Generational Dynamics World View News

[Xeraphim1]

REVENGE: Macron is now trying to sabotage the Quad by making deals with India to "defend truly multilateral international order."

Washington is not gonna like this.

https://www.rt.com/news/535219-france-i ... rld-aukus/

Wouldn't helping India be good for US? We need them buffed up for the fight. Anything helps. Old outdated technology is better than nothing. We need them strong enough to help toe the line, or am I missing something?

It's questionable whether those proclamations even mean anything. More likely Macron is trying to drum up some more business for French military suppliers. India has been steadily reducing its orders from Russia and diversifying its suppliers, but is tending to buy more from the US than France these days. Of course they're on a major kick to produce almost everything locally so who knows what the actual effect would be.

More likely France is trying to appear to be relevant; much as Russia is.

[tim]

https://www.theburningplatform.com/2021 ... ou-expect/

[DaKardii]

Wouldn't helping India be good for US? We need them buffed up for the fight. Anything helps. Old outdated technology is better than nothing. We need them strong enough to help toe the line, or am I missing something?

In theory, helping India would indeed be good for us.

But the people in charge of our foreign policy are as stupid and irrational as the CCP. They have little to no tolerance for American allies entering in any kind of deals which promote global geopolitical multipolarity. They see such deals as potentially serious threats to their power. So they are more than willing to antagonize their own allies to the point where those allies become enemies, in order to try to get said allies to "stay in their lane."

That's why Russia is so close to China now, and that's why we could see France defect to the pro-China camp soon unless we have a serious change in leadership.

[DaKardii]

1. Germany seems to have no intention of exerting itself militarily. In fact, one of the problems in the alliance has been the refusal of Germany to spend anything near what it agreed to. Germany is quite happy to free ride on the defense expenditures of others.

2. Germany and France get along quite well and are willing to accept a division of spoils: France gets to be militarily important while Germany runs the economy for its own benefit.

3. The UK was rather intent on getting out of the EU and NOT having much of a say in continental affairs. Why would France and Germany fight the UK over something the UK doesn't even want?

You keep positing all these theories that don't make any sense. It's like wondering what will we do if Alien Space Bats invade the Earth.

Brexit happened because much of the British population concluded that the UK was being sidelined within the EU through the increasing economic integration which was being pushed by countries such as Germany and France. The UK did and still very much wants to have a say in continental affairs; it just wanted to change tactics on how to make that happen.

1. Both Turkey and Iran want to be the local hegemon. They're not going to ally against a third country. besides, they have nothing in common.

2. Saudi Arabia isn't going to ally with Iran, period. Iran want's to take over the Muslim holy sites from KSA and become the local great power. KSA is not going to help it with anything.

3. KSA isn't going to fight Iran if it has any other options. War is bad for business and there are still a bunch of Shiites in KSA. Why stir up needless problems?

Again, you don't seem to be thinking any of these things out.

Yes, Turkey and Iran do want to be the local hegemon. That doesn't automatically mean they won't form an alliance.

Saudi Arabia and Iran won't form an alliance unless either (1) Saudi Arabia sides with China; (2) Saudi Arabia sides with the US, and then there is an anti-American revolution there which installs a new regime that is aligned with China; or (3) Saudi Arabia sides with the US, and then the Ayatollahs are overthrown in Iran. Because I'm convinced that as long as the Ayatollahs are still in power, Iran will automatically side with China once war breaks out. Because the Ayatollahs hate the US more than any other country; more than Saudi Arabia and more than even Israel. Of course, that inevitability could've been avoided had we had leadership willing to offer an olive branch. But we don't.

Saudi Arabia is in a crisis era. It is more than willing to go to war with Iran if Iran poses enough of a threat to the existing order, which it does. Business be damned. Meanwhile, knowing the Saudi monarchy it is probably planning to genocide the Shiite minorities in the event of war with Iran.

It's questionable whether those proclamations even mean anything. More likely Macron is trying to drum up some more business for French military suppliers. India has been steadily reducing its orders from Russia and diversifying its suppliers, but is tending to buy more from the US than France these days. Of course they're on a major kick to produce almost everything locally so who knows what the actual effect would be.

More likely France is trying to appear to be relevant; much as Russia is.

That's exactly what's going on. France is trying to maintain its relevance, much like Russia.

But Macron is taking the exact same approach as Putin did in the early days. The US didn't take kindly to Putin doing it, so why expect the US to take kindly to Macron doing it?

[Guest]

That's right. The French officials have been going around describing
this as the English-speaking countries (US, UK and Australia) pivoting
to Asia, leaving France out. They're saying that this betrayal is
extremely serious, and goes far beyond the cancellation of the $90
billion contract.

We keep trying to guess how Europe will split up during a new world
war. Maybe we'll see a new Battle of Waterloo.

The three major powers of Western Europe are Germany, France, and the UK.

My opinion is that once NATO falls apart, the subsequent re-alignment will pit two powers against the third. And it could go one of three ways:

1) France and the UK against Germany, with the divide being over whether Germany should re-assert itself in the aftermath of its re-unification.

2) Germany and the UK against France, with the divide being over whether France should be the sole arbiter of continental affairs (a world that many post-WWII French leaders have dreamt about).

3) Germany and France against the UK, with the divide being over whether the UK, an island nation, should have any influence over continental affairs whatsoever.

Based on what I'm seeing right now, the most likely scenarios are the second and third ones, which would inevitably result in the UK siding with the USA, France siding with China, and Germany being a wild card.

1. Germany seems to have no intention of exerting itself militarily. In fact, one of the problems in the alliance has been the refusal of Germany to spend anything near what it agreed to. Germany is quite happy to free ride on the defense expenditures of others.

2. Germany and France get along quite well and are willing to accept a division of spoils: France gets to be militarily important while Germany runs the economy for its own benefit.

3. The UK was rather intent on getting out of the EU and NOT having much of a say in continental affairs. Why would France and Germany fight the UK over something the UK doesn't even want?

You keep positing all these theories that don't make any sense. It's like wondering what will we do if Alien Space Bats invade the Earth.

I don't know when Dakardii gets his ides either. I was born in Europe and I don't recognize the places he describes. There are people on You Tube who make wild predictions about WW3 every day. Maybe he watches their videos?

[Guest]

Brexit happened because much of the British population concluded that the UK was being sidelined within the EU through the increasing economic integration which was being pushed by countries such as Germany and France. The UK did and still very much wants to have a say in continental affairs; it just wanted to change tactics on how to make that happen.

Brexit was about immigration.

There were also things about excessive EU regulations, etc, but it was really about immigration.

The Brits still want to sell products to Europe, it is, after all, a large market. But being involved in continental affairs? No.

[Guest]

France allied with Russia because it was terrified of facing Germany alone. These days Germany is close to impotent militarily and is a close ally anyways. In fact, now that the UK has left, France is the paramount military in the EU.

I was born in Germany. Germans call their military a 'toy army' because politically Germans really can't use it ever again because of the Nazi past. Germans are much more interested in self-flagellation than fighting anyone. It is sad to see one of the world's great civilizations being completely destroyed and degraded without a single punch back in defense of itself.

[John]

** 21-Sep-2021 World View: Zen Buddhism in America

> That would be great. But I respect your perspective as well and
> would like to know if you found anything during your study.
> Acknowledgement and adoption took some during it's westward
> journey did it not? Slow start, burn bright and then dim or
> fizzle out. That's what I learned but I could be wrong.

Here's what I wrote in my Vietnam book:

**** Zen Buddhism in the West

Zen Buddhism (or Ch'an Buddhism in Chinese) has the most recognizable
name in the West of all the Buddhist schools. The word "zen" itself,
outside of Buddhism, has taken on meanings related to intuition or
meditation or calmness. Zen Buddhism is an extremely complex and
deeply spiritual set of beliefs and practices, but a few of those
practices have been popularized in the West as a way to accomplish
tasks intuitively, as in the phrase "the zen of gardening." Thus, one
can be a Christian, for example, and still benefit from some of the
valuable practices and rituals of Zen Buddhism.

The word "zen" derives from a Sanskrit word meaning "meditation."
Central to Zen teaching is the belief that awakening and enlightenment
can be achieved by anyone but one requires instruction in the proper
forms of spiritual cultivation by a master through meditation.

[Xeraphim1]

1. Both Turkey and Iran want to be the local hegemon. They're not going to ally against a third country. besides, they have nothing in common.

2. Saudi Arabia isn't going to ally with Iran, period. Iran want's to take over the Muslim holy sites from KSA and become the local great power. KSA is not going to help it with anything.

3. KSA isn't going to fight Iran if it has any other options. War is bad for business and there are still a bunch of Shiites in KSA. Why stir up needless problems?

Again, you don't seem to be thinking any of these things out.

Yes, Turkey and Iran do want to be the local hegemon. That doesn't automatically mean they won't form an alliance.

Saudi Arabia and Iran won't form an alliance unless either (1) Saudi Arabia sides with China; (2) Saudi Arabia sides with the US, and then there is an anti-American revolution there which installs a new regime that is aligned with China; or (3) Saudi Arabia sides with the US, and then the Ayatollahs are overthrown in Iran. Because I'm convinced that as long as the Ayatollahs are still in power, Iran will automatically side with China once war breaks out. Because the Ayatollahs hate the US more than any other country; more than Saudi Arabia and more than even Israel. Of course, that inevitability could've been avoided had we had leadership willing to offer an olive branch. But we don't.

Saudi Arabia is in a crisis era. It is more than willing to go to war with Iran if Iran poses enough of a threat to the existing order, which it does. Business be damned. Meanwhile, knowing the Saudi monarchy it is probably planning to genocide the Shiite minorities in the event of war with Iran.

What are Turkey and Iran going to ally over? They don't even like each other and don't have congruent aims. The one thing they have in common is they both want to be the great power in the Middle East and only one country can have they spot.

Saudi Arabia and Iran will not ally unless and until there is regime change in both countries. At best they would be co-belligerents and that is hard see too.

I think Iran hates Israel quite a bit more than the US; take a look at where they're spending their money. This level of hatred can't be changed by anything the US does other than other than completely removing itself from the Middle East and allowing Iran to do whatever it wants there. Blaming the US for this is like blaming the UK for Nazi Germany.

Saudi Arabia isn't particularly interested in going to war because 1. it's bad for business 2. it's military doesn't perform well. Look at Yemen and how well the Saudi military performed. And the Saudi's aren't particularly interested in murdering all the Shiites in the country. You're talking around 3 million people and while Shiites are second class citizens, not particularly more than all the foreigners in the country.

It's questionable whether those proclamations even mean anything. More likely Macron is trying to drum up some more business for French military suppliers. India has been steadily reducing its orders from Russia and diversifying its suppliers, but is tending to buy more from the US than France these days. Of course they're on a major kick to produce almost everything locally so who knows what the actual effect would be.

More likely France is trying to appear to be relevant; much as Russia is.

That's exactly what's going on. France is trying to maintain its relevance, much like Russia.

But Macron is taking the exact same approach as Putin did in the early days. The US didn't take kindly to Putin doing it, so why expect the US to take kindly to Macron doing it?
[/quote]

The difference is that Russia is a dictatorship and France is not. The French people have no interest in military adventures or conquest. And what makes you think Macron will win the Presidential election next year? He's sitting at around 25% support right now. Unless it comes down to him against Le Pen, chances are good there will be a new person in the job next April.

[Navigator]

The following is an excellent article on ZeroHedge about the Evergrand financial disaster unfolding in China:

https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/many- ... management

In the past, the Chinese have always blamed the USA for their financial setbacks, and I believe they will still try to do so, but it will be difficult given what has been going on for years with these Ponzi type "Wealth Management Products". In fact, it may accelerate the CCP doing something to take the focus off of this (and similar) mess.

Also, someone posted a week or so ago about the Chinese having difficulty with feeding everyone in the event of a war. I tried to find this post but missed it somehow. In any case, this is very true, and is the Achilles heel of China (always has been, this is why so much of Chinese food is often a collection of things that nobody else would eat, but will fend off starvation).

China of WW3 will have a similar experience to Germany of WW1, in that the inability to bring in imports will cause mass starvation. Starvation in Germany was so bad in WW1, that the Germans, who were neither bombed nor invaded in that war, lost as many civilians to starvation as they did in WW2 to the bombings and battles that were fought in Germany proper (which included the Russians getting into Germany and the battle of Berlin).

Invading China to end the war will be extremely problematic. As the Japanese experienced, it is nearly impossible to occupy China. In the end, I would estimate that the Chinese will give up in a fashion similar to the Kaiser at the end of WW1. The country is never occupied (but is starved), the people overthrow the government in order to end the war, and the ruler(s) end up being able to go into a cushy exile somewhere.