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ZorbaTHut  1yr ago (text post)   35340 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of September 26, 2022

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/r/stupidpol is abuzz with news of both NordStream pipelines being damaged, in what mainstream sources openly speculate to be an attack:

Massive drop in pressure – Nord Stream 2 pipeline apparently partially destroyed

There was an incident on the Russian Baltic Sea pipeline, as confirmed by the Danish shipping authority. The operator Gascade speaks of a sharp drop in pressure in the tube. An accident is considered unlikely. The timing of the accident suggests sabotage.

Stupidpol being stupidpol, blames it all on the west (either the US or UK)... but it feels like the kind of have a point? Russian performance in the war doesn't exactly scream competence, so it would be surprising, if they pulled something like this off, so deep in NATOs turf.

When we were discussing the coming winter, some people were saying "the European gas storage is filled up, it'll be fine", but isn't the gas storage more like a buffer, designed to take advantage of the decreased demand over the summer, to even out the increased demand in winter, working on the assumption that there will still be a constant supply of gas coming in? Does this change the calculus at all?

This is obviously an American op. The Poles know:

https://twitter.com/radeksikorski/status/1574800653724966915

Biden made the threat:

https://twitter.com/townhallcom/status/1490791554088321024

The Scandies say it was explosives:

https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/mystery-gas-leaks-hit-major-russian-undersea-gas-pipelines-europe-2022-09-27/

Seismologists in Denmark and Sweden said they had registered two powerful blasts on Monday in the vicinity of the leaks.

"The signals do not resemble signals from earthquakes. They do resemble the signals typically recorded from blasts," the Geological Survey of Denmark and Greenland (GEUS) said.

And seismologists at Sweden's Uppsala University, which cooperates with GEUS, said the second, bigger explosion "corresponded to more than 100 kilos (kg) of dynamite", adding the blasts were in the water not under the seabed.

And best of all, the US had mine-planting/explosives forces right on Bornholm island in June! The bombs we're talking about detonated just off the coast of Bornholm island!

https://seapowermagazine.org/baltops-22-a-perfect-opportunity-for-research-and-resting-new-technology/

In support of BALTOPS, U.S. Navy 6th Fleet partnered with U.S. Navy research and warfare centers to bring the latest advancements in unmanned underwater vehicle mine hunting technology to the Baltic Sea to demonstrate the vehicle’s effectiveness in operational scenarios.

Experimentation was conducted off the coast of Bornholm, Denmark, with participants from Naval Information Warfare Center Pacific, Naval Undersea Warfare Center Newport, and Mine Warfare Readiness and Effectiveness Measuring

How much more clear could it be? A few mines were left behind.

With friends like America, Europe doesn't need enemies. The US-initiated war on terror got them targeted for terrorist attacks. The US destabilization of Syria and Libya got them a flood of refugees. Yes, the Europeans were partially complicit in these foreign adventures but they were really just being dragged along. The Prime Mover was Washington. When NATO made that fateful statement that Ukraine and Georgia would one day join the alliance, the French and Germans were trying to tone it down. They didn't want to antagonize Russia. Thanks to the US, Western Europe has been pushed into a proxy war against their energy supplier. Now, the US is making sure Russia can't supply Germany with energy, that it will be dependent upon US puppet states in the Middle East or expensive fuel from America directly.

I don't even think this is a wise strategy for American interests. If you try to weaken your allies so they can't form a viable bloc to oppose you, you're antagonizing them. You're giving them a reason to oppose you and sabotage you. Why should the US expect much help from Europe on the main front against China in the Pacific? 'You're fighting your main industrial supplier? Tough - we'll sell you some overpriced goods. Good luck!'

Even if everything you're saying is true, a) Russian actions are obscenely beyond the pale which excuses anything that can be plausibly framed as counterattack, and b) Americans have won cultural victory, so economic elites of those European states are of no consequence against their own populace (and media elites).

The game is played masterfully, I can't really even object to the sentence. Europeans are in no position to compromise with the plainly irrational Kremlin, and they're in no position to sustain their economy, and they can't blame anyone but themselves, same as Russians.

On the other hand, I can call out Europeans who are still pretending that this is fine. The EU will survive, but it will fall rather far behind without cheap energy, in the crucial period where everyone has to maintain a stake in high-tech economy. The entire fucking continent is going to become irrelevant.

A translation from a biased pro-Russian souce. It's not very insightful, catastrophizes the situation and frames it as an unprovable conspiracy but, I think, is directionally correct with regards to the consequences:

Chronicles of the Death of the EU.

Carthage delenda est.

The real U.S. goals in Ukraine are the destruction of Europe and its economic leader: Germany.

Why?

So let's describe the global situation at the beginning of 2022 (I note right away that the numbers are imprecise, go to MMI and @Spydell_finance for accuracy, but the approximate numbers do not distort either the layout itself or the conclusions):

China. GDP: 16.9 trillion USD. Industrial sector ≈30.5% or 5.1 trillion USD. Export economy 15.3% with an export sophistication rate [here and below actually economic complexity, Export Complexity is another measure but correlated] of 1.35 (easily replaceable, not technologically intensive, but produced at scale, elastic prices, requires small producer margins and inexpensive labor, as well as agglomeration of producers).

Germany. GDP 4.2 trillion USD. Industrial sector ≈27-30% or 1.1-1.3 trillion USD. Export-heavy economy of 35% with almost the highest sophistication on the planet of 2.07 (only Japan is above with 2.49. That is, exports are not replaceable, technologically complex, and therefore VERY MARGINAL).

EU as a whole. GDP 17 trillion USD (suddenly !!! more than China, or at least equal). Industrial sector ~25% or 4.1 trillion USD. (suddenly a little less than China).

Except this industry, as written above, is high-tech, and therefore marginal, giving rapid positive capital growth.

U.S.. GDP of 22.9 trillion USD. But the industrial sector is only 18% or 4.1 trillion USD. (Suddenly less than China and the same as the EU)!!! And the financial sector is over 20%, as is the total services sector at 77% of the economy.

But even this industrial sector, giving only 7.7% of exports, has ECI of only 1.57 (so, like China).

Now, if we look to the beginning of the year, the accumulated imbalances in QE are accelerating inflation and could bury the entire dollar system [lol no].

Stopping QE and the start of the Fed's balance sheet reduction guarantees the decline of the service sector, the de facto death of the financial sector, as well as much of the venture capital IT that's zombie companies with negative turnover margins or no cache-flow.

In order to survive, the States need to urgently develop the real economy, i.e. industry.

However, since the world has gone global, no new markets are expected, the system cannot take over Mars with the Martians, which means it must grow in the intensive mode, which means negative capital work, since the total venture capital investment on intensives does not pay off, this has been obvious since 2009.

So what to do?

We have to kill the competition.

Option 1: China.

However, first of all China is a subject, secondly the economy of China and the U.S. are [still] too connected, and thirdly, the development of industry similar to the Chinese means low margin, long payback period and a drop in personal income. And the drop in personal income means revolution in the U.S. This is not an option.

Option 2: EU.

It fits perfectly, no subjectivity and high-margin business.

But the business is high-margin because it is very technological, that is, it has a high and long threshold for entry. It takes decades of development, thousands of patents, and cultivating a team of specialists.

But the patents, specialists and companies do not belong to the EU.

We need to force these companies to move to the US in their entirety, just as, for example, low-margin manufacturing moved to China in the 90s.

To do this, you have to create unbearable conditions for business: war, hunger and cold.

Now look at the EU!

News 1:

Germany's industrial production fell 1.8% in the first 8 months of 2022 amid sanctions against Russia, and Germany's chemical-pharmaceutical sector (high dependence on gas) saw a 10.7% decline.

News 2:

The Wall Street Journal on Sept. 21 published a story about big German businesses relocating en masse to the New World.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/high-natural-gas-prices-push-european-manufacturers-to-shift-to-the-u-s-11663707594

News 3:

Explosion on the North Stream 1 and 2 branches.

I connect the last news story into the same single chain of events.

Carthage (the EU) must be destroyed. At any cost.

This is the main goal of the U.S. in Ukraine.

Surely the US shouldn't be attacking it's allies? You're arguing and I agree that the US is sabotaging Europe. They could have compromised with the Kremlin if it weren't for the US and UK sabotaging them, time and time again. France and Germany were always more Russophilic.

Furthermore, I don't think there is a cultural victory. If someone is sabotaging you, they're your enemy. Look what the US did to the UK in Suez and so on. So much for the special relationship and Anglo-Saxon solidarity.

The EU is pretty stupid, sluggish and incompetent (see their nuclear/regulatory fiasco). But they won't permanently let the US sabotage them. Maybe the coming recession will shake them out of their myopia. Maybe they're inwardly seething, hiding their hatred until the moment the US's back is turned. You have to get behind someone before you can stab them in the back. Unlike Britain, the EU is big and could theoretically compete with America, if they got their act together.

We don't live in the realpolitik era to expect Europeans to compromise with that. Putin has only himself to blame for having become a cartoon villain. Tolerating a little sabotage comes to people much easier than excusing Bucha because of muh economy.

Furthermore, I don't think there is a cultural victory. If someone is sabotaging you, they're your enemy. Look what the US did to the UK in Suez and so on. So much for the special relationship and Anglo-Saxon solidarity.

Not sure what you're arguing here: obviously the US has lent a hand to the dismantling of British empire, but individual Brits think very warmly of America.

The EU is pretty stupid, sluggish and incompetent (see their nuclear/regulatory fiasco). But they won't permanently let the US sabotage them.

If Russians can permanently let Putin sacrifice them for geopolitics, certainly the EU can keep coping with some economic costs.

Unlike Britain, the EU is big and could theoretically compete with America, if they got their act together.

20 years ago this looked almost like a real possibility.

Now it's a joke. People should just think of themselves, pack their bags and families and go to the US.

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