The Military Front – February 24, 2022 to Present

Since late February, I’ve published a series of articles critiquing the media lies about the Russia-Ukraine conflict. It is important that we not be led astray as to the nature of the war. The western public has been propagandized on a daily basis by both the neo-liberal and neo-conservative “legacy media.” We are told that Ukraine is winning the war, that we must spend billions of dollars to fight a proxy war in order to weaken Russia economically and militarily. We are constantly told that Putin is intent on restoring the Soviet Union with designs to invade Europe. Therefore, it is imperative that NATO expand its power so that the United States may remain as the world’s dominant economic and military superpower.

Since February 24, 2022, a familiar pattern has emerged in the war in Ukraine. The Ukrainian government, in concert with the CIA and NATO, issues lies each day concerning Ukraine’s success and Russia’s failure. These lies are usually debunked by independent investigators within 24 to 48 hours. The rebuttals are ignored by the western legacy media and people continue to cite them as fact. The myths range in scope from the “Ghost of Kiev” and the “Martyrs of Snake Island” to mass graves in Mariupol and Russia having lost half of its forces and military equipment.

In reality, Russia knocked out Ukraine’s tactical and communications centers in a matter of hours of the first few days of the war. Russia destroyed Ukraine’s small navy and most of its air force flight capability. Within two weeks, over 100,000 Ukrainian troops making up the ground forces protecting the northern border cities of Kiev, Chernigov, Kharkov, Odessa were “pinned down” by cauldron-like sieges of an equal amount of Russian forces. Meanwhile, Russian troops quickly secured a “land bridge” along the coast between Crimea and the Donbass region, trapping Ukrainian forces and the Azov Militia in the city of Mariupol. This was the first phase of the war.

Once the Russians secured the coast, the southern and northern forces moved into pincer-like formations that are currently grinding down the numbers and resources of about 60,000 of the top Ukrainian fighting troops in the Donbass region pushing them to an eventual collapse. This is now the second phase of the war. The conclusion of the second phase will almost certainly result in an inevitable Russian victory.

The Economic Front – 1991 to Present

In the 1990s, during the Yeltsin years of the fledgling Russian Federation, the Russian economy struggled through a series of booms and busts related to infusions of western loans and a corrupt mismanagement of the formerly collectivist command economy. This was largely due to the sell-off of Soviet industries to oligarchs who mostly sat on their windfall and refused to find investors to increase production and profit. American presidential administrations all advised Yeltsin’s Russia to sell their oil and mineral rights to large international corporations who would jump start the industry with Yankee know-how. In the 1990s, the western perception of Boris Yeltsin was that of a jovial drunk with a good heart who stood against a resurgence of communist tyranny. Yeltsin encouraged autonomous regions of Russia to “take as much sovereignty as you can swallow.” This led to a chaotic, uneven growth of the economy and invited tension in ethnic regions. Contrary to the popular assumption, Russia during Yeltsin’s administration saw much more corruption and violence than under his two successors – Vladimir Putin and Dmitry Medvedev.

When Putin took office in 2000, the Russian economy began to soar and was for several years the fastest growing economy in the world. Much to the disapproval of western liberal democracies, Putin rolled back Yeltsin’s policy of giving regions of Russia as much federalism as they could handle. Putin centralized the economy and brutally put down the separatist uprising in Chechnya. He also curtailed the burgeoning Islamic nationalism in central Asian regions. Putin also established close ties with the former Soviet republics of Belarus, Armenia and Kazakhstan. From his first day in office, Putin began to break the power of the oligarchs and prosecute mafia bosses who had controlled much of the economy since 1991. Every corner of the kleptocracy was put on notice — from the mafia-controlled cab drivers in Moscow — to the oligarchs who controlled the nation’s large industries. Either support Putin’s reform measures or be punished as traitors. The result was putting much of Russia’s frozen wealth back into a functioning market economy.

For the first time in history, Russia had a growing middle class and Putin’s popularity at home soared to unprecedented heights. The Russian people were mostly satisfied with their own growing economic welfare and were willing to tolerate an autocratic style. Pulling back on the unfettered rights that Americans enjoy under our First Amendment was seen as a necessary evil. This is not to claim that Putin has completely reformed Russian corruption. That would be a gross overstatement. However, Putin proceeded from day one as a skillful tactician by rewarding oligarchs who supported his policies and prosecuting those who opposed him.

To give a useful illustration – when I talked to Russians in the 1990s, I discovered that many Christians did not want to be involved in owning a business because it was seen as dirty and unethical. To succeed in business you had to break laws, give and accept bribes and be ruthless to get ahead. I was once told that if an honest businessman paid all the taxes he owed to the government by law, he would not be able to compete with many businesses that simply dealt “under the table.” The government simply assumed that businesses would cheat on their taxes, and charged more than they could collect, hoping they would collect enough. In the early years of the new Russian hyper-inflation driven market economy, those well-connected with the mafia could make obscene sums through semi-legal transactions and black market arbitrage. The richest oligarchs funneled huge sums of money into off-shore accounts avoiding all taxes. Both Yeltsin and Putin realized that they could use this to their advantage. If a Russian oligarch tried to mount an opposition party challenge or ran for office himself, then he could be brought up on corruption charges and ruined. Some believe that the Russian government during Yeltsin’s tenure made impossible corporate laws precisely for this purpose. After 2000, corporate taxes were slashed by almost 20 percent under Putin, but the practice of rewarding oligarchs who are loyal to the ruling administration continued.

Putin has been painted in the worst light by our western media and politicians — much more so than other autocratic leaders who we consider to be friendly and have most favored nation trade status. The reason for this disrespect is simple. Russia did not allow the US and the EU to give their oil and gas rights to western corporations, to carve up their country, install regional puppet governments and impoverish 150 million people through deals made with corrupt oligarchs. Russia did not allow the west to do as it has done with Ukraine and other resource rich, yet undeveloped countries. The Clinton, Bush, Obama and Biden administrations never forgave them for that. Trump had a different attitude thinking Russia and the United States could be friends, but in the end he too was influenced and sometimes betrayed by deep state officials who worked behind his back.

A geo-political shift is now taking place

George H.W. Bush’s “New World Order” was a myth from the start. It had the seeds of its own destruction sown into its foundation. The alternative to the unipolar New World Order is not to try to prop up what has already been lost with costly sanctions. The goal ought to be for America to become self-sustaining. Biden rightly hinted at this in a recent speech saying we must increase manufacturing jobs and end our reliance on Chinese microprocessors, but he is still clinging to the paradigm in which America is the policeman of the world that holds autocratic military control over the nations in our sphere of influence.

The United States should instead become a net exporter once again of all products, not just oil, and pay down our national debt. Those are the only “sanctions” that can harm tyranny in the word and promote freedom. We were established by our Constitution as a federal republic, not a liberal democracy. The way of establishing self-rule under God’s Law is for each individual, family and private business or institution to be free, after voluntarily obeying the moral mandates found in Scripture, to pursue our own happiness as we see fit. Municipalities, counties and states ought to be able to take as much responsibility for local civil government as they see fit without federal interference. True federalism is the balance between not only branches of government, but holding the states’ power to be greater than the national government. Instead of the popular urge toward a central federal power, localities ought to have as much responsibility as they can handle.

Not only are our government leaders and their legacy media mouthpieces lying to us about the war in Ukraine, they are also lying about the huge shift in geo-politics that has already occurred. It is a huge tectonic shift with lagging indicators. Like the tsunami after an earthquake that has been felt but not yet seen, the incoming tide will sweep away many of the notions most Americans have held about western unipolar supremacy in the last 30 years. When this does happens most of our political leaders and the general population in the United States and Europe will not know what hit them. Those in power are beginning to get an idea now that we are at a dangerous inflection point. The reason they continue to lie about the outcome of the war and spend tens of billions of taxpayers’ money is that they know they are losing. Western leaders are not just losing their proxy war pitting Ukraine against Russia – which is not too significant in the big picture – but they have lost control over their global world order.

Throughout history there have always been dominant currencies that were used in international trade – Spanish Bullion, the Franc, British Sterling, the US Dollar, the Deutschmark, and now the Euro. These are known as reserve currencies because nations buy these currencies and hold them in reserve for foreign trade and as a hedge against inflation. These transactions serve to further strengthen the stability of value of the reserve currency. In the modern era, one or two western currencies have been dominant for a period of time only to be replaced by others. The characteristics of the reserve currency is that it must be stable – tied to some type of commodity – and must represent an economy with a large GDP.

In the 1970s, President Richard Nixon ended fractional reserve banking, no longer was the dollar tied to gold. When inflation shot upward, Nixon made a deal with Saudi Arabia to tie the dollar to a barrel of oil. Nixon agreed to curtail domestic oil production and rely more on Saudi oil exports. Unknown to Americans at that time, the United States also agreed to a military alliance with Saudi Arabia that guaranteed their security in the region. In return, Saudi Arabia agreed to invest a portion of their profit from each sale in US bonds, which were held in dollar accounts. Thus began the petro-dollar. This lessened the inflation problem in the United States and partially tied our currency once again to a commodity. It also allowed the US to create more currency by issuing credit to businesses since foreign nations viewed the dollar as stable. Most importantly, the dollar began a successful long run since the 1970s as the most stable and dominant world currency.

That run has now come to an end.

The dollar will likely remain strong as long as the United States’ still has the largest GDP and gold reserves. We also have huge amounts of natural resources, so it is still possible to tie the dollar to a valuable commodity of some type if our leaders have the resolve and moral restraint to commit to this without always printing more money.

After 2022, the US dollar and the euro will no longer be the world’s only reserve currencies. Due to western sanctions on Russia, parallel banking systems have been created. Russian, Chinese, and Indian currencies are being directly exchanged for oil, gas, mineral resources and food. Until recently, 80 percent of all oil trades were done with dollars or euros. But increasingly eastern currencies are now being used. This has begun to create a harder currency in Russia and China and has in turn softened the US dollar and the euro. As I write this, the ruble has climbed to over a two year high against the dollar. The linking of the ruble to gold and other commodities is important because the Russian economy is the only large economy in the world that is both a net exporter with a low national debt to GDP ratio. Russia has been buying gold at a set rate tying a gram of gold to 5000 rubles. At the same time, it has implemented a gas for rubles system with Europe that will allow them to exchange euros to rubles in each gas sale, further bolstering their own national currency against the western system. A panel of economic experts has been working to link the ruble to gold, natural gas, oil and other commodities.

These moves amount to effective counter-sanctions on the west. Coupled with other measures delivered by Russia in full force, these counter-sanctions could devalue western currency, cripple the European economy and result in a long recession in America. Many analysts are wondering how prepared we are to endure another recession just as we are recovering from the worst worldwide economic downturn since the Great Depression.

The conundrum is laughable. It is the result of western leaders’ lack of “real world” experience coupled with their elitist arrogance toward Russia. The United States and the EU wanted to sanction Russia by freezing dollar and euro accounts. They in effect stole over $300 billion from Russia – the largest theft in human history. They believed that they could then sanction natural gas while still receiving it – stealing back the money as they pay for it. Russia responded simply by simply stating that Europe cannot have gas for free. For a month, EU leaders responded by crying, “Blackmail!” not stopping to realize that sanctions are in fact legalized blackmail and that the sanctioners can also become the sanctioned.

Our leaders are so inept that it would be comical, were it not so sad and dangerous. The only logical explanation beyond sheer stupidity is that they know they have already lost their control over the world order and are flailing in desperation not realizing the huge costs of their mistakes.

The Significance of the Russia-Ukraine Conflict

I have no idea how long the war in Ukraine will last or how far it will go. Despite the insistence of the habitually wrong media pundits, here is no “plan” or “playbook” that the Russians have revealed to us. Several reliable analysts have said it will be another month or two more before the Ukrainian military is ground down to the point of collapse. I tend to agree. We will soon see if that is correct. Hopefully, a peaceful solution will be attempted before then. The West’s dominance in the world order is effectively over. It could come crashing down in a year or two if our populations oust their leaders — Biden, Sholtz, Johnson, etc. Or it might fall apart over the next decade or two – especially if these hawkish neocons and liberals succeed in provoking World War III, a war no one can win.

We will see if it will be a short or long course.

In the meantime, have politicians and media spokespeople who have information contrary to the legacy media spin they put out. They know that all their talking points are a lie. The only rational explanation for their false narrative is that they know the time of unipolar American dominance is short. They have fallen down from their heights with great wrath. They are now flailing and futilely scrambling to prop up a narrative by which they hold on to their air of authority, Then they distort or invent data to support the narrative. The problem is mainly that they are aided and abetted by a postmodernist media that believes that truth is relative and that reality can be invented if only they push hard enough for it with clever mantras.

We are beginning to see the legacy media narrative shift. “Russia has blundered badly and is losing” has already shifted to “Both sides are planning for a long war.” Soon we will see more alarm – “It is starting to look bad for Ukraine, they just need $50 billion more to turn the tide!” Then quickly to a lot of second guessing – “What? How did this happen?!” It is likely that the full economic and political fallout then will be a lagging indicator.

What is concerning in the meantime is how many people believe the fantasy that Ukraine is winning and are still willing to pump billions into an attempt to inflate our already failed unipolar world system. They don’t see that what is coming is no less than the collapse of the neo-liberal globalist order. Many of our leaders and much of the western population will experience an identity crisis. They won’t know what hit them.

A few principles to understand why this is a foregone conclusion.

1. Wars are usually won or lost in the preparation stages. Russia prepared for this operation since 2014, first economically and politically through agreements with China and India, and then militarily.
2. Nations that win wars become stronger.
3. Russia has never invaded western Europe. They will not in the future.
4. In the past 1000 years, whenever an empire has tried to defeat Russia, they have eventually lost their empire and Russia has become stronger.