The big picture is that America has been aware of its impending economic demise since before the 2008 crisis, which is obvious from looking at their policies, which are prolonging the present at the cost of a future, which means the ones making the moves didn’t see a way to save the future, not by any kind of normal policies. Also, about that time they tested the maximum oil output, found the peak that cannot be exceeded, and intentionally collapsed the world economy in order to lessen the demand in order to give themselves time. America’s problem is that the greatest oil and gas reserves belong to Russia, while those in the Middle East and elsewhere are basically exhausted. This means that, in a linear projection, Russia becomes the dominant economic power, and the standard wisdom of shoring up the Dollar by selling “protection” to the Arabs will fail in the near future, and not only will the Dollar cease to be the world reserve currency, but the Ruble will take its place, as the Russians will inevitably leverage their position of a dominant hydrocarbon supplier to shore up their own currency. This means that, by the estimate of the American analysts from the 2005-2009 or so, the greatest dangers to American world domination are the hydrocarbons and Russia. The propaganda about world climate being threatened by combustion of hydrocarbons and Russia being simultaneously an evil and backward empire that needs to be contained, controlled and “democratised” can be easily explained by this. Russia played with black figures here and only reacted to American moves, and I’m not sure if they could have done any better considering how the West has been subjugating and exploiting their country since the fall of the Soviet Union. Unfortunately, the Russian political class was extremely unwilling to understand what they are dealing with, which caused a significant delay in response to the situation, to their detriment. For instance, it gave the West time to completely nazify Ukraine and turn it into an anti-Russian fortress, when Russia could have simply solved the problem in 2014. However, had they gone in then, their economy would have likely had no time to adapt to the sanctions and this could have a disastrous effect. Also, had they done that, it would have been much more difficult to explain the situation to the rest of the world; now, it’s quite obvious what’s going on, which is why the Western propaganda has no effect outside the Western countries. This can be interpreted as Russia taking a short-term strategic hit in order to improve its strategic position in mid- and long-term.

Currently, the Western propaganda outlets are starting to prepare their respective populations for a strategic loss in Ukraine, but it might in fact serve the purpose of creating resolve for the use of nuclear weapons in order to prevent a resounding Russian victory once it becomes apparent that the collective West is losing. The Russian forces have started advancing despite the muddy season, and heavy cold is forecasted so I would expect Russia to go in fast and hard in attempt to wrap up the situation. This, however, requires an analysis of Russian strategy.

The Russians see a victory in the following scenario: they avoid a nuclear war with America, preserve their own economy and international relations, have no heavily militarised neighbours that threaten them with war, and have a future where they are able to freely trade and otherwise interact with most of the world unimpeded by America and its colonies. They don’t really care that much about Ukraine outside of those major strategic goals. As far as they are concerned, a neutral Ukraine that is not a heavily armed Nazi bunker is fine. Unfortunately, the Americans made sure such a Ukraine cannot exist, which will likely mean that the Russians will be forced to dismantle it as a country and turn it into something that is not a threat. This, however, is not easy to do, because winning a war in Ukraine at the cost of causing a nuclear war is no victory, which is why the Russians didn’t do the most obvious thing and just move south from Belarus and cut off the Ukrainian border with the West, which would have ended the war immediately, but at the cost of almost certain escalation. Also, they are not really in a hurry to win, because of several reasons. First, winning the war has to be weighed against potentially losing the economy, which would have terrible consequences they already had the misfortune to experience and are unlikely to be willing to repeat. Second, this is not a war with Ukraine. It’s a war with America, and the worst way to approach it would be, basically, by demonstrating a serious threat by being too effective. This would allow the Americans to mobilise against them more easily and the situation would escalate. However, if they make it a boring quagmire, the Americans would see that as something they want to avoid at all cost, because every single war they lost was a boring quagmire. Americans want something where they can go in fast and hard, demonstrate “superiority”, raise the flag and so on. The best way to win against Americans is to make it impossible for them to have a quick and decisive victory, and instead make the war boring, long and expensive. This description seems to fit nicely with what the Russians have been doing, and it doesn’t look like an accident either. The current situation, however, is quite precarious, since the boring phase seems to be unsustainable, mostly because the Americans are using medium-range rocketry to attack Russian civilian targets in Belgorod and Crimea. The purpose of this provocation is to force the Russians to respond in non-boring ways, thus giving the Americans an opening for a nuclear escalation. What the Russians seem to be doing is to simply move the front line to the West, until the Russian civilian targets are out of range, prolonging the boring phase hopefully enough for the Americans to go bankrupt, proclaim victory and leave.

This, however, is in my opinion a central error in Russian thinking, because the entire geostrategic layout is about America degrading and destroying its possible strategic opponents for the duration of their own predicted economic collapse; essentially, they want to avoid a situation where they emerge from their own problems to find the world dominated by Russia, China and the EU, with them relegated to the position of a second-rate power. No, they want to return as the dominant power, even if it means they dominate over a scorched Earth, because rebuilding would likely be profitable. This means that the Russian strategy of buying time and making things as boring as possible would normally work, but their opponent doesn’t see this as a normal situation. It’s the end of America as we know it, and the only way America, as the narcissistic bully queen that she is, will accept its fall, is if others fall worse. However, I don’t really know what one can do about it if a nuclear first strike is not an option they are willing to consider. The only other option is what the Russians have been doing – make it boring, make it long, gamble on American bankruptcy and degradation while you grow stronger, and hope that they either die with a whimper, or militarily degrade enough by the time it comes to an exchange, that you can win decisively and with minimal losses compared to what you’d experience if an exchange came at a less opportune moment.

As for the situation in the Middle East, I already predicted some time ago that Israel will see that America is losing its geostrategic position of its major protector, and will use it to try and destroy/degrade all its regional enemies and improve its presently terrible strategic position, because if America falls, and their regional enemies continue to exist as such, Israel is lost. This understanding makes Israel’s actions panicked and desperate, and they will not rest until they either succeed at degrading Iran, Syria and other lesser threats, or they themselves are destroyed. In the near-term, this means Israel will try to use its lobbying power in America to cause a confrontation with Iran. However, I’m not sure China and Russia will allow Iran to be degraded like Iraq, Libya and Syria, and we can expect serious red lines to be both drawn and crossed there.