harlekin.me

It is to disap­pe­ar, while you are dri­ving the ent­i­re thing - whenever some folks would want that to happen.

So

- When the pod­cas­ter with the lar­gest fol­lowing in the world says, that he’s afraid - when the US sends rockets into rus­sia, that prompts the ukrai­ni­an PR to make Wla­di­mir Klitsch­ko pro­du­ce a “JOE, WHY YOU BELIEVED IN RUSSIAN PROPAGANDA!” video.

- When the desi­gna­ted US pre­si­dent does the same, four days later in his TIME - 2024 per­son of the year inter­view, its world news and the ent­i­re­ty of euro­pe starts to talk about forming a euro­pean peace for­ce for Ukraine.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zGe5XazSdxU&pp=ygUNbWFuZnJlZCB3ZWJlcg%3D%3D

- but then when you go into detail - and lis­ten to Micha­el Kof­man in the initi­al video abo­ve, the sto­ry always con­ti­nues on as follows:

- but then in the nego­tia­ti­ons the US will lose all its agen­cy, and will not get what it nee­ded - which we never need to talk about in detail, becau­se Rus­sia will want more. Regard­less of what it is. So then the nego­tia­ti­ons obvious­ly fail, and then Trump will reco­gni­ze that he doesnt get what he wants so easi­ly, and then he will react like a mad­man of cour­se -- and switch his ent­i­re stance to the oppo­si­te, becau­se he likes win­ning so much -

and this will still allow us to pro­long the war, which gives us a chan­ce to put Ukrai­ne back into a more favor­able posi­ti­on and then…

- the ent­i­re plan we fol­lo­wed for two years, just gets post­po­ned by 6 mon­ths, and of cour­se ger­ma­ny has to pay more - becau­se Trump real­ly is the type that will want to pay less.

Whats mis­sing from the ent­i­re­ty of this projection?

Any US agency.

We dont know what they want. We dont know what Rus­sia wants “more” just that it does so, and the­re­fo­re nego­tia­ti­ons will fail. We dont know why Trump will switch posi­ti­ons at that point, just that he does, becau­se he’s that impul­si­ve, but hes not impul­si­ve to that point befo­re, or later, or when it comes to remin­ding the ger­mans, that they have to pay more.

So - now that it is ent­i­re­ly obvious, that Ukrai­ne isnt dri­ving any of this - what is the US position?

What agen­cy does the US have?

Here is the only likely ans­wer in my mind.

Trump wants to end this war.

What he wants doesnt mat­ter. (See also: NZZ 22.11.2024: click)

Becau­se as soon as he talks to Putin about half of his advi­sors will tell him, that he got a bad deal, and he cant pos­si­b­ly want that - and then, why using the rockets that Trump didnt want to use - is just the way out of this, he was loo­king for.

And about 100% of the US Experts that are part of the US for­eign poli­cy estab­lish­ment think, that they - or the situa­ti­on as they repre­sent it, will dri­ve the ent­i­re situa­ti­on back to whe­re it was the past two years, regard­less of Trump or not.

So - when you see the events pro­gres­sing in that sort of way - you can instant­ly think about the substo­ry such a plot would be embed­ded in in some bad novel.

Now we are in the peri­od of strugg­le. The ger­man socie­ty is unsu­re. The media eco­sys­tem is real­ly worried about the future of Ukrai­ne, but dont you worry - the bad, bad Putin will make it impos­si­ble that the nego­tia­ti­ons will be suc­cess­full - and then the true King will see the wrongs of his ways, and under­stand, that he must be King, and act tough - and then he will final­ly beat the evil Ork-Lord, and socie­ty never has to come to terms with the fact, that the ent­i­re media nar­ra­ti­ve so far didnt repre­sent what hap­pen­ed, and in lar­ge parts was dri­ven by US gene­ra­ted “coun­ter naratives”.

So thats the spe­cial power of the US. It has no agen­cy. Ever­y­ti­me it does some­thing, the ent­i­re rea­li­ty just instant­ly chan­ges arround the US posi­ti­on, so that the US just didnt have agen­cy, in the last thing that hap­pen­ed. It just was the obvious thing that would hap­pen. And the­re­fo­re the US posi­ti­on also never has to be explained.

Wether it ist, that US rockets fly­ing into Rus­sia is bad, or if that is just Rus­si­an pro­pa­gan­da, doesnt get deci­ded by the public argu­ment, or the time in the con­flict - it sim­ply gets deci­ded by “when the US picks that as a nar­ra­ti­ve” -- and then it is bad.

When the US comes up with a set of deman­ds, its never that set of deman­ds, that would cau­se nego­tia­ti­ons to fail, or the reac­tions of the mili­ta­ry advi­sors to sub­se­quent coun­ter­c­laims, no its always - that Putin didnt want to talk anyhow.

And when Donald Trump sub­se­quent­ly chan­ges his posi­ti­on again, and goes full Pills­bu­ry Dough­boy on the world sta­ge, and rache­ts up the esca­la­ti­on lad­der, its not becau­se he is unsta­ble, no - it is becau­se that would be whats obvious­ly, likely to hap­pen - and the only way the Ukrai­ne still can get to a favoura­ble posi­ti­on six mon­ths later than hoped, with ger­ma­ny spen­ding more money on it. With the US doing less to sup­port this out­co­me - but its the only way to free­dom, really.

Its not that Ukrai­ne is dri­ving this - becau­se its obvious­ly not --

its just that when the peop­le that dri­ve that in the US get into sto­ry­tel­ling mode -- the ent­i­re world chan­ges around them, just so the US never has any agen­cy - anything that they want. Anything that would be their red lines. It eit­her hap­pens like they want it to - or it was obvious, that it was never meant to be that way anyhow.

Espe­cial­ly when you have someo­ne at the helm who­se decisi­on making is seen as transactional.

And its not just in this case - with a per­son like Trump, its the ent­i­re “this is how it will work in the future” the Ame­ri­can Aca­de­my in Ber­lin pro­mo­ted two days ago:

So -- if the youn­ger peop­le in the US (genz and mil­le­ni­als named) dont want the US to play World Hege­mon, its of cour­se becau­se they never bene­fi­ted from that finan­cial­ly, and they grew up in a dif­fe­rent time, and we told them that brin­ging back indus­try to ame­ri­ca was the solu­ti­on, you real­ly have to under­stand them, and build a who­le new nar­ra­ti­ve on what US for­eign rela­ti­ons are around them. [con­text: click] This is your task as a pro­po­nent of the Ame­ri­can Aca­de­my in Ber­lin, as you open­ly tell every Ber­li­ner that is in the cap­ti­ve audi­ence there.

But then -- when you get an audi­ence ques­ti­on to the effect, that Chi­na real­ly tri­es to dri­ve the “euro­pe divi­ded” gam­bit right now, and that Euro­pe isnt able to end the war on its own, but that the US is always deman­ding deals that are zero sum game (becau­se you have to under­stand, thats Trumps tran­sac­tio­n­al natu­re), and that the US might demand, that Euro­pe has to deci­de bet­ween Chi­na and the US during a peri­od of war the US is just detatching more from --

you of cour­se get the ans­wer, that IF Euro­pe is always try­ing to dri­ve the bar­gain that is best for it, Euro­pa had it com­ing, and the Euro­peans real­ly just have to suf­fer a bit more (so your mil­le­ni­als get bet­ter eco­no­mic con­di­ti­ons, but that you dont men­ti­on of cour­se, becau­se you dont have any agency).

See -- is not the US agen­cy that dri­ves this, its the world forming around the US argu­ment, as soon as it is fixed into posi­ti­on, just so the US real­ly had no agen­cy - this was just the nor­mal way things would develop.

And this is what you call “us for­eign poli­cy”, or deep sta­te, if you are a rightwing nut in the US, or Friends of Alp­bach, if you are in Austria.

The only thing you real­ly have to do is to set up the media nar­ra­ti­ve, so that anything the US does real­ly isnt some­thing the US does, but some­thing that Ukrai­ne has to deci­de, and then not tell the public, that the Ukrai­ne doesnt deci­de shit. And then make the tran­si­ti­ons fast enough to whe­re the public can retain in a “I always belie­ved we should stick with Ukrai­ne” just long enough, for this to make sen­se again -- once you got rid of what your pre­si­dent wan­ted, or what the nego­tia­ti­ons real­ly fai­led on and just remain tel­ling the world, that its all becau­se Putin is a cra­zed being hell­bent on recon­que­ring the rus­si­an empi­re -- with ent­i­re­ly too few tro­ops and tanks for that.

But you see - the only thing we can do - is stick with what we are doing, so Ukrai­ne can get the upper hand again, and then this final­ly can result in a just peace -- with ter­ri­to­ri­al inte­gri­ty. In the future, through poli­ti­cal means. When Ukrai­ne is in Nato, which sad­ly it should be in alrea­dy, but cant be until Rus­sia is beaten.

You see - this is not US agen­cy (oh, and fuck ger­ma­ny during all of this), no - it is just the logi­cal pro­gres­si­on of things.

And the world once more starts to revol­ve and evol­ve around the only pos­si­ble framing, whe­re the US just had no agency.

Then the US had not­hing to do with the coup in Syria at all - accord­ing to US offi­cials and its next desi­gna­ted pre­si­dent also wants to have not­hing to do with it - but then the US for­eign minis­ter flys into Anka­ra to dis­cuss the situa­ti­on with tur­key - but not into Isra­el, becau­se - see, you real­ly had no agen­cy. It was just logi­cal, that the world revol­ved around you like this, while we have to wait how things will work out for Syria - becau­se of cour­se - we have no agen­cy in any of this, as Syria has a vibrant and vivid civil society.

Also - of cour­se the cau­se for the Syri­an revo­lu­ti­on was Iran, as ever­yo­ne knows, of cour­se, that took a set of bad decisi­ons in octo­ber of 2023 - as the Woo­d­row Wil­son Cen­ter spea­ker fea­tured in the thumb­nail of this video [edit: they chan­ged thumb­nails, more women, more click] will tell us today:

edit: It also hel­ps immen­se­ly if your sworn enemy of the Leo Strauss per­sua­si­on, is ALWAYS dri­ven by per­so­nal agen­cy only. So - hes always cra­zy, corupt, insa­ne, out for reven­ge. Just becau­se its such an attrac­ti­ve emo­tio­nal con­trast to you just having no agen­cy in all of this.

Well, demo­cra­cy pro­mo­ti­on, may­be… - or you are doing it for “suc­cess” if you are real­ly pres­sed for an ans­wer. Or “the­re has to be an adult in the room, and thats the US” as the Woo­d­row Wil­son Cen­ter fel­low puts it in the video abo­ve. Even though Syria has to mana­ge this on its own. Becau­se the US has no agen­cy. And then, when the youn­gest panelist asks you, but how can the US play a role in all of this, becau­se it would just result in a bet­ter out­co­me, you of cour­se ans­wer -- its not that a ques­ti­on of “how can we be a part of this, it is that the cir­cum­s­tan­ces will always draw us in (becau­se - later in the argu­ment, the rus­si­ans could grab power again so easi­ly)”. As we sim­ply have no agency.

Sla­va.

Sla­va Ukraine.

Do I still have to say that? Well, bet­ter safe than sorry, …

Sla­va Ukrai­ne, Glo­ry to our heros.

Wenn die öster­rei­chi­sche Pres­se (diepresse.com) von einer dro­hen­den Ein­kes­se­lung bei Kurachowe spricht:

Ukrai­ni­schen Sol­da­ten droht Ein­kes­se­lung bei Kurachowe

Die Lage an der Ost­front der ukrai­ni­schen Ver­tei­di­ger ver­schlech­tert sich zuse­hends. Nach Anga­ben ukrai­ni­scher Mili­tär­be­ob­ach­ter droh­te einer unge­nann­ten Zahl von Sol­da­ten die Ein­kes­se­lung süd­lich von Kurachowe im Gebiet Donezk. Sie hat­ten dort lan­ge Stel­lun­gen auf bei­den Sei­ten des Flus­ses Suchi Jaly gehal­ten, doch schnei­det das Vor­rü­cken der Rus­sen in den Ort Uspe­niw­ka ihren Abzugs­weg ab. „Es ist schwer zu ver­ste­hen, wel­chen Sinn es hat, den ‚Sack von Uspe­niw­ka‘ zu hal­ten, wenn der Feind wei­ter­hin schritt­wei­se Kurachowe ein­nimmt“, hieß es auf dem Mili­tär­blog „Deep­Sta­te“.

src: click

Meint die dann 1 oder 2?

src: click

Schon 2, oder? Weil ja “süd­lich von Kurachowe im Gebiet Donezk”.

Nun denn auf zur nächs­ten tak­ti­schen Bespre­chung “„Es ist schwer zu ver­ste­hen, wel­chen Sinn es hat, den ‚Sack von Uspe­niw­ka‘ zu hal­ten, wenn der Feind wei­ter­hin schritt­wei­se Kurachowe ein­nimmt“, hieß es auf dem Mili­tär­blog „Deep­Sta­te“.”

Stimmt, ich glau­be man soll­te den Rück­zug mal als Opti­on andenken. Wo der Feind doch so und so schritt­wei­se Kurachowe ein­nimmt. Viel­leicht ist 2 nicht mehr der idea­le Ort für eine “gute alt­ba­cke­ne ukrai­ni­sche Verteidigung”.

Ich glaub, ich machs wie die öster­rei­chi­sche Pres­se und bezie­he mei­ne Infor­ma­tio­nen auch wei­ter­hin vom Mili­tär­blog “Deep­Sta­te”, war­um jetzt noch sei­ne Pri­mär­quel­len wech­seln, sag ich mir als Außenpolitikressort-Journalist der öster­rei­chi­schen Pres­se immer. Direkt nach dem Früh­stücks­tee. Hmm… Hagebutte!

edit: A few moments (hours) later…

src: click

Gut, das kam für “Die Pres­se” Leser jetzt aber auch überraschend…

Ers­tens: Die chi­ne­si­sche Jari-USV-Orca ist offi­zi­ell die größ­te Seekriegs-Drohne der Welt

src: click

Ein Umstand der die­se Emp­feh­lung unse­rer trans­at­lan­ti­schen Freun­de vom 22. Novem­ber 2024 gera­de­zu anti­qua­risch anmu­ten lässt:

What, chi­na has 250x the ship buil­ding capa­ci­ty com­pa­red to the US at this time? Tar­ge­ted towards smal­ler more mobi­le ships, which are about what you’d need in the future to secu­re sea routes?

Lets send the ger­mans over the­re to patrol “our backy­ard in south asia”, so they’ll learn what the chal­len­ges the­re are, first hand!

I call this:

Have an unsolva­ble pro­blem again? Plug it with germany!

(May­be tell them they can do the same they did with rus­sia, paci­fy them through tra­de oppor­tu­nities! No, tell them they can learn how to act tough mili­ta­ri­ly the­re! Bet­ter argu­ment for the domestic audience!)

The pro­blem still remains unsol­veab­le, but at least now you have side benefits!

Ger­ma­ny wins, and chi­ne­se pull back more - Win.
Ger­ma­ny loses, and chi­ne­se pull Ger­man tra­de opti­ons - Win.

src: click

Man stel­le sich vor, sie ste­hen als deut­scher Mari­ne Admi­ral auf dem Deck der Gorch Fock, im Süd­chi­ne­si­schen Meer, Steu­er­bord von ihnen die See, Back­bord von ihnen das chi­ne­si­sche Fest­land, und da kommt ihnen soet­was ent­ge­gen. Was tun sie? Grei­fen sie a.) zum Mega­phon um den Kap­tain des feind­li­chen Schif­fes an die gel­ten­den mari­ti­men Rech­te zu erin­nern, oder grei­fen sie b.) zum Satteliten-Telefon um ihre Toch­ter anzu­ru­fen und ihr vor­zu­jam­men, dass die Exper­ten in den US den Schuss noch nicht gehört haben.

Zwei­tens:

Sie erin­nern sich an den guten Rat­schlag von Gen. Ben Hod­ges, dem vier­ten Weltkriegs-Experten dem die Medi­en ver­trau­en - vom 22. Novem­ber 2024 - dass der Ukrai­ne Krieg noch mit Himars zu gewin­nen sei:

Dort [Fran­ce 24] erzählt Ben Hod­ges nun sei­nen per­fek­ten Plan wie er Russ­land, das nicht mehr gewin­nen kann, es sei denn eine Sei­te gibt auf -- schnell und kom­pro­miss­los besie­gen würde:

Also, so Gen. Ben Hod­ges -- Russ­land kann nur machen, was es macht, weil es “Tac­ti­cal Head­quar­ters”, “Rocket Laun­chers”, and “Hund­reds of thousands of ammu­ni­ti­ons” hat. Und wenn man das gezielt ver­nich­ten wür­de, mit Himars näm­lich, also dann hät­te Russ­land also nicht nur nicht gewon­nen, son­dern also defi­ni­tiv verloren.

Ben Hod­ges ist damit der ers­te ehe­ma­li­ge Gene­ral des US Gene­ral­stabs, der nicht mit­be­kom­men hat, was die Tak­tik der US in der zwei­ten Kriegs­pha­se war -- viel­leicht las­sen sie sich das noch­mal von einem ehe­ma­li­gen Strat­for Ana­lys­ten erklä­ren, und der nicht mit­be­kom­men hat, dass Russ­land dar­auf­hin sei­ne Ver­sor­gungs­in­fra­struk­tur so weit wie mög­lich dezen­tra­li­siert hat. Die Ukrai­ne hat­te zu dem Zeit­punkt 80 Himars gefor­dert, da die­se zu Anfang die­ser Pha­se sehr effek­tiv waren, aber nur 20 auf Zeit (über meh­re­re Mona­te) von den US bekommen.

src: click

Und erhö­hen als The right hono­r­able Sir Ben Wal­lace who ser­ved as the bri­tish Secreta­ry of Sta­te for Defence from 2019 to 2023 ges­tern bei Chat­ham House -

auf - nein, also die effek­tivs­te Waf­fe der Ukrai­ne war immer noch die Artil­le­rie­gra­na­te, auf deren Pro­duk­ti­on soll­te sich Euro­pa jetzt foku­sie­ren, und dann rekru­tiert die Ukrai­ne noch Frau­en, und dann machen wir eine Aus­bil­dungs­in­itia­ti­ve von einer Mil­li­on Ukrai­nern die in der EU und Groß­bri­tan­ni­en aus­ge­bil­det wer­den, und dann gewin­nen wir die­sen Krieg, Putin hat kei­ne Chance.

Naja - zumin­dest hat der ehe­ma­li­ge bri­ti­sche Ver­tei­di­gungs­mi­nis­ter ver­stan­den, dass Himars den Krieg nicht mehr dre­hen, und kann rech­nen - wel­ches Waf­fens­sys­tem denn am effek­tivs­ten wäre wenn, ehm so ein Drit­tel der Kriegs­fi­nan­zie­rung im US Senat ste­cken bleibt, und Euro­pa rech­nen müsste.

Und was das erst wie­der für einen Auf­wind in der deut­schen Indus­trie Pro­duk­ti­on bringt! So ein 50 Jäh­ri­ger Engi­neer in der Hoch­tech­no­lo­gie, der end­lich wie­der an der Dreh­bank, im indus­tri­el­len Rah­men Mörser-Rohre dre­hen darf, die durch LNG Ver­stro­mung betrie­ben wird. Da schrumpft sich die deut­sche Wirt­schaft im Nuh gesund.

Nur Pro­pa­gan­da hat immer noch nie­mand von den deutsch­spra­chi­gen Medi­en ent­deckt, was will man machen…

Naja -- dann kann der Krieg ja end­lich wie­der weitergehen.

The for­mer Syri­an for­eign minis­ter is still in place. The Syri­an UN dele­ga­ti­on is still in place and was giving inter­views two days ago that they now would work for the new regime, becau­se they like working for the Syri­an peop­le. And that of cour­se the new regime would still work in tan­dem with the UN, most­ly on huma­ni­ta­ri­an efforts…

Sad­ly I lost the You­tube clip with the inter­view of the lead of the dele­ga­ti­on. Was uploa­ded by an account with an ita­li­ans per­sons name - so pro­bab­ly not easi­ly vet­ted by me - but boy, was that a very well mana­ged coup!

I just lea­ve you with the fol­lowing Fran­ce 24 panel instead:

edit: See also: 

NNA - Syria’s per­ma­nent repre­sen­ta­ti­ve to the UN on Mon­day said his mis­si­on has recei­ved inst­ruc­tions to con­ti­nue doing its job in New York as part of an effort “to main­tain sta­te institutions.”

Kous­say Ald­ah­hak also cal­led on the UN and the Secu­ri­ty Coun­cil to put an end to Israe­li attacks on his country.

“We’re with the Syri­an peop­le. We’ll keep defen­ding and working for the Syri­an peop­le. So we’ll con­ti­nue our work until fur­ther noti­ce,” he said.

The col­lap­se of the Assad regime fol­lo­wed a light­ning offen­si­ve that las­ted less than two weeks. On Sunday, insur­gents swept into the capi­tal Damas­cus to topp­le the regime and send Pre­si­dent Bas­har Assad fle­eing. Rus­si­an news agen­ci­es report that he has been gran­ted asyl­um in Moscow.

src: click (nna-leb.gov.lb)

The main per­son inter­view­ed in the aformen­tio­ned video, was Kous­say Aldahhak.

edit2: Found the video:

A win­ning stra­te­gy to end Russia’s war against Ukraine

As with West Ger­ma­ny, which joi­ned NATO in 1955, NATO’s defen­se gua­ran­tee would app­ly only to that part of Ukrai­ni­an ter­ri­to­ry under con­trol of the Ukrai­ni­an government. The United Sta­tes should reject Russia’s demand for for­ced neu­tra­li­ty and de fac­to dis­ar­ma­ment for Ukraine.

Same sta­tus for anne­xed ter­ri­to­ries pos­si­ble as with crimea.

As a NATO mem­ber, Ukrai­ne would com­mit to res­to­re its ter­ri­to­ri­al inte­gri­ty wit­hin its inter­na­tio­nal­ly reco­gni­zed bor­ders through peace­ful and diplo­ma­tic means. Befo­re its acces­si­on, allies would take addi­tio­nal steps to inte­gra­te Ukrai­ne into the Alli­an­ce, in par­ti­cu­lar by offe­ring Ukrai­ne a per­ma­nent seat at the North Atlan­tic Coun­cil and a Ukrai­ni­an gene­ral a seat at the Mili­ta­ry Committee.

The rest is all fuck the EU, and US will do the bare minumum.

The United Sta­tes and its allies need a new poli­cy of con­tain­ment of Rus­sia. This also inclu­des main­tai­ning hold on the immo­bi­li­zed Rus­si­an sov­er­eign assets and restric­tions on tech­no­lo­gy, and cau­ti­on in lif­ting sanc­tions. The­re should be no return to reli­an­ce on Rus­si­an ener­gy or other resour­ces. Allies should be pre­pa­red to inten­si­fy eco­no­mic pres­su­re and make Rus­sia pay the pri­ce should it vio­la­te cease­fire terms. 

This lea­ves it open to Ukrai­ne to try to attain advan­ta­ges mili­ta­ri­ly (oh but its not us, its the local rebel groups, with their hate towards the rus­si­an inva­ders…) until it has gai­ned full Nato mem­bers­hip, at which point all Nato coun­tries would com­mit to res­to­re its ter­ri­to­ri­al inte­gri­ty “through peace­ful means”.

So its par­ti­san war­fa­re until the point whe­re euro­pe per­ma­nent­ly is wil­ling to fuck its­elf as part of its per­ma­nent poli­ti­cal NATO com­mit­ment to res­to­re the ter­ri­to­ri­al inte­gri­ty of Ukrai­ne. A THING WHICH IS NOT MILITARILY ATTAINABLE FOR THE FORSEEABLE FUTURE. (30 years, then I dont care anymore.)

Some­thing that only the Uni­ver­si­ty of Michi­gan could come up with.… 8006kms away.

edit: No, wait, wait - this gets bet­ter! Hey Japan, and the Phil­ip­pi­nes, can I inte­rest you in a NATO mem­bers­hip? We are the trans­at­lan­tic uni­on, that poli­ti­cal­ly fights for the full ter­ri­to­ri­al inte­gri­ty of Ukrai­ne! Hey, whe­re are you run­ning? No, no - wait, Ukrai­ne is not a full mem­ber yet, they can still attack rus­sia trough covert means and, … Hel­loo!? Stop! Stop!

Russ­land ist durch Assad-Sturz “zum Bitt­stel­ler gewor­den” - Jäger zu neu­er Situa­ti­on in Nah­ost | ntv

Ups. Rea­li­ty.

Oder wie die Durch­schnitts­be­völ­ke­rung das sehen würde:

Ich wünsch­te wir hät­ten mehr Exper­ten wie Prof. Jäger. Immer freund­lich, sach­lich, mit sach­kun­di­gen Ana­ly­sen und nie­mals pole­misch. Klasse!

(You­tube Kommentar)

Hin­ter­grund: Das ist Teil des Nar­ra­ti­ves, dass Russ­land zu Ver­hand­lun­gen gezwun­gen wer­den müsse.

Was auch stimmt, wenn es nach US Deman­ds in 20 Jah­ren die Krim wie­der an Kiew zurück­ge­ben müss­te. Dem fai­rem Frie­dens­plan von Selen­skyj sei Dank.

Und dann erst das Poten­ti­al als Ver­hand­lungs­mas­se! Russ­land! Wenn du jetzt nicht zum Waf­fen­still­stand bereit bist, dann bekommst du Syri­en nicht wie­der! Ehmn, aja, das bekommst du so und so nicht wie­der ehm… Aber wenn du den Krieg jetzt nicht bin­nen 23 Jah­ren ein­stellst, dann! Jahaaa!

edit: Ah, they might be loo­sing more of a foot­hold than pre­vious­ly thought…

So here is your short track on what rus­si­an dis­in­for­ma­ti­on is accord­ing to a Wil­son Cen­ter panel of experts:

- Not one step east­ward didnt exist
- The­re were no Biolabs
- We did it becau­se of the Nazis, which no one belie­ved, haha
- Its a war with the west
- Mear­s­hei­mer IS BEST WHEN HE IS CANCELED

Thats the ent­i­re know­ledge of the US field of dis­in­for­ma­ti­on stu­dies in four and a half bul­let points.

And here is what I see when I’m watching that video.

- Just belie­ve in yourself, and the coun­try and us being good, as a pre­re­qui­si­te to “coun­ter dis­in­for­ma­ti­on” check

Socie­tal impact of that - hor­ri­ble, terrible.

- Just stone ever­yo­ne who men­ti­ons that “not one step east­ward” did exist as an oral mee­ting nar­ra­ti­ve spiel that was omni­pre­sent in deba­tes around ger­ma­nys uni­fi­ca­ti­on, but that it never was put into wri­ting (nsarchive.gwu.edu), and the­re were no con­tracts that ever said as much.

- Also dont men­ti­on that Mear­s­hei­mer picked that up, not becau­se of rus­si­an pro­pa­gan­da, but becau­se of inter­na­tio­nal rela­ti­ons theo­ry, name­ly the rea­list school of inter­na­tio­nal rela­ti­ons theo­ry -- the one he is the main pro­po­nent of cur­r­ent­ly, and for that was deplat­for­med on March 6th 2022, two weeks after the war star­ted, by an enitre new­ly foun­ded “panel inter­view seri­es” at the Hoo­ver Insti­tu­ti­on for hol­ding that opi­ni­on (three prong stra­te­gy play, see: The New Yor­ker arti­cle)

Socie­tal impact of that - devastating

Why? Becau­se in ger­ma­ny that was a lar­ge mino­ri­ties short­cut on what was hap­pe­ning in for­eign poli­tics over the bet­ter part of 15 years. Name­ly that Mer­kel and her french coun­ter­part pre­ven­ted Nato enlar­ge­ment. Becau­se they - and Mer­kel sta­ted as such, thought that it would pre­vent a mili­ta­ry con­fron­ta­ti­on. (The last time, 11 days ago: click)

Why? Becau­se the inver­se - that Ukrai­ne just should be able to enter NATO, just becau­se they real­ly want to and have writ­ten that into their con­sti­tu­ti­on - just so obvious­ly is not the case.

Why? Becau­se from a nar­ra­ti­ves per­spec­ti­ve, this is the clo­sest nar­ra­ti­ve expres­si­on to “rus­sia iden­ti­fied its black sea har­bors (40% of rus­si­an exports, power pro­jec­tion into the medi­tera­ni­an, black sea regi­ons and afri­ca) as a stra­te­gic asset, and at least part­ly went to war becau­se of tho­se, also becau­se they were under high risk of loo­sing all of that in 20 years time, when their power through mili­ta­ry means con­cept would not work as well any­mo­re becau­se of demo­gra­phic rea­sons.” A stance which Fio­na Hills source at the Broo­kings institution:

Fio­na cares to interject

and

Her­fried Münkler

Spä­te Erkenntnis

and

Stol­ten­berg

Could you plea­se repeat that, Mr. Stoltenberg?

and

Mer­kel

Die­se Gesell­schaft. Gro­tesk, abar­tig, Abschaum.

Have held over time to exp­lain what they have wit­nessed, and as a nar­ra­ti­ve, had impac­ted their decisi­on pro­cess at the time.

Gran­ted, Mer­kel without being bur­den­ed by the majo­ri­ty of ukrai­ni­ans being for NATO mem­bers­hip - but the others even in dis­re­gard of that nuance.

So out of every poten­ti­al nar­ra­ti­ve (inclu­ding Putin wants to be a Tsar and recon­quer Poland, and the Bal­tic Sta­tes, not just Mol­d­o­wa and Geor­gia) out the­re that still is the clo­sest one to a more com­plex nar­ra­tiv inclu­ding detail that doesnt resort to for­tu­ne tel­ling. Or exa­g­ge­ra­ti­on. (Putin is taking parts of euro­pe with 200.000, later 600.000 acti­ve sol­di­ers, … (1.5 mil­li­on ger­man sol­di­ers fought in Poland, someo­ne ought to noti­ce the sub­se­quent­ly nee­ded two more req­rui­te­ment pushes, they just have to…))

So just becau­se its “the rus­si­an tal­king point” you cant for­bid peop­le to think along the lines of that men­tal short­cut. Regard­less of if Gor­ba­chev said thats never been what he agreed on in tho­se nego­tia­ti­ons over the unity of Germany.

- Its a war with the west - is cur­r­ent­ly, as we speak, picked up by wes­tern pro­pa­gan­da, as the next war nar­ra­ti­ve, to coun­ter the ger­man peo­p­les reluc­tance of “causing” or sleep­wal­king into world war 3. Becau­se - and now ever­yo­ne repeat the ZDF nar­ra­ti­ve with me - we alrea­dy are in a war with rus­sia. Just a hybrid one. Which we cant fight, becau­se we wouldnt know how to and which we need a strong NATO for to fight for us.

Socie­tal impact: No one fuck­ing belie­ves it.
At least not right now, when the chan­ces for a fro­zen con­flict are as high as never before.

- Rus­sia did it becau­se of the Nazis was never belie­ved haha -

While true in the west after the start of the full sca­le inva­si­on, it was belie­ved in Cri­mea and the Don­bas after 2014. It was one of the, if not the main func­tio­n­ing pro­pa­gan­da nar­ra­ti­ve during the take over of cri­mea. Put fear into peop­le, then res­cue them.

It was more than to be expec­ted, that rus­sia would use this nar­ra­ti­ve again. As it beca­me obvious, that Ukrai­ne didnt exact­ly wan­ted to be res­cued, that nar­ra­ti­ve went out of the win­dow, as the panel cor­rect­ly states.

Socie­tal impact: None in the west

- The­re were Biolabs

Hor­ray, give your self a pay­ment incre­a­se for figu­ring that one out as a rus­si­an pro­pa­gan­da narrative.

Socie­tal impact: None in the west

- No one should lis­ten to Mear­s­hei­mer, becau­se Fio­na “we all need to invent and tell nar­ra­ti­ves, so the rus­si­an nar­ra­ti­ves dont get trac­tion” - quo­te - this video: 

should be lis­tened to ins­tead, becau­se she told us, she is crea­ting tho­se won­der­ful coun­tern­ar­ra­ti­ves, that are nee­ded for a socie­ty in war?

Socie­tal impact: Oh none, in the short term, it just dri­ves the folks insa­ne, that know that thats hap­pe­ning. Becau­se you con­stant­ly tell peop­le, if they dont belie­ve in what Fio­na says - then you are dis­se­mi­na­ting rus­si­an pro­pa­gan­da. Over time, this is a dis­as­ter in the making. Loss of trust, basically.

Oh, and why do I men­ti­on, that I have was­ted one hour here?

Becau­se all of that is low effort.

The thought of some idi­ots that claim, that their job is to detect Rus­si­an disinformation.

I mean this video released 8 days ago as part of the Woo­d­row Wil­son Cen­ter deba­te track.

For this:

- Not one step east­ward didnt exist

Mear­s­hei­mer was can­ce­led by the Hoo­ver insti­tu­ti­on in week two of the full sca­le war.

- The­re were Biolabs

Was a sto­ry NPR repor­ted as fal­se one mon­th into the war.

- We did it becau­se of the Nazis, which no one belie­ved, haha

Was Part of Putins war speech on the day of the start of the war.

- Its a war with the west

Was iden­ti­fied as a rus­si­an myth by the euro­pean com­mis­si­on after one year of war.

By cepa.org in octo­ber of 2022

And “iden­ti­fied” by Ser­gey Kara­ga­nov in April of 2022 one mon­th after the war started.

- Mear­s­hei­mer IS BEST WHEN HE IS CANCELED

Was lay­ed out in week two after the war star­ted. By the Hoo­ver institution.

So what the fuck, if you par­don my french, did your ent­i­re field do for the past two years, and four months?

Tell the public, that coun­ter nar­ra­ti­ves are so important, becau­se rus­sia is a revi­sio­nist, nay neo­co­lo­ni­al [shit the glo­bal south isnt buy­ing this], nay impe­ria­listic power?

Wel­co­me to the world of coun­te­ring rus­si­an disinformation.

Whe­re coun­te­ring the nar­ra­ti­ves wit­hin the ger­man socie­ty almost crea­tes more pro­blems than it solves.

Aber Haupt­sa­che, man kanns heu­te stu­die­ren und hat dann einen Kar­rie­re­pfad vor sich, sag ich immer. Gut, und wenn in dem Stu­di­en­zweig zwei Jah­re und vier Mona­te nichts wei­ter­geht - wäh­rend eines lau­fen­den Kriegs, dann, ehm -- dann ehm, erzäh­len wir uns ein­fach die tol­len Coun­tern­ar­ra­ti­ve die wir uns im Monat eins nach dem Krieg über­legt haben!

Pfiew! Gott­sei­dank hat der Rus­se bis jetzt nicht reagiert, neue­re hät­te näm­lich ein gesam­tes Panel im Woo­d­row Wil­son Cen­ter vor 8 Tagen nicht entdeckt…

Die­ser Rus­se schon wie­der, immer gefin­kelt wie ein Fuchs, bleibt der ein­fach bei sei­nen Nar­ra­ti­ven, die wir bereits vor zwei Jah­ren und vier Mona­ten ent­kräf­tet haben! Der weiss halt noch, dass Repe­ti­ti­on so wich­tig ist, der Rus­se! [Or your ent­i­re sci­en­ti­fic field is shit.]

edit: At 1:06:50, so 3 minu­tes and 40 seconds befo­re the end of the video, the main “here is the struc­tu­re of it” pro­po­nent of the panel starts her “I’m worried that the world is very con­fu­sing, I’m worried about peop­le thin­king, is the­re a truth, is the­re any truth out the­re, can we belie­ve anything that is out the­re that que­si­ton is very […] If you dont belie­ve that the­re is any truth out the­re, your ent­i­re world view, just - it gives up.” spiel. Just ima­gi­ne get­ting that sto­ry told by ano­t­her ame­ri­can, whos never left their coun­try, in their lives (might be true, might be not) and you con­cep­tual­ly get what I’m see­ing here. Give us SIMPLE, old Voice of Ame­ri­ca lady! The audi­ence screams silently.

Fol­lowing up on the last post.

I just fact che­cked what Mike Benz was say­ing - here are his likely sources:

The first Inte­gri­ty Initia­ti­ve leak came out on 2018-11-02, and it inclu­ded Anne App­le­baums name:

http://web.archive.org/web/20181123164245/https://www.pdf-archive.com/2018/11/02/xcountry/xcountry.pdf

on 2018-11-25 Inte­gri­ty Initia­ti­ve respon­ded that tho­se inde­ed whe­re hacked docu­ments from them, and the leaks were fac­tu­al, but they didnt see what they were doing wrong.

https://web.archive.org/web/20181125212616/https://integrityinitiative.net/articles/statement-russian-media-publication-hacked-ii-documents

On 01.09.2019 Udo Voigt, a far right par­lia­men­ta­ri­an in the euro­pean par­lia­ment con­duc­ted a par­lia­men­ta­ry inqui­ry about „Inte­gri­ty Initia­ti­ve“ becau­se of “recent leaks”:

https://www.europarl.europa.eu/doceo/document/E-8-2019-000092_DE.html

Which was ans­we­red on 04.09.2019 with the fol­lowing response:

https://www.europarl.europa.eu/doceo/document/E-8-2019-000092-ASW_DE.html

1. Bei der „Inte­gri­ty Initia­ti­ve“ han­delt es sich um eine Initia­ti­ve eines Mit­glied­staats, die nicht auf EU-Ebene erör­tert wurde.

2. Die East Strat­Com Task For­ce arbei­tet nicht mit der „Inte­gri­ty Initia­ti­ve“ zusammen.

Das Man­dat der East Strat­Com Task For­ce, das vom Euro­päi­schen Rat[1] im Dezem­ber 2018 gebil­ligt wur­de‚ besteht dar­in, das Bewusst­sein für die geziel­ten Des­in­for­ma­ti­ons­kam­pa­gnen Russ­lands zu schär­fen, von denen vie­le die EU und ihre Mit­glied­staa­ten dis­kre­di­tie­ren sol­len. Die Task For­ce befasst sich auch damit, die EU-Politik gegen­über der Öst­li­chen Nach­bar­schaft bes­ser zu kom­mu­ni­zie­ren und plu­ra­lis­ti­sche Medi­en zu unter­stüt­zen, unter ande­rem durch sys­te­ma­ti­sche Outreach-Maßnahmen gegen­über rus­si­schen Jour­na­lis­ten. Die East Strat­Com Task For­ce ist nicht an gegen Russ­land gerich­te­ten Kam­pa­gnen beteiligt.

In dem EU-Aktionsplan gegen Des­in­for­ma­ti­on, der von den Staats- und Regie­rungs­chefs auf der Tagung des Euro­päi­schen Rates im Dezem­ber 2018 gebil­ligt wur­de, wird bestä­tigt, dass stich­hal­ti­ge Bele­ge für rus­si­sche Des­in­for­ma­ti­ons­ak­ti­vi­tä­ten vor­lie­gen und dass die­se die größ­te exter­ne Bedro­hung durch Des­in­for­ma­ti­on für die EU darstellen.

3. Die Vize­prä­si­den­tin nimmt zu einer Initia­ti­ve, für die der betref­fen­de Mit­glied­staat zustän­dig ist, nicht wei­ter Stellung.

After the fourth leak on 04 Janu­a­ry 2019 Inte­gri­ty Initia­ti­ve for the first time sta­tes on twit­ter, that part of the docu­ments from the fourth leak were not theirs and were mis­re­pre­sen­ted as having been part of their Organisation:

The Inte­gri­ty Initia­ti­ve clai­med on Twit­ter that some of the docu­ments lea­ked in batch #4 were not theirs and had been mis­re­pre­sen­ted as part of the orga­ni­sa­ti­on.[1]

src: click (Wiki Spooks)

Last twit­ter post by the Inte­gri­ty Initia­ti­ve Twit­ter account was made on Febru­a­ry 10th 2020.

https://twitter.com/initintegrity

Some of the work of: https://twitter.com/initintegrity

Pos­ting the fol­lowing movie review twice:

First in ukrai­ni­an of course…

Second name named by Mike Benz in the video below in rela­ti­on to Anne App­le­baum and the Inte­gri­ty Initia­ti­ve - Nina Jan­ko­wicz (Ehe­ma­li­ge Exe­ku­tiv­di­rek­to­rin des Dis­in­for­ma­ti­on Gover­nan­ce Board der Ver­ei­nig­ten Staa­ten von Ame­ri­ka) so what was her mis­si­on state­ment at the time?

How to lose the info­ra­ti­on war - Book writ­ten in 2020

So Inte­gri­ty Initia­ti­ves exis­tence, affi­lia­ti­on and their mis­si­on state­ment are undisputed.

Why the ent­i­re NGO was clo­sed down is unknown, but their Twit­ter account stop­ped being acti­ve in Febru­a­ry of 2020.

The government ties are also undis­pu­ted (prop­ped up by the UK, using a mem­ber of the US sta­te depart­ment, see f.e. EU par­lia­men­tal inqui­ry response).

Part of the first leak, so befo­re the Inte­gri­ty Initia­ti­ve dis­pu­ted for the first time, that the docu­ments werent theirs was also this docu­ment which men­ti­ons the Zen­trum Libe­ra­le Moder­ne as being the “Inte­gri­ty Initia­ti­ve Clus­ter Germany”:

src: click (pro­of, that this docu­ment was part of the leak on 2018-11-26: archive.org | second leak took place three days after that on 2018-11-29)

Das Zen­trum Libe­ra­le Moder­ne ist 2022 durch ehm -- fol­gen­de bei­den Küp­pers­busch Recher­chen aufgefallen:

Also, viel zu bean­stan­den gibt es an den Aus­sa­gen von Mike Benz zu Anne App­le­baum nicht…

Bleibt nur eine Fra­ge - war­um zum Teu­fel sind das die Ukrai­ne Krieg Exper­ten, denen die deutsch­spra­chi­gen Qua­li­täts­me­di­en (und ARTE) vertrauen?

Ach so ja - wegen der rus­si­schen Des­in­for­ma­ti­on, klar…

Erklärs mir bit­te noch­mal, Marie­lui­se Beck-Oberdorf:

OT Arte Repor­ta­ge: “Jeder Post ist eine Geschich­te, ein Gefühl, jedes Video ein Schock. Selen­skyj beherrscht Sto­ry­tel­ling. Die­ser Film wirbt für eine Flug­ver­bots­zo­ne über der Ukrai­ne. “If you dont clo­se the sky, mom will cry, if you dont clo­se the sky, he’ll lose home…”

src:

https://harlekin.me/allgemein/attract-image-arte-reportage/

Ah ja, dan­ke! Sehr gut.

So yes­ter­day, the­re appeared a red blob in Sumy on deepstatemap.live

deepstatemap.live is an open source intel­li­gence pro­ject, run by two ukrainians.

The map and other mili­ta­ry ana­ly­sis collec­ted or made by Deep Sta­te UA has been cited by Ukrai­ni­an and inter­na­tio­nal media out­lets such as the BBC and Ukrain­s­ka Prav­da. By Febru­a­ry 2024, the map has been view­ed more than 1 bil­li­on times, and has beco­me the most popu­lar digi­tal map of the Rus­si­an inva­si­on of Ukrai­ne in Ukrai­ne, and one of the most popu­lar digi­tal maps of Ukrai­ne globally.

src: click

Then today - this happens:

OVA and bor­der guards deny infor­ma­ti­on about Rus­sia breaching the bor­der in Sumy regi­on Officially

Short­ly befo­re this happens:

Rus­lan Miku­la, co-founder of the Deep­Sta­te ana­ly­ti­cal pro­ject, said on Sus­pil­ne Stu­dio that infor­ma­ti­on about the advan­ce­ment of Rus­si­an tro­ops in that area or about the occup­a­ti­on of Alex­an­dria is fake.

src: click

Rea­son given is trust­worthy as can be:

“The­re has­n’t been a sin­gle resi­dent in Alex­an­dria for over 20 years. No one has lived the­re for a long time. Not­hing has hap­pen­ed, the shel­ling is neit­her inten­si­fy­ing nor decre­a­sing. Yes­ter­day, the KAB arri­ve­d­wi­t­hin the com­mu­ni­ty, but ever­ything worked out. The situa­ti­on is dif­fi­cult, but it is what it is — without chan­ge, thank God.” 

src: click

Short­ly befo­re this not get­ting cor­rec­ted on the live map for 12 hours so far - and the pro­ject not pushing any updates today.

Which breaks a.… year­long (?) streak of pushing at least one update a day.

edit: Two days later, after the next update came a day late - the blob still exists.

It’s magic!

Not log­ged in. In order of popu­la­ri­ty I’m sure - 

- US Depar­te­ment of State
- Euractiv
- Voice of America
- Fran­ce 24

Damn, that popu­la­ri­ty algo­rithm knows what its doing, the­se days…

Ich mein wer kennt es nicht, das US News Out­let mit dem Namen US Depar­te­ment of Sta­te, … Ich frag mich ja, wann in den goog­le News Such-Resultaten über Wah­len in Isra­el mal die Mei­nung des Öster­rei­chi­schen Außen­mi­nis­te­ri­ums auftaucht.