Masopher's Mind

Despite the spin and the encouraging sounds being voiced by the brains in the beltway, there is evidence that Afghanistan has taken a turn for the worse. Resignations in several European countries (Germany and the UK) and crumbling support in Denmark and the Netherlands, Canada being pulled back and with the McChrystal debacle, it seems that the west has lost its initial momentum since the Marjah operation.

Kabul’s President Karzai daily debates feigning legitimacy or anything even remotely resembling western democracy versus allowing the real rulers of Afghanistan to return to power. The United Kingdom dallies with talking to the Taliban and tries to coax the Americans to do so as well. The Brits so far, have been a mix of fear and foolhardy, treading where angels fear and getting their limbs blown off for their troubles. Robert Seddon resigned because of the immense psychological strain he and his teams are under making sure that British boys can go galavanting in enemy territory without negative newsworthy repercussions. Germany’s Horst Kohler on the otherhand is battling with Germany’s legacy and destiny as ruling military power. With America waning and Europe crippled with inefficiency and debt, the temptation to exert Germany’s strength comes with the ever present anxiety that Germany will return to the disreputable ideologies of the first half of the 20th Century.

The United States on the other hand is wracked by its own internal tensions. Undermined by the liberal left, and by the right which is in opposition, the military and the executive are split between several battles at home, and several wars abroad, none of which can be solved by the horrendously expensive nuclear armaments and paraphernalia they must chaperone for the next century(at least). Like the European powers of the 20th Century found out, the world is an expensive object to manage and the returns are quite evanescent.
The actual numbers of Al Qaeda is in its low thousands, less than 100 in Afghanistan. The problem is that the genie is out of the bottle, many thousands more of young disillusioned and disenfranchised young men have cottoned on to the addictive simplicity of violence as a means to and ends. Lone wolves and splinter cells are spontaneously forming globally from Nigeria, Yemen, Pakistan, India,China, England, Ireland and Virginia. Over the counter items like gasoline, nitrate fertilizer, peroxide,sawdust and ball bearing are being fashioned together by anyone that cant get their hands on a firearm and by those that can.

The feeling of anomie is strong. These men are feel left behind and divorced from the great progress and enlightenment being heralded in Germany, London and the United States. Things are going horribly wrong in the world but most of all, in Afghanistan.

In early 2010 Russia and NATO badboy France tentatively agreed a deal where an amphibious assault ship made in France would be sold to the Russian Navy. The ship and the ability to make copies of the ship, (transfer of technology) was agreed to be sold in the background of France and Europe’s continued frustration in selling military technology to a market saturated by American products. America is literally a no fly zone for EADS planes and France is having a hell of a time getting countries like Kuwait and Brazil to accept their perfectly good contender, the Raphael, which is going up against the faithful but old American F-18 Super Hornet. Because the French Government is so intimately tied to its arms industry this would be a great case of real politik: If we can’t sell to the Americans and they keep nicking our other customers then we’ll sell to the Russians!

This represented the first time that a NATO country would sell military technology to NATOs natural enemy. Later the deal hit a few snags where France wanted to water down the product and Russia wanted a fully operational weapons platform.

France has had a very close relationship with Russia even before Communism. France and Russia had very strong pacts defending themselves against Germany which was the global threat of the 19^th and 20^th Century. When Communism rose and Lenin Stalin and Trotsky were fighting against Russian imperialism, France served as a natural escape for much of the Romonov aristocracy. There they stayed in exile until this day, though some have returned meekly to Russia. During Germany’s second bout of belligerence Jews fled to Russia and France from Germany and despite the bad conditions for Semites in these countries they managed to establish themselves.

France has always cast a suspicious eye on the United States, even while American boys were dying to liberate it from the Germans. In my readings I think General DeGaulle suspected that America had reverse-imperialist intentions and hoped to colonize France! Whether this will ever be verified is moot, the Anglo-American connection has always been a sore spot. During the cold war too, France was antagonistic to NATO and was known for reaching out to Moscow.  With an eye to forming a third pole in the polarizing world, Charles De Gaulle left the NATO alliance in 1966 and managed to build his own nuclear power. France has now become a first class supplier of nuclear energy and sovereign owner of its own stockpile, something that Britain failed to do. When the Berlin wall and Iron Curtain fell, France rebuilt its ties with East Germany, and with Moscow. During the Georgia war of 2008, it was Sarkozy and France that stepped in and mediated between the arrogant Georgians and surly Russians. The invasion of Iraq was again, another place where Russia, France and Germany stood off against American intentions and English acquiescence. Together, France and Germany have risen as the true drivers of the EUs success while Britain limps behind, barely out of recession and only able to supply spies and tabloid headlines to this remarkable political experiment.

The laissez-faire, liberal and leftist lean of “le France” compels it into a natural embrace with a very leftist Russia. France’s revolutions and thinking produced many hard left socialist regimes including the one that existed in Moscow.

Will France sell a fully functional Mistral to Russia? I see no reason why not.

Japan does not share its military technology with the rest of the world and I am fine with that. I hope they are too. The last time a technologically advanced society was forced to share its technology, it sparked the nuclear arms race and a cold war which lasted 50 years. People (like you) don’t understand how technologically advanced Germany was before World War 2. Their music, art, philosophy and science was so advanced that we are still today using stuff thought up over 70-100 years ago by German and Eastern European thinkers. Einstein, Freud, Marx, Bohrs, Tesla, Oppenheimer, the list of German/Prussian expatriates is extremely long, and not all of them Jewish and not all of them scientists.

People (like you) will never understand how instrumental Operation Paperclip and similar Russian operations turned German and eastern European scientists from obscure little tinkerers to the engines of destructive innovation. Half the story of what came out of Germany has not been told. The most technologically advanced nation today is Japan. Some estimate that it is still 5-10 years ahead in technological innovation. They have toilets that automatically clean your ass for crying out loud! While we in the west still struggle to clean the toilet and people in the third world struggle to keep the toilet out of their drinking water these guys have WCs that sense when you are coming home, gets itself ready, adjusts to your weight, provides you with internet connection washes and dries your bum and even flushes itself! That’s royal treatment from a throne. No wonder the gays love Japan, that place treats the ass well. What’s even better is that the toilet is not where all the innovation is. Japan openly promotes innovation and its people practically invent stuff every day. A lot of it is crap or before its time but that’s the point, before its time.While Nasa struggles to get its CO2 rockets off the ground, Japan has its own eco-peeping satellite buzzing the earth already. These guys literally forget better ideas than what western scientists think up. Put these guys ideas in the hands of the Governments that created the nuke, the ICBM, predator drones, and all the other weapons of mass destruction and nothing stops American Gundam’s from stomping the shit out of Europe and Russia, or visa-versa just whoever gets their greedy hands on a Japanese scientist first. Bonsai, samurai, Hello Kitty and hentai is all I need to see coming out of Japan, I’m terrified of what else it could produce.