Brexit mega thread part 6: Invasion and Evasion

[Opal8]

New thread

Not sure how that happened…

• he’s destabilised the Middle East supporting Assad
• a never ending stream of bots and media stories etc to destabilise democracies in Eastern Europe
• encouraged Russian money into the UK
• donated money to the Tory party
• supported Brexit with disinformation and money
• supported the election of Trump after providing money to him for years
• engages in never ending cyber attacks
• encouraged European dependence on Russian gas

Etc etc etc etc

So Brexit was one - very successful - strand in a long standing strategy to weaken the EU. And the UK rolled over and played beautifully into Putin’s hands. He must have been so pleased about that.

Below text is from the wiki for Foundations of Geopolitics, a Russian geopolitical book, it explains some of the influences and possible objectives in Russian politics, it's all a bit but some of these things have actually happened like the UK distancing from Europe, the invasion of Ukraine and issues in the US. When DH showed me this, I was pretty .

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foundations_of_Geopolitics

The Foundations of Geopolitics: The Geopolitical Future of Russia is a geopolitical book by Aleksandr Dugin. It has had some influence within the Russian military, police and foreign policy elites[1] and has been used as a textbook in the Academy of the General Staff of the Russian military.[1][2] Its publication in 1997 was well received in Russia. Powerful Russian political figures subsequently took an interest in Dugin,[3] a Russian eurasianist, fascist,[4] and nationalist[5] who has developed a close relationship with Russia's Academy of the General Staff.

The United Kingdom, merely described as an "extraterritorial floating base of the U.S.", should be cut off from Europe

Ukraine should be annexed by Russia because "Ukraine as a state has no geopolitical meaning, no particular cultural import or universal significance, no geographic uniqueness, no ethnic exclusiveness, its certain territorial ambitions represents an enormous danger for all of Eurasia and, without resolving the Ukrainian problem, it is in general senseless to speak about continental politics". Ukraine should not be allowed to remain independent, unless it is cordon sanitaire, which would be inadmissible.

United States:
Russia should use its special services within the borders of the United States to fuel instability and separatism, for instance, provoke "Afro-American racists". Russia should "introduce geopolitical disorder into internal American activity, encouraging all kinds of separatism and ethnic, social and racial conflicts, actively supporting all dissident movements – extremist, racist, and sectarian groups, thus destabilizing internal political processes in the U.S. It would also make sense simultaneously to support isolationist tendencies in American politics"

That was in response to EmmH2022

theconversation.com/how-russia-hooked-europe-on-its-oil-and-gas-and-overcame-us-efforts-to-prevent-energy-dependence-on-moscow-174518

www.opendemocracy.net/en/dark-money-investigations/russia-controlled-british-companies-623/

www.theguardian.com/world/2020/jul/21/just-what-does-the-uk-russia-report-say-key-points-explained

www.nytimes.com/2017/10/30/technology/facebook-google-russia.html

www.theguardian.com/politics/2022/feb/23/oligarchs-funding-tories

Even some Tory MPs are concerned about the degree of influence Russia has over the Tory party…

What will the Tories do without all the Roubles!?

Different cats this time, from my dad's recent visit to the Kruger. Wild big cats seem more appropriate than my soppy domestic cats.

Nige popping up now to gaslight EU and NATO 🙄

Interesting how "people" pop in to say "I don't understand the link", but then disappear the moment the link is clearly laid out...

@HannibalHeyes

Interesting how "people" pop in to say "I don't understand the link", but then disappear the moment the link is clearly laid out...

Yeah...

Johnson has a new three word slogan mantra; Putin must fail. Expect to hear it a lot

And thanks for the new thread

Not sure how that happened…
- he’s destabilised the Middle East supporting Assad
- a never ending stream of bots and media stories etc to destabilise democracies in Eastern Europe
- encouraged Russian money into the UK
- donated money to the Tory party
- supported Brexit with disinformation and money
- supported the election of Trump after providing money to him for years
- engages in never ending cyber attacks
- encouraged European dependence on Russian gas

I think you're getting carried away with a good deal of this. Part of the blame for the current situation lies with Hillary Clinton as Secretary of State and Barack Obama as President.

The Euromaidan of 2013 was directly sponsored by the US - there are tapped phone calls to prove this - and it was part of a disastrous policy of destabilisation followed by the US in the Obama presidency; fomenting revolution, the overthrowing of governments, and the fairy tale of spreading democracy without committing any American boots to the ground, leaving the heavy lifting to local demonstrators and letting the chips fall where they might. The chips fell in disastrous ways. Hence ISIS and its attendant horrors.
Have we forgotten all of this?

The HRC/Obama policy was reckless in the extreme, and utterly disastrous in Egypt and in Syria, where the Muslim Brotherhood and ISIS, respectively, filled the vacuum. It spooked Russia utterly and completely. It also provided an opportunity for Erdogan to refashion the Turkish political landscape.

We would like to think that Trump was elected solely because of disinformation flowing west from Moscow and that he is dead wrong on the causes of the current crisis. It would fit a certain narrative, certainly.

I think it has been fairly decisively proven that the money that elected Trump came from Robert and Rebekah Mercer, and that deficiencies in the calculations of HRC's campaign resulted in the EC disaster that kept her from the presidency. I loathe Donald Trump and all of my DCs secured their Irish passports during his presidency. But even a stopped clock is right twice a day.

I don't see that list as incompatible with your analysis of US interference, mathanxiety.

Which bit of it do you think is inaccurate? (not being goady, presume you know that...)

US manoeuvring made things worse, but Putin's rambling speech the other night and the attitude of his security council members suggest he is losing the plot, slipping into megalomania dictator mode and Russian activity since he came to power has been increasingly aimed at destabilising liberal democracy outside his borders, to use a broad term, and quashing opposition within them.

There is some evidence of Russian money funding Trump's campaign here, amongst multiple other sources.

pmk

So Brexit was one - very successful - strand in a long standing strategy to weaken the EU. And the UK rolled over and played beautifully into Putin’s hands. He must have been so pleased about that.

I think this was more a case of seeing the opportunity and seizing it with both hands. The Red Wall seats were fed up with the Tory inflicted austerity and no-one listening to them. The Tories cleverly harnessed this to blame the EU for it, rather than themselves. It suited the Tories to launder Russian money through London. Had all these factors not been present, would Putin's actions have been able to get traction? Much less so, I feel.

On the wider stage, I note now how and Truss are talking about Europe, rather than EU and beginning to see some of its virtues. I am not sure with Truss but I suspect that Johnson realises that France and the UK were the leading EU military nations, and now that we have left the UK's voice is much less powerful.

I also noticed how Johnson rushed to chair a COBRA meeting about Ukraine, when he can't actually do very much. The time for him to chair COBRA meetings promptly had been when Covid arrived, and he might have been able to do something, but he ran away then.

They're talking about Europe because they are thinking of things like OSCE as well, as the European end of NATO.

And Brexit means new relations ŵithe Europe, doesn't it? Not no relationship. After all, we weren't going to stop dealing with France (the other European member of UNSC) because we were no longer in one of the other treaty relationships with then. Not that UN is likely to be able to act effectively on this one with UNSC stymied.

So it's become all about NATO

The missing angle is China, and Biden refused to make any comment on that yesterday.

China have been flyinging planes into Taiwanese airspace.

Although I probably read it on here.

www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/taiwan-reports-nine-chinese-aircraft-its-air-defence-zone-2022-02-24/

I also noticed how Johnson rushed to chair a COBRA meeting about Ukraine, when he can't actually do very much. The time for him to chair COBRA meetings promptly had been when Covid arrived, and he might have been able to do something, but he ran away then.

Johnson has only one template for prime ministership, and it’s based on a shallow perception of Churchill in WW2. He has no concept of proper government outside a war scenario, with rousing speeches and so on. That’s why he couldn’t handle Covid (and ended up, thankfully, mostly “following the science”, if belatedly). The combination of Brexit, a manifestly self-harming move, and wilful demonstrations of bad faith in international affairs, makes the UK a bit player in the current situation, albeit one with useful military forces and an obligation to NATO allies.
Thanks for the new thread.

A poster asked about the link between Brexit and this war on Ukraine. That list explained how Brexit fit with Putin’s aim to destabilise the EU.

You always have good analysis Math but just to be clear, I’m not trying to paint US in any glowing light including Obama who kept Guantanamo open or HRC who was a hawk. But there was more than one supporter of Trump unfortunately. Russia was part of that and this was confirmed in the US Senate report

And I’m not saying Russia created the anti-EU sentiments in the UK Peregrina Those passions in JRM et al started burning 2 decades ago. However, it certainly suited Putin’s agenda for an isolated Britain and a weakened EU for a number of reasons. So there were concerted efforts to contribute the Leave agenda via Moscow-based information operations.

The UK government admits there was Russian interference in the 2014 Scottish referendum (yes of course it suited their narrative to do so). The government also admits that Russia interfered in the December 2019 general election. To what extent, we don’t unless the UK govt publishes its report on Russian interference but it seems telling that they won’t publish it.

However, other considered and knowledgable analysis includes the CSIS 2020 report that concludes that: "For the past 15 years, Russia has sought to weaken the United Kingdom internally and diminish its position in the world by exploiting minority grievances, encouraging separatist movements, amplifying anti-EU sentiments, and trying to inflict reputational damage upon the United Kingdom’s role in NATO and the value of its relationship with the United States."

Feel so sorry for Ukrainian president Zelenskiy. He seemed a new breed of Eastern European leaders, younger, committed to democracy, but I’m very worried for him and his family. The odds are not good.

We are in agreement DrBlackbird - Putin just harnessed the mood for his own ends.

.....and trying to inflict reputational damage upon the United Kingdom’s role in NATO and the value of its relationship with the United States."

I am not sure about this - it was already a very one sided relationship, only Special from the UK's viewpoint - unless he was trying to take the UK away from being a US lapdog?

The UK government admits there was Russian interference in the 2014 Scottish referendum (yes of course it suited their narrative to do so). The government also admits that Russia interfered in the December 2019 general election. To what extent, we don’t unless the UK govt publishes its report on Russian interference but it seems telling that they won’t publish it.

The problem is, how trustworthy are those election results now ? And what remedy is there if they are unsafe ?

Remember thousands of people lost their right to vote in the EU elections. And I restate my point from then: if the remedy for being prevented from voting is fuck all, then it follows a vote is worth fuck all. Which jars with the way people worship "democracy", You can't have "democracy" if you are willing to deny people their vote. All you have is whatever Putin is having - a hypocracy .....

But having a separated UK and EU right now is in some ways advantageous. The UK is prepared to go further faster and has a separate voice. The EU is struggling with internal disagreements on how to proceed, as you would expect. But both sides can also take advantage of presenting their own diplomatic face, and work together behind the scenes in that regard. At the same time, in this context the UK finds itself in no way isolated because if its prominent NATO role.

Brexit was bad and all but I think people are twisting reality here based on that.

"The UK is prepared to go further faster and has a separate voice."

Only it's not, is it. It has committed insignificant military assistance, and it's sanctions are carefully designed not to hurt any Tory donors Russians except in the mildest possible way.

And although I agree that the US are hardly paragons of virtue in international affairs, trying to blame Putin's actions on Obama and Clinton is a bit of a paranoid stretch, on a par with what Fartage et al are trying to do...

4 out of the 35 oligarchs that Layla Moran read out are facing sanctions, not exactly far going.

Even the Taliban is calling for dialogue and restraint over Ukraine