Lordre: geopolitics

Showing posts with label geopolitics. Show all posts

Did anti-vaxxers destroy US germ warfare plans?

There is something insidious about the biological warfare warnings by the Russian and Chinese governments coinciding with acute geopolitical conflict, the Covid-19 pandemic, and the obsession of Western governments and elites with vigilant public health policy.

A US military paper described “public resistance to public health measures” as a military threat to the US preparedness to withstand a biological attack. It is also a threat to US preparedness to launch such a germ warfare attack on an adversary, because it impairs the ability to carry out necessary inoculations of US troops and civilians at home ahead of just such an attack, to avoid the viral weapon backfiring on America.

Inoculation against what, again?

The US government's supposedly defensive Project Bioshield includes the aim of developing vaccines. This makes no sense. Inoculation campaigns would require knowledge of the exact biological threat, both in terms of its identity and the timing of its deployment as a weapon. You would require samples of the specific viral threat to already exist in the lab, to even begin work.

What is Bioshield going to develop a vaccine against, if it doesn't know what the enemy-manufactured virus will be? Inoculations are by definition a preventative measure against a known threat. In a military sense, it is about protecting one's people and resources and preserving them for future action. The development of a military vaccine only seems to make sense if a military is developing an offensive viral weapon and wants to inoculate its own troops to stop the weapon infecting its own forces.

Winning the vaccination debate is a US military objective

The option to impose mandatory inoculations of the population, and especially military forces, is a necessary part of any preparation for biological warfare, whether the attack is to come from an adversary or your own military. The state would necessarily have to forcibly inoculate large parts of its own population, in order to make sure the lethality of its own weapons does not backfire on its people and resources and undermine victory.

Western societies would not simply accept mandatory inoculations without society undergoing the necessary debate over the issue, and we seem to be past that stage now. The intentional politicisation of Covid-19 and very forced attempt to have a public debate over the necessity of mandatory vaccinations (even though the situation was not serious enough for that) could have been preparation to help build offensive biological warfare options against Russia and China. In a way, it is like building nuclear bunkers.

Russians and Chinese spotted something

Then, we come back to the biological weapon claims of the Russians and Chinese, whether one trusts them or not as a source. They allege that the United States has a very aggressive biological warfare program, with facilities near both of these adversary states. They are clearly unnerved, even paranoid. This may be more to do with them noticing Western states apparently hardening themselves for a biological warfare situation at home, taking advantage of the pandemic to overcome any social and political objections to the idea of the sudden inoculation of entire nations on the state's command.

West seems sure of victory

Finally, there is the uncompromising warmongering of Western states, which is uncharacteristic of countries that are held in check by the traditional threat of mutual destruction in a nuclear war. Clearly, Western governments believe they can actually eliminate Russia and China as threats within a short timeframe. This is apparent in their triumphalist attitude, which exceeds their apparent capabilities, as if they intend to lean on indirect or covert means of attack. While many may see the threat in "colour revolutions" (staged uprisings and street violence led by staff at Western embassies), germ warfare also fits such a description. The West talks like it has an ultimate secret weapon, and that weapon could take the form of viruses.

Many of the individuals responsible for advising Western policies (World Economic Forum attendees, for example) have developed an obsession both with pandemics and with enemy regimes at the same time, as if both are certainly on their minds and considerable energy has gone towards both. They also hate alternate sources of information, and especially anti-vaxxers. Their vision is of a society that can live with very harsh public health policies, and also be resolute in its commitment against the "enemy". This is the ideal combination before launching a germ warfare campaign.

Germ warfare preparations failed?

Then again, we can just as easily go back to the US military paper's gloomy conclusion mentioned at the beginning of this post. It may be that anti-vaxxers have ruined everything for them and destroyed their plans.

The extent of rejection of vaccines in Western countries, and official frustrations with much of society's lack of acceptance of harsh health policies, suggest that Western preparations for germ warfare have failed, and our own societies are insufficiently controlled to allow our governments to wage this war. The truth may be that China has a much more compliant population, giving its regime the best capability to both resist biological attacks and launch them.

If Western governments think a biological attack is a viable way to get rid of Russia and China, they are playing with fire. Russia has taken a very aggressive tone since the war in Ukraine started, and would respond brutally to such an attack if it traced it (maybe going straight to nuclear weapons), while China would be able to withstand it and counterattack to deadly effect.

Sinn Féin is set to be the largest party in the Northern Ireland Assembly, after the results in local elections that took place in the United Kingdom on May 5.

What has happened pushes the UK towards a perhaps inevitable breakup, as Sinn Féin has long sought a united island of Ireland, which would be noble if they can secure majority support in Northern Ireland for it.

A return to Great Britain?

The people of Britain actually have no need for Ireland. If we were to lose Northern Ireland, the imposing name of the “Kingdom of Great Britain” (or just Great Britain) could be restored as the official one, as could the flag of 1707-1801, which British troops carried to war against America and France. Such days were hardly those of a lesser power, as we are now.

Even if things went a step further, and Scotland was also to gain independence, England would likely remain a powerhouse, keeping the neighbouring countries in its influence, unless the European Union was to actively work against such sway

Unionist backlash

The only peril may come from unionists in Northern Ireland, and their ties to that land, in the event that they refuse to accept the breakup of the country they were loyal to. Political radicals and aggrieved parties often end up punching above their weight, and it is not atypical that they can take a whole country hostage with their politics.

As well as a surge in violence taking place within a united Ireland, possibly drawing in outside forces such as the European Union, there is a greater risk of political radicals fleeing Northern Ireland to assume huge influence within the newly diminished Great Britain. Should anything atrocious befall the unionists residing in the united Ireland, or even a murmur of it, it would result in radical transformations of opinion in Great Britain, creating increasingly hostile English feelings towards Ireland and its EU backers. As well as undermining Scottish independence (assuming Irish unity occurs first), a wave of unionism finding a home in Great Britain could also be big enough to turn policy in London in an aggressive or revanchist direction. If Scotland in turn got independence, further flight of radical British nationalists into England could make them even more concentrated and capable of influencing London.

The return of England

In the most extreme course of future events, breakup could result in an English war not just with Scotland and Ireland but, by proxy, with old enemies like France, Spain and Germany via the European Union as the Scots and Irish will warm to them rather than the ostracised England.

The war on Russia's periphery in Ukraine exposes new vulnerabilities for all nuclear-armed powers, revealing that they are not as invulnerable as they had assumed and that the victors of the Second World War have no guarantee of security. Having a nuclear deterrent doesn't prevent conflict being actively inflamed by outside competitors on your doorstep, or result in the adjacent non-nuclear power standing down if you use force. The informal understanding that nuclear powers cannot incite a proxy to directly attack each other's territory and infrastructure is also gone, now. Now, everyone will be just expected to refrain from using nuclear weapons, as long as sneaky enough methods are being used to kill us and there is not a direct clash. This change may cause huge displeasure to Britain in the future, since it creates new rules that put the country in a new state of vulnerability. It allows the peril of a return to past ages, when Scotland was eligible as a French proxy against England.

Restored medieval conflicts

The idea of an English-EU clash reigniting Medieval-era tensions may seem farfetched, but it is not. Medieval leaders were not less civilised or educated in statehood than modern leaders. Some conflicts are inevitable, just because of the configuration of pieces on the board.

England has a much vaster population than Scotland or Ireland. It is not too hard to predict, if the UK breaks up, that these countries will be afraid and possibly even hateful of the economically and militarily giant England after being estranged from it. The temptation to bring in France or other European powers as protectors, and English resentment at this course of events, would be almost inevitable.

Nationalism, however benign at first, can unleash unpredictable and long-buried forces, as it did after the collapse of the Soviet Union. It can create opportunities for outside interference that will jeopardise a country’s security.

When an arrangement works peacefully, like the Union, it is best to treasure it and not to change it, even if we would personally prefer things to be different. This is the same case with the monarchy.

Liz Truss went too far in trying to take ownership of the war in Ukraine and proposing conditions that would never be acceptable to any administration in Moscow, threatening to further inflame and escalate the conflict, even according to The Guardian.

Truss had said that Britain should set a war aim of depriving Russia of Crimea, which Moscow considers core Russian territory and protects under its nuclear deterrent. This is such a delusional statement that it would be less absurd to have heard Russian generals talk of recapturing the Reichstag. Crimea is long gone, and Ukraine is about as likely to send troops there as it is to Vladivostok. Even pro-Western dissidents in Russia refuse to talk of Crimea as anything other than part of Russia.

In addition to her, we see Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Armed Forces James Heappey eagerly justifying attacks by Ukraine into Russian territory using UK weapons. Apparently, he is unaware of the potential risk to British territory if we set ourselves a goal of destroying targets in Russian territory.

Total war, by proxy?

In the case of both politicians mentioned here, Britain possibly overestimates its power, having no grasp of how or where Russia could respond in kind or the kind of casualties British personnel could suffer if Russia were to begin maliciously handing out all modern armaments necessary to kill British troops worldwide. It seems some of our leaders just view the Slavic mind as dull, easy prey, incapable of the creativity to even copy what we do.

We also assume that our playing by a set of rules forbidding direct attacks on the other side confines the Russians to also abiding by these rules, when that is not the case if the rules only benefit us and not them. Would we ourselves keep playing by the rules if Russia was the only beneficiary under them, and the costs for us playing were severe? A country will only allow so much damage to them indirectly, before they hastily look for ways to retaliate, even if they are caught doing so.

Any plan that includes averting a nuclear war but still destroying Russia's cities and strategic objects, using Ukrainian troops to do so as encouraged by Heappey, would be folly. Britain's targeting of strategic objects and vital defences in Russia, even using a third country or fiddling with the command structure to hide responsibility for the attacks, would trigger Russian strikes on strategic targets in Britain. It would be no different than if we began attacking Russia directly, so Russia could see nuclear attacks as a proportionate response.

A brag too far

Liz Truss seems at some level to be aware that her foolish and rash warmongering cannot be walked back. She has tried to take full ownership of the Ukrainian war effort, declaring that a defeat in this war is unthinkable and would mean a profound loss of security for us.

In reality, there is an alternative course that keeps the country safe: just get rid of Liz Truss, James Heappey, and the others who displayed misplaced military swagger and tried to take ownership of the Ukrainian war effort. This would restore a level of calm, helping prevent escalation while benefiting still from whatever they had done, if any of it had any benefit.

It is okay for common soldiers to belittle their adversaries and brag. However, a serving government minister, who believes a continent-spanning nuclear hyperpower is some easy prey they will soon hang on their wall as a personal trophy, is an imbecile. That person should not be permitted to speak another word in any official capacity.

Every now and then, I see or hear some opinion about how bad the country's decision to leave the EU (the EU exit, or more fashionably, Brexit), was.

The pandemic has limited cross-borders travel and overshadowed any economic fallout caused by Brexit, although leaving the EU was a shakier economic path to take than staying. There was little to be gained economically by leaving the EU, at least in the short term.

Were Britain to benefit more from bilateral trade and the markets of the Commonwealth following the exit, such gains might eventually offset the losses caused by Brexit. However, the diminished and less seamless movement of goods and workers through Europe will always be a loss to the economy.

Brexit is no way to "make Britain great again"

Some may have seen Brexit as a way to "make Britain great again" - "Global Britain", to use the term favoured by Foreign Secretary Liz Truss. However, such days are long gone. Were Britain to attempt anything like that empire again, it would only be a farce this time rather than a repetition of tragedy, to paraphrase Karl Marx.

Economic concerns over Brexit failed to move those who voted to leave the EU, and it is not difficult to see why. Economic issues are only prominent in the headlines because the newspapers and news networks are owned by the rich, who stand to lose a lot.

Most people don't notice economic issues or care

News headlines almost always say more about the concerns of the small minority writing them, than about the interests of the common people.

For the proletarian majority, economic growth and the rise of the country on an chart of performance means quite little. They still exist in a state of wage slavery that only gets them through the day, and each day is much the same, regardless of the economic performance of the company or country.

The majority of people would not even agree that anything was wrong with the economy unless the country ran out of food and petrol or the prices skyrocketed until they were unaffordable. Nothing like that is going to happen. The supply lines for anything vital are unthreatened. This much is obvious to anyone, as no politician dependent on votes could tolerate the contrary.

We know from the population's acquiescence to Covid rules, that the majority are able to do just fine not even having any foreign holidays, and in fact many can't afford them anyway. They are okay with restrictions even on how and when to shop, and these things are worse than anything that could have been caused by Brexit.

Life is the same to most people, regardless of proclamations about the country's international standing or economic performance in the news. Some average joes may try to talk or tweet about these issues, but such is more an attempt to sound clever with their peers rather than any reflection of it actually affecting them in any way.

By and large, most people who voted for Brexit have shrugged off the economic warnings with good reason and are not bothered. They are completely unaffected, there is still food on the shelves and fuel in their cars.

Brits rejected Europe as a national identity

So, the talk of economic opportunities gained and lost through Brexit is irrelevant to the real feelings that likely motivated both sides when they cast their votes on the matter back in 2016. Brexit was more an issue of identity than performance on economic charts.

The European Union increasingly presents itself as a single nation, with a common foreign policy, and it is presented as the big boss on all matters social and economic. There is now a unified liberal "European" culture and values, which for some reason resemble the United States more than anything that was fought for by European people.

Bear in mind that many European countries carry crosses on their flags and have state religions, whereas the European Union is secular and carries stars on its flag. These icons of secular liberalism are the features of the United States, not Europe. The United States, which is distinctly non-European and was founded to reject the model of the states of Europe, but first and foremost to reject Britain and everything it represented.

It seems as if the EU is tone-deaf about identity and the sensibilities of the member countries, and has no historical roots in anything. Its very flag and values are like American graffiti. The term "United States of Europe" describes, really, what the EU is: the uneducated scheme of the witless Americanophiles whose father figures were the GIs who liberated their countries in World War Two.

In addition to the fact the EU fails to properly represent anything authentically European, and instead looks American, "Europeanness" even as an authentic ethnicity is rejected by the British. This schism dates all the way back to the reign of Elizabeth I, who set England on a path away from Catholicism at the time, causing the country's isolation from Catholic Europe.

In fact, Britain's original excommunication (or Brexcommunication?) from the Holy Mother Church resembled Brexit, including the search for alternate trade deals outside of Europe. No doubt, the British heretics were condemned then by their opponents at home and abroad to hell, as they are once again.

Shadows of the threat of Europe

While sectarian doctrinal differences are no longer of any importance to the matter, Britain's schism with European civilisation is still real, written into the country's history in blood.

Geopolitical anxieties are not limited to rulers and people who read Horrible Histories. They are very much present in the cultural and collective memory of a country. The British know the French were their enemies for a long time, and the memory of Germany occupying Europe only across the English Channel is known to them all. With this psychological aspect, European encroachment, even supposedly for our own good, is not welcome for many.

And Europe is significantly larger than Britain. When a larger power absorbs a smaller one, what is there to gain for the smaller power? What guarantees can there be that this empire won't devour the country, as its predecessors would have done?

When a hostile power has continuously manifested in the same place, even the least informed peasant in any land will become almost prescient about it. The memory of the geopolitical enemy gets under their skin if any similar power begins to assemble in that same place where the foreign threats arise.

Pages