Tag: zero-sum games

Iran-Saudi deal throws ‘cold water’ on Netanyahu’s plans, shakes up Mideast: US media

Tina Marie (Ms. Cat)

A US media report says the détente between Iran and Saudi Arabia has dealt a heavy blow to Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who had sought a fearmongering campaign against Tehran’s nuclear program and the Islamic Republic’s clout in West Asia.

Iran-Saudi deal throws ‘cold water’ on Netanyahu’s plans, shakes up Mideast: US media

Related:

Saudi Deal With Iran Worries Israel, Shakes up Middle East

What is happening in Kosovo?

Tina Marie (Ms. Cat)

We reproduce below with thanks an article published by the Anti-Imperialist Front regarding the serious unrest that has lately erupted in the Serbian breakaway province of Kosovo between ethnic Serbians in the north and the puppet Kosovan authorities.

What is happening in Kosovo?

Video via Anti Imperialist Front TV

Related:

The Rambouillet text, which called on Serbia to admit NATO troops throughout Yugoslavia, was a provocation, an excuse to start bombing. Rambouillet is not a document that an angelic Serb could have accepted. It was a terrible diplomatic document that should never have been presented in that form. – Henry Kissinger

Rambouillet Agreement

Inside the Trilateral Commission: Power elites grapple with China’s rise

Tina Marie (Ms. Cat)

Inside the Trilateral Commission: Power elites grapple with China’s rise (original)

Each new candidate for Commission membership is carefully scrutinized before being allowed entry. As a rule, members who take up positions in their national governments — which is uncannily common — give up their Trilateral Commission membership while in public service. Those include U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken, Jake Sullivan, the U.S. national security adviser, Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen and Indian External Affairs Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar.

This revolving door between the commission and senior government ranks has always been fodder for conspiracy theorists. Its first director in 1973, Zbigniew Brzezinski, later became U.S. President Jimmy Carter’s national security adviser. The very existence of the commission, meanwhile, seems predicated on the question of whether governing should be left to the people. It is a question the commission itself has tackled head-on since 1975: Is democracy functioning? Or does someone need to guide it?

That year, three scholars — Michel Crozier, Samuel Huntington and Joji Watanuki — wrote a report for The Trilateral Commission titled “The Crisis of Democracy.” In it, Huntington wrote that some of the problems of governance in the U.S. stem from an “excess of democracy.”

Related:

The Crisis of Democracy – Trilateral Commission – 1975

Ukraine risks being locked into endless war in bid for perfect peace

Tina Marie (Ms. Cat)

Ukraine risks being locked into endless war in bid for perfect peace

Ordinary Ukrainians on the front lines are divided on a ceasefire and negotiations. My Ukrainian colleague Karina Korostelina and I surveyed the attitudes of both residents and displaced persons in three Ukrainian cities close to the southeast battlefields this summer. Almost half agreed it was imperative to seek a ceasefire to stop Russians killing Ukraine’s young men. Slightly more supported negotiations with Russia on a complete ceasefire, with a quarter totally against and a fifth declaring themselves neutral. Respondents were torn when considering whether saving lives or territorial unity were more important to them. Those most touched by the war, namely the internally displaced, were more likely to prioritise saving lives. Other research reveals that those farthest from the battlefields have the most hawkish attitudes.

H/T: Truthteller CLARE DALY on the LiveLine!

One-sided reporting, obviously, but interesting statistics.

The Wolfowitz Doctrine Led to the Disastrous War in Iraq: Now it is Leading to a Potentially Even More Cataclysmic War in Asia

Tina Marie (Ms. Cat)

The Project for a New American (Racist )Century is omnipresent in the capitals of Europe today. From Dublin to Berlin—Ukrainian colors are on flagpoles, bus stops and buildings. The subtext is blonde hair and blue eyes.

The Wolfowitz Doctrine Led to the Disastrous War in Iraq: Now it is Leading to a Potentially Even More Cataclysmic War in Asia

An Ominous Murder in Moscow

Tina Marie (Ms. Cat)1 Comment

Disclaimer: The views expressed herein are solely those of the author and may or may not reflect those of Ms. Cat’s Chronicles.

An Ominous Murder in Moscow

The second thought was a byproduct of the first. The prospect of sudden escalation reminded me of a podcast conversation I listened to seven weeks into the war—a conversation that left me more worried than ever that American foreign policy is not in capable hands. The killing of Dugina, in a roundabout way, corroborates that worry.

The conversation was between Ryan Evans, host of the War on the Rocks podcast, and Derek Chollet, who, as Counselor of the State Department, reports directly to Secretary of State Antony Blinken. Chollet was recounting diplomatic discussions between Moscow and Washington that had taken place before the invasion. He said something that had never before been officially confirmed: The US had refused to negotiate with Russia about keeping Ukraine out of NATO.

What bothered me wasn’t this disclosure; I’d already gathered (and lamented) that the Biden administration had refused to seriously engage Russia’s main stated grievance. What bothered me—and kind of shocked me—was how proud Chollet seemed of the refusal.

After all, when negotiations aimed at preventing the invasion of a nation you’re friends with are followed by the invasion of that nation, that’s not success, right? Apparently by Chollet’s lights it was.

…

Last week John Mearsheimer (who seven years ago predicted eventual Russian invasion if the NATO expansion issue wasn’t addressed) published a piece in Foreign Affairs warning that as this war drags on, “catastrophic escalation” is a real possibility. Some people dismissed scenarios he sketched as conjectural. Yet exactly one day after his piece appeared, the real world provided us with a new scenario: daughter of iconic Russian nationalist murdered, leaving her aggrieved father to whip up support for a longer and bloodier and possibly wider war. Every day of every war brings the possibility of an unsettling surprise.

…

Listening to Chollet talk about what a strategic loss this war is for Putin, I was struck by how excited he sounded about that and by how youthful and naïve his excitement seemed. It would have been poignant if it weren’t scary. And I’ve seen no evidence that his boss at the State Department is more reflective than he is. Our foreign policy seems driven by two main impulses—macho posturing and virtue signaling—that work in unfortunate synergy and leave little room for wisdom.

Bringing this tragic war to a close is something that’s hard to do in the near term and is impossible to do without painful compromise. But I see no signs that the US is even contemplating such an effort, much less laying the groundwork for it. I worry that Chollet’s attitude in April—what seemed like a kind of delight in the prospect of a war that is long and costly for Russia—may still prevail in the State Department. So it’s worth repeating:

(1) A massively costly war for Russia can be a massively costly war for Ukraine and, ultimately, for Europe and for the whole world; and (2) Every day this war continues there’s a chance that we’ll see some wild card—like the murder of Daria Dugina—that makes such a lose-lose outcome more likely.