-
Simandou and other dark clouds
We once proclaimed that our wealth was derived by riding ‘on the sheep’s back’. More recently, we have ridden the iron ore train but all good rides come to an end and dark clouds are gathering on the horizon. The threat to our long-term prosperity is becoming clear. Currently, China and Australia are bound together…
-
Gaza Postmodern
One of the first declarations of intent was reported from an unnamed official. The unnamed defense official told Israel’s Channel 13 that the Palestinian territory, home to more than 2 million residents, would be reduced to rubble. “Gaza will eventually turn into a city of tents. There will be no buildings.” There have been plenty…
-
Priorities
For most of 2022, and until the great counter-offensive broke on the Russian defence lines of Zaporozhzhia on mid-2023, it seemed that the greatest priority of the Biden administration, and most of Congress, was promoting and resourcing Ukraine’s proxy war against Russia. The problems were mounting up even before the June-July catastrophe. The NATO countries…
-
Israel’s Tet Moment?
Shortly after midnight on January 30-31, 1968, during celebrations of the Lunar New Year (Tet) , NVA and Viet Cong (VC or NLF) forces launched the Tet Offensive in South Vietnam. The intel.gov site(*) includes pages on declassified Tet documents, and a 50th anniversary retrospective on the Offensive. According to the latter, 70-80,000 troops in…
-
BUK + flechettes = contradiction
In CL’s report on the NYT’s unusual scraps of integrity in reporting on the Kostiantynivka (aka Kostyantynovka) market-place attack, the new standard story is revealed. But evidence collected and analyzed by The New York Times, including missile fragments, satellite imagery, witness accounts and social media posts, strongly suggests the catastrophic strike was the result of…
-
More Tangling of the Web
Softly, as in an morning sunrise, General Mark Milley let it be known that the infamous Chinese spy balloon, whilst it definitely was a spy ballon, definitely did not phone home with any intelligence information, and definitely had blown off course. See, for example, the RT story. If you’re concerned about Russian propaganda, try these…
-
Immutable truths and Ukraine
In geopolitics, there are a number of immutable truths. First and foremost, all nations act in their own best interests. We can all point to assorted examples but the United States exercising its foreign policy can be a brutal display of self-interest. This is magnified because the USA is (currently) the dominant force on the…
-
Aftermath
Feel that chill in the air? If you think its frosty in your location, it is frozen solid between Russian President Putin and Wagner chief Prigozhin. And so it is that we are now one week after the “March of Justice” that saw Evgeny Prigozhin’s Wagner Group stage an uprising. But first, a few MSM…
-
Well, that was a weekend to remember
In what was probably the most enthralling weekend since the fall of the Berlin Wall (1989) and the collapse of the USSR (1991), events of this weekend again placed the Russian military, politics and intrigue squarely in front of the world. And like the collapse of the Berlin Wall and the USSR, so much could…
-
May you live in interesting times
You already probably know Mearsheimer’s view of the conflict, at least in respect of its cause, which he largely places at the feet of the US (and NATO) and the decision of Bush Jr. to move to have Georgia and Ukraine enter NATO. He again goes over this terrain but also looks at the prospects…