FOREST COMMENT

  This is a thought provoking piece by someone who is a careful analyst of geopolitics.  Twenty years ago I argued that China would pass the USA and would need to arm itself to the teeth to protect itself. It has done so and is now too powerful for the USA to subdue. But what about India?  

Warwick Powell explains  how the administrative state has taken over in Europe... 'Regulatory authorities now determine which organisations qualify as legitimate civil society actors, which media outlets are “trusted,” which research bodies are acceptable partners and which narratives are “foreign-influenced.” These classifications carry decisive material consequences - access to funding, platforms and institutional recognition - yet are framed as neutral, technical assessments... Regulatory authorities now determine which organisations qualify as legitimate civil society actors, which media outlets are “trusted,” which research bodies are acceptable partners and which narratives are “foreign-influenced.” These classifications carry decisive material consequences - access to funding, platforms and institutional recognition - yet are framed as neutral, technical assessments.... In countries such as Georgia and Moldova, the EU has increasingly positioned itself not merely as an obser...

  Warwick Powell argues that when we in the west look at China we do so in a patronising way he calls 'Liberal Orientalism'. In doing so we dismiss the Cultural Revolution as an aberration rather than a crucial break with the past. He contrasts China with India - the so-called 'worlds largest democracy' where the form of Government was inherited from British Colonialism and is chaotic. This raises the whole idea of governance. If the aim is effective government, India simply doesn't compare to China.  And so is western democracy the ONLY way in which good governance can be achieved? It clearly is not - especially in the days of mass propaganda dominated by wealth and associated corruption. What the festishisation of western democracy does is place 'democracy' above effective government. People are increasingly irritated by the so-called deomocratic process because it frequently fails to address their needs. 'Liberal Orientalism  differs from classical Or...

 

  'Europe still holds elections. Ballots are cast, votes are counted, governments are formed. And yet an uncomfortable question can no longer be avoided: What is the real value of free elections when entire political outcomes are delegitimised before voters even speak?.......... Historically, the media’s democratic function was adversarial: to question power, interrogate fear narratives, and test official claims. That role has eroded. In its place, we increasingly find narrative alignment rather than scrutiny. Security framing now substitutes for argument. The familiar refrain— “the Russians are coming” —functions less as geopolitical analysis than as epistemic discipline. Certain questions are no longer answered; they are declared irresponsible to ask. When media abandons scepticism in favour of message transmission, pluralism collapses without the need for formal censorship...... The lesson is not that contemporary Europe resembles the Soviet Union in brutality or scale. It clear...

In this superb piece  Warwick Powell looks at the blindness and inherently supremacist and patronising nature of the western 'intellectual' view of the east (and the rest of the non-western world). One point he doesn't spell out is that this is DEEPLY embedded in 'western' culture. We are weaned on it in a way that is so embedded that we can't see it.  'Although  Liberal Orientalists  often criticise the West’s imperial past, they retain a normative confidence in liberal values as universally desirable. Liberalism is the virtuous and rationalist counterpoint to imperium, even when liberalism as an art and technology of governance anchored the violence of colonial government from Egypt through to India, and everywhere else in between. Indeed,  Liberal Orientalism  elevates the west’s epistemic and moral exceptionalism. The West becomes the yardstick by which all societies are measured, even when doing so leads to disappointment rather than triumphalism. This...

  To understand Russia you have to understand its history...it is more than just about 'Putin'... 'Western misunderstandings of Russia persist because they rest on the false premise that all political systems aspire to mimic Western liberal democracy. Russia’s political model is not a deviation from an imagined global norm. It is the product of its geography, history, civilization and strategic culture. Putin’s twenty-five years in power reflect not the idiosyncrasies of one man, but the structural necessities of a civilizational state that thinks in centuries, not electoral cycles. When he eventually leaves the political stage, Russia will continue along its historical trajectory, guided by the same imperatives of stability, continuity and strategic patience that have shaped it since the age of Ivan III. In this sense, the West does not misunderstand Putin. It misunderstands Russia.'

  This is an excellent revelation of the predicament that 'Europe' has created for itself. I cannot see it surviving. This makes war much more likely - as a fictional way out for it.... 'Europe today is not suffering from a lack of morality. It is suffering from  moral absolutism —a worldview that confuses moral intention with strategic outcome. This is the root of the crisis. Europe replaced: moral wisdom  with  moral posture, political judgment  with  ideological rigidity, pragmatism  with  performative virtue, realism  with  grand narratives of moral struggle. Once the war became a “civilisational fight,” the space for diplomacy evaporated.

Another excellent article by Aurelien  'This was, I think, Year Zero of the trend towards our current situation of infinite information and little real knowledge. Hardly anyone had anything interesting or valuable to say, hardly anyone knew the country or spoke the language, but the demand for opinions was such that almost anyone could contribute. The result was a kind of rabid kaleidoscope of disconnected reports and impressions, mixed with righteous indignation and not a little hatred. For the first time, perhaps, people wrote articles in newspapers not about the events themselves, but about how those images on TV made them  feel.  Unsurprisingly, attempts to “discuss” the actual issues turned into shouting matches...... There were two broad and related reactions, which endure to this day. One was a kind of transferred intellectual nostalgia (yes, that word is appropriate here) for the certainties of the Cold War, and a desire by politicians and pundits to see world eve...

' As the world increasingly moves away from the use of oil, the possibility of regime collapse and societal breakdown in the Middle East will increase. Ironically, the region is also subject to some of the greatest impacts of climate change; with temperatures in many cities already at the borderline of “wet bulb” temperatures survivable by human beings. Within a decade or two, the Middle East may be reverting to the much simpler times before oil, but with populations ten plus times those of the pre-oil bonanza years. A colossal humanitarian catastrophe in the making, among the sky scrapers and other markers of the massive waste of the oil revenues while they lasted. Another irony may be that as the Middle East becomes much less important as a source of energy, the West will become much less supportive of Israel. A country which in reality is a European settler colony specifically put in place to help control the fossil fuel rich region. When that region is no longer that important ...

Alistair Crooke (CMG) is a one-time decorated Senior British Diplomat and adviser to the EU, and a one-time member of MI6 (Special Intelligence Sevices). His prime area of expertise was in the Middle East and he established 'Conflicts Forum' which aims to encourage engagement between political Islam and 'the West'. His disillusion with UK 'diplomacy' came as the UK and the USA geared up for the conflict in Iraq. Rather than 'diplomacy' they would use military force to crush Iraq and the Palestinian resistance. It has failed dismally, as Alistair Crooke predicted. Here he deconstructs the US National Security Strategy (the NSS)  as a new way to prolongue the dominance of the USEmpire. ' The core to the Trump geo-politics is revealed in the  NSS  as the risk of imperial collapse looming in the future. It talks about  Atlas  holding the globe aloft, and emphasises that the US can no longer continue to shoulder the burden of empire. The  NSS , therefore,...

This is a great polemic about China from someone (like myself from the Durham area in the UK) who nails the key arguments about China. As the world hurtles towards war, China is making itself self sufficient and indispensible.  'In China, the profits from this manufacturing, rather than being taken by investors and shareholders, have been reinvested in the country. and that has been phenomenal. Many critics, particularly US “experts” claim that it was the USA which enriched China whie China took advantage of them but the opposite is true,they created the conditions and stopped paying attention when they realised that short term profits were more important than long term production, job security, human resources and even maintaining profitability in their own countries, they even went so far as to double down on their own nation’s losses to make corporate gains by offshoring their tax liabilities. THey went further by importing cheap labour some from inmates in State prisons, some i...