Ukraine War - Pruning the European powers

 Europe is a bigger threat to the American hegemony with Russia in the G8. Russia had been kicked out to weaken the power of Europe to challenge the American dominance. But the Americans are still not comfortable seeing Europe still growing in strength while the American industries are weakening, other than the Military Industrial Complex. European economies cannot grow stronger than the American's. This same logic has been applied to Japan and now to China. American hegemony is what matters to the Americans.

Taking down Russia is not the only objective of the Ukraine War. In the name of taking down Russia, and also China, Europe is being taken down with their economies heading into recession with many big European companies facing bankruptcies. In the case of Ukraine, there is no better formula to let the Slavs killed each other with the Americans selling them all the weapons they need and with the Nazi Slavs happily doing the killing and dying without knowing the American plan to their destruction. 

Ukraine is dispensable, Ukrainians are also expendable and exchanging Ukrainian lives with Russians in whatever ratio, and with the Ukrainians and Europeans paying for them is sheer genius. When most of the Ukrainians are dead or gone, Ukraine and all its land and resources are up for grabs. Ukraine would be so indebted to the Americans and Europeans that selling their pants and underwear would still not be enough. Clown Zelensky thought all the aids were free and keep on asking and asking as if there is no tomorrow. And this fool has still not wakened up to the tragedy he created for Ukraine and the Ukrainians.

Let's turn to Europe. The Americans are in economic decline and hanging on to only a handful of industries when they are still marginally ahead. Instead of trying to out compete with China and with Europe, the American's only game is to put them all down, yes, to blow out everyone's candle.  Obviously, this childish strategy of the Washington clowns is not working. But in a way it is succeeding against the Europeans and Japan, though failing against Russia and China. Europe and the G7 countries are gasping for air. Cannot buy or sell to China and Russia, cannot buy cheap Russian oil and gas. 

Europe depends heavily on trade and trade needs cheap energy. The Americans are forcing them instead to buy expensive energy, several times more expensive than what they got from Russia. And they have no choice but to do as told by the Americans. How could Europe survive when the enemy is from within, ie the American control NATO?

The Ukraine War may not have weakened Russia, but Europe and the Americans also got to sell all their junk weapons to Ukraine in exchange for a big chunk of Ukrainian land. Also helped to decimate a lot of Slavs, Ukrainian and Russian Slavs on both sides of the war, without sacrificing a single American life. Caveat, the mercenaries and contractors and unknown Special Forces that would not be counted.

Well done, Washington clowns! Europe is a done deal.

Africans could see through the American lies better than others

 The fact that Xi did not attend Trump's inauguration despite being invited sends a clear message to Trump. Xi obviously could not stand the 'vagina' mouth spitting nonsense in his ears. On the other hand, some uninvited 'guests' even needed to go to the inauguration hoping to pick up some scraps thrown by Trump. China does not have to be there to be looked down upon and to pick up scraps. China can compete, survive and prosper on its own initiative and at its own pace.

The Africans have been complaining about Western leaders visiting Africa and wanting only to smear China. Everything China does in Africa is bad for the Africans. Building infrastructures, railways and roads, opening up mines, providing cheap loans is being fabricated as debt traps. The Africans can see all the developments under their noses that are bringing positive results, the increase trade among African countries making good use of new transportation lines and are sick and tired of all the Western propaganda intending to divide and rule. They could see the realities versus the fabrications and are wising up.

It is ironic that Africans can see which country is buttering their bread, while some countries outside the supposedly called 'dark continent' are still content to be made used of despite being taken to the cleaners.

Anonymous

Trump thinks everyone is stupid and he is the smart one

 We do not yet know whether Putin will agree with what Trump is proposing in Ukraine. This is just a one-sided gloating, just like tariffs are to punish China and every Tom, Dick and Harry. It is just a self-proclamation to uplift his own falling ego. The whole world, including three-year old kids, know who are going to pay for those tariffs and it is not China or any other country.

The greatest blessing of all must be that BRICS and the Global South market can afford those countries facing tariffs by the USA to do trade with the Global South itself for their exports, not just the USA and the EU. To put it more bluntly, even the EU is distancing itself from the USA, with two European states wanting to join BRICS - Serbia and Turkey. Turkey had tried for years to be accepted into the EU, but had been pushed aside, just like India. But Turkey is in NATO (which I consider to be European) and Putin must be wary of Turkey having split loyalties like India.

Why would Putin even want to accept the USA in Ukraine, or even NATO expanding into Ukraine, when all along he knew there was a nefarious agenda behind the move. It would defeat the purpose of having the war and all the sacrifices. What is going to happen once Trump is no longer the President? The USA could easily go back on its words, tear up any agreement just like after the collapse of the Soviet Union.

Just listen to what Trump is boasting about not caring even if he breaks the rules to take what he wants. Oh, the rules are for others to follow, not the USA by the way.

Trump just wants desperately to punish China by hook or by crook but is falling into a trap he dug for himself. Trump has to extend his tariffs to every country that have Chinese investments and punishing them the same manner as punishing China. Every country could mean the whole world, since Chinese investments are worldwide, not just in rich countries of the West. That is making friends and allies extremely wary of the USA and pushing them closer towards China I would say. It is making the USA more isolated. But that is what Trump wants after all. Trump can lure all the manufacturing back to the USA, but can he realistically think the USA can produce anything cheaper than China to sell to the rest of the world? Stupidity has no cure really.

Anonymous

President Xi is not going to talk to Trump

 Trump wants to talk to Xi, but in the meantime the USA State Department is removing a clause that says it does not support Taiwan independence. This has been the modus operandi of the USA leaders all along, just before meeting their Chinese counterpart, trying to show that it is in a position of strength. Now, Xi is not going to talk to Trump ever, in the face of such provocative behavior.

In the face of this, China and Russia are not buying Trumps delusional call to cut military spending by as much as 50%. In fact, China and Russia should increase their military spending. No sweat, as these two are not spending an arm and a leg like the USA does, and the USA is probably finding it too expensive and heavy a burden to continue spending more and more with less and less returns due to corruption and no clear-headed direction. (China and Russia should spend more on defence. It is the Americans that should cut their overblown defence budget. If the Americans continue to expand their military budget, China and Russia should increase their military budget to bankrupt the Americans.) How much did the USA lost in Afghanistan after a 20-year misadventure that achieved nothing. It was a US$2 trillion black hole that still befuddled analysts about the purpose. Even some of the USA military leaders are unable to understand the reasons for getting involved in Afghanistan in the first place.

It has further been reported that there are trillions unaccounted for by the Pentagon over the years. Some of the money had probably been channeled into conducting regime changes, paying protestors, funding radicalized NGOs through NED and of course the ripping off by military contractors blindly. (Not to forget how much have gone into the pockets of politicians in Washington. Everyone is dipping into the defence budget. This is the main reason why they are increasing the defence budget like no tomorrow.)

Now, non-elected President Elon Musk is calling for an audit of the Pentagon, under his Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) which is expected to cut back on spending. The DOGGIES have uncovered corruptions and unnecessary spendings in many Federal agencies and Musk is getting lots of credit for ferreting them out. Talk about good dogs with sensitive noses. These savings will undoubtedly be diverted towards funding Trump's tax cuts for the super-rich, of which he and Musk are among them.

Secret plans are no secret if you just follow the money trail.

Anonymous

China's home bred maths talents cannot be put down by sanctions or bans

 Now the USA needed urgently to pass laws to kill Rednote and DeepSeek since it cannot compete with them. Instead of taking up the challenge to innovate in order to compete, the USA is basically taking the easy way out by banning, sanctioning and threatening. Raising tariffs to high heaven is not going to encourage innovation. More likely it is going to stifle innovation in the US going forward.

China has benefitted largely because the USA is behaving like an ostrich, burying its head in the sand when facing danger. The head may be saved by being in the sand, but the body will be at the mercy of the predator.

DeepSeek was the big shock that the USA encountered. And the other bigger shock was that DeepSeek was the brainchild of just a couple of young graduates from China's own universities, not the kind of innovation that depended on 'long in the tooth' old timers unable to think out of the box.

According to Kevin Walmsley, the USA could not believe that top Chinese Universities were turning out such outstanding students and tried to dig deeper into the issue, trying to find out whether there were people educated in Western Universities teaming up with them and providing the expertise to help them. They were disappointed that the brains behind DeepSeek's innovation all came solely from top Chinese Universities, Beijing and Tsinghua, all without any education derived from Western Universities.

Not being convinced they dug even deeper to try to find out whether the Professors who taught these geeks were culled from Western Universities and research establishments and imparting their knowledge to these young Chinese scientists. They found out that those professors were themselves all cohorts from Chinese Universities.

Now there is an awakening about Global University rankings that failed to take into account the research papers written by Chinese University researchers just because they were all written in Chinese. The realization struck them like a bolt of lightning. They only started realizing this when China became the dominant player in high-speed rail construction, EVs, batteries, shipbuilding, space exploration, telecommunications and catching up in aviation, semiconductors and nuclear research and development.

Too little too late I would say. Even without any Mainland Chinese Nobel Prize winners in any category to gloat about, China is producing cutting edge technology in many fields. Too much arrogance, too deeply entrenched in superiority complex mentality and looking down on China for far too long is a price to be paid by the USA today.

Anonymous