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SECURITY ORIENTED DEVELOPEMENTS - WORLD

EU's bout to be breathing hardcore down the neck of Switzerland at the same time there is apparently rising political unrest between pro-EU and anti-EU Swiss, might be Ukraine all over again
 
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EU's bout to be breathing hardcore down the neck of Switzerland at the same time there is apparently rising political unrest between pro-EU and anti-EU Swiss, might be Ukraine all over again

Imagine, Euromaidan in Zurich . . .
 
From the first article:
Opposition Belarus politician Pavel Latuschko told the Tages Anzeiger that to meet with Lukashenko "would be an insult to the feelings of all Belarusian citizens. Especially those who are in prison for political reasons or had to flee abroad."
It looks like the opposition not only denies that Lukashenko is the president, but also that anybody who thinks so is a Belarusian citizen. Now, that is some very powerful virtual reality :)
 
This caught my eye. Haven't read whole article yet. But right off the bat I can tell its probably mostly just lolworthy, wouldn't even consider Turkey and Ukraine "friends", Ukraine is more like a loyal and friendly customer of Turkey

EDIT:
Also if anyone from around the area has heard anything new about this so-called 'Szekler terrorism/ethnonationalism?
 
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This caught my eye. Haven't read whole article yet. But right off the bat I can tell its probably mostly just lolworthy, wouldn't even consider Turkey and Ukraine "friends", Ukraine is more like a loyal and friendly customer of Turkey

EDIT:
Also if anyone from around the area has heard anything new about this so-called 'Szekler terrorism/ethnonationalism?
I don't know much about it, but it's not about 'Szekler terrorism'. A Szekler, or Székely, is a member of a Hungarian ethnic minority in Romania. The problem seemed that they were members of the Sixty-Four Counties Youth Movement and, according to a Romanian court, planned to explode some IED.
 
This caught my eye. Haven't read whole article yet. But right off the bat I can tell its probably mostly just lolworthy, wouldn't even consider Turkey and Ukraine "friends", Ukraine is more like a loyal and friendly customer of Turkey

EDIT:
Also if anyone from around the area has heard anything new about this so-called 'Szekler terrorism/ethnonationalism?
I don't know much about it, but it's not about 'Szekler terrorism'. A Szekler, or Székely, is a member of a Hungarian ethnic minority in Romania. The problem seemed that they were members of the Sixty-Four Counties Youth Movement and, according to a Romanian court, planned to explode some IED.
Well going by the linked Hungarian article, it was a rather complicated affair, with a slight whiff of the Romanian security services pushing through an agenda of banning HVIM, and probably whipping some anti-Hungarian sentiments*, by finding some more radicalized members of the Romanian chapter of HVIM (which is somewhat different from the Hungarian parent chapter, that it has actual goals that aren't pure racism and irredentism), and baited them into talking, and planning some acts that might, kinda sorta, if you squint at it in candlelight, looks like terrorism, while under surveillance. Now of course there is a few questions never cleared, like exactly who made the recording of that long meeting/talk which was the primary evidence, because if it was the security services, then they did it without court approval, but if it was someone in the meeting, then it would have been legal. Whether they did it on their own accord, or under duress is another question.

Oh and the planned "IED" was even on the recording were some firecrackers with very limited ability to cause injuries. Though well, they had them illegally.

* TL;DR: Romania has some insta-rage buttons regarding the Székely minority and their attempts to get more autonomy since forever. This affair was another one that have been used to clamp down on the autonomy movements.

EDIT: so currently when you hear "terrorism news" from around here, you should expect these kind of affairs, which are more about baiting idiots to cause issues, or the pre-2010 ones in Hungary, which were random killings or firebombing Roma people or their houses, or the best one, where they set fire to a bus in the local bus company's depot, to prevent it's use to bus Roma kids to some event. They set fire to the wrong bus...
 
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Well going by the linked Hungarian article, it was a rather complicated affair, with a slight whiff of the Romanian security services pushing through an agenda of banning HVIM, and probably whipping some anti-Hungarian sentiments*, by finding some more radicalized members of the Romanian chapter of HVIM (which is somewhat different from the Hungarian parent chapter, that it has actual goals that aren't pure racism and irredentism), and baited them into talking, and planning some acts that might, kinda sorta, if you squint at it in candlelight, looks like terrorism, while under surveillance. Now of course there is a few questions never cleared, like exactly who made the recording of that long meeting/talk which was the primary evidence, because if it was the security services, then they did it without court approval, but if it was someone in the meeting, then it would have been legal. Whether they did it on their own accord, or under duress is another question.

Oh and the planned "IED" was even on the recording were some firecrackers with very limited ability to cause injuries. Though well, they had them illegally.

* TL;DR: Romania has some insta-rage buttons regarding the Székely minority and their attempts to get more autonomy since forever. This affair was another one that have been used to clamp down on the autonomy movements.

EDIT: so currently when you hear "terrorism news" from around here, you should expect these kind of affairs, which are more about baiting idiots to cause issues, or the pre-2010 ones in Hungary, which were random killings or firebombing Roma people or their houses, or the best one, where they set fire to a bus in the local bus company's depot, to prevent it's use to bus Roma kids to some event. They set fire to the wrong bus...
I wonder when will all this nationalist paranoid shit stop. It's been over a century since the old kingdom stopped existing. Here in Slovakia we've had a kind of peace since both the Slovak and Hungarian nationalist parties discredited themselves to the point that they didn't make it to the parliament. It's funny that it was during the same election, IIRC. But from what I remember, it's perfectly believable that the Romanians would use dirty tricks to try and discredit the Hungarian minority, but I have no idea what the current relations between Romania and Hungary are.
 
I wonder when will all this nationalist paranoid shit stop. It's been over a century since the old kingdom stopped existing. Here in Slovakia we've had a kind of peace since both the Slovak and Hungarian nationalist parties discredited themselves to the point that they didn't make it to the parliament. It's funny that it was during the same election, IIRC. But from what I remember, it's perfectly believable that the Romanians would use dirty tricks to try and discredit the Hungarian minority, but I have no idea what the current relations between Romania and Hungary are.
Romanians are rather "special" in this case, as the tensions have been used for political aims in the past by some part of the Romanian political scene (and it was quite easy back when Romania was poor shithole, thanks to Ceausescu and the post-commie crash).

As for official relations, they are usually ranging from cordial to frosty at times, but at least the Hungarian government doesn't have too many options to push autonomy agenda openly, and with getting into Schengen, a lot of previous problems have been made irrelevant. Apart from that, the current Hungarian regime also rather shamelessly uses the abroad minorities as voter base to tip the scales in domestic elections, and build some power base amongs them (which means quite a lot of the minority parties and major organizations/media have been taken over by Orban's oligarchs) to further it's propaganda, but they do it a way that don't trigger the security services or political establishment.

And HVIM is an organization never been officially endorsed by any Hungarian government, although I'm sure Orban might have a way to use them as ablative armor if he wants to.
 
Meanwhile...


Europe's frail hopes of stopping a Moscow-Beijing axis over an invasion of Ukraine now lie in the hands of Polish President Andrzej Duda.

Duda originally raised eyebrows for being the only democratically elected EU head of state planning to attend the Winter Olympics' opening ceremony on Friday, but his office now says he will use the visit to meet President Xi Jinping and make the European case over Russian aggression against Ukraine.

The timing of Duda's intervention is important as the most closely watched meeting in Beijing will be between Xi and Russian President Vladimir Putin as Moscow seeks allies to help bolster it against potential western sanctions. Putin and Xi are expected to produce a joint document setting out their "common" position on security and Russia says it will beef up co-operation with China in the energy and financial sectors — key buttresses against any economic embargo.

I want some of that stuff the Poles are smoking, because, that's a tall order if I have ever seen one.
 
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I want some of that stuff the Poles is smoking, because, that's a tall order if I have ever seen one.
I'm sure Duda's mastery of diplomacy, which he amply demonstrated like... never... will help Xi see the light of reason, abandon all relations with The Darkest One and stop all joint energy projects, especially The Devil's Pipeline (formerly known as Power of Siberia 2).
 
And thus civilization continued its inward slow-motion collapse
 
Japan has a problem when it comes to sanctioning Russia. The thing is, after sea transport prices increased to like 500% in the last two years, there's a fight for Russian transport capacities. It's now cheaper, and faster, to transport cargoes from SE Asia to Europe via Russian rail (Transsib). The port in Vladivostok is so packed that they almost didn't get to sending out winter supplies to their own northern territories along the Okhotsk and Bering seas. Russian Railways, and now also army railway troops, are extending both BAM and Transsib as fast as humanly possible, and they have no chance to keep up with the growth in demand for rail transport. From what I've read Japanese cargoes now have a good position on Russian rail, but if Russia decides to go with transport-based counter-sanctions against some not well thought-out Japanese measures, they could lose the capacity to the Chinese, who would be happy to take as much of it as possible.
You see, while I see at least 3 articles a week in the western press about how we need to prevent Russia and China getting chummy, from the economic point of view it's too late, it has already happened. The major investment decisions which will increase Russian trade with Asia beyond our worst nightmares have already been made, now it's just a matter of watching as they are realized.
 
I'm sure Duda's mastery of diplomacy, which he amply demonstrated like... never... will help Xi see the light of reason, abandon all relations with The Darkest One and stop all joint energy projects, especially The Devil's Pipeline (formerly known as Power of Siberia 2).

Most likely we want to suck up to the "Axis".
Also remember that election are coming, PiS have internal problems with cohesion where every tail starts to pull in the different direction, especially after last failed bill and of course inflation approaching 10 points, problems on the borders and telling effects of the mismanaged pandemy, which people at large started noticing.

Japan has a problem when it comes to sanctioning Russia. The thing is, after sea transport prices increased to like 500% in the last two years, there's a fight for Russian transport capacities. It's now cheaper, and faster, to transport cargoes from SE Asia to Europe via Russian rail (Transsib). The port in Vladivostok is so packed that they almost didn't get to sending out winter supplies to their own northern territories along the Okhotsk and Bering seas. Russian Railways, and now also army railway troops, are extending both BAM and Transsib as fast as humanly possible, and they have no chance to keep up with the growth in demand for rail transport. From what I've read Japanese cargoes now have a good position on Russian rail, but if Russia decides to go with transport-based counter-sanctions against some not well thought-out Japanese measures, they could lose the capacity to the Chinese, who would be happy to take as much of it as possible.
You see, while I see at least 3 articles a week in the western press about how we need to prevent Russia and China getting chummy, from the economic point of view it's too late, it has already happened. The major investment decisions which will increase Russian trade with Asia beyond our worst nightmares have already been made, now it's just a matter of watching as they are realized.

And three years ago certain people were laughing on new Silk Road concept. Seriosuly, when it comes to understanding interdependencies between national security, long term planning, infrastructure projects and supply networks, many fails at grasping the scale and it's possible impacts.
But well, when someone is from the moment they come to this world are fed with impossibility of anything working outside of their country . . .
 
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Michael Kofman wrote an interesting article on Russo-Chinese cooperation:
TL;DR:
  • it is not a formal military alliance, as the countries don't have overlapping potential military theaters - Russia has little to offer in the Chinese seas, while Chinese power projection in Europe is nonexistent
  • while arms exports from Russia to China slowly lose significance, military cooperation is increasing, up to the strategic level - Russia is helping China to develop a anti-BM early warning system (from what I know, it should be even integrated with the Russian one - Wakko)
  • even as arms exports to China get weaker, actual cooperation of R&D and technology transfers will keep increasing; as China is more and more likely to get the technology by itself, there's no reason for Russia to keep refusing to sell it
  • Russia is not, and will not be, China's junior partner; size or complexity of economy do not translate that easily into its ability to dictate terms to others
  • military interoperability is irrelevant to the relationship, it is not usual in great power cooperation; it is useful in military alliances with senior and junior partners, like NATO where US sets the standards
  • Russia and China are willing to accept some mutual vulnerability to free forces for competition with other adversaries (well illustrated by half the Eastern MD sitting in Belarus or on trains heading for Belarus right now - Wakko)
  • Russo-Chinese technical cooperation makes US sanctions on technology export irrelevant for them, together they can develop whatever they want (the recent Rosneft-Huawei agreement is an example, Cisco can suck it - Wakko)
  • Washington has little chance to influence the relationship or drive a wedge between Russia and China
From the last 30% of the article it's clear that Kofman doesn't like the way the US establishment is reacting to the Russo-Chinese cooperation. I will quote some gems:
America's ability to engage in statecraft is self-constrained.

Washington would need a tectonic shift in current strategy towards one of these powers to substantially affect the relationship between Moscow and Beijing. Such revisions remain unacceptable to the Washington policy consensus.

Strategy is about what you choose not to do, as much as what you choose to do. One of Washington's proclivities is overreacting to the presence of other great powers, in part because of the unfortunate incentives in the bureaucracy to "find" a great-power competition in their area of responsibility in order to justify their mission.

As Frederik the Great said, "he who defends everything defends nothing." Washington should resist the urge to compete everywhere and ignore the deluge of think tank reports proclaiming a great-power competition taking place in parts of the world where it has low stakes and a weak hand.
 
And its not even so sure the Russia-China relationship is thus ironclad, could be more sabre-rattling from the MIC/West, or just plain old paranoia. I wouldn't downplay China, but this is something I'm just finding out about, and yet it makes perfect sense:


These are three countries if working together could be potentially unfuckwithable unstoppable.
 
And its not even so sure the Russia-China relationship is thus ironclad, could be more sabre-rattling from the MIC/West, or just plain old paranoia. I wouldn't downplay China, but this is something I'm just finding out about, and yet it makes perfect sense:
That's a Japanese project proposal, not some real trilateral political relationship.
Russia doesn't play teams. There's no such thing as loyalty or exclusivity in international politics, there are only interests, and - among the better players - sticking to deals, even unwritten ones. Russian interests overlap with Chinese in security matters, so they cooperate. And Xi and Putin seem to believe that the other will stick to any deal they agree on, which is a huge advantage for their countries.
Japan has a serious problem with China, its old colony, getting uncomfortably strong, uncomfortably short time after all the atrocities the Japanese committed in China. So it would love some help from the only country that could have meaningful influence on Chinese foreign policy - Russia. But Japan has an additional problem - it would have to conclude a peace treaty with Russia, which its master (the US) won't allow, and which would mean having to accept Russian sovereignty over the Southern Kurils. So Japan tries to push India into doing its negotiations with Russia, since India has good relations with both Japan and Russia. A classic example of great power politics from before the bi-polar world.
I love the first sentence in the project outline: "Recognizing that Russia shares the concerns of Japan and the U.S. about the emergence of China as a global superpower..." Classic projecting :)
 
That's a Japanese project proposal, not some real trilateral political relationship.
Russia doesn't play teams. There's no such thing as loyalty or exclusivity in international politics, there are only interests, and - among the better players - sticking to deals, even unwritten ones. Russian interests overlap with Chinese in security matters, so they cooperate. And Xi and Putin seem to believe that the other will stick to any deal they agree on, which is a huge advantage for their countries.
Japan has a serious problem with China, its old colony, getting uncomfortably strong, uncomfortably short time after all the atrocities the Japanese committed in China. So it would love some help from the only country that could have meaningful influence on Chinese foreign policy - Russia. But Japan has an additional problem - it would have to conclude a peace treaty with Russia, which its master (the US) won't allow, and which would mean having to accept Russian sovereignty over the Southern Kurils. So Japan tries to push India into doing its negotiations with Russia, since India has good relations with both Japan and Russia. A classic example of great power politics from before the bi-polar world.
I love the first sentence in the project outline: "Recognizing that Russia shares the concerns of Japan and the U.S. about the emergence of China as a global superpower..." Classic projecting :)
It would probably be a bad idea to go after the second biggest economy on the planet, unfortunately if China loses we all lose (although that could go for any of the 10 major economies, we're really all fucked aren't we).
 
My strong suspicion is Japan's nationalists deeply fear revanchism from its neighbors seeking payback for WWII and before. Nationalists on all sides dislike/loathe each other but Korean and Chinese both agree they loathe Japan way more.
 
I find this quite interesting in a sense that it promises very interesting times for us all in the future:
In July 2021, a Chicago Council on Global Affairs survey found that 50 percent of Americans favored the use of U.S. troops if Russia were to invade the rest of Ukraine, whereas 48 percent of Americans opposed deploying troops in this situation. In a sign of bipartisanship on the issue, the shares of support for deploying troops were similar across party lines (54 percent of Democrats, 51 percent of Republicans, and 46 percent of Independents in favor).

These levels of support are up considerably from previous years, as only 30 percent of Americans favored using U.S. troops if Russia invaded the rest of Ukraine following its annexation of Crimea in 2014.

It rather apt demonstration of the creeping insanity that the modern media bubbles create.
 
It rather apt demonstration of the creeping insanity that the modern media bubbles create.
Are they really modern? I think there were very similar bubbles in the past, only instead of internet, the TV, radio and newspapers were used to create them. The technology for information propagation has changed considerably, but the technologies for manipulating the information, and the public with it, are IMO still almost the same. There were several red scares in the US alone. Americans seem to be great at creating information bubbles for themselves, sitting there on the other side of the Atlantic, isolated from rational people. There were numerous other instances of media-induced mass hysteria, though granted the internet is great at helping the hysteria to go global and develop much faster.
I wonder how would the people who said yes to war with Russia over Ukraine react, if it was explained to them how the war would look. That information is most likely not part of their information bubble :)
 
I find this quite interesting in a sense that it promises very interesting times for us all in the future:


It rather apt demonstration of the creeping insanity that the modern media bubbles create.

What would you expect from the Call of Duty generation?
In Poland arrival of the US airborne battalion was hailed as if arrival of ubermenshen capable of ripping tanks with the bare hands.

In reality problem lays in the popular narration where gross of society is critically underinformed and fed myths, which from ground up creates fundaments for irrational decisions at the higher level. In the end we elect our rulers, and given the "knowledge" the most people have and general content with shallow information . . . , who is the most probable winner of electorial process?
Now add post '91 delusion of grandeur. Actually many people do not fully understand causes of the Ukrainian crisis nor repercussions from using armed force for solving political problems.

Unparadoxically, clue of the cognitive problem of the phenomenon lay in the perception and portrayal of Russia and Russians in popular media and turning it into the "right" narration.

Are they really modern? I think there were very similar bubbles in the past, only instead of internet, the TV, radio and newspapers were used to create them. The technology for information propagation has changed considerably, but the technologies for manipulating the information, and the public with it, are IMO still almost the same. There were several red scares in the US alone. Americans seem to be great at creating information bubbles for themselves, sitting there on the other side of the Atlantic, isolated from rational people. There were numerous other instances of media-induced mass hysteria, though granted the internet is great at helping the hysteria to go global and develop much faster.
I wonder how would the people who said yes to war with Russia over Ukraine react, if it was explained to them how the war would look. That information is most likely not part of their information bubble :)

Information enviroment is more like onion in construction. Most people take content with what they are being shown and do not peel the layers. Otherwise they may cry ;). when their worldwiev crumbles.
Actually for many such turn of events is actual reality death event, that's why open denial of reality is so common.
 
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