Chaitanya Jyothi Museum Opening, 2000
RAMANAM
In nomine Patris, et Filii, et Spiritus Sancti. Amen.
Countrymen,
ORBIS NON SUFFICIT
SOLUS DEUS SUFFICIT
USA-Russia alliance, that is. He calls it rapprochement. Many of the comments are negative. Some are accusatory. Mine is grateful:
So many points hit the mark, I’ll stick to inviting view of the yet larger picture.
Russia wants to fulfill the strategic vision of Catherine the Great: take Constantinople, staging mainly from the east (Nagorno-Karabakh/Armenia, South Ossetia, Syria), as well as from the north, (Crimea). There are deep religious as well as statecraft reasons for that desire.
Her best and newest naval assets are in the Caspian facing Iran.
Russia has no grand strategic ambitions in the Levant or ME generally beyond not letting Iran loose on her southeastern flank. So Russia and Israel are get-alongs for as long as this observer gets to see.
The Soviet was anti-Christian. Collusion there was good. Russia is Christian. Collusion there is bad.
MBS and other Sunnis are removing fuel from the Salafi stove. DJT, VP, BN, Hashemites and other Sunnis are removing fuel from the Shiite stove. This gradually exposes ChiComs’ globe-wide hegemonic ambitions (think: universal slavery aka global economy) as single focus for inter-nation statecraft. A one-front war, so to speak.
The primary structure for facing that front I call Three Brothers Doctrine in reference to USA, Russia and India.
Again, thank you Spengler! I cannot say it enough: Thank You!
Related: L. Todd Wood: WWIII Anyone? The Crusades Are Returning To Caucasus As Violence Rages In Nagorno-Karabakh
Βασιλεία του Θεού
Kingdom of God
Update 1: To this post by Spengler, a commenter, one intellu3times, wrote:
That’s pretty convoluted even for you, Spengler.
The Syria situation is stuck between chaos and a major assault against Israel. I don’t see where we can conclude that Putin cares a fig for US interests in deciding Russia’s moves. Maybe we can give Netanyahu some props for kissing Putin’s ring so that Putin doesn’t decide to support Iran against Israel, which would certainly not be in long-term US interests.
Putin’s extra-legal capture of Crimea, and Georgia, and assault on the Ukraine don’t go down very well no matter what. Now, maybe we overlook those, but it’s really hard to see any realpolitik partnerships with such. And Putin’s recent showcase of nasty new strategic weapons is not exactly an olive branch, either.
So, if somehow Iranian troops and missiles are withdrawn (or destroyed) in Syria, I think Putin and Netanyahu can share the next Nobel, or the one after Trump gets for North Korea … unless that one goes sour, as seems to be the rumor this morning.
To which I replied:
intellu, I think the convolution — along with some puritanical assumptions regarding statecraft — is inside your thinking on this matter. The likes of this sentence:
Putin’s extra-legal capture of Crimea, and Georgia, and assault on the Ukraine don’t go down very well no matter what.
do not occur in the art of statecraft. One consideration only governs, or should, a nation’s behavior: to maintain sovereign independence. Nation’s are the law, they do not answer to laws. Successful — i.e., sovereign — nations are what make laws legal.
To which intellu replied:
Nobody is more skeptical than me regarding international law, but excess cold-blooded rationality tends to lose popular support, so bad actors like Putin make it very hard for other nations to deal with him on a friendly basis.
To which I replied:
You say Putin is a bad actor, do not trust him. I say Putin is Putin, deal with it, because he is not going away and many millions stand behind him. And in any case, who are you to pass judgement on his moral standing? Russians are Russians, not Scots or Mexicans. Honor them for that, the same way you would honor an Israeli for being an Israeli and an American for being an American . . . I expect. Your Puritanism is jejune and your grammar is inadequate. I know you have heard of von Clausewitz and Machiavelli, but have you digested their lessons?
Then a commenter, one Obakeinu, responded to my original comment thanking Spengler:
Well said sir … Russia is just being Russia … their history, traits and character working for, and against themselves. The American Left had NO issue with Russia until the Duma banned gay marriage, and forbid NGOs from distributing pro-LQBT propaganda to Russian school children. *That* is when the left collectively went ballistic, and finally declared Russia evil.
Properly respecting Russia, and clearly understanding the historical events that shaped Russia character is the first step to a positive relationship. Just look at it this way: having a friendly Russia is not unlike having an affectionate porcupine around you. It can be done, just have a care when hugging and petting it.
To which I replied:
Indeed, and well said as well. Thanks! As for our history, we have, as Spengler mentions, a thick vein of self-regarding moralism and its sister, sententious spite, in our cultural genetics.
Spengler lays it to Mainstream Protestant missionary zeal.
Not to quibble, but I lay it to Roundhead Anglican Puritanism extruding as Unitarianism (think: the Charles River) aligned with German Reformed (i.e., Calvinist) triumphal pigheadedness (think Reinhold Niebuhr, whose first student assistant my father was and with whom I got into an epic disagreement regarding integration whilst on a wintry walk along Riverside Drive in 1966) and a heaping dollop of the left wing of the Reformation (think Quakers and Anabaptists, who, modernly, are denominated Evangelicals, Fundamentalists, Conservative Christians).
In any case, we, like Russians, deal with what we have and not with what we might have been or might become. And for as long ahead as I can see we have each other, along with India, as guides and primary shapers of inter-national affairs, all springing from our imperishable national sovereignties reposing in our multi-racial, multi-religious and very unique (though related) societies, languages and political institutions.
Then a commenter, one Simon Kenton 1755, responded to Spengler’s post:
The more socialist and muslim Europe becomes, the more Russia looks to be our next best friend. China seems the perpetual bad actor, and could fill the massive voids in Russia with its 3 billion population. China seems to have growth plans in Africa and South America too. They’re already in Mexico. I think Putin has learned his Islam lessons with Chechnya, and is as uneasy with a nuclear Iran as Trump is. Germany and France seem happy to ship nuclear weapons and equipment to Iran.
This mass migration of muslims from ME/Africa to Europe coincident with the Arab Spring seems to have been fermented by either Soros or Obama. I expect there to be a day when muslims across Europe eliminate an entire generation of european young men, and the conquest will be complete.
I replied:
The more socialist and muslim Europe becomes, the more Russia looks to be our next best friend.
Russia, who has the world’s most nightmarish border security contingencies, is looking at Europe as Chechnya on her western flank. Except as The Soviet, she have never moved west in force, but the Frankish tribes have moved east in force on Russia twice in still vivid Russian and European memory.
Lincoln protected the Russian fleets from GB, harboring them in US ports, and his successor got very generous terms on purchase of Alaska/California subsequently.
Merkel has consigned the German Army to dhimmitude and would like to consign the EU to the same condition. She thinks of that as Christian altruism.
Russia and USA comprise different political systems and always will. Nonetheless, they are natural allies having no points of mutual national strategic discord. Their mutuality is their desire for sovereign independence. They share this desire with India and few other nations.
Update 2: Angelo Codevilla: Victory: What It Will Take to Win?
Update 3: Iran Charges Russia With Selling Out its Air Defense Secrets to Israel
Update 4: Spengler: The Norm Is NOT Democracy — the Norm Is Extinction — concerning Iran’s teleology
Update 5: Don Surber: Things Journalists Believe That Are Untrue
Update 6: US-Kazakh Accord to Use Caspian Ports as Afghan Support Hubs Irks Moscow
Update 7: New Armenian PM Wants Closer Ties With Russia
Update 8: In short, the ongoing epidemic in the UK, Scandinavia and elsewhere—whereby Muslim men sexually target white women—is as old as Islam, has precedents with the prophet and his companions, and, till this day, is being recommended as a legitimate practice by some in the Muslim world.
Update 9: Avner Zarmi: The Truth About George Soros
AUM NAMAH SHIVAYA
