First country were these tactics were used is often forgotten - Serbia. Its especially strange because Serbia is, at least geographicaly, European country. It was much more difficult to remove President Milošević. Both bombing and regime change tactics were first used in Serbia. Even in your post there is no mention about Serbia and Serbia is not very far from Italy.
When large armies threatened Kings it made sense to go after the opponent armies "production" ;) The reason Ukraine is focusing on oil and weapons infrastructure of Russia (and Russia of Ukraine) is that the Kings are threatened with missiles, not armies.
Another very insightful essay, Ugo. The situation in Venezuela is quite more complex than the chess analogy since it is not clear who the new king is. Will the nominal President of Venezuela cave in to verbal threats of Trump and surrogates? Or will she or people layers underneath her decide to save that hydrocarbon wealth for future Venezuelan generations (keeping it in the ground) by strategic sudden and permanent retirement of the oldest of their refining infrastructure with scuttling. This would be controversial of course, but it could be a non-violent protest that would have the benefit of lower extraction of oil at least in that country. Since it seem impossible for an orderly decrease in use of hydrocarbons, perhaps it could be arranged behind the fig leaf of geopolitical instability.
Maduro & Mrs. M. are alive in NYC. He says "Happy New Year" in English and gives thumbs-up. His recently appointed VP is "cooperating" and making demands that he be released.
Trump and Maduro have been negotiating for over 6 weeks. This is the outcome, but we only see part of it so far.
It supports the petrobuck empire and hurts the Chinese empire (a little bit).
Expect a rapid succession of moves ahead of the financial collapse this spring. Money will be commodity-based, not "full faith and credit" based all of a sudden.
Put a couple of months of cash under the mattress.
The US intelligence concensus is that Ukraine did not target Putin but rather a military facility in the same area. While cutting off the head to slay the beast is an old idea, the system often spits out something worse by most measures as Ugo has described for Iraq and ISIS. Partly for this reason, I am much less sanguine about an end to the rules-based order that the West has promoted since WWII. Trump's willingness to accept Russian aggression while looking for ways to profit from it is an exact parallel to his imperialist intentions in the Western hemisphere. Do we really want a return to (overt) great power spheres of influence regardless of how other system components may behave? Trump has made clear enough that he is after Venezuela's oil reserves. Drug inderdiction is a propaganda smoke screen. Why else would he pardon the former Honduran president who is thought to have been far more complicit in drug trafficking? Greenland for minerals and metals, and Venezuela for oil. But I think and hope that most of American civil society, particularly big oil, will not participate in Trump's adventure until and unless an internationally recognized government is in place in Venezuela and oil company employees are not in constant danger. There are still plenty of Maduro loyalists left in the country. Trump has turned away from the Nobelist, Ms. Machado, because she is unlikely to be sufficiently compliant to turn Venezuela into a banana, err, oil republic, or able to placate the Maduro loyalists in and out of the Venezuelan military.
Big oil will support this takeover. It it even possible that Big Oil helped bring it about. There will certainly be money funneled into Trump’s family's business from oil companies or he probably wouldn't want to do it.
In my limited experience, corporations are sensitive to public sentiment, have structures to restrain or punish lawless behavior, and generally want to.avoid public positions on controversial issues. There are exceptions, such as Elon Musk, but his imperial empire lacks the typical corporate constraints. Musk himself discovered that transgressive behavior, even by billionaires, invites kickback in complex systems. On the other hand, big oil produces a product people can't, or won't, live without. The tech giants were happy to support Trump's ballroom folly, but the attempt to repress and extort a sovereign nation was not involved. Although Trump seems to have bitten off more than he can chew as one NY Times columnist put it, you could be right. We are approaching a Seneca cliff.
Now is the time for Americans to say, thank you donald, now leave the country to be run by Venezuela. Walk Away. Prove that arresting a tyrant was the true goal of the Stop Drugs operation.
IF NOT THAT, ONCE AGAIN YOU HAVE DECEIVED THE VENEZUELAN PEOPLE, THE AMERICAN PEOPLE AND THE WORLD!
You really think NATO tried to kill Putin in his residence ? That would be madness. The Russian nuclear doctrine call for immediate retaliation if the nuclear chain of command is seriously threatened. Talk about extermination then...
It looked much more like an essentially harmless provocation taylored to disrupt any ongoing peace process. Hopefully....
Quote
As always, we keep marching toward the future without really understanding what we are doing.
Unquote
Love that
Some understand rather well what "we" are doing - the only question left, "which feedback will be dominant?" (most likely, methane).
https://arctic-news.blogspot.com/p/feedbacks.html
It’s the Promethean curse.
First country were these tactics were used is often forgotten - Serbia. Its especially strange because Serbia is, at least geographicaly, European country. It was much more difficult to remove President Milošević. Both bombing and regime change tactics were first used in Serbia. Even in your post there is no mention about Serbia and Serbia is not very far from Italy.
Ivan, you didn't read the post thoroughly!
My mistake, I see that Serbia is also mentioned as example of "humanitarian" bombing.
When large armies threatened Kings it made sense to go after the opponent armies "production" ;) The reason Ukraine is focusing on oil and weapons infrastructure of Russia (and Russia of Ukraine) is that the Kings are threatened with missiles, not armies.
Another very insightful essay, Ugo. The situation in Venezuela is quite more complex than the chess analogy since it is not clear who the new king is. Will the nominal President of Venezuela cave in to verbal threats of Trump and surrogates? Or will she or people layers underneath her decide to save that hydrocarbon wealth for future Venezuelan generations (keeping it in the ground) by strategic sudden and permanent retirement of the oldest of their refining infrastructure with scuttling. This would be controversial of course, but it could be a non-violent protest that would have the benefit of lower extraction of oil at least in that country. Since it seem impossible for an orderly decrease in use of hydrocarbons, perhaps it could be arranged behind the fig leaf of geopolitical instability.
Maduro & Mrs. M. are alive in NYC. He says "Happy New Year" in English and gives thumbs-up. His recently appointed VP is "cooperating" and making demands that he be released.
Trump and Maduro have been negotiating for over 6 weeks. This is the outcome, but we only see part of it so far.
It supports the petrobuck empire and hurts the Chinese empire (a little bit).
Expect a rapid succession of moves ahead of the financial collapse this spring. Money will be commodity-based, not "full faith and credit" based all of a sudden.
Put a couple of months of cash under the mattress.
Venezuelan generals just did.
The US intelligence concensus is that Ukraine did not target Putin but rather a military facility in the same area. While cutting off the head to slay the beast is an old idea, the system often spits out something worse by most measures as Ugo has described for Iraq and ISIS. Partly for this reason, I am much less sanguine about an end to the rules-based order that the West has promoted since WWII. Trump's willingness to accept Russian aggression while looking for ways to profit from it is an exact parallel to his imperialist intentions in the Western hemisphere. Do we really want a return to (overt) great power spheres of influence regardless of how other system components may behave? Trump has made clear enough that he is after Venezuela's oil reserves. Drug inderdiction is a propaganda smoke screen. Why else would he pardon the former Honduran president who is thought to have been far more complicit in drug trafficking? Greenland for minerals and metals, and Venezuela for oil. But I think and hope that most of American civil society, particularly big oil, will not participate in Trump's adventure until and unless an internationally recognized government is in place in Venezuela and oil company employees are not in constant danger. There are still plenty of Maduro loyalists left in the country. Trump has turned away from the Nobelist, Ms. Machado, because she is unlikely to be sufficiently compliant to turn Venezuela into a banana, err, oil republic, or able to placate the Maduro loyalists in and out of the Venezuelan military.
Big oil will support this takeover. It it even possible that Big Oil helped bring it about. There will certainly be money funneled into Trump’s family's business from oil companies or he probably wouldn't want to do it.
In my limited experience, corporations are sensitive to public sentiment, have structures to restrain or punish lawless behavior, and generally want to.avoid public positions on controversial issues. There are exceptions, such as Elon Musk, but his imperial empire lacks the typical corporate constraints. Musk himself discovered that transgressive behavior, even by billionaires, invites kickback in complex systems. On the other hand, big oil produces a product people can't, or won't, live without. The tech giants were happy to support Trump's ballroom folly, but the attempt to repress and extort a sovereign nation was not involved. Although Trump seems to have bitten off more than he can chew as one NY Times columnist put it, you could be right. We are approaching a Seneca cliff.
very scared of professor ugo bardi's new book the end of population growth a lot of people will die ? 😥😢😥😢
"As always, we keep marching toward the future without really understanding what we are doing."
Prof. Bardi, you never disappoint.
Now is the time for Americans to say, thank you donald, now leave the country to be run by Venezuela. Walk Away. Prove that arresting a tyrant was the true goal of the Stop Drugs operation.
IF NOT THAT, ONCE AGAIN YOU HAVE DECEIVED THE VENEZUELAN PEOPLE, THE AMERICAN PEOPLE AND THE WORLD!
You really think NATO tried to kill Putin in his residence ? That would be madness. The Russian nuclear doctrine call for immediate retaliation if the nuclear chain of command is seriously threatened. Talk about extermination then...
It looked much more like an essentially harmless provocation taylored to disrupt any ongoing peace process. Hopefully....