The End of the Rebels in the Ukraine and the Ukraine’s Future
We’re down to street fighting in Donetsk. The Russian leaders resigned in the last two weeks. The rebels appear to be done, at least in terms of their conventional military phase (of course, I could be wrong depending on how much stomach Ukrainian troops have for house to house fighting). It seems like that would only change if Russia decided to actually invade, and that seems unlikely (though predicting Putin’s decisions is always difficult.)
The Eastern Ukraine, bottom line, does not have enough support for joining Russia, nor coherent enough borders to avoid the West and Ukraine running an insurgency in it. Conquering it would leave Russia controlling territory which could turn into a bleeding ulcer if it didn’t join peacefully (unlike Crimea, where the population overwhelmingly wanted to join, and where the geography is highly defensible.)
I’m not sure this is the “right” decision for Russia, because I can’t see that Ukraine won’t become a NATO member rather soon if Russia’s preferred solution, federalization with anti-NATO guarantees does not happen.
However, Russia does still have leverage: there are enough Eastern Ukrainians who will now hate the central government and want to join Russia, and the border is long enough and porous enough, that Russia can easily support an open ended insurgency within Ukraine.
Likewise, Winter is Coming, and the prospect of turning off the gas to the Ukraine and Europe will become much more effective. Russia may believe that these two factors will enable it to get its minimal demands. I doubt it, personally, because NATO expansion to Ukraine is something the US wants desperately, but we’ll see.
We move now to Ukraine’s future.
Dismal. Absolutely dismal.
Ukraine will be the second Greece of Europe, and soon. Pensions slashed by half, gas prices through the roof, crown jewels sold to Westerners, civil servants slashed to the bone. Its industry is integrated not with Europe, but with Russia, and Russia will move to get rid of its dependency on Ukrainian factories as fast as it can, especially as some of those factories create key defense equipment, and the Ukraine obviously cannot be counted on to supply them in any time of crisis, going forward.
Those factories are not competitive with Western factories, and when energy prices skyrocket, they won’t even be competitive with Russian factories.
Ukraine has some hydrocarbon reserves (though much will be lost with Crimea); it is an agricultural breadbasket, and that’s about all it has going for it. Again, the economy will be opened by the IMF to the West, and whatever is worth buying, and throws off actual profits or can be downsized and firesaled, will be sold to Westerners.
Ukrainians, including the Western Ukrainians who think that joining the West will solve their problems, are about to find out that Russia’s deals and treatment were far more kind than anything the IMF will do to them. Eastern Ukrainians, having lost a war, and being FAR more dependent on Russia, will find their economy devastated within a few years. (This will make them far more willing to resort to violence again, of course.)
The key thing to watch now will be the negotiations between Russia, Ukraine and Europe to see if there are any NATO guarantees. If not, well, we’ll see what the Russian response is. Internally the Russian public does not want to attack Ukraine to take Eastern Ukraine, but that could change if an atrocity occurs or is created. More likely, support for an insurgency, then the Ukraine building a huge wall across its border, and as noted, economic ruin.
This game isn’t over yet. In a few years Russia may yet wind up with the East, with its citizens practically begging to join. Not mostly because of anything Russia does, but because of what the IMF does.
Note also that efforts to de-dollarize the world are ongoing by the BRICS in general, and China in particular, and Russia is moving to decouple as much of its economy as it can from the West. In a few years the West will have far fewer levers to pull to hurt Russia.
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@ Jeff Wegerson
But the idea of a nuclear winter being our only survival is not worth thinking about.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I offered that as a tongue-deeply-in-cheek benefit of a nuclear conflagration; and it sure looks like we may go there.
The U.S. is quick to sanction for the same policies that it has done with hubris and impunity.
Sanctions can be construed as an act of war. Best to talk, no?
It’s also good to know history; maybe regarding pre-Pearl Harbor and our sanctions against Japan.
In my 70th year, I can’t recall a more dangerous time other than the Cuban debacle…
You folks need to stop listening only to the echo chamber. Tense, yes. More dangerous than everything but the Cuban Missile Crisis? Not so much. Berlin, Suez, Able Archer, Afghanistan – those all rank much higher than this. Hell, most any given day when the alert birds were airborne and the strat types debated instance 1,437 of whether one could afford the luxury of strategies other than launch on warning was probably more dangerous than this.
When the 2i/c of NATO gets up before God and everybody and says that he can’t think of a redline that Russia could possibly go past to spark direct kinetics over Ukraine and folks have to make up fantasy scenarios like nuking Warsaw out of whole cloth, that’s a sign that the commentariat rhetoric is way out of whack.
@ JustPlainDave
Oft you’re a good foil to hyperbole, but, I think you forget; Putin/Russia has said if confronted by overwhelming force they would go nuclear (tactical).
Russia reportedly has thousands of tactical nukes and the U.S. about 500.
Obama is pushing very hard with propaganda and outright lies to rally NATO into stupid, aggressive moves, directed at Moscow via Ukraine and the puppet Poroshenko.
I’d like to be comforted by your POV, but it seems wrong.
I would only add that Putin is one smart guy, but he’ll not back off what he believes is his right and his sphere of influence within which we are severely fucking with him…
Very bad juju…
The important element lacking here is “if confronted by overwhelming force”. NATO just said they don’t intend to use any directly and current reporting says the ceasefire is holding (nor, even if it weren’t, can the Ukrainians be considered overwhelming force [nanowhelming might be the more apt descriptor]).
Even support for Ukraine is distinctly unimpressive – we [Canada] just gave them one meeeellion dollars (meanwhile, we kicked in three whole million for the Baltics – which are the real area of concern – while JTF-2 and the int people are actually deploying to Iraq [I look forward to hearing the squeals when folks realize how this isn’t the first time], which is the real area of national interest).
@ JustPlainDave
But of course Ukraine couldn’t overwhelm; but NATO backed by the U.S. could potentially.
Screw Ukraine, they’re lame and driven, transparently, by the U.S.
Surprised that doesn’t register much with you.
Remember Russia in Cuba? What’s the difference here?
The big difference here is that Soviet strategic and conventional forces were actually *in* Cuba. Neither of those is true of US (or NATO) forces and Ukraine and all of the messaging is vocally to the effect of “ain’t gonna happen”. When the hot air around the US aid promised is full of buzzwords like “non-lethal” and “territorial integrity” and it notably hasn’t broken $75 million this far in – having *started* at $50 million back in the spring, that doesn’t say “precipitous escalation” to me. Based on what I’m seeing reported, it looks to me that our spending in the Baltics dwarfs spending in Ukraine – which is appropriate and shows where the real interest lies.
But, but, American forces are *in* Ukraine. It’s been widely reported American special forces are there and have been for weeks as an adjunct training force.
What the heck are you talking about?
Look, Nuland was pretty direct about what was really going on and U.S.’s involvement.
If you’re okay with that then we really don’t have much to discuss, yes?
There’s a wee bit of a difference between deploying 200 guys to do non-kinetic training far from the front (and no, they’re not there yet) and 43,000 conventional forces, backed by tactical nuclear weapons.
If there’s an undisclosed American line SF component there (which I doubt very much), I have to say they haven’t really been super effective. Moreover, I have a pretty detailed knowledge of the FID / MTT mission and it ain’t a game changer in this context on this timescale. If there’s a Tier I component there doing more than observing (a handful of observers is somewhat plausible), again it ain’t amounting to much and we’ve seen none of the signature that would be associated (Ukrainian C3I has conspicuously sucked ass).
That impulse to the effect of having nothing to discuss if others don’t accept all of one’s particular set of facts and never accepting others that potentially falsify one’s favourites, well, that explains why the commentariat’s analysis is so bad.
Something has gone technically funny I can see only a small number of comments. Anybody else having problems?
@ OldSkeptic, 6 Sept 2014
You will find the 100 prior comments at the ‘Newer Comments’ link at the end of the current comments displayed. It might be less confusing if that were ‘Older Comments’, but that is what we have.
T-Bear, when I do that only the first 3 comments appear.
Interesting article from the always excellent Philip Giraldi in the American Conservative (which despite its name I recommend checking out from time to time, some interesting stuff turns up there):
http://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/does-the-cia-believe-obama/
In it he notes the disconnect from the ‘policy makers’ and the rank and file intelligence people, which now seems endemic (as per Iraq and facts being fitted around the policy).
Does the CIA Believe Obama?
Intelligence pros are far more skeptical of government claims than their bosses let on.
“A basic understanding of how big bureaucracies operate is essential. Very few individuals in any large government bureaucracy are actually involved in what one might describe as policy issues. This is why insiders refer to places like the “seventh floor” at CIA and State or the E-Ring at the Pentagon, because that is where the movers and shakers have their offices. They are the public faces of their organizations and everyone else is little more than supporting cast. Indeed, many of those on the top executive level have little in common with the other employees at all, as they are themselves political appointees, designated to provide largely uncritical support for the policies being promoted by the White House even when the institutions they head are dubious.”
“That means that the Chuck Hagels, John Kerrys, and John Brennans of this world probably are only dimly aware of what is occurring on the lower floors of their own buildings. ”
“It might actually be that the cabinet truly believes in what it is peddling, but that is a thought too frightening to contemplate.”
“But not everyone agrees with their bosses. Indeed, I know of no former or current intelligence official who believes that the expansion of NATO into Eastern Europe was a good idea, that toppling Bashar al-Assad would bring anything but chaos, or that bombing ISIS will actually accomplish anything. Given the current national security environment, I think I can state with some certainty that a solid majority of lower and mid-level employees would regard the administration responses to the ongoing series of crises, including both Ukraine and ISIS, as poorly conceived and executed. In the case of Ukraine the judgment would be somewhat stronger than that, bordering on perceptions that what we are experiencing is an abuse of the intelligence process to serve a political agenda, that the Cold War-style tension is both unnecessary and contrived. Many regard the dubious intelligence that has been produced to implicate Moscow in Crimean developments as both cherry picked and unreliable.”
” Intelligence work makes one naturally cynical but the rank and file are now becoming generally suspicious of and even hostile to what is going on.”
“So the short answer to whether those engaged at the working level in national security actually believe what their bosses are saying is, “Probably not.””
Seems ok now…que?
Off topic but from the “Dept of I am Not Surprised”:
From the always excellent Gareth Porter
Exclusive: Israel’s Video Justifying Destruction of a Gaza Hospital Was From 2009
http://www.truth-out.org/news/item/25999-israels-video-justifying-destruction-of-a-hospital-was-from-2009
“A video distributed by the Israeli military in July suggesting that Palestinian fighters had fired from the Al Wafa Rehabilitation and Geriatric Hospital in Gaza City was not shot during the recent Israeli attack on Gaza, and both audio and video clips were manipulated to cover up the fact that they were from entirely different incidents, a Truthout investigation has revealed.
The video, released by the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) on July 23, the same day Israeli airstrikes destroyed Al Wafa, was widely reported by pro-Israeli publications and websites as proving that the hospital was destroyed because Hamas had turned the hospital into a military facility. But the video clip showing apparent firing from an annex to the hospital was actually shot during Israel’s 2008-09 “Operation Cast Lead,” and the audio clip accompanying it was from an incident unrelated to Al Wafa.
The misleading video was only the last in a series of IDF dissimulations about Al Wafa hospital that included false claims that Hamas rockets had been launched from the hospital grounds, or very near it, and that the hospital had been damaged by an attack on the launching site.
The IDF began to prepare the ground for the destruction of Al Wafa hospital well before Israeli ground troops entered Gaza on July 17. On July 11, the IDF fired four warning rockets on the fourth floor of Al Wafa, making a large hole in the ceiling – the standard IDF signal that a building was going to be destroyed by an airstrike.”
Oh well at least Israel is consistent…they always lie. Which actually makes it easier to work out what they really mean…just take what they say and turn it 180 degrees.
Related to the previous discussion about global limits.
Limits to Growth was right. New research shows we’re nearing collapse
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/sep/02/limits-to-growth-was-right-new-research-shows-were-nearing-collapse
Paper at: http://www.sustainable.unimelb.edu.au/files/mssi/MSSI-ResearchPaper-4_Turner_2014.pdf
Now if you look at the ‘first world’ we can see this clearly. Incomes have stagnated or are declining in the US/UK/EU. Yes there are some rises in the ’emerging countries’, but for how long?
Another simple example, oil companies are now ‘cash negative’, in that the capital cost of exploration and development exceed their incomes now as the remaining oil is insanely expensive to find and extract.
So we are, globally though various regions will differ in their timings, into the decline stage. Papering over the cracks with insane debt levels and money printing can only disguise things for so long.
Personally I think the western ‘elites’ saw this coming since the ’90s and have been positioning themselves for it, albeit in a very stupid way. Taking the US as an example they have long been preparing themselves for a class based civil war and are betting the farm that they can suppress dissent and keep the proles down as their living standard collapses and the remaining resources are kept for the elites. Interesting bet.
So we are right on track and have been for awhile now. LTG projections have often been checked over the years and we just keep on the same path. If we started changing in 1980 or even 1990 we might have avoided, or at least mitigated, this. But it is too late now.
If you just take electricity production, to move to a more sustainable path we would have to move to a massive increase in non fossil fuel based production. More than most think, because we would have to substitute a lot of transport to becoming electricity based and huge increase in recycling (another energy hog).
So total replacement of all existing fossil fuel electricity generation, plus the extra needed for the new transport, plus the extra needed for moving to a (near) 100% recycling society.
The capital cost, resources and time required are immense and in most countries it is now too late to do it.
We can never build enough nuclear/wind/tidal/solar/etc/etc to do it in time. Plus the massive investment in new transport and recycling infrastructure required. That’s a 30 year full on program.
Most western countries went backwards from that direction since 1980, which was about the latest we needed to start.
Take the example of the UK. After being a world leader in nuclear power plant manufacturing (and their AGR design is far better and far safer than the US PWR design everyone now uses) they lack the skills to make one now. They pissed their oil/gas windfall which could have funded that into the wind… Nothing can save them now.
@ JPD
That impulse to the effect of having nothing to discuss if others don’t accept all of one’s particular set of facts and never accepting others that potentially falsify one’s favourites, well, that explains why the commentariat’s analysis is so bad.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I have no expectation anybody will accept *all* of my opinions. I’ll discuss until the cows come home if there is anything to gain; but circular discussions are fruitless.
I am aware of who and what was in Cuba and we almost went nuclear over that. Nuland made it pretty clear she (U.S. proxy) was running the coup and its candidate, Yats (as she called him), with the clear intention of bringing Ukraine into NATO and the EU’s economic zone.
I can only imagine what the ultimate outcome of that would have been. I think it would be naive to believe weapons wouldn’t have followed. The encirclement of Russia and the blatant demonizing of Putin is a desperate attempt by the U.S. at empire.
I have visions of Orwell’s tripartite world of eternal war.
The real kicker in all of this is MH-17. The findings (black boxes) are deliberately withheld from the public and I’d bet it’s because Ukrainian Mig-25’s shot it down. Logically there can be no other reason, IMO.
51% for Scottish independence…great news….
Celsius, I guess it depends on what it is that you hope to gain via discourse. I’ve always found that consensus is significantly less useful to me than disagreement grounded in fact. Disagreement grounded in conviction, without reference to fact, is significantly less useful.
Personally, I find that the current state of discourse on open, non-specialist sites these days is one of self-balkanization. A high degree of uniformity of opinion, founded on a narrow range of accepted facts – only some of which can be externally verified and very few of which are at all contextualized- appears to be the norm. Things that come from “approved” sources are accepted pretty much without question (e.g., the “always excellent” sources above – no source is “always excellent”, not one) whereas material that comes from sources that have been judged unacceptable (e.g., Michael Gordon – boo, hiss, knashing of teeth) is never accepted. Data points are selected and fitted around pre-selected interpretations, rather than folks going where the evidence leads or deliberately seeking to look at it through a range of alternative lenses. It’s not a recipe for an informed, engaged populace.
But…but…who’s counting the votes?
MiG-25’s have air-to-air capacity now? Last I’d heard they were strictly ground attack aircraft. Also it should be noted that essentialy 100% of new energy investment in the U.S. is in renewables. Solar(both solar-voltaic and solar thermal) is going to get progressively cheaper at an accelerating pace as production/installation ramps up, such that even coal will be too expensisve to bother with sometime before 2020. For all the shouting about carbon taxes and mandates, it will be supply and demand that brings about the transition to the cheap electricity economy.
My mistake. I was thinking Su-25. Frogfoot not Foxbat. Duh!
@DMC
You’ve just demonstrated something none now in power can accomplish let alone conceive – to self-correct.
Had the Titanic self-corrected and headed directly at the iceberg instead of attempting to veer away, only the front few watertight compartments would have been damaged and left the ship in seaworthy state instead of a breach under the waterline of the majority of its watertight compartments, sending the ship to its grave. Another wonderful fact of 20/20 hindsight.
Additionally, has anyone noticed how complexity is now completely beyond control? There is no-one capable at the helm, either in the EU, London, Wall St. or Washington. Such systems developed through rational design have an uncanny ability to fail when not under rational control. That may go a long way to explain why President Putin has prevailed in the NATO inspired assault upon Russia. The coming winter looks to be long and cold. Some of that Libyan gas might come in handy if stability is restored to those suppliers. Can you spell: blowback?
Well US Aim #1 is well on the way, the new sanctions, though they currently exclude gas, are a ‘nuclear’ option to hit Russia’s oil industry (because oil is so plentiful and cheap around the world obviously). They are storing gas like bandits:
Here Is Why Europe Just Launched The “Nuclear Option” Against Russia
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-09-08/here-why-europe-just-launched-nuclear-option-against-russia
“Europe’s leaders, we assume under pressure from Washington, appear to be making a big weather-related bet with their taxpayers’ lives this winter. As they unleash funding sanctions on Russia’s big energy producers, Europe has pumped a record volume of natural gas into underground inventories in an effort to ‘outlast’ Russia and mitigate any Napoleonic “Winter War” scenario. The plan appears to be to starve Russian energy firms of cashflow – as flows to Europe are already plunging – and remove their funding ability, potentially forcing severe hardship on Russia’s key economic drivers. There appears to be 3 potential problems with this plan…
So Europe is stocking-up – which makes perfect sense – just in case Russia pulls the plug… but has now taken the situation to “11” on the Spinal Tap amplifier of escalating tensions by planning sanctions on Russia’s energy providers.
The plan appears clear:
stock-up now (to survive the winter)…
starve Russian firms of cashflow (thanks to stockpiles)…
cut off their funding source (sanctions)…
force Putin’s economy into a tailspin…
Putin folds and it all ends happily ever after
“
@OldSkeptic
I think this report found at The Automatic Earth probably has a foretaste of what the response to sanctions will be.
http://en.ria.ru/politics/20140908/192727067/Medvedev-Energy-Finance-Sanctions-Against-Russia-May-Provoke.html
titled: Medvedev: Energy, Finance Sanctions Against Russia May Provoke ‘Asymmetric Response’
primarily stating: MOSCOW, September 8 (RIA Novosti) – New Sanctions against Russia in energy or finance sectors could trigger an asymmetric response from Moscow, such as closing its airspace, Russia’s Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev told the Vedomosti newspaper in an interview released Monday.
Notice how no threat was made but a suggestion of what actions could be taken should applied sanctions not be thoroughly thought through. A fine display of diplomacy in action as opposed to the west’s sanctions being an ignorant and blatant act of economic warfare.
Formerly T-Bear “west’s sanctions being an ignorant and blatant act of economic warfare.”
Disagree that it is ignorant, just another step in achieving US Aim #1. I think it is pretty well thought out. Obviously the US wants the full end of gas sales now, but the EU is dragging its heels a little bit, so we have this step by step ratcheting up process.
Maybe next month when the gas reserves are full they will put the final sanctions on, because Putin’s socks are the wrong colour or something. They will find a reason, an outright lie or false flag or something.
As I said there is no backing down now, this is it to the death….of the EU that is, though Russia will be hurt badly economically the EU will be hammered.
There are no countervailing, in the short term at least, political forces within the EU to stop it. Bit of grizzling here and there, but nothing large enough to push back against what the US wants.
So all we see is a bit of political theatre going on.
Basically their overall strategy now is to ‘bet on a queen high’, in that the damage to the Russian economy will cause an overthrow of Putin (and US agents in there will be working real hard as well), with a nice tame oligarch ran Govt being put in power. The US will also be talking to Russian oligarchs about how much money they will get if they do it, as per the IMF allowing the Ukrainian oligarchs to siphon of most of the loan money into their pockets…$3.1 billion, now that is a real bribe.
So the US, and its poodles, are going ‘all in’, yes they have suffered a setback but they will just put Aim #2 back a little bit and concentrate on #1 for now. Though #2 won’t be given up on. they will just need to set things up a bit more before they can go at it again.
DMC
September 8, 2014
MiG-25′s have air-to-air capacity now?
Yes, always have had…
Well, my bad, it was an SU-25, not a MIG-25 that is alleged to have shot down MH-17.
The later variants of the SU-25 are equipped with A to A radar and missiles as well as 30mm cannon(s).
Both weapons are alleged to have been used to down the aircraft.
A preliminary report on the black boxes is due out today, Tuesday the 9th.
Well what can they say, since they have signed a well leaked agreement that the Ukraine, Netherlands and Australia (think there was the UK too) all have vetoes on what is reported….
Might just say “the plane flew, until it didn’t”…..lol.
MH-17 was broken up by external forces comprising high energy objects.
I’m underwhelmed by their lack of candor and any meaningful information.
Met my expectations exactly…
@OldSkeptic 8 Sept. 2014 #64655
I still stand by ignorant. I am not one who entertains neoliberal/neocon philosophy as valid. I maintain ignorant as the operative in my statement from understanding Sun Tzu’s dictum – Know Your Enemy. These intellectual non-entities obviously don’t know Russia from their elbows. That view is held by others as well. See:
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-09-07/top-russia-expert-ukraine-joining-nato-would-provoke-nuclear-war
Should one suspect you approve of a nice nuclear winter scenario? This ends my participation on this subject. Cheers …
Formerly T-Bear
I still stand by ignorant.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Yes, I agree. Ignorance isn’t stupidity; it’s lacking knowledge or information.
A very important distinction, IMO.
And clearly, that is missing in America’s actions.
Actions based on ignorance, possibly willful, which is most disturbing…
Formerly T-Bear, I should have clarified what I meant more accurately, apologies.
I agree with you totally that from a reality based point of view that they are being insanely stupid.
But from within their own mind set (or mental model, whatever) they think they are being very clever and that the risks are negligible (or manageable) and that they will win. ‘Creating their own reality’ sort of thing, though I prefer my Iain M Banks quote to describe it.
This mind set is reinforced by the groups they belong to, where to join and be accepted you have to acquiesce to their dominant ideology.
You have hit on another very good point as well, the nexus between neo-liberal ‘economics’
and neo-conservative militarism. Both are essentially ideologies (or states of mind) that require a decoupling from reality as neither stand up to objective facts. Both also systematically underestimate risk as a factor, often by orders of magnitude.
I have noticed that people steeped in neo-liberalism do more easily jump to the neo-con point of view. After all, if you have spent your live in a fantasy land, what difference is another fantasy land…. plus there is an inherent authoritarianism within neo-liberal thought, how do you control the proles when you throw them under an economic bus?
Neo-conservatism is very much the ‘hard edge’ of neo-liberalism too, if you don’t willingly accept a neo-liberal economic ideology…it will be forced on you . We saw this in Iraq, after the invasion, neo-liberals took over the running of the country and systematically destroyed it economically.
The first case of this was of course Chile where Milton Friedman and his acolytes went to in droves. With those pesky unions, etc, killed or banged up in torture central they could run riot. Never heard any of them shed a single tear for the loss of democracy and freedom, or all the torture and death, it was a great success they claim.
Plus ever heard of a mainstream neo-liberal economist bemoaning the huge spending on the military and ‘national security’, never, rather they whine endlessly about some granny somewhere who still has a few gold fillings left that haven’t yet been ripped out to pay for a loaf of bread.
As for nuclear winter, just because I can’t see an long term alternative for technological humanity, doesn’t mean there isn’t one…plus let’s not do it this week I’ve got some things planned.
Two superb article.
One by Dimtri Orlov about Russia and the west (reprint from earlier, still a a must read).
http://cluborlov.blogspot.com.au/2014/09/the-madness-of-president-putin.html
Second from Peter Lee on ISIS (US, Turkey, SA, Syria, etc). Another superb analysis from him, a must, must read.
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/MID-01-090914.html
@OldSkeptic 9 Sept. 2014 #64671
Nice and concise encapsulation of the Neo-Thought-Collective (Ersatz Theology). An interesting exposé of the NTC can be found in Philip Mirowski Never Let a Serious Crisis Go to Waste, How Neoliberalism Survived the Financial Meltdown ISBN-13: 978-1-78168-079-7. In conjunction with Nassim Nicholas Taleb The Black Swan, The Impact of the Highly Improbable ISBN 978-1-1410-3459-1 almost assures the collapse of the Neo-Regime now constitutionally enshrouded in power. Systemic collapse (the black swan) is about the only way to remove or discredit the ideology from the public domain; a costly enterprise but less so than civil hostilities would produce. The NTC are destroyers, incapable of developing or maintaining complex systems; they demonstrate no ability to restore the economic system they are responsible for managing, yet they insist on conducting warfare upon their perceived competition. The NTC demonstrate no ability to self-correct. This promises to end poorly, but it will end the ability of the hegemon to rule.