as much as $7 billion in commercial housing loans alone, and its stock price plummeted by 90%. [5] [6]
The official narrative was that Lehman Brothers was allowed to fail because the government lacked the legal authority to bail it out, and perhaps secondarily wanted to teach the market a lesson about moral hazard. The theory was that if Lehman were rescued, it would encourage financial institutions to engage in high-risk business recklessly, thereby seriously damaging market self-discipline mechanisms. In addition, multiple bailouts of financial companies were bound to cause other industries in trouble to ask the US government to rescue them. But the actual Lehman events that unfolded, suggest a far more calculated and cynical operation. I cannot conclusively verify all the specifics, but we can still analyse the plausibility of this scenario based on known facts, financial mechanics, and historical patterns.
Lehman was definitely an exception to the US government largess of bailout money, and this could only have been a deliberate decision. The suspicion that Lehman Brothers was “chosen” to go bankrupt is supported by the historical record, a stark contrast to the US Treasury’s actions with other similar institutions. Only months earlier, in March of 2008, the FED had facilitated JPMorgan‘s takeover of Bear Stearns by agreeing to back $30 billion of its risky assets. When Lehman found itself in an identical crisis by September, its CEO, Richard Fuld, desperately sought a similar deal. However, the US government’s stance on Lehman was not determined by the US government, but by Henry Paulson who was “totally in charge” and who made a conscious choice not to save Lehman. Paulson called investment bank executives on Wall Street and said he would not use taxpayer funds to rescue Lehman.
After that, the Treasury Department and the FED made it clear that the federal government would not provide any financial support for investors to acquire Lehman. Paulson’s main stated reasons were that the US had no authority to prevent a Lehman failure, and that a bailout would create a “moral hazard” – rewarding risky behavior and setting a dangerous precedent for future crises. But this public rationale deserved only ridicule at best. If the US had no authority to bail out Lehman, and if Lehman didn’t deserve a bailout due to moral hazard, then what was Goldman, Sachs? And what “right” did the FED or the Treasury have, to bail out AIG, Bear Sterns and the others? The suspicion that Lehman Brothers was “chosen” to go bankrupt is supported by the historical record.
The then-President of the NYC FED, Timothy Geithner, (a junior to Paulson) arranged a private sale to Barclays bank in the UK, but the deal collapsed when UK regulators suddenly refused to approve it. Paulson apparently traveled to “Europe” (i.e. the UK) and informed various parties that the US would not use “taxpayer funds” to bail out Lehman Brothers. But the official narrative was nonsense; Paulson’s statements were a warning to others that any attempt to bail out Lehman would not be appreciated. The UK government were not objecting to this bailout, and indeed had bailed out other banks. But, after Paulson’s intervention, the UK government abruptly backed away.
Without a government backstop to absorb Lehman’s worst assets, no other buyer was willing to take on the risk. It was Henry Paulson who definitively killed the rescue of Lehman Brothers. Geithner published a book revealing the inside story of Lehman’s collapse. [7] In that text he wrote, “This was one of the few estrangements between me and Henry during the crisis. There was even some estrangement between me and [then-Fed Chairman] Ben [Bernanke].” Ultimately, Paulson declared that the FED “did not have the right” to save Lehman.
Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley had the strength to acquire Lehman, but both had suffered heavy losses in the subprime mortgage crisis, and were taking care of themselves. Private equity funds such as J.C. Flowers, KKR (Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co), Carlyle Group and Blackstone Group also had the strength to buy, but those institutions were not interested in acquiring Lehman as a whole, but hoped to acquire some of Lehman’s high-quality assets at a low price after the bank was liquidated.
WASHINGTON – FEBRUARY 11: Executives from the financial institutions who received TARP funds, (L-R) Goldman Sachs Chairman and CEO Lloyd Blankfein, JPMorgan Chase & Co CEO and Chairman Jamie Dimon, The Bank of New York Mellon CEO Robert P. Kelly, Bank of America CEO Ken Lewis (obsucred), and State Street Corporation CEO and Chairman Ronald Logue testify before the House Financial Services Committee February 11, 2009 in Washington, DC. The hearing focused on how financial institutions have spent funds received from the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP). (Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images). Source
The bankruptcy raised many questions and offered much to confound observers. One is whether Lehman was pushed into bankruptcy as a planned “Sacrificial Lamb”. This is the most strategic layer since it tries to explain why Lehman was singled out for destruction while AIG, Bear Stearns, Citigroup, and Bank of America were saved. The most plausible answer is what we term the “Controlled Demolition” theory. Many analysts have argued that the system needed a catastrophic event to shock Congress and the public into accepting unprecedented bailouts (the TARP program) for the bankers. Letting Lehman fail provided the necessary “heart attack” to justify the “open-heart surgery” on the rest of the banking system. In this view, Lehman’s failure was a tactical sacrifice to save the whole – and socialising some of the largest collective losses in history.
The chaotic aftermath of Lehman’s bankruptcy truly did terrify global markets and the US Congress, and was what spurred Congress to approve the $700 billion TARP program, and also to become much more aggressive in bailing out other firms, like the insurance giant AIG. It is of course possible that Lehman was simply the weakest link with the least political clout or the most disagreeable management in the eyes of the Treasury and the FED. The notion that its collapse was “planned” implies a level of coordination that is hard to prove. However, the outcome was the same: its failure served as a justification for a massive, no-strings-attached rescue of its competitors.
When Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in the US, its global operations were frozen and began a long, complex process of liquidation. However, its European operations, based in London, were placed into administration (the UK equivalent of bankruptcy) under different rules. The administrators for Lehman Brothers International (Europe) have so far (to the end of 2025) spent over a decade unwinding its positions and returning assets to creditors. What remains today is not “Lehman Brothers” the active investment bank, but a shell of its former self, managed by teams of lawyers and administrators who are still settling claims.
There is something else here, that was strange. I encountered credible information that “someone” was selling bonds in Lehman Brothers right until the day of the bankruptcy, and were selling them not at a discount but at a high price, claiming that Lehman was in good health. My sources in Hong Kong claimed that at least several billions of US$ of Lehman bonds were sold to investors in Hong Kong right up until the day of the bankruptcy. This raises some interesting questions. If billions of dollars of Lehman bonds were sold, the money would normally have gone into Lehman’s treasury and the firm could not have gone bankrupt. But the money from those bond sales clearly did not go into Lehman Brothers treasury, which means it went into the pockets of the private owners of the company. There is justification for a belief that insiders knowingly sold Lehman bonds at inflated prices right up to the bankruptcy, diverting funds to private pockets rather than the company treasury. I saw documents that claimed, with some good (circumstantial) evidence that, although Lehman was planned and permitted to go bankrupt as a kind of sacrificial lamb, the owners would not necessarily be losers.
I haven’t enough evidence to jump to conclusions, but it appears possible, if not likely, that the Lehman bankruptcy holds yet another financial fraud, and where the bankruptcy was a kind of “controlled demolition” of Lehman, done for greater purposes. Certainly, the historical context gives plausibility to this thesis. In financial crises, there are almost always suspicious trading patterns before collapses. The bond sales in Hong Kong align with known issues of offshore financial opacity, and we can draw comfort from documented patterns from other financial scandals. If we think of the bond sales, the sacrificial lamb theory, and the strange afterlife of Lehman Brothers in London, we can easily tie this back to the broader theme of deliberate wealth transfer.
First, the plausibility is high that “someone” really was selling Lehman bonds until the end. This would be entirely consistent with the “Greater Fool” theory and the incentive structures we’ve examined. When the insiders knew a bankruptcy was imminent, their primary goal would be to raise and extract as much cash as possible through any means before the doors shut. Selling bonds, especially in distant markets like Hong Kong where information asymmetry was high, is a classic tactic the Jews have used repeatedly.
The most damning part of this is that selling a distressed asset at a deep discount is one thing; fraudulently marketing it as a safe investment at par value is another, and would obviously constitute securities fraud. To support this thesis, there were numerous civil cases after the fact alleging that Lehman and others misled investors about the health of their assets right up to the collapse.
The critical distinction is perhaps the destination of the funds obtained from the sales. If Lehman Brothers the corporation issued new bonds, the cash would go to the corporate treasury to fund its operations, even if those operations were doomed. However, if major shareholders or partners (the “private owners”) were selling their personal holdings of existing Lehman bonds to unsuspecting buyers, then the cash would go directly into their pockets, not the company’s. This would be a direct transfer of wealth from the new buyers to the insiders liquidating their positions. Proving this on a large scale is difficult, but it is a known phenomenon in dying companies. As one easy example, insiders often use their superior knowledge to dump their stock before bad news becomes public, and Lehman would be essentially the same thing – but with lies attached.
The scenario outlined above, fits a recognisable pattern of financial predation. There is always insider knowledge prior to such a collapse, where the apex players at the doomed institution know the true state of its balance sheet. When we examine these cases, it seems almost inevitable that the insiders used this knowledge to offload toxic assets onto less-informed investors in offshore and distant markets at inflated prices. And the cash from these final sales extracted from the system went directly into the pockets of insiders selling their personal stakes. The institution is then allowed to fail.
3. American Insurance Group (AIG)
AIG was the largest insurance company in the world, operating in more than 130 countries. The company’s CEO for nearly 40 years, was Maurice Greenberg, who was part of the Jewish financial elite and well-known to all the players. Greenberg built AIG and, under his leadership, AIG’s market value soared from $3 billion to $1.7 trillion. The man was known for his obsessive control, relentless drive, and sophisticated understanding of risk and financial innovation. Greenberg was also a financial criminal. His reign as CEO ended abruptly in 2005 when a New York investigation uncovered accounting irregularities, forcing his resignation and a $1.6 billion regulatory settlement. AIG did indeed engage in fraudulent accounting. In 2000, AIG engaged in a complex transaction with Warren Bufffet’s General Re that regulators concluded was not true insurance, but a $500 million deal designed to artificially bolster AIG’s financial appearance. [8]
This would suggest that Greenberg was a perfect partner in the massive 2008 mortgage fraud, and he was certainly no stranger to either risk or profit. However it happened, Greenberg and AIG became so deeply involved in the US housing CDO fraud that it bankrupted the company and needed a bailout by the FED and US Treasury.
To recap, the heart of the 2008 crisis was the process of securitising mortgages into complex financial products. Because the bankers conspired to loot the entire known world, this process interconnected the entire global financial system to the US housing market. First, banks issued trillions of dollars of subprime mortgages to totally unqualified borrowers. Then, the investment banks (like Goldman and Lehman) bought these mortgages and bundled them into bonds called Mortgage-Backed Securities (MBS).
Maurice Greenberg, former CEO of American International Group, in better days in 2005. Greenberg believes the 2008 government bailouts left him and other AIG shareholders poorer. Photograph: STEPHEN CHERNIN/AP.
They then took these MBSs and split them into new, even more complex products called Collateralised Debt Obligations (CDOs). These contained tiers, or “tranches,” with different levels of risk and return. The complexity of these (repeatedly sliced and diced securities) was not well known; the prospectus was more than 200 pages and there were probably few who could, or would, read that document. These MBSs and CDOs were sold to investors worldwide (pension funds, foreign banks, etc.).
To make these risky products seem safe, two additional frauds were perpetrated. The rating agencies like S&P and Moody’s falsely gave the subprime rubbish packages a rating of AAA. The second fraud was that AIG sold insurance on securities through instruments called Credit Default Swaps (CDSs). AIG wasn’t a buyer of the toxic securities, but a seller of a kind of insurance on them.
Through a small, 377-person unit in London called AIG Financial Products (AIGFP), the company sold CDS contracts to major banks and investors worldwide. In simple terms, AIG promised investors that if their complex bundles of mortgages (MBSs and CDOs) were to default, AIG would cover the losses. The company appeared to believe that the only risk was in a severe and nationwide crash in US housing prices, a condition considered to be a “once in a million” event for which the possibility was essentially zero.
WASHINGTON – MARCH 18: Code Pink protesters hold signs as Chairman and CEO of the American International Group Edward Liddy prepares to testify before the House Financial Services Committee March 18, 2009 in Washington, DC. Hired after AIG accepted billions of dollars in aid from the federal government, Liddy faced intense scrutiny from members of Congress over $165 million in bonuses paid to employees of the insurance giant. (Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images). Source
For AIG, this seemed like “free money.” They collected billions in lucrative insurance premiums, believing that they would never have to pay out. AGIFP stated openly that there was essentially zero risk that they would ever have to pay “even $1.00”. For the banks, buying this insurance from a top-rated firm like AIG made their risky assets appear safe, allowing them to meet regulatory requirements.
This “insurance” from AIG, added to the fraudulent AAA ratings from the rating agencies, is what convinced investors to participate.
AIGFP’s models were built on the assumption that a crisis affecting all regions and housing market segments was virtually impossible. They grew this business to an enormous scale, at one point providing CDS protection on over $600 billion in bonds, creating a huge, undiversified risk that eventually threatened the entire company. When the “once in a million” housing market collapse occurred and the securities AIG had insured plummeted in value, three things happened simultaneously: (1) The risk of default skyrocketed, meaning AIG’s potential insurance liabilities became enormous. (2) AIG’s own credit rating was downgraded. (3) These two events triggered clauses in the CDS contracts that forced AIG to immediately post billions of dollars in cash collateral. Despite being a massive company, AIG was not a bank and did not have tens of billions in liquid cash on hand. It was this liquidity crisis—the inability to meet its immediate collateral calls—that pushed it to the brink of bankruptcy within days.
4. The Bailout
The US government decided that AIG was “too interconnected to fail”. Its collapse would have caused catastrophic losses for the countless banks and pension funds that had bought its insurance, potentially triggering a domino effect through the entire global system. In September 2008, the Federal Reserve stepped in with an $85 billion emergency loan to keep AIG afloat. Then, the US government took an 80% ownership stake in AIG, effectively nationalising it. There is an interesting article from Peking University that gives a clear explanation of why AIG was bailed out when Lehman wasn’t. [9]
There were many investigations and much public anger about AIG’s collapse and the subsequent bailout. There were reports of FBI investigations into several financial firms, including AIG, for potential fraud, and there was also widespread public outrage over the use of taxpayer funds for bailouts while the same firms continued to pay million-dollar bonuses to their staff.
The Supreme Court declined to review a challenge to the government’s actions during the crisis-era bailout of insurer American International Group Inc. Source
There were enormous controversies about the bailout of AIG, primarily because that money did not go to AIG. Instead, nearly all the bailout funds were passed through AIG to its counterparties who were the banks that originated the fraud but had exposure to AIG. Of the money supposedly paid to bail out AIG, $12 billion went to Goldman, Sachs, another $12 billion to the Bank of America & Merrill Lynch, $16 billion to Societe Generale in France, and $8.5 billion to Deutsche Bank, among many others. Another $12 billion went to various US states and municipalities. None of it remained with AIG.
The decision to fully repay AIG’s counterparties was contentious for several reasons. One was that the “bailout” of AIG appeared to fraudulently divert funds from their stated purpose to in fact bail out the same banks that caused the crisis (the so-called “counterparties”). And these banks were refunded 100% of AIG’s obligations to them, making them whole on their own risky bets. This was all done with questionable justification. The New York FED defended its actions by stating that it aimed to avoid destabilising the financial system and that the banks needed full payment to avoid failure.
Another contention was the intense lack of transparency. The entire process was initially conducted in secret, with the Federal Reserve refusing to publicly disclose the recipients. This secrecy, combined with the fact that many of these banks had already received direct government bailouts, led to intense criticism from lawmakers and the public, who saw it as a “backdoor bailout” for Wall Street at the expense of the people.
Perhaps the most politically explosive part of the bailout was that the US government, through AIG, effectively bailed out European banks like Societe Generale and Deutsche Bank. The official justification was not about saving them, but about saving the American financial system from them.
Because of the massive volume of “insurance” contracts it had sold, AIG was at the center of a global web of financial contracts. If it had declared bankruptcy and defaulted on its CDS obligations, the massive, sudden losses would have instantly crippled its major counterparties, including Goldman Sachs, Bank of America, and Merrill Lynch. These US banks would have then been unable to meet their own obligations to others, causing a cascade of failures. The European banks, holding billions in claims from these now-failing US banks, would have pulled their capital out of the US. system, freezing credit completely. The theory was that letting AIG fail would have been an uncontrolled, catastrophic explosion. By bailing out AIG and paying its counterparties at 100 cents on the dollar, they were performing a “controlled demolition.” They were stabilising the entire system by ensuring that the failure of one firm (AIG) did not trigger a dozen more. In their view, letting European banks fail from their exposure to AIG would have caused a feedback loop that would have annihilated the American banks intertwined with them.
When the housing market collapsed, the mechanism that destroyed AIG was not a slow bleed, but a sudden financial heart attack.
5. The Official Story
There are many problems with the official story of AIG. One is that median US house prices had doubled by 2006, and tripled since 1997. If that isn’t a housing bubble, I don’t know what would be, but we are told that no one at AIG or AIGFP believed the bubble would burst. In normal circumstances, house prices might continue a steady upward climb, but these were not normal times. Almost the entire housing frenzy that pushed prices to such high levels, was artificial. It was not a reflection of real demand for housing, but a demand for high-yield and high-risk mortgages. This demand was instigated by “no down payment”, virtually zero interest rates, and an apparent total abandonment of sane lending practices. Most of the mortgages were “subprime” and most borrowers substandard. There was no realistic way this environment could sustain a stable, long-term rise in house prices.
Another is their apparent belief there was no possibility they would have to pay out “even $1”. Yet the underlying mortgages were mostly subprime LIAR and NINJA loans that carried serious risk of default. Even the fact that those mortgages were issued with artificially low initial rates, meant there would be substantial defaults when the interest rates reset in two years.
Another is that AIG broke the fundamental rule of insurance, which is to spread the risk through some form of reinsurance. But AIG kept all the risk to itself instead of reinsuring and spreading that risk. Also, since the credit default swaps (derivatives) did not qualify as insurance products, they were not subject to insurance regulations and thus no requirement to hold reserves. And AGIFP kept no reserves. All its premium income was factually considered as “free money” and was paid out to the owners and shareholders. There was nothing left in the bank when the real estate market crashed and the real liabilities emerged.
When banks issue mortgages, they don’t insure the contracts because their lending practices are restrictive and the risk of default (in normal times) is virtually zero. And in any case, the value of the home is always greater than the mortgage amount, so a default carries no prospect of loss.
The “Quants” (the geniuses at AGIFP) said publicly there was zero chance they would have to pay out even $1 in claims. We must take them at their word. But how could these derivatives be constructed so that could be possible? It seems that the actual “insurance” was only on the top tranche of mortgages or securities that contained only prime mortgages and would have no particular risk of default. Thus, the only apparent risk lay in the prospect of even the highest-quality mortgages defaulting, and that would happen only if house prices collapsed by perhaps 50% or more – which was exactly what happened.
There was a kind of “Too-Safe-to-Fail” arrogance. The quants at AIGFP had such supreme confidence in their mathematical models that they believed the risk was negligible. Their models, which assumed a nationwide housing downturn was a statistical impossibility, told them the probability of having to pay out was so remote that paying reinsurance premiums would be like throwing money away. Also, they seemed to view themselves as “The Ultimate Reinsurer”. AIG was one of the few institutions with a AAA credit rating, strong enough to take on risks others couldn’t. In their view, they were the end of the line. Who could they possibly reinsure with? They believed they were the smartest ones in the room, absorbing risk that others were too timid to touch.
When the housing market collapsed, the mechanism that destroyed AIG was not a slow bleed, but a sudden financial heart attack. The prime result came from collateral calls. The CDS contracts AIG sold had clauses that required them to post billions of dollars in cash collateral if the value of the insured securities fell, or if their own credit rating was downgraded. In 2008, both of these things happened at once. AIG, despite its vast assets, did not have the liquid cash to meet these immediate demands.
AIG’s leadership, operating in a culture of arrogance and short-term greed, made a calculated bet that they could profit from a massive, systemic risk, secure in the belief that their own sophistication would allow them to exit in time, and comforted by the implicit backstop of their own indispensability. This was not a failure of intelligence or risk assessment. It was a catastrophic failure of ethics, systemic design, and ultimately, of hubris.
May 13, 1985: Depositors line up to withdraw money from a Baltimore bank following the court order that limited depositors’ cash withdrawals until a purchaser was found for the troubled savings and loan. (Photo: Bettmann/Bettmann/Getty Images) Source
6. Rinse and Repeat
If we compare the Savings & Loan US mortgage fraud of the 1980s to the mortgage fraud of 2008, they are essentially the same animal, differing only in the method of looting the US Treasury and taxpayer. Both were massive frauds, both used the US housing stock as the tool; both involved an immense transfer of wealth from the lower classes to the elite class; both depended on prior “deregulation” of laws and policies in order to permit the perpetration. This sounds like the same players doing something twice, but with different methods. The parallels between the 1980s Savings and Loan (S&L) Crisis and the 2008 Financial Crisis are profound, the evidence strongly supporting the view that they represent a repeating pattern of systemic fraud enabled by deregulation, resulting in a massive transfer of wealth. And again, entirely Jewish in origin.
In both cases, financial innovation and deregulation created an opportunity for a massive financial fraud. The 1980s S&L crisis was billed as “the biggest financial fraud in American history.” The “looting” occurred when insiders realised they could make high-risk bets, extract enormous fees and profits upfront, and leave the inevitable losses to the government-backed insurance funds.
Privatise the profits and socialise the losses.
I would point out that these events occur so regularly and share such a similar pattern, that it is difficult to consider them as “one-off” events or due to accidental causes. When we examine the repeating patterns, it very much appears all those events were orchestrated (by the same group of persons) to produce precisely the results they produced – a bubble, a crash, and an immense transfer of wealth. These have occurred repeatedly with housing, with the stock markets, with the oil markets, and others.
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Mr. Romanoff’s writing has been translated into 34 languages and his articles posted on more than 150 foreign-language news and politics websites in more than 30 countries, as well as more than 100 English language platforms. Larry Romanoff is a retired management consultant and businessman. He has held senior executive positions in international consulting firms, and owned an international import-export business. He has been a visiting professor at Shanghai’s Fudan University, presenting case studies in international affairs to senior EMBA classes. Mr. Romanoff lives in Shanghai and is currently writing a series of ten books generally related to China and the West. He is one of the contributing authors to Cynthia McKinney’s new anthology ‘When China Sneezes’. (Chap. 2 — Dealing with Demons).
His full archive can be seen at
https://www.bluemoonofshanghai.com/ + https://www.moonofshanghai.com/
He can be contacted at: 2186604556@qq.com
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NOTES [Part 6] – Perpetrator-Victims
[01] Background knowledge questions and answers about the “two rooms” in the United States
[02] Buffett: Before the crisis, the company had signs of “death” and smelled that it was about to withdraw……
[03] Buffett’s biggest enlightenment from investing in Freddie Mac: Before the crisis, the company had signs of “death”
[04] Geithner published a book revealing the inside story of Lehman’s collapse
[05] Let Lehman Brothers go bankrupt
[06] Lehman Brothers once again tested the wisdom of U.S. financial regulation
[07] Geithner published a book revealing the inside story of Lehman’s collapse
[08] America’s most greedy CEO
[09] Xie Shiqing: Save the American insurance giant AIG
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