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Andrei Martyanov is in a class by himself. A third wave baby boomer, born in the early 1960s in Baku, in the Caucasus, then part of the former USSR, he’s arguably the foremost military analyst in the Russian sphere, living and working in the US, writing in English for a global audience, and always excelling in his Reminiscence of the Future blog.
I’ve had the pleasure of reviewing Martyanov’s previous two books. In Losing Military Supremacy: The Myopia of American Strategic Planning, nearly three years ago he conclusively proved, among other things, how the missile gap between the US and Russia was a “technological abyss”, and how the Khinzal was “a complete game-changer geopolitically, strategically, operationally, tactically and psychologically”.
He extensively mapped “the final arrival of a completely new paradigm” in warfare and military technology. This review is included in my own Asia Times e-book Shadow play.
Then came The (Real) Revolution in Military Affairs, where he went one step beyond, explaining how this “revolution”, introduced at the Pentagon by the late Andrew Marshall, a.k.a. Yoda, the de facto inventor of the “pivot to Asia” concept, was in fact designed by Soviet military theoreticians way back in the 1970s, as MTR (Military-Technological Revolution).
His new book, Disintegration, completes a trilogy. And it’s a stunning departure.
Here, Martyanov, in meticulous detail, analyzes the imperial decline thematically – with chapters on Consumption, Geoeconomics, Energy, Losing the Arms Race, among others, composing a devastating indictment especially of toxic D.C. lobbies and the prevailing political mediocrity across the Beltway. What is laid bare for the reader is the complex interplay of forces that are driving the political, ideological, economic, cultural and military American chaos.
Chapter 3, on Geoeconomics, is a joy ride. Martyanov shows how geoeconomics as a field separate from warfare and geopolitics is nothing but an obfuscation racket: good old conflict “wrapped in the thin shroud of political sciences’ shallow intellectualism” – the stuff Huntington, Fukuyama and Brzezinski’s dreams are made of.
That is fully developed on Chapter 6, on Western Elites – complete with a scathing debunking of the “myth of Henry Kissinger”: “just another American exceptionalist, mislabeled a ‘realist’”, part of a gang that “is not conditioned to think multi-dimensionally”. After all they’re still not capable of understanding the rationale and the implications of Putin’s 2007 Munich speech that declared the unipolar moment – a crude euphemism for Hegemony – dead and buried.
How not to win wars
One of Martyanov’s key assessments is that having lost the arms race and every single war it unleashed in the 21st century – as the record shows – geoeconomics is essentially an “euphemism for America’s non-stop sanctions and attempts to sabotage the economies of any nation capable of competing with the United States” (see, for instance, the ongoing Nord Stream 2 saga). This is “the only tool” (his italics) the US is using trying to halt its decline.
On a chapter on Energy, Martyanov demonstrates how the US shale oil adventure is financially non-viable, and how a rise in oil exports was essentially due to the US “pickin up’ quotas freed chiefly as a result of Russia and Saudi Arabia’s earlier cuts within OPEC + in an attempt to balance the world’s oil market”.
In Chapter 7, Losing the Arms Race, Martyanov expands on the key theme he’s the undisputed superstar: the United States cannot win wars. Inflicting Hybrid War is another matter entirely, as in creating “a lot of misery around the world, from effectively starving people to killing them outright”.
A glaring example has been “maximum pressure” economic sanctions on Iran. But the point is these tools – which also included the assassination of Gen Soleimani – that are part of the arsenal of “spreading democracy” have nothing to do with “geoeconomics”, but have “everything to do with the raw power plays designed to achieve the main Clausewitzian object of war – ‘to compel our enemy to do our will’”. And “for America, most of the world is the enemy”.
Martyanov also feels compelled to update what he’s been excelling at for years: the fact that the arrival of hypersonic missiles “has changed warfare forever”. The Khinzal, deployed way back in 2017, has a range of 2,000 km and “is not interceptable by existing US anti-missile systems”. The 3M22 Zircon “changes the calculus of both naval and ground warfare completely”. The US lag behind Russia in air-defense systems is “massive, and both quantitative and qualitative”.
Disintegration additionally qualifies as a sharp critique of the eminently post-modernist phenomenon – starring infinite cultural fragmentation and the refusal to accept that “truth is knowable and can be agreed upon” – responsible for the current social re-engineering of the US, in tandem with an oligarchy that “realistically, is not very bright, despite being rich”.
And then there’s rampant Russophobia. Martyanov sounds the definitive red alert: “Of course, the United States is still capable of starting a war with Russia, but if it does so, this will mean only one thing – the United States will cease to exist, as will most of the human civilization. The horrific thing is that there are some people in the US for whom even this price is too small to pay.”
In the end, a cool scientific intellect cannot but rely on sound realpolitik: assuming the US avoids complete disintegration into “separatist territories”, Martyanov stresses that the only way for the American “elite” to maintain any kind of control “over generations increasingly woke or desensitized by drugs” is through tyranny. Actually techno-tyranny. And that seems to be the brave new dysfunctional paradigm further on down the road.
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A side comment: I often find that as I speed-type, auto-correct changes what I means to be “United States” to “Untied States.” Anyone else have this problem? Next time I’m thinking of not changing it back…
They know this, so they’ve opted for China. That’s the war – and when China is neutralized they can slowly strangle Russia economically.
Problem that the Chinese and Russians know the game plan.
Sadly, this nation wrecking seems to be the only accomplishment of the US military within the last 30 years.
Martyanov is basically a pro kremlin disinformation shill
His so called analysis is simply wrong,especially about the west and American economy,only one thing he writes about is correct and thats how disastrous a war would be between America and Russia,and that’s why it ain’t gonna happen!
The west can sit this Putin regime out,contain its behaviour,and watch Russia basically impoverish itself just as it did under the Soviet system,and don’t forget the Soviets had more resources than Russia and still they failed,as will Putin
What Martyanov is actually describing in his book and his blog,which I’ve followed for about 4 years is the disintegration of Russia not America
AUDIT UPDATES! AZ SENATE PRESIDENT RECEIVES “WHITE POWDER” IN THE MAIL, NH AND GA UPDATES
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The dual nature of America is the problem.
In one way, it’s the Jewish Mind controlling the White Body. Master Blaster.
In another way, it’s the White Mind having problem controlling the Black Body.
Like in these two movies:
Video Link
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Make of it what you will, but the only proven penetrator of Soviet air defences was a Cessna 172 piloted by an 18 y.o. German with 50 hours logged.
That’s more of a question of an increasingly demoralized army uncertain when to act and how, especially after previous tragedies with civilian airliners, afraid of provocations, not given clear instructions.
In a sense, like today unarmed immigrants ‘penetrate the land defenses of the west’ or dimwit thugs holding their pistols sideways ‘outfox the US police’.
It’s not really a question of immigrants ‘penetrating defenses’ or thugs ‘outwitting the police’. It’s a question of system rot and mixed signals, which allow everyone and their aunt to do what they want even if the forces designed to not allow this to happen are in theory perfectly equipped and trained.
Like with the Chechen war, when first psychopaths type A wanted to make it into a forever war and brainwashed everyone that this is inevitable, then psychopaths B wanted to make it into a forever black hole, also brainwashing everyone that this is inevitable, and only with someone with the will and allies to stop the nonsense appeared, that the nonsense instantly stopped.
Demoralization, mixed signals, corruption, and fear of initiative can turn even the best armies and police forces and civil services into garbage much more quickly than many people assume. Russia’s and China’s rule of thumb appears to be that however long it takes you to dismantle your society, it’ll take twice as long to wallow in chaos, and then again twice as long to fix it. If it took you 5 years to break your country, then there will be at least 10 years of chaos, and then 10 more years of rebuilding.
Of course, in the 20th century both Russia and China had nothing, were the synonym for poverty and starvation and an ignorant peasant population, so they had no reserves to fall back on.
America, Britain, and Western Europe do still have reserves to fall back on, so should there be will to start fixing and rebuilding, it should, at least for now, happen faster and with less pain.
However, maybe precisely because they have these reserves, that the western countries will continue the downward slide, until they have really wasted everything and all cushions are gone and reality finally becomes unbearably harsh.
There are tens of millions of ‘religious’ fanaticsw who want the world to end in fire and destruction. Thermo-nukes are perfect for that. They, of course, will not be vapourised but ‘Raptured’ at the last moment. We have one as PM, the execrable ScoMo our own Pentecostal bunyip Bolsonaro.
Jews under control can be very beneficial to the host society, but once on top they are a burden, to others and to themselves. And that applies, plainly, to the State of the Jews, Israel, too.
I do love Yankee Doodle Knuckle-heads who cannot accept that their hideous state has reached its inevitable end in Full Spectrum Corruption, and whistle past the graveyard. When the Real Evil Empire falls the world will celebrate, and it will be a liberation for the sane fraction of US society, too.
How stupid,and what silly shallow thinking!
If America fails,lets say as in the same rapid way the Soviets did it would in all likelihood take down the entire global economy,especially China’s,i doubt anyone other than a total insane person would celebrate such a thing
Anyway it’s not gonna happen,so you don’t need to worry you’re fluffy little head!
What the world is witnessing — in real-time, in slow-motion and in online media — is the rapidly disintegrating United States of America. The USA is suffering from a deep-seated identity crisis which all foreign nations — whether rivals or allies — would perceive as symptoms of a superpower in decline. Nobody is denying that the world would be affected by the decline of the USA as the world’s sole superpower. Whatever happens in the USA would naturally affect countries all over the world. To those foreign countries, it’s not a question of wishing any country harm but rather a matter for them to pursue their own national interests. For China, that happened shortly after the GFC in 2008 which forced Chinese authorities to restructure the Chinese economy away from the US market. For ASEAN, the GFC in 2008 forced them to look for other trading partners including China which culminated in the signing of the RCEP in 2020. For the EU, that meant negotiating the China-EU investment deal in 2020.
People who want to deny the obvious reality of America’s decline do so because they can’t accept the loss of wealth, power, privilege and status accorded them by the status quo. But that issue is orthogonal to the actual reality of foreign nations acting in their own self-interest, fully cognizant of the perceived decline of the American Empire. It would be delusional to presume that foreign nations including so-called allies of the USA would even attempt to sacrifice their own national interests in order to stave off America’s decline as the world’s sole superpower because that’s not how the world works.
If you see a house on fire, what do you do? Deny the fire or warn everybody else? If you want to deny the fire, then you risk losing your own home. But everybody else can see the house on fire and would take steps to protect their own homes because THAT is how the world works.
He’s a pro Russian shill but yet you read him for four yours, man you must be a slow learner.
Know thy enemy!
And he’s a pro Kremlin shill,an ex Soviet citizen who served in the Soviet Coast Gaurd,which was actually part of the KGB state security apparatus,so go figure that out
he should have his American citizenship revoked and be sent back to Russia if he thinks America is so bad
True… And that is why China has almost completed it’s second strike capability for Mutually Assured Destruction.
The DF41 is of the highest range for land based ballistic missiles. The new submarine launched JL3 now is being deployed (though the newest submarines that will carry more of them aren’t complete yet – the Type 096). Putin also knows and that’s why he said Russia will help China perfect its early warning system.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-10-03/putin-says-russia-is-helping-china-build-missile-warning-system
Let’s hope wiser heads prevail in Washington.
Very trenchant analysis. I think it is true.Time will tell.
“For China, that happened shortly after the GFC in 2008 which forced Chinese authorities to restructure the Chinese economy away from the US market. For ASEAN, the GFC in 2008 forced them to look for other trading partners including China which culminated in the signing of the RCEP in 2020”
2008 was the final straw so to speak… But ASEAN and China both started thinking of alternatives after the Soros backed 1997 Financial Crisis
Note: I worked in the ‘defense industry’ for many years, on missile defense in the 80s !, and this sounds like BS to me. ICBMs cannot be intercepted, all that is a sham. Back in the 80s they were trying to hit ICBMs flying ‘ballistic’ paths, i.e. predictable, and even that couldn’t be done, and at the same time, in the 80s, they, i.e. we, were working on thwarting their interceptors, an easy task with options, but the simplest is to ‘juke’ the path … easy to do and 100% effective.
If there is a ‘next’ war between the US and Russia we’re all history.
While the GFC 2008 may have been the event which triggered the wholesale restructuring of the Chinese economy, the final straw was Trump’s trade war ten years later in 2018 which hastened the ASEAN-led RCEP trade deal as well as the EU-China investment agreement, both signed in 2020.
In addition, China signed the highly-publicized 25-year $400B deal with Iran which will see the use of the Chinese Yuan as well as the less well known deal with Indonesia to promote the use of the Chinese Yuan in bilateral trade and investment.
https://theconversation.com/indonesia-and-china-inked-a-deal-to-promote-the-use-of-the-yuan-and-rupiah-the-political-and-economic-implications-are-huge-147493
The AFC 1997 forced ASEAN to look for alternatives to the USD which then Malaysian PM Mahathir blamed for the currency crisis. While his proposal for an ASEAN currency unit hasn’t materialized, ASEAN countries Indonesia, Thailand and Malaysia have come up with the local currency settlement (LCS) which promotes the use of local currencies in regional trade and investment. The Philippines finally joined the LCS last 2019:
https://www.thejakartapost.com/academia/2019/04/10/asean-local-currency-deals.html
As I wrote in my last post, all nations look out for their own self-interest. That’s true for the allies of the USA as well as its rivals. The apologists of the USA Empire are delusional to think otherwise.
The last paragraphs to your link in the conversation website suggests a strategy of less dependency upon China,and looking to strengthen ties with the Gulf States and the EU who are all allies of America,and not what you seem to be suggesting at all
Your second link suggests a need to reduce risk over dependence on the dollar,not replacement
I think you’re grasping at straws to keep your ” American empire ” disintegration memes going
Below are the paragraphs quoted from the article linked in my previous post:
Indonesia must set the rules of the game to ensure the widening use of Yuan benefits both parties — not just China.
At the same time, Indonesia needs to make sure China’s devaluation policy will not harm the former’s economy in the future. One strategy would be to diversify Indonesia’s imports from countries other than China. Another is to encourage investments in agricultural sectors that will reduce imports.
Indonesia could also diversify its partners by establishing local currency settlements with other countries.
To date, Indonesia has signed local currency settlements with Thailand, Malaysia and South Korea. To reduce its reliance on China, Jakarta could also establish local currency settlements with its non-traditional partners such as the EU and Gulf states.
In other words, Indonesia wants to diversify its foreign trade with the EU and Gulf States using local currency settlements (LCS) which it has implemented with Thailand, Malaysia and South Korea, thus bypassing the USD. That’s the same reason why Indonesia agreed with China to settle their bilateral trade using the Chinese Yuan, in order to bypass the USD.
That’s a nice way to spin it but the reality is that Asian countries such as Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand and even US ally South Korea have implemented LCS which bypasses the USD. They still need to use the USD to trade with the Gulf States which sell their Arab Oil only in USD. The EU has its own currency Euro which would benefit the Europeans if they conduct their trade using the Euro which is what the Indonesians have done with China using the Yuan. That proves what I am saying all along: foreign nations including US allies such as the EU and South Korea have been ditching the USD in conducting their foreign trade. The Gulf States may be an exception today but not for long as Arab Sheiks seek to diversify away from the USA.
You seem to be the one grasping at straws. Here’s another news article to help clear up your mind:
https://www.defenseworld.net/news/29050/Saudi_Arabia_Negotiating_S_400__Su_35_Buy#.YKuBIo3is2w
How important is Saudi Arabia? Without the USD backed by the Petrodollar System which is maintained by Saudi Arabia, the USA Empire will cease to exist.
What a fantastic mental back flip
First you talk about the dollar,basically repeat the article I’ve already looked at then go all gung ho and flip to weapon systems
The petro dollar system will end not because Saudis buy Russian weaponry but because the world is starting a massive paradigm shift to renewable energy,which will be felt far harder by one dimensional petro state economies like saudi and Russia
I do hope the petro dollar system doesn’t go pop soon though,otherwise the Saudis won’t be making anything will they? And the Russians wont therefore be selling stuff from their state run defence company,which incidentally only just makes it into the top twenty global aerospace companies!
I quoted the above paragraphs because they prove my point which is that foreign nations such as Indonesia act in their own self-interest by ditching the USD in favor of the Yuan or their own currencies. You were trying to turn Indonesia’s local currency settlement with other Asian countries into a strawman argument against Indonesia’s agreement to use the Yuan for its bilateral trade with China. There is no contradiction between those two actions because they complement each other as both serve to diversify Indonesia’s foreign currency reserves away from the USD. Same case with Indonesia’s future trading settlement regime with the EU which would most likely involve the Euro thus bypassing the USD.
I mentioned the Saudi case because you seem oblivious to recent events in the Middle East which make your assumption that US allies such as Saudi Arabia would remain eternally loyal to the USA to be unfounded hubris. Again, the fact that a US ally as important as Saudi Arabia has turned to Russia as its defense partner proves my thesis that the USA Empire is in rapid decline. Just like the Indonesians, the Saudis are no exception as they are merely acting in their own self-interest. No amount of delusional apologia would suffice to cover up what is obvious to everyone on this planet.
Trannystan has become a dystopia and it’s obviously not long for this world. That would be true even if the rest of the world consisted of nothing but ocean. You’re such a stereotypical dumb, overconfident Trannystani that I question whether you might not be a troll.
Typically anyone who disagree with people like you,in your opinion are trolls,well we simply disagree because the proposition put forward by this article aren’t backed up by facts
The US dollar as the worlds reserve currency isn’t about to crash and burn, at least not according to the Bank of International Settlements,but according to this genius Martyanov the BIS probably know nothing,you know according to him everyone in the west are stupid humanities educated idiots!
I suppose thats why America is the leader in AI,and not Russia,and what was it Putin said about AI?
Well i notice Martyanov never mentions this does he?…no!
Martyanov is just a one trick smoke and mirrors act,we don’t know really anything about him so why should anybody believe him,or trust him?
Like i said,we know Martyanov was in the Soviet coast guard,but its never mentioned that service was part of the KGB,i think you need to open your eyes my friend before you start hurling insults
Escobar isn’t reviewing his books in any sort of critical way, therefore totally failing as a journalist,its basically a sales pitch into a niche dom and gloom market, well i suppose Martyanov knows what disintegration looks like as Russia has a good track record,and could go for the hat trick once Putin shuffles off
The U.S. dollar is in danger of experiencing a hyperinflation within the near future. The Federal Reserve printed $9 trillion into existence last year, which is 22% of the money supply for the entire country! You can’t just create that kindof currency in such a short period of time without dire monetary consequences. The Federal Reserve will make things worse by printing trillions more this year.
https://www.somagnews.com/9-trillion-story-22-of-us-dollars-printed-in-2020/
Absolutely true. But they will eventually realize it, Sooner than later.
They’re like this guy:
The assumption is the US was trying to win wars, which used to mean killing and destroying as quickly as possible until an enemy surrendered.
The Forever Wars™ amount to a multi-trillion dollar side hustle, out of sight, out of mind, at the same time our Southern border is being overrun with diseased foreign invaders by design.
Fake news website,publishing silly reports from people who obviously have a big chip on the shoulder
Here’s a mental health warning,stay away from such ‘ reports ‘ because they’re the usual anti Wall Street blather
Empires come and go and cemeteries are filled with the remains of indispensable people … Where money will come from to sustain the exploding US budget deficit? If it is from more taxes then productive people will fly away.
I forgot to tell the most important part. The US is no longer needed. As a consumer, almost everything I buy these days come from Asia, SA or Europe. The US would disappear tomorrow morning and my life wouldn’t be impacted in any way. Once, many decades ago, almost everything came from the US: cars, television sets, my first computer and so on.
Then companies started moving production to other vountries. New technology came but the old businesses didn’t learn as fast as the new graduates from Stanford. Then came globalization; what else when everyone has his own devices. That’s life. And the US administration became more arrogant in its relations with other countries.
Is the US relevant anymore? I never thouhght I would ever ask the question.
That financial report comes from Wall Street on Parade. They studied the Federal Reserves own Excel spreadsheet to make their estimate. They found that from September 2019 to March 2020, the Fed loaned $9 trillion to Wall Street via overnight repurchase agreements.
To be fair, though, the true amount of currency the Federal Reserve printed into existence last year is not entirely clear. It must be a really tremendous number, however.
I was referring to Wall Street on Parade!,they’re about as hysterical and wrong as Max Kieser,totally biased and unreliable
Whatever