Andrew Korybko
Andrew Korybko's Newsletter

Smoke rises from clashes between Syrian rebels and Govern-
ment forces in the Aleppo countryside on Wednesday.

Everything will depend on whether the terrorists are stopped outside of Aleppo; the outcome of any possible battle for that city; and how desperate Assad becomes if he loses control over it and the terrorists advance on Damascus.

The terrorist-designated Hayat Tahrir-al-Sham (HTS), which is the rebranded form of the Al Qaeda-backed Al-Nusra, launched a surprise offensive in Aleppo this week. It’s already made a lot of progress due to the terrorists’ use of drones and other modern warfare tactics. These were reportedly taught to them by Ukraine according to reports in the run-up to the latest hostilities. Other reports included Russia’s Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR) warning about a false-flag chemical weapons attack.

Syrian, Iranian, and Russian forces (including its aerospace ones) are currently trying to push back HTS’ advance. This intense fighting comes immediately after the Israel-Hezbollah ceasefire deal, which that Iranian-backed Resistance group agreed to in spite of the late Nasrallah’s pledge not to do so without a ceasefire in Gaza first. It can therefore be interpreted as an Israeli victory despite Iran hailing this agreement and its ideologically aligned influencers spinning it as a Resistance victory.

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Andrew Korybko
Andrew Korybko's Newsletter

Abkhazia’s reputation in Russians’ eyes has been damaged by the latest unrest.

Abkhazia is considered a Russian ally after Moscow recognized its independence in 2008 following that August’s five-day war with Georgia, yet a critical mass of its people is now protesting against an investment deal with their benefactor, even going as far as to storm and occupy the local parliament. Outside observers might therefore assume that this is an anti-Russian revolt, whether a naturally occurring one or a foreign-orchestrated Color Revolution, but the situation is more complicated.

The demonstrators insist that they’re not against Russia and some have even flown Russian flags during their protests, but they also claim that the terms of the proposed investment deal might only benefit wealthy oligarchs and thus come at the expense of average Abkhazians. These people have a very strong sense of nationalism which began to manifest itself during the early Soviet period, exploded into a brutal war with Georgia shortly after the USSR’s dissolution, and is now once again making itself known.

This is typical of the Caucasus region, whose people on both sides of that mountain range are stereotyped as being fiery and hot-headed, which has historically led to trouble for Russia. Sometimes their perception of contemporary issues, regardless of whether this accurately reflects objective reality, leads to them forgetting everything that Russia has done for them in the past. Such is the case with the Abkhazians who are now taking Russia’s patronage of their largely unrecognized country for granted.

The only reason why their polity has continued to survive from the early 1990s till today is due to the presence of Russian forces there, first as peacekeepers in agreement with Georgia and then as allies per a bilateral deal after Moscow recognized its independence. Many ethnic Abkhazians, who constitute around half of the population, nowadays hold Russian citizenship. The Kremlin also funds over one-third of its ally’s budget, supports its armed forces, and pays for many of its people’s pensions too.

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Jack King
VernonColeman.com

This essay is taken from `They want to kill us all’ by Jack King. To purchase a copy please CLICK HERE.

Ageism is rife. Elder abuse is now common, with older citizens being bullied and harassed and demonised when they are at their most vulnerable; frail and in need of caring, support, sympathy, patience and understanding.

The elderly and the poor will be demonised and made to feel guilty if they don’t submit to euthanasia. Conditioning, propaganda and predictive programming are all being used to promote the idea that older citizens have a duty to die when they reach 70 years of age. Young people (by which I mean both the Z generation and the millennials) are encouraged to loathe anyone over 60 and to blame them for everything they feel is unsatisfactory in their own lives.

Nowhere is ageism more obvious than in health care. In the UK, the elderly have been abandoned. Women having sex change operations on the NHS are now being given free fertility treatment so that they can have babies after they become men. There is plenty of money to pay nursery school fees for rich parents but no money to provide care for the elderly. Britain’s health service has the staff, the time and the money to provide free gender ID clinics, but the elderly are not allowed to have cataract operations under the NHS until they are virtually blind (the authorities clearly hope that they will either be dead or too old for surgery). This absurd policy means that old people denied such surgery cannot look after themselves, and need to be cared for – usually by relatives or neighbours since the State won’t do that these days. No one in authority cares a damn about the quality of life of septuagenarians who are unable to feed themselves, read, use the internet or watch television. The politicians and the bureaucrats do not have the wit or imagination to realise that one day they too may be unable to feed themselves, use the internet or watch television.

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Andrew Korybko
Andrew Korybko's Newsletter

Observers should keep an eye on this since it’s a low-probability but high-impact scenario.

The Wall Street Journal reported last week that “A Miami Financier Is Quietly Trying to Buy Nord Stream 2 Gas Pipeline” if it soon goes to auction in a Swiss bankruptcy proceeding. They described how Stephen P. Lynch has a history of conducting business in Russia and he’s also quoted as saying “This is a once-in-a-generation opportunity for American and European control over European energy supply for the rest of the fossil-fuel era.” That’s true, and it could play a key role in any grand Russian-US compromise.

“Everyone Missed The Most Important Part Of The First Putin-Scholz Call In Two Years” earlier this month after Putin made a pass at Scholz hinting that the last undamaged part of this project could be put back to use if Germany helps de-escalate the Ukrainian Conflict instead of contributing to its escalation. Germany is on the brink of a recession due in large part to high energy costs brought about by its compliance with US pressure to sanction Russia. It’s therefore interested in cheap and reliable energy.

At the same time, Trump is expected to pressure the EU into supporting his trade war against China. This will already be difficult enough to do as it is, especially since China and the EU are about to patch up their electric vehicle dispute and China is the EU’s second-largest trade partner.

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Thomas Fazi
UnHeard

Food. Churches. Chacha. This is what Georgia has long been known for. But now this ancient country, flanked by the mountains and the sea in the heart of the Caucasus, is the battleground in a new Not-So-Cold War. Due to its strategic location — it shares a large border with Russia to the north — the country has found itself caught up in the geopolitical power play between the West and Russia. And just like the Euromaidan revolt in Ukraine a decade ago, Georgia’s domestic politics have been framed in Nato circles as an existential fight. On one side sits the Georgian Dream, the allegedly pro-Russian ruling party, in power since 2012. On the other sits the opposition, avowedly pro-Western and pro-EU.

Little wonder, then, that last week’s parliamentary elections have turned into a global event. As predicted by the polls, Georgian Dream won by a wide margin, securing over 53% of the vote. The four major opposition coalitions together managed less than 40%. There is no reason to believe that the vote was fixed: despite raising some concerns about pressure on voters, biased media coverage and an environment of political polarisation, independent observers found no evidence of electoral fraud, let alone of Russian interference.

Yet that doesn’t fit the geopolitical mood. Desperate to finally shut Russia out from its near abroad, there seems to be no line Western politicians and their allies in Georgia are unwilling to cross to achieve their geopolitical aims — including ignoring basic liberal principles and even overturning the will of the people wholesale. Dovetailed with ominously similar moves across the Black Sea in Moldova, meanwhile, and Tbilisi may not be the last capital to suffer.

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Video Rebel
Video Rebel's Blog

Black swan event, high-impact event that is difficult to predict under normal circumstances but that in retrospect appears to have been inevitable. A black swan event is unexpected and therefore difficult to prepare for but is often rationalized with the benefit of hindsight as having been unavoidable. (Britannica)

Nassim Taleb recently wrote of de-dollarization on twitter. I believe that the Black Swan event we have been waiting for is the simultaneous humiliation of the US military on multiple fronts causing a sudden and catastrophic collapse of the dollar. The Good News is that the Liberal Establishment that has been bleeding us dry for decades might also die.

We ought not to think of Vietnam, Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Syria, the War on Terror and NATO’s project in the Ukraine as separate events but as just different phases of One Unwinnable Forever War. When I was in high school, I asked how real the Cold War could be if both sides had the same Bankers, the Rockefellers and the Rothschilds? If the Bankers own your government, then think of war as a means to make them richer and you poorer. Of course, tens of millions of us had to die to make the whole thing seem real on the TV.

To understand government in Europe, the UK, Canada, the US, Japan, South Korea, Australia and New Zealand, you must learn to think like a Banker. He sees you as a means to enrich himself. He knows that the purpose of the government he owns is to make himself richer and to keep you in your place.

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Andrew Korybko
Andrew Korybko's Newsletter

He wants to deter the even greater provocations that the West might now be plotting, such as destabilizing and then invading Belarus, with the intent of coercing him into freezing the existing LOC and then possibly accepting the deployment of Western/NATO peacekeepers there.

Putin surprised the world on Thursday when he addressed the nation to inform them that Russia had tested a new hypersonic medium-range missile earlier that morning in an attack against a famous Soviet-era industrial complex in the Ukrainian city of Dnepropetrovsk. He explained that this was a response to the US and UK recently allowing Ukraine to use their long-range missiles inside of Russia. Their decision resulted in the NATO-Russian proxy war in Ukraine “assuming elements of a global nature” in his words.

As was explained here with regards to the “moment of truth” that this latest phase of the conflict led to, he was faced with the choice of either escalating or continuing his policy of strategic patience, the first of which could foil attempts by Trump to reach a peace deal while the second could invite more aggression. Putin chose the former and did so in a creative way that few foresaw. The Oreshnik missile system whose existence he disclosed on Thursday has Multiple Independently-targetable Reentry Vehicles (MIRVs).

It's essentially the same sort of weapon that Russia could use in the event of a nuclear conflict with the West since the aforesaid feature coupled with its hypersonic speed means that it’s impossible to intercept. In other words, Putin rattled Russia’s nuclear saber in the most convincing way possible short of testing a nuclear weapon, which his government previously confirmed that it wouldn’t do for the reasons that were explained here. He’s therefore finally climbing the escalation ladder.

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Andrew Korybko
Andrew Korybko's Newsletter

The main point that’s being conveyed through these updated terms is that Russia will not allow Ukraine to be used as NATO’s proxy for inflicting the bloc’s hoped-for strategic defeat upon it.

The entering into force of Russia’s updated nuke doctrine, the purpose of which was analyzed here in late September, made headlines across the world because it coincided with a major escalation of the NATO-Russian proxy war in Ukraine. The US allowed Ukraine to use its ATACMS inside of Russia’s pre-2014 territory despite Moscow warning how dangerous that would be. This moment of truth was analyzed here for those who’d like to learn more about how it’ll influence the contours of this conflict.

The circumstances in which Russia might resort to using nukes can be better understood after Sputnik published an unofficial translation of this doctrine here. The document stipulates that their purpose is to deter a wide range of threats and that they’ll only be used as a last resort. Such threats include everything from nearby large-scale military drills by Russia’s foes to the blocking of critical transport links in a likely nod to Kaliningrad among well-known ones like overwhelming conventional attacks, et al.

Moreover, Russia will regard such threats by countries with the backing of others as joint acts of aggression, thus placing these proxies’ patrons in its crosshairs if they cross its most sensitive red lines. The main point that’s being conveyed through these updated terms is that Russia will not allow Ukraine to be used as NATO’s proxy for inflicting the bloc’s hoped-for strategic defeat upon it. The timing of its publication suggests that the spree of provocations since February 2022 reshaped Russia’s thinking.

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Glenn Diesen
Glenn’s Substack

Crossing the Line Between Proxy War & Direct War

The discussions about authorising long-range missile strikes on Russia are profoundly dishonest and misleading. The political-media elites present deeply flawed arguments to support the conclusion that attacking Russia with long-range missiles does not cross the line between proxy war and direct war. NATO may be successful in deluding itself, yet for Russia there is no doubt that this is an act of war.

1) “Ukraine has the right to defend itself”—The argument that Ukraine has the right to defend itself as a justification for NATO to authorise long-range strikes into Russia is very manipulative. The public is pulled in with a very reasonable premise, based on the universal acceptance of the right to self-defence. Once the public has accepted the premise, then it is presented as a foregone conclusion that Ukraine should be supplied with long-range missiles to attack Russia. The extent of NATO’s involvement in the war, as the main issue, is subsequently eliminated entirely from the argument.

The point of departure in an honest discussion should start with the right question: When is the line between proxy war and direct war crossed? These are US long-range missiles, their use is entirely dependent on US intelligence and targeting, they will be operated by US soldiers and guided by US satellites. Launching them from Ukrainian territory does not make it any less of a direct US attack on Russia. The US did not use these weapons against Russia for three years as it would amount to a direct attack, yet now the media is attempting to sell the narrative of this merely being uncontroversial military aid to enable Ukraine to defend itself. The US and some of its NATO allies have decided to attack Russia directly, and they should be honest about this intention. Attempts to present this as merely giving military aid to Ukraine to defend itself is an irresponsible effort to shame any dissent and avoid a serious discussion about attacking the world’s largest nuclear power.

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Press TV Staff Writer
PressTV

A major European rights body recounts in harrowing detail the atrocities that have been carried out for the past 43 days by the Israeli regime against Palestinians in the northern Gaza Strip.

Geneva-based Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Monitor provided the information in a report on Monday.

The report showed how the Israeli military has been subjecting the Gazans to direct killings, extrajudicial executions, mass starvation, and ethnic cleansing “with no justification whatsoever” as part of its now-13-month-old genocidal war on the coastal sliver.

Israeli forces, the report noted, have been committing the crimes by bombing homes with residents inside, committing mass killings against displaced civilians in shelters, and targeting gatherings and vehicles.

‘Largest campaign of forced displacement in modern history’—The forces have also embarked on bringing about “the largest cases of forced displacement in modern history” against the targeted civilians, it said.

The period in question, throughout which the Israeli military has markedly intensified its deadly aggression against northern Gaza, has seen it “conducting its third incursion and military offensive” against the targeted areas and “committing heinous atrocities,” the body stated.

The combined killing and displacement routine was being carried out with the aim of “terrorizing civilians” among other things, it said.

‘They executed them in front of me’—The body cited Tamam Abdel Maqadmeh, one of the civilians, as describing some of the atrocities that the forces committed in the city of Beit Lahia.

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Andrew Korybko
Andrew Korybko's Newsletter

It remains unclear what Putin will ultimately do, but whichever of these two choices he makes will determine the trajectory of this conflict from now on, either more escalation or a possible compromise.

Reports emerged on Sunday that the US finally approved Ukraine’s request to use long-range ATACMS missiles against targets inside of Russia’s pre-2014 borders, which was followed by other reports claiming that France and the UK then followed suit.

They’ve yet to be used at the time of writing, but Zelensky ominously implied later that day that this could happen very soon. The reason why this is the moment of truth is that Putin earlier warned that it would amount to NATO’s direct involvement in the conflict.

This analysis here about Russia’s updated nuclear doctrine hyperlinks to eight related analyses about everything from “red lines” to the “war of attrition” that readers should review for background context. It also points out how this new policy “regard[s] an aggression against Russia from any non-nuclear state but involving or supported by any nuclear state as their joint attack against the Russian Federation” in Putin’s own words. The stakes therefore haven’t ever been this high.

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Dr Vernon Coleman MB ChB DSc
VernonColeman.com

The following is taken from Vernon Coleman’s long-term no 1 bestselling book `Anyone who tells you vaccines are safe and effective is lying: Here’s the Proof.’ Dr Coleman has for decades been the world’s leading medically qualified critic of vaccination programmes.

1. Between 20 per cent and 50 per cent of individuals who are vaccinated against a disease do not develop a resistance to the disease against which they have been allegedly immunised. In other words, up to half of the healthy individuals who are vaccinated (and whose health and lives are therefore put at risk) gain no benefit whatsoever from the vaccination. In their rush to get to the next patient, doctors and nurses may sometimes forget to mention this.

2. There are doctors and nurses around who deny that vaccines can produce any side effects at all. There are, they claim, no risks whatsoever. Personally, I feel that any doctor who claims that any vaccine, or any drug, does not produce side effects should be enrolled in a reliable space programme and shot into orbit. He or she is too dangerous to practise medicine and far too stupid to be recycled in any useful capacity. But that's just my personal opinion. The medical establishment, and its very best chum the international pharmaceutical industry, would undoubtedly rather see me fired off into space.

3. When patients fall ill after being vaccinated the doctors who don't believe that vaccines can cause side effects (and who probably also believe that the earth is the centre of the universe) wave aside any link between the two and dismiss the illness as a coincidence. Whatever happens, they arbitrarily decide that it is impossible for any side effects to be caused by their beloved and highly profitable vaccines. What many fail to realise is that vaccination damage may occur weeks, months or years after vaccination. By then the time interval between the vaccination and the damage may be so long that no one connects the two.

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Robert Inlakesh
Al Mayadeen English

The lie of Western diversity and inclusion doesn’t work while committing genocide

While Donald Trump is a monster in his own right, his platform is more honest and ideologically consistent. Kamala Harris’s campaign was a bundle of contradictions and gaslighting statements, using celebrities to drag the dead corpse of the Democratic Party campaign across the finish line.

Now that the dust seems to have settled following the US elections, a critical look at Washington’s foreign policy under the Democratic Party administration is in need. While it is clear that the genocide in Gaza was not a primary issue for most American voters, the issue was of central importance in undermining the Harris campaign.

The landslide victory for Donald Trump in the American elections clearly inflicted a psychological blow on supporters of the Democratic Party. Immediately after the results were in, social media was ripe with commentary from angry Democratic Party supporters who sought to blame every single minority group under the sun. Allegations were made against Black men, Latinos, Arabs, Muslims, and even Native Americans, who had death wishes placed upon them and were racially abused on a grand scale.

Meanwhile, CNN, MSNBC, and other mainstream US broadcast media outlets were floating a million ideas as to why their favored candidate did not win the election. Some commentators even ridiculously argued that Kamala Harris was not pro-"Israel" or pro-Ukraine enough.

While the failures of the Harris campaign were numerous, the particular effect of the Democratic Party’s foreign policy approach, coupled with their reliance on Identity Politics, is not receiving the very relevant coverage it deserves.

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Press TV Staff Writer
PressTV

Marco Rubio, a Republican foreign policy hawk tapped by Donald Trump to lead the US Department of State in his new administration, is known for his confrontational stance toward Iran and close ties with anti-Iran groups.

A staunch ally of the Republican Jewish Coalition, Rubio has even advocated for a direct attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities by the Israeli regime, saying such an attack "would have been successful."

In a 2015 interview, he asserted that the Tel Aviv regime "has a right to act in its self-defense, which it did in the past when it struck facilities in Syria and other places."

The Florida senator is an ardent and self-proclaimed Zionist who supports the Tel Aviv regime’s settler-colonialism project and land grabs in the occupied West Bank, as well as ongoing genocide in Gaza and Lebanon.

Like Trump and Biden, Rubio is fiercely opposed to the truce and blames all civilian casualties on the Palestinian resistance movement Hamas, for which he even employs dehumanizing vocabulary. He was heard recently referring to Palestinian resistance fighters as "vicious animals."

Trump's pick for Secretary of State is among the Israeli lobby's biggest recipients of donation, receiving at least $1,013,563 from the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), the top Zionist lobby group in the US that exerts considerable influence in US power corridors.

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Harold Turner
Hal Turner Show

The ongoing situation between Israel and Iran is extremely dangerous, because it could pull in the three most powerful, nuclear-armed nations on this planet.

The government of Iran has reportedly issued another Notice to Air Missions (NOTAM) clearing its air space on certain dates for "rocket launches."

According to the information I received last night, Iran has ordered the clearing of its air space beginning November 18 and continuing through November 20. This is significant for several reasons:

First, It is well known that Iran intends to retaliate against Israel for the Israeli attack a little over two weeks ago.

Second, Iran itself said it would retaliate against Israel "After the U.S. Election but before Trump is sworn in."

Third, Iran issued warnings to the residents of Haifa and Tel Aviv over this past weekend, giving them "one week to evacuate those cities" while military guys blustered they were going to "remove Israel from the map."

It is worthwhile to recap how this tit-for-tat military attack situation developed.

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James W. Carden
American Conservative

Here’s what the establishment has in store for us—and it isn’t pretty.

On September 12, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell took to the upper chamber’s floor to praise the work of the bipartisan Commission on the National Defense Strategy, a congressionally appointed panel run out of the RAND Corporation. McConnell, summarizing the report’s findings, said,

💬 Any of our colleagues who haven’t yet taken a close look at this report should. But I’d like to reiterate a few of its conclusions that I discussed last month as the Appropriations Committee finalized defense spending legislation for the coming year. This ought to grab our attention:

From the report, quote, “the U.S. military lacks both the capabilities and the capacity required to be confident it can deter and prevail in combat.”

A further quote, “the U.S. defense industrial base (DIB) is unable to meet the equipment, technology, and munitions needs of the United States and its allies and partners.”

And, quote, “the U.S. public are largely unaware of the dangers the United States faces or the costs (financial and otherwise) required to adequately prepare.”

Writing during the early months of the First World War, the journalist and grand strategist Walter Lippmann observed, “While it takes as much skill to make a sword as a ploughshare, it takes a critical understanding of human values to prefer the ploughshare.” And, if anything, “human values” are conspicuous by their absence in the recommendations of the RAND Commission on the National Defense Strategy report, which, if implemented, would put the US on a permanent war footing likely to provoke—perhaps concurrently—wars in Asia, Europe, and the Greater Middle East.

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Andrew Korybko
Andrew Korybko's Newsletter

Given the enormity of the task at hand, Trump might be unable to execute his reported plan for organizing a Western/NATO peacekeeping mission in Ukraine unless he announces the US’ direct involvement in this scheme, which he’s not predicted to do.

It was recently assessed that “The Clock Is Ticking For Russia To Achieve Its Maximum Goals In The Ukrainian Conflict” after the Wall Street Journal reported that Trump plans to organize a Western/NATO peacekeeping mission in Ukraine without the US’ participation to freeze the conflict. This is obviously a lot easier said than done. Here’s what can offset this scenario by either delaying it long enough for Russia to end the conflict on its own terms or capsizing Trump’s plan completely:

1. The Europeans Fear A Direct Kinetic Escalation With Russia

France’s tough talk earlier this year about conventionally intervening in the conflict and Poland's subsequent refusal to rule out its participation also mask the Europeans’ fear of a direct kinetic escalation with Russia. Trump will have to masterfully leverage the US’ influence over them and NATO as a whole to coerce his country’s European partners into putting their security on the line by going through with this risky plan. It could always backfire, after all, and inadvertently spark World War III.

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Voltaire Network
voltairenet.org

💬 Israeli Minister of National Security Itamar Ben-Gvir took part in a two-day meeting on Israel’s southern border entitled "Preparing for our resettlement in Gaza" on the occasion of the Jewish holiday of Sukkot.

He said: "What we have learned this year is that everything depends on us. We are the owners of this land. Yes, we have experienced a terrible catastrophe. But we must understand that a year later, so many Israelis have changed their mentality. They have changed their mindset. They understand that acting as the rightful owners of this land brings results.

Referring to the Palestinian prisoners, he went on: "We took their jelly sandwiches. We took their chocolate. We took their televisions. We took their ping-pong tables and practice time. You should see them crying and weeping in their cells. This is our proof: when we decide we can, we do succeed."

"We will encourage the voluntary transfer of all citizens of Gaza. We will offer them the opportunity to move to other countries because this land belongs to us," he concluded.

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Andrew Korybko
Andrew Korybko's Newsletter

Trump’s reported plan for a Western/NATO peacekeeping mission in Ukraine places Russia in the dilemma of either preempting this with another large-scale nationwide offensive, targeting those forces after they enter at the risk of sparking World War III, or tacitly accepting this endgame.

The Wall Street Journal’s report that Trump’s peace plan for Ukraine envisages the creation of an 800-mile demilitarized zone that would be patrolled by Europeans adds a lot of urgency to Russia’s nearly 1000-day-long struggle to achieve its maximum goals in this conflict.

The potential entrance of conventional Western/NATO forces into Ukraine as peacekeepers places Russia in the dilemma of accepting yet another “red line” being crossed or risking World War III by targeting them.

To refresh everyone’s memory since it’s been so long since the special operation started, Russia officially aims to: 1) demilitarize Ukraine; 2) denazify it; and 3) restore its constitutional neutrality, among other supplementary and informal goals.

September 2022’s referenda then added the official goal of removing Ukrainian forces from the entirety of the four regions that Russia now claims as its own, including the areas of Kherson and Zaporozhye on the other side of the Dnieper, which will be a challenge.

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Glenn Diesen
Glenn’s Substack

The election victory of Trump should not have been a surprise. The era of liberal hegemony has already come to an end, and a correction is long overdue. The liberal hegemony is no longer liberal, and the hegemony is exhausted. Trump is often denounced for being transactional, yet the de-ideologization of America and return to pragmatism is exactly what the country needs.

Change or Preserve the Unsustainable Status-Quo?—The overwhelming majority of Americans believe that the country is heading in the wrong direction, which placed Harris as the incumbent in an unfavorable position. Harris as the Vice President could not distance herself sufficiently from President Biden’s policies, which meant that she had to own the failures of the past four years. The message of “turning the page” did not resonate, and she was left with the meaningless slogan of “joy” - which only demonstrated her detachment from the growing concerns of Americans.

The borders have been wide open, media freedom is in decline, the government’s overreach is growing, US industries are no longer competitive, the national debt is out of control, social problems and culture wars are going from bad to worse, the political climate becomes increasingly divisive, the US military is overstretched, the global majority rejects Washington’s simplistic and dangerous heuristics of dividing the world into liberal democracy versus authoritarianism, the US is complicit in genocide in Palestine and is heading towards nuclear war with Russia.

Who would vote for four more years when the status quo entails driving off a cliff? It is a good time to be in opposition and offer change. Being a populist with a bombastic demeanor, seemingly immune to consequences from breaking social norms, is a good feature when breaking free from decades-old ideological dogmas that constrain necessary pragmatism.

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