Category: Foreign Affairs

  • Compare the pair

    Millions of words have been written about the creeping encroachment of NATO eastward towards the border of the Russian Federation. Recent media reports suggest the Turkey will soon drop its objections to Finland joining the bloc with only Hungary’s objections yet to be overcome.  One can only imagine the pressure Hungarian politicians will endure as…

  • A Summary of Hersh’s ‘How America Took Out The Nord Stream Pipeline’

    Overnight, Seymour Hersh published How America Took Out The Nord Stream Pipeline. Here are the key points. The explosives were allegedly planted months earlier, during a mid-summer NATO exercise: Last June, the Navy divers, operating under the cover of a widely publicized mid-summer NATO exercise known as BALTOPS 22, planted the remotely triggered explosives that, three…

  • Nicolai Petro’s The Tragedy of Ukraine

    The above is an informative discussion of Nicolai Petro’s The Tragedy of Ukraine. It covers areas that haven’t been discussed in much detail in the West, generally, at least in the MSM, particularly the regional (Galician) character of Ukrainian nationalism, its origins in the 19th and early 20th Century, its attempt to establish a particular…

  • A Small Price (for us) To Pay

    On 25th of March, 2022 (keep the date in mind) Sergei Shoigu, the Russian Defence Minister, released figures for Russian army casualties in the month-long war, or “special military operation,” in Ukraine. 1,351 Russian servicemen had been killed, and another 3,825 wounded. NATO sources put the number killed at between 7,000 and 15,000. On 22nd…

  • The War in Ukraine: Past, Present and Future: A Conversation between Michael Vlahos and Douglas Macgregor

    This is a superb discussion involving two well-placed interlocutors, who have been in the middle of international and strategic affairs for at least the last four decades. It comes in three parts. The first looks at the war in Ukraine, its antecedents, and its prospects, particular whether the situation is entering its culminating phase. The…

  • Peace-Mongering, Ukraine style

    News Reports and Analysis Daily Mail, 30th November, 2021 The Daily Mail reported that three gatherings of some Downing Street staff had taken place during November and December of 2020. This was the lifting of the lid on the cesspool of cynicism that characterised the political response to Covid-19 all over the Western world, with…

  • Guest Post: Speedbox – Postcard from Kislovodsk Redux #2

    If you like walking, you’ll love Kislovodsk.  There are dozens of kilometres of walking trails in the near vicinity and into the mountains.  Easy to arduous terrain depending on your preference.   Mrs Speedbox has returned from Russia after a near five week visit with friends and family in Kislovodsk and nearby Pyatigorsk.  Both are…

  • Guest Post: Speedbox – Politics, Russian style

    There has been some commentary recently about the various factions and their influence on President Putin so I thought I would set out some details of the main factions, their sub-groups and specific individuals.  The web of factions and influencers is like a tangled bowl of spaghetti and whilst I have done my best to…

  • Guest Post: Gyro – Fisking An Ignorant Activist

    Please note: this is in traditional fisking format. Stan Grant in normal font, Gyro’s responses in italics. Grant: To understand China you need to understand whiteness, yet it’s missing from the conversation In some ways, Xi’s China may represent the end of whiteness. Except that the Chinese Communist Party itself mirrors whiteness. It is not…

  • Guest Post: Speedbox – Postcard from Kislovodsk Redux

    Mrs Speedbox is back in Kislovodsk, Russia.  I wasn’t able to travel due to work commitments and on this trip she will catch up with her numerous friends and the remaining relatives in the city.  Our youngest Miss Speedbox has accompanied her on this occasion.  In my phone/video calls with Mrs Speedbox, I have been…