Author: Ian Welsh Page 1 of 372

France has been forced to withdraw its troops from Mali, Niger and Burkina Faso. All three countries have forged closer ties with Moscow.

Every since de-colonization France has been the primary power in these countries. When France left most of its colonies it charged them for what it had built during colonial times and has made them pay those debts back. With interest, the debts are still being paid.

Beautiful that, “we conquered you and occupied you and you’re going to pay for that.” France also had a great deal of trade with its former colonial subjects. But that hasn’t been going so well lately.

I’m a bit of a broken record on this, but almost anything you can buy from the West, you can now buy from China. If you’re an African country who needs hydrocarbons or wheat, military equipment or mercenaries, well, Russia is happy to supply those.

And African countries are huge resource exporters, as a rule. China’s deals for resources are better, too. Want a railroad, hospitals, ports, even an entire city? They’ll build it for you, faster and for less than the West, and if you want to borrow money to pay for it, their rates are lower.

Same thing with internet. Want to buy cell phones or computers? China’s are cheaper and essentially as good. Want a telecom network? China’s prices are cheaper and the build faster.

The West doesn’t have a good reputation in Africa. We conquered them, colonized them, and post colonization we have treated them like garbage and with serious disrespect, as if they’re morons, not a region suffering from what we did to them.

On an individual level there’s a fair bit of Chinese racism against Africans, but not at the diplomatic level. Russia and China have a fairly simple policy towards African countries: their internal affairs are their business.

The best quote is from a Kenyan official, “Every time China visits we get a hospital, every time Britain visits we get a lecture.”

This goes back to what I’ve been saying about Europe, they think their shit doesn’t smell. They believe they are the peak of civilization, with the best government and organization and that they have the right to tell everyone else what to do, because obviously, they’re right, not the inheritors of five hundred years of colonization and looting, currently protected by America as satrapies, occupied after WWII, but no longer even (when lumped all together) in the top four creators of new scientific advances. (Those are China, America, Japan and South Korea.)

This delusional view of their virtues and everyone else’s flaws doesn’t go over well, but Africa and everyone else didn’t have any choice but to put up with it: after the USSR fell and until recently, the West and its conquered subjects (Japan, South Korea and Taiwan) were the only game in town. If you wanted anything remotely advanced, you had to buy it from the West and if you didn’t play by the West’s rules, they would coup you or punish you in various ways you couldn’t resist.

Those times are ending. America can’t even coerce or bribe a country as fundamentally weak and poor as Yemen.

So the Africans are turning to China and Russia, who treat them with a great deal more respect and give them far better terms.

France’s evening glory is ending. Soon they’ll be out everywhere or almost everywhere. The same is true of Europe as a whole. And even the US is being kicked out (most recently out of Niger.)

And Europe will return to it’s normal state: a backwards and largely unimportant peninsula on the periphery of Asia.

Oh, and those colonial debts for being conquered and ruled: about the time the Western financial system becomes one of only two financial systems, the ex-colonies will just stop paying.

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EU Delusion on Sanctions and Europe’s Future

By Ian Welsh

On April 22, 2024

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While the EU was considering more sanctions against Iran because it attacked Israel in retaliation for Israel bombing its embassy, Russia is sending Iran:

Meanwhile America is threatening China that if they don’t stop sending Russia “dual use” goods, the US will slap on more sanctions.

Boo hoo.

Let us remember the results of chip sanctions. China now owns the legacy part of the industry, and is making progress western “experts” said would take decades in years. Huawei has recovered from the sanctions and created its own OS. It is now a massive electric vehicle manufacturer in addition to everything else. BYD will soon become the largest EV manufacturer in the world, eclipsing Tesla. Something about its cars being cheaper, and Tesla gave up on building a cheap version of their cars. Maybe Tesla will survive because the US keeps all Chinese EVs out, but my guess is that if Musk stays CEO, Tesla’s best possible future is as a luxury EV manufacturer. Their “Cyber Truck” is a disaster.

Iran has built a formidable military with hypersonic missiles while under sanctions, sanctions which started at the same time the Islamic Republic was created. But now, what I’m sure happens, is that China sells Russia goods and Russia trans-ships them to Iran. That hasn’t undone the sanctions completely, but as the world moves away from using the dollar as the medium of trade and routes around US, EU and anglosphere banks, the effects of the sanctions will continue to diminish.

There’s very little that Iran needs (though still some) that China and Russia don’t make. And anything sold to Russia by, say, India, can also make its way to Iran. Cutting Russia off almost entirely gives it no reason to play by Western rules, and it doesn’t.

This is especially true now that America has taken Russian reserves and will be giving them to Ukraine. Anyone who trusts the US with their money who isn’t a complete ally, or satrapy, is a fool. There’s a reason why money used to be frozen before, but not actually taken. There’s a big difference between the two.

But let’s move back to Europe. This article from FT is to the point, German gas prices are two-thirds higher, structurally, than they were before the Ukraine war.

That’s after prices dropped massively. The simple fact is that US natural gas costs a lot more. Russia was selling Europe and Germany oil and gas for bargain prices. Russia’s still willing to sell, but Europe has its head up its ass.

The recent history of European industry is simple. When the Euro came into effect, it raised everyone’s prices except Germany’s, pretty much. Industry in all of Europe except Germany was badly damaged (this was especially bad in Italy which was more of an industrial power than most realized.) Germany, in effect, received a subsidy: the Euro was worth less than the German Mark.

Germany has (had) a lot of heavy industry: a lot of energy intensive industry. To get energy for this, Germany got cheap, below market Russia oil and natural gas. Russia got bulk sales of one of the few things it had to sell and Germany kept its industry competitive.

Those days are over, essentially permanently.

And the problem is that Germany’s dominance was in legacy heavy industry and automobiles. They aren’t creating a lot of new tech and science. They don’t have large new industries developing. They don’t have scale costs like China does. They relied on being very efficient and already dominating industries.

But those industries are leaving. A lot of them are going to America, the actual company facilities, but the production is, effectively, also moving to China and other countries.

I know I’m a bit of a stuck record on this (do youngs understand that simile?) but Europe is walking into its decline with its leaders acting as if it’s no big deal, indeed as if they are, to use my father’s crude insult still “King shit of turd island.” Sanctioning Iran, lecturing Africans and acting as if they are superior in every way: the only truly civilized people in the world.

Even as they do, the foundations of their prosperity, their “garden” are eroding out from under them at the speed of soil blowing away during the Dust Bowl.

They’re insane. Completely detached from reality, and some of the stupidest elites in the world, even exceeding America’s very high bar.

The Sun always sets. European leaders seem determined to make it set as soon as possible.

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Open Thread

By Ian Welsh

On April 20, 2024

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Use to discuss topics unrelated to recent posts.

Why I Rarely Care About The Events Of the Day

By Ian Welsh

On April 18, 2024

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There are two forces in history.

The first is weight. Or mass. Or trajectory. The unstoppable force. The US overtaking Britain as the premier industrial power. The two continental powers, Russia and the US, dividing Europe between them, an ancient pattern. Then the US outlasting the USSR because the US’s alliance had more people and resources and better geography.

The rise of China. The inexorable march of global warming and ecological collapse. The financialization and hollowing of a hegemonic power which always follows the decision to do free trade seriously

The second is human decision making at crisis points. Think the Cuban Missile Crisis. There were powerful men in the US who wanted to strike Cuba or Russian ships. If they had done so, there would almost certainly have been a nuclear exchange.

For the first eight or so years I was a blogger, I covered a lot of the “stories of day.” I still cover some, but mostly I use them to illustrate the mass/force/trajectory category.

This is why I don’t discuss the Ukraine war much. I said, day one, that Russia would win, and it is. It was also obvious that anti-Russia sanctions wouldn’t work, because China wouldn’t let Russia be choked out, and China has almost everything Russia needs. The Chinese aren’t, mostly, stupid about such things.

Sometimes a decision by an idiot makes force stronger: Trump and Biden’s chip sanctions on China just sped up the China’s tech climb, for example. Sheer stupidity.

Right now we have a situation in the Middle East where two idiots are putting us in danger of a major regional, or even world war: Netanyahu and Biden. Netanyahu knows Israel is weak and has lost deterrence. Biden won’t restrain him, though he has the power to do so. If a regional war breaks out, even if Israel and the US “win”, they’ll lose, because the US cannot defeat Iran without catastrophic losses or the use of Israeli nukes.

That’s a “human decision at crisis points” situation. Iran is doing most of what it can to avoid a regional conflagaration, but if they hadn’t responded to the embassy attack, nowhere would be safe for them. But Israel wants to draw America in, and Biden, so far, doesn’t seem to be doing enough to stop them.

“The air is thin at the top” means that people at the pinnacle of powerful organizations actually have a lot of power and leeway to do what they want. For a long time liberals argued against this, stating that the President was powerless. No. The President was powerful, there was just a consensus about what to do and the US was powerful enough to, up to a point, “make its own reality.” Not completely: they couldn’t pacify Iraq, for example, or, heck, Vietnam. But they could make a hell of a noise and kill a ton of people and suffer very few consequences. Bush is just fine, thanks.

The key question in “humans making decision at crisis points” right now is whether there’s a great power war during this transition between lead powers. China is on the way up, and America on the way down. China will be the most powerful nation in the world. In some ways it already is. The European/American/Anglo era is ending. The Africans are kicking America and France out, for example. They don’t have to put up with AmeriEuro bullshit any more, because what they need they can get from China, and what they need militarily, they can get from Russia. The prices are better, and the political interference is a lot less.

Mass/Force/Trajectory. Someone was going to wind up ruling Rome as Emperor. Could have been Sulla. Could have been Pompey. Sort of was Caesar (Antony and Octavian used his legacy and troops in their fight, and Octavian won by a whisker. He should have lost the key naval battle.)

As the Roman Emperor hollowed out, it was clear the West would fall. Just a question of when and the specifics, but that it would happen wasn’t in question. When the Europeans hit the Industrial revolution, they conquered about 80% of the world and had the rest under their thumb. A few brilliant men kept the Eastern Roman Empire going (decisions when mass/force is not sure.)

Mass/Force/Trajectory.

Climate change is happening, will happen and will suck beyond most people’s conceptions. There will be civilization collapse. There will be real famines. There will be massive lack of water. This isn’t in question, we’re just dealing with the specifics. Some regions will do somewhat better than others, so will some groups, but the macro isn’t in doubt.

The reason I get most things right is that I’ve learned (mostly, I still mess up sometimes) to predict sure things. Ukraine cannot win against Russia if sanctions don’t work, and China won’t let sanctions work. Some people follow the war obsessively, day by day. They do good work, and I read some of it, but mostly I don’t care because it’s just the details of an inevitability.

This blog and my writing is mostly about the mass/force/trajectory side of issues. A secondary piece is trying to advise people so they can make good decisions based on knowing what’s coming. The other theme is trying to create the bones of an ideology which will allow humanity to make better decisions in the future: to become a “conscious civilization” able to make rational choices rather than simply being pawns to social forces that civilization creates but so far has been unable to control.

If you’re a regular reader it’s because your interested in those three questions: what’s going to happen, how to adapt, and how (perhaps) to do better in the future.

I feel I write too much of the first and not enough of the third, though I’ve made huge efforts on the “how to do better” issue: with the biggest flurry of articles around 2012 to 2014. I may re-post some of those, since they still stand.

Thanks for going on this journey with me. It mostly sucks, but I’ve always believed it’s better to face unpleasant truths than walk blindfolded into the future.

And while we’re past the point where we will avoid the worst scenarios (except, hopefully, nuclear war), I do still retain some hope that humanity may find better ways in the future.

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China Builds A Temporary Bridge In Seven Days: Baltimore Will Take Years To Rebuild Theirs

By Ian Welsh

On April 17, 2024

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I know I’m a broken record on this, but it’s important. China is dynamic. They’re higher tech in general than America or Europe and they have an engineering culture and a belief in technology which we have lost.

Seven days to build a temporary bridge, after the Lixinsha Bridge in Guangzhou was broken by a ship. The temporary bridge was opened this morning. pic.twitter.com/mUThVKNB9E

— Sharing Travel (@TripInChina) March 3, 2024

The ability to do this sort of thing just doesn’t exist outside of China, to the best of my knowledge. They’re not just better than everyone else, they’re miles better.

It will take years for Baltimore to build a new bridge. Perhaps they should hire a Chinese company to build a temporary one in the meantime.

The Chinese have automated delivery vehicles all over the place. Robots in retail outlets and restaurants. The world’s largest high speed rail network.

The future doesn’t happen in America any more, it happens in China. According to people who visit, there’s also essentially no homelessness.

More than that China is willing to regulate: when delivery workers were abused, China stepped in and mandated better treatment. They also, publicly, built recreation and rest stations for them. During the pandemic they put up temporary hospitals in a week.

And more and more they design at home. This is similar to the switch from Britain to America in the 19th century: at first the Brits kept the design jobs, but increasingly they moved to the US. Of course in that case it was helped by the immigration of engineers and scientists, especially Scottish ones, but the Chinese are doing just fine, now, without a lot of Europeans and Americans. (Though there’s still an idealization of whites, if you’re an engineer or a scientist who wants a job in China and can speak Mandarin, you’ll have a job fast.)

It’s not our world any more. It’s the Chinese.

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The Standard Conditions Peaceful Or Violent Revolution, Collapse and Coups

By Ian Welsh

On April 15, 2024

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We’ve discussed this before:

fiscal inability;
an elite faction which wants to take over;
support of 20% or more of the population;

What is also very common is lost of prestige due to military defeat. This Russia in WWI (and they had also lost to the Japanese, which was particularly humiliating) or Germany, also after WWI. Getting your ass kicked makes people doubt you.

Or, if you want to put it another way: imperial overstretch, military defeat and internal strife.

America’s good, or rather, bad, on all of these. Just got its ass kicked by Yemen. Hasn’t won a war in generations. Massively ballooning deficits and debts at the same time as they’ve lost the ability to make much of what they need. Unable to build ships or advanced weapons or aircraft—aka: unable to produce the necessary military goods. Unable to recruit enough men to fill the military. Unable to keep its own ships and planes maintained properly. Police bloated but ineffective at anything but beating heads (and we’ll find out they aren’t good at that either when people start fighting back.)

Fiscal over-reach. Incompetence of the enforcer class who are also no longer loyal and many of whom don’t support the current state. (Remember, on Jan 6, the cops mostly didn’t fire. They would have against left wingers.) Massive prestige loss. Unhappy population due to generations of declining standards of living (no, don’t even, the official stats are bullshit. I was alive then. The standard of living is getting worse and worse unless you’re on of a few percent of winners.) Industry shipped overseas to main rival. Alliance of the largest major continental powers in Asia: Russia, China and Iran, with most of the third world preferring them to the West, even as African nations start kicking France and America out.

The question was always “when” not “if” since everything ends, but “when” is getting a lot closer. We could stumble on for quite a while until some event precipitates the the final cascade of events, but equally it could happen very soon because all the conditions are there for it. Once the conditions are met, it simply requires the inciting moment or person. Could be Trump, but more likely it’s the guy who learns from him who’s more competent.

I take some pleasure in this, but not a great deal. When the US collapses, my personal standard of living will collapse with it. I may wind up on the street and if I don’t I’ll be living a lot less well. Plus the US, in collapse and after, will be a danger to those countries in its immediate vicinity and I live in Canada.

But the conditions for collapse, revolution or coup are met.

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And Iran Retaliates For the Embassy Attack

By Ian Welsh

On April 13, 2024

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It’s on!

Looks like Iran wasn’t a paper tiger wimp who wouldn’t strike back.

Waves of drones right now, as I understand it the idea is to degrade air defenses, then send in the missiles. Some suggestions this will go on for at least three days.

American naval and air assets are helping Israel defend. I wonder if Iran will hit American bases too? Or, perhaps, tell its allies in Iraqi militias to do so, and stop playing around with small drone attacks: really hit them.

To my mind this attack is 100% justified. Embassy immunity is no joke, and Iran really had no choice but to strike, or nowhere would be safe.

Hezbollah is also hitting Northern Israel hard with missile attacks.

There’s some chance of this escalating into a large regional war if Israel counter-strikes, then Iran counter-counter-strikes and so on. Israel wants to draw the US in.

Remember, though, that war games tend to show the US losing a war with Iran. And if it goes that far, they WILL lose their bases in Iraq and the Persian Gulf WILL be shut down. Wouldn’t be surprised if they lose an aircraft carrier if they get stupid and try for too close support, as far as that goes.

Stay tuned. Slight chance this will turn into WWIII–remember, Russia is a close ally of Iran, and China has good ties as well. If Iran starts losing, they will help, especially Russia, who remembers that Iran was one of the only countries to step up and help them in a big way against Ukraine. At the very least, if Israel uses nukes on Iran, Russia is likely to respond, only possibly held back by the presence of Palestinians.

Interesting times to live in!

Update: And Iran apparently also seized a ship near the Straight of Hormuz. A warning that they can, indeed, play Yemen and shut down even more maritime traffic.

Update 2: Israeli air base Nevatem being hit: