We are developing the social individualist meta-context for the future. From the very serious to the extremely frivolous... lets see what is on the mind of the Samizdata people.
Samizdata, derived from Samizdat /n. - a system of clandestine publication of banned literature in the USSR [Russ.,= self-publishing house]
|
Samizdata quote of the day – Putin is warning Britain but we’re not listening What Putin understands – and what Britain refuses to face – is that Europe is vulnerable in ways that matter more than tanks or troop numbers. Russia’s president does not need to defeat Nato militarily to cause chaos. As he has already shown through repeated greyzone attacks, Europe’s power grids, subsea cables, energy systems and communications networks offer targets far easier to strike, far harder to defend and politically far more disruptive. Putin’s warning this week was a reminder that Russia knows exactly where our exposed nerves lie.
– Sam Olsen (£)
|
Who Are We? The Samizdata people are a bunch of sinister and heavily armed globalist illuminati who seek to infect the entire world with the values of personal liberty and several property. Amongst our many crimes is a sense of humour and the intermittent use of British spelling.
We are also a varied group made up of social individualists, classical liberals, whigs, libertarians, extropians, futurists, ‘Porcupines’, Karl Popper fetishists, recovering neo-conservatives, crazed Ayn Rand worshipers, over-caffeinated Virginia Postrel devotees, witty Frédéric Bastiat wannabes, cypherpunks, minarchists, kritarchists and wild-eyed anarcho-capitalists from Britain, North America, Australia and Europe.
|
I predict that most of Europe will, once again, completely fail to grasp the much-more-important message that’s baked-into Putin’s warning – not that Europe is vulnerable to Russian pressures on resources and logistics far from the muddy battlefields of the Ukraine, but, far-more-importantly, that it is Russia that is just-as-vulnerable, if not more so, in those precise-same areas. The way to put the Russian bear back his cage is (and always was, and always will be) by economic pressures. Eurpeans have become completely-enslaved to Russian resources (specifically, oil and natural gas) and have used them to further their delusional pipedreams of Net Zero ASF. They gleefully demolished huge parts of their own infrastructure, piously promised to leave their own vast energy resources safe underground in order to somehow make Gaia happy, happily prostituted themselves to keep the vast tide of Russian energy flowing – and now they’re all unhappy that all that money they fire-hosed at the Kremlin ended up being spent on war instead of on solar panels and windmills.
You want to put a stop to Russia’s expansionist aims, and reduce Putin to (in the immortal words of Christopher Hitchens) “standing on a corner, selling pencils from a cup?”. It’s simple, it really is. Stop Sending Him Money. And the only way to do that is to do, what he’s doing. Drill, dig, frack, reduce the world price of oil and natural gas by 25 to 50%, and Put Him Out Of Business.
But they won’t. They all really, truly believe that all they’ve done to prevent some supposed “climate change” far in the future, and all the more they plan to do, is far, far more important than anything they could do today to stop the endless slaughter of thousands of young Ukrainian and Russian men, who are being willingly, knowingly sacrificed on the altar of the “climate change” delusion, just as young Mayan men were once ritually eviscerated to appease the Sun God.
llater,
llamas
Mr Putin’s military plan in 2022 was one of the worst attack plans in the history of humanity.
The “Helirush” to near Kiev cost Russia some of its best soldiers – sent into a hopeless fight and slaughtered.
And the long column (supposedly going to help the airborne soldiers) going down the road from the north (this is also an attack that the Kremlin apologists pretend did not happen) was also slaughtered – hit from the flanks.
“But Russia is doing much better in the way now” – that is NOTHING to do with Mr Putin, his plan utterly failed. What has happened is the professionals have taken over the war.
But Mr Putin will take the credit – and if anyone contradicts him they will “have an accident” or “die of heart failure”.
And the bitter irony… in 2014 Mr Putin could have had all of Ukraine – the Ukrainian armed forces were utterly unprepared for full scale war – but Mr Putin thought he would be clever and just take Crimea – the same Crimea he had said (in several speeches in his youth) was of no real value – because it-is-of-no-real-value.
There is nothing in the whole of Ukraine that Russia does not already have (in spades) – the whole war is Mr Putin’s demented vanity project, which has cost Russia, and Ukraine, vast numbers of young men – who should have been husbands and fathers.
Mr Putin is a traitor – a traitor to Russia, a traitor to the Russian people, who he may have, demographically, doomed.
“This week, a German court issued an arrest warrant for Ukrainian Serhii Kuznietsov, which may finally confirm what was long suspected: that Ukraine was responsible for the 2022 sabotage of the Nord Stream pipelines in the waters near Denmark and Sweden.
The Biden administration may have been given prior warning. It was allegedly told years ago by a Ukrainian whistleblower that a six-person team of Ukrainian special forces was planning to rent a boat, dive to the sea floor and blow up the Nord Stream project. The operation was reportedly led by Gen. Valerii Zaluzhnyi, commander-in-chief of Ukraine’s armed forces.
Nevertheless, after the attack, the Biden administration and many in the media fueled speculation that Russia had destroyed its own pipeline, despite evidence and logic to the contrary. It was another convenient claim of a Russian false-flag operation that allowed the Biden administration to ignore the possibility that Ukraine had not only engaged in environmental crimes but had also knowingly lied to its allies.”
https://jonathanturley.org/2025/12/01/a-german-court-may-have-just-shattered-one-of-the-biden-eras-biggest-lies/
As for Net Zero and the rest of the nonsense…..
In practice not developing energy resources (real energy resource – not Chinese made solar cells and Chinese made wind turbines) is not “Green” – it has made Western Europe dependent on Russian energy (hydrocarbons), but even ending the folly of Net Zero would make no real difference to Russia – as they would just carry on selling to CHINA in return for manufactured goods (such as ammunition).
As for playing games – the West has already tried that, blowing up gas pipelines (at the start of the war) and engaging in sabotage operations as far as tunnels on railways going to China. Again Mr Putin made no preparations to prevent any of this – just as he did not even bother to put Russian strategic bombers in bunkers – he just left them out in the open (even though Russia had withdrawn from the treaty that asked for that).
Mr Putin did not even repair the naval base in Crimea that he took back in 2014 – he just left it in unusable condition, which meant that Russian ships had to remain out in the open (not under cover).
Again – Mr Putin is a traitor, his negligence rises to that level.
Any real Russian patriot would KILL him.
Mr Putin engage in sabotage in the West? Why should he bother – as “shutthesystem.is” and other eco terrorist groups will do it for him.
The websites of such groups (oh yes – they have websites, they are that open) are full of stuff about sabotaging not “just” electrical and fuel systems – but also banks, insurance companies and the stock market (and on and on).
There are similar groups in other countries – so why should Mr Putin bother to do what “Greens” will do on their own.
Yesterday I listened to one of the Green Councillors in the town I live in – the lady was explaining that she hated banks because they (according to her) support the Jews “Israel”.
This is not an isolated individual – such Greens are Legion. A few days ago I had a retired primary school teacher explain to me how Israel deliberately sacrificed the people murdered on October 7th – in order to have an excuse to attack Gaza. This was another “Net Zero” type – they are all over the place, and this is what they teach the children, even the youngest children.
Why should European, or American, “watermellons” (Green on the outside Red on the inside) need Mr Putin – and he does not need to do anything, other than sit back and laugh.
And, I repeat, he is useless anyway – the insane helirush of 2023, the “road of death” of 2023, the failure to protect any Russian assets (land, sea or air) for years – and on and on.
Mr Putin is a tosspot.
Oh noez, a government lying to its allies? Whatever next! 😀 I genuinely laughed out loud when I read that bit.
No doubt Valerii Zaluzhnyi literally bit the pipeline in half personally.
@llamas
You want to put a stop to Russia’s expansionist aims, and reduce Putin to (in the immortal words of Christopher Hitchens) “standing on a corner, selling pencils from a cup?”. It’s simple, it really is. Stop Sending Him Money. And the only way to do that is to do, what he’s doing. Drill, dig, frack, reduce the world price of oil and natural gas by 25 to 50%, and Put Him Out Of Business.
Yes, 100% yes. I have said from the beginning the way to stop this war is to drop the price of oil and cut off their funding. We can do that by getting rid of many of the restrictions that prevent oil drilling and LNG recovery, take the crazy regulations off American oil, allow fracking in Europe. Plus the United States has huge influence in the Mid East, I don’t know why they can’t use that influence to drop the price of oil 30% for a season by increasing production.
I think the most egregious example is Germany — a country that is falling apart because it, inexplicably, decided to tie its whole future to Russian energy, shutting down their nuclear energy program, refusing to deal with Trump 45 on energy imports. And when that pipeline was cut they found that their industry shut down. I notice there seems to be growing evidence, including a criminal indictment in Germany, that the pipeline was not blown up by the USA as I always thought, but by Ukrainian special forces. This seems very hushed up, because I wonder how the German people would feel about sending zillions of Euros to the people whose action destroyed their economy.
More, cheaper oil makes the whole world a better place, net zero and its equivalents around the world are nothing short of suicidal insanity.
One can only hope that nuclear fusion will come along and save us, and finally that we can get rid of these thousands of square miles of ugly windmills finally. Those people who tell us they love the environment have turned huge swaths of the mid west of America and Britain into a big industrial wind farm park.
Nuclear fusion won’t save us, because the entire raison detre of the sabatures is to destroy civilsation, not to find alternatives that will preserve it.
One can only hope that nuclear fusion will come along and save us
The day after tomorrow, just as soon as Brazil becomes a great power.
@Budge Hinman
The day after tomorrow, just as soon as Brazil becomes a great power.
I certainly understand your skepticism, in fact I share it. Fusion power has been “ten years away” for about fifty years. However, I’ll say this, “AI” has been “five years away” for about fifty years too. And yet, today it is absolutely here, here like a tornado.
FWIW, from what I read in the press I think there have been a lot of pretty significant developments to suggest the fusion really is much closer to commercialization than it has ever been.
But you are right, just like with cold fusion, we should have a “show me” attitude to it.
Fraser Orr:
I didn’t intend to throw shade on you. I’m sorry if my comment came across that way.
The other problem with fusion is that it has kept on being funded via the hype of it eternal, cheap, clean energy. Basically the reserach “industry” has had to justify itself (despite the decades of no Watts) by portraying fusion as a Holy Grail. Arguably this is one (there are many) reasons for the brakes being put on fission.
@NickM
portraying fusion as a Holy Grail.
But it kind of is. A nuclear power system that literally has none of the downsides of fission — no danger of meltdown, large amounts of energy, cheap and readily available feedstock, fits easily into the existing power distribution infrastructure, is not a horrific blight on the landscape or a danger to wildlife, there is no danger of escalation into weapons either nuclear or dirty, and its “waste” product is entirely safe, and in fact a product that there is a worldwide shortage of.
As I say, I am skeptical. But if it could be commercialized, it would be pretty great really.
But cheap clean fusion will allow the plebs to afford to heat their homes, have personal transport, travel overseas and eat cheap food. It will use up Gaia’s precious supplies of Hydrogen and pollute the atmosphere with waste hydroxy-dioxide.
I meant the insane Helirush (sending the airborne troops to their deaths near Kiev) of 2022 and the “road of death” (the lunatic advance along a narrow road from the north) of 2022. I typed 2023 – I should have typed 2022.
As for blaming “Ukraine” for every sabotage operation in Russia – that is not credible, many of these operations (possibly including the attacks on the Russian gas pipelines at the start of the war) are almost certainly, at least partly, organised by Western intelligence and military units. Mr Putin even blamed “Ukraine” for Islamic terrorist attacks in Russia – as if Muslims would serve the Jewish President of Ukraine (by the way – he is a native Russian speaker, culturally Russian although Ukraine became a separate country in the 1990s). Mr Putin “could not” tell the truth – as to admit that these were Islamic terrorist attacks would undermine his alliance with Islamic nations (such as the Islamic Republic of Iran), and his recruitment of Muslim soldiers in Russia and in the Central Asian Republics.
The “bottom line” is simple – if Russia wins the war (which appears likely) it is IN SPITE OF Mr Putin – not because of his leadership.
Mr Putin has made terrible military decisions – not just in 2022, but also since.
But he will claim credit for the victory – and anyone who tells the truth, Mr Putin will have killed.
Meanwhile the real enemy of both Russia and the Ukraine, demographic decline (lack of births) remains unaddressed – the war a horrible distraction from the real issue.
And demographic decline hits every-other-Western-nation as well – including the United States.
Even Iceland – once isolated from the trends of the world, now has a demographic deficit – and increasing immigration from hostile (yes – hostile) population groups.
Mr Putin has been playing war, with real weapons – and real people killed or maimed (vast numbers of people killed or maimed – for his POINTLESS, vanity project, war) , and ignoring the real threat to the very existence of Russia and other nations.
Mr Putin is a traitor – at the most fundamental level, the level of the survival of the people.
The survival of the Russian people, the survival of the Ukrainian people, and the survival of other European populations – including in North America and in Australia and New Zealand (indeed almost everywhere).
The enemy (of Russia, Ukraine – and so on) is lack of births, and the immigration (and natural increase – their births) of hostile population groups. But Mr Putin would rather fight a terrible war (which he horribly messed up – see previous comments) in order to change the colour of land on a map.
A war that serves no useful purpose – indeed makes the basic problem (see preceding paragraph) WORSE.
Zelensky is NOT the enemy of Russia (Zelensky did not start this war), of the survival Russian people (and others), PUTIN is the enemy of the Russian people – and others.
Fraser,
Would it be cheap though? We don’t know.
NickM and Fraser Orr – nuclear fusion for the future, nuclear fission for NOW.
Small nuclear fission reactors can be built quite quickly and are straightforward to dispose of when they reach the end of their useful life (which is many years) – all industrial nations should be going for them, right now.
And if nuclear fusion NEVER works?
Then countries should go for “fast breeder” fission reactors – but they will not be needed for quite some years (if ever).
There is no real technological or environmental problem with energy production – what there is a POLITICAL problem and “politics is downstream from culture” as Andrew Breitbart used to say, the endless cultural propaganda (agitation propaganda – agitprop) against both hydrocarbons (coal, gas and oil) AND against nuclear power, is the real problem.
Neither China or Russia have this problem – they have many faults (many vicious faults), but being ruled by Hollywood and a “Woke” education system is not one of them.
The first person to warn against the Frankfurt School of Marxism, Cutural Marxism – the “Woke” or “Critical Theory” as we call them today, was Joseph Stalin.
Do not worry I am NOT a Nick Fuentes style “fan of Stalin” – but if a mass murderer says “1+1=2” his being a mass murderer does not make his reasoning wrong.
Frankfurt School Marxism, with its racial, sexual and (now) “Green” (“Climate Justice”) obsessions, – is poison.
jdh – I expect the left to say, in all seriousness, what you say in jest.
But you forgot to add that it is all a plot of the “Zionists” – a claim the modern left will make.
That the Frankfurt School of Marxism, which is now fanatical in its hatred of Jews, was founded by people from Jewish families – is one of the ironies of history.
But then the Death-to-the-Jews Green Party is led by someone from a Jewish family (just as the Spanish Inquisition once was), busy trying to “kill the Jew in himself” (as was claimed of Reinhard Heydrich – although I not know if that is true), the leader of the Green Party is also a homosexual – which means that forces of Islam, which he adores, would execute him.
The world is a weird place.
“….special forces was planning to rent a boat, dive to the sea floor and blow up the Nord Stream project”
🤣🤣🤣
Paul:
As you say, Putin is a military cretin.
I can only assume that, having convinced himself that Ukraine was not a legitimate nation, he assumed it would crumble without a fight when Russia invaded. Maybe if Zelenskyy had accepted Sleepy Joe’s offer of a ride out of Kyiv it would have.
There is no way Putin was planning for a four year war and a million casualties. It’s lucky for him that concern for human life is not high on his list of priorities. But he has certainly done his bit to ruin Russia for another generation.
JohnK – agreed Sir.
But my fear is deeper – that neither Russia or the Ukraine will recover in a generation, that they will go down the demographic plug hole. And that we all will – every Western nation. The end – total, and irreversible, defeat. Destruction.
Mr Putin has had power for 25 years, there was so much he could have done, he could have saved Russia – but instead he used his power for greed and personal vanity.
Damn him, damn him to Hell.
@JohnK
As you say, Putin is a military cretin. I can only assume that, having convinced himself that Ukraine was not a legitimate nation, he assumed it would crumble without a fight when Russia invaded.
But that is what would have happened if it were a fight between Russia and Ukraine, but it isn’t. It is a proxy war between Russia and the west using Ukraine as a “let’s not start a nuclear war” buffer zone. Which isn’t to question that the Ukrainians have been exceptionally brave and courageous, and done surprisingly well. But courage only takes you so far. Stinger missiles take you a lot further. By no means am I suggesting that Putin is a military genius, but I doubt he expected the West to do what they did, especially with the ridiculous Joe Biden as the leader of the west, European leaders hardly any better than Biden and Western Europe’s fifty years of neglect of their military infrastructure.
@mikebravo
“….special forces was planning to rent a boat, dive to the sea floor and blow up the Nord Stream project”
🤣🤣🤣
I don’t find this argument especially compelling.
Really? The ‘West’ has been dragged kicking & screaming into supporting Ukraine by Russia’s actions, and they have been almost lackadaisical in applying the pressure actually available to them.
@Perry de Havilland (Prague)
Really? The ‘West’ has been dragged kicking & screaming into supporting Ukraine by Russia’s actions, and they have been almost lackadaisical in applying the pressure actually available to them.
Maybe, but the idea that I was responding to: that somehow Ukraine’s success in not being totally overwhelmed by Russia is due to Putin being a military cretin is not correct. It is Western logistics that have kept Ukraine from being overrun. Much as I admire the brave resistance of the Ukrainian people, what success they have had is vastly more to do with western logistics, however reluctantly given; their tanks, and howitzers, and missiles and drones and infinite pools of ammunition are why Ukraine is still in the fight these two and a half years later.
He may well be a military cretin, I don’t know, Stalingrad tactics seem pretty standard Russian military doctrine. But that is not at all the cause of this grinding, endless war of attrition.
Fraser Orr – please read my previous comments.
Mr Putin did not intend a “war of attrition” in 2022 – he had a “helirush” of airborne troops to near Kiev, and he had an armored column going down to relieve the airborne troops, a column going down from the north.
Both these ideas were like the film “A Bridge Too Far” – but with vastly worse results. This was Mr Putin’s personal plan – and it was an utter disaster.
As for the build up of the Ukrainian armed forces between 2014 and 2022 – yes, I also mentioned that Mr Putin could have taken Ukraine (all of it) in 2014 – but he did not launch full scale war, he only took Crimea and a few other areas, and then patted himself on the back – not understanding that he had just thrown the chance of a relatively easy victory down-the-toilet.
I am also aware of the massive Western support for Ukraine from 2022 onwards – especially by Britain which rushed in supplies (and other support) in 2022.
Yes Russia will “win” the war now (it is not now a grinding endless war of attrition) – but there is nothing in Ukraine that Russia does not already have (in vast amounts) so “victory” is utterly pointless – and will certainly not bring the dead back to life (nor bring back the children who were never born – because their potential fathers were killed). And the media will blame “Trump” for Mr Putin’s “victory” (which is not a real victory – because the war was utterly insane, pointless, from the start).
The true enemy of both the Ukraine and Russia is demography – lack of births.
And this is an enemy that every other Western nation shares.
As the recent American government assessment on Europe points out – lack of native births and the mass immigration (and natural increase) of hostile population groups, means that Western civilization faces extinction.
But NOT just in Europe (as the report mistakenly says) – everywhere.
Mr Putin has had 25 years in power – he could have tackled the real problems facing Russia, the Russian people, the problems that threaten the very existence of the Russian people (as with every one else – from British people, to Americans, to Australians and so on) – but, instead, he decided on an utterly absurd war – to change the colour of some land on a map.
Vast numbers of young men who should have been husbands and fathers have died in Mr Putin’s war – his utterly pointless war.
Paul:
I am not sure that Russia will “win” the war, in the sense of taking Ukraine. Blitzkrieg seems not to work these days. About 90% of Russian tanks have been knocked out, and drones seem to have changed the face of the battlefield. Russia is certainly managing to “crumble” the Ukrainian front, and slowly take villages of no strategic importance. But they only do it at great cost.
Clearly, the war is not worth it to Russia. It would only have been worth it if Ukraine had collapsed in a few days, which I am sure is what Putin convinced himself would happen.
As you say, he is an absolute disaster for Russia. It is a country rich in natural resources, which could have been used to develop the country and enhance civil society. But he is just an old school communist brute at heart. He may have dropped the communism, but he cares as much for the ordinary Russian as Stalin did.