What Western Empire?

By Dmitry Orlov

Some observant people are beginning to suspect that not everything is going perfectly well with the mighty Western Empire headquartered in Washington, DC. Some of the more excitable of these observers are quick to claim that what they are witnessing are early stages of collapse. But these voices are few and far between, while the rest of the observant observers still feel compelled to follow this bit of mental discipline:

1. The mighty Western Empire is mighty. This is a tautology and therefore self-evident, brooks no argument and requires no further proof.
2. Dominating the whole world requires an absolutely astounding level of intelligence. That’s because the world is big and complicated.
3. f the mighty Western Empire appears to do something stunningly stupid, then that’s because we ourselves are too stupid to understand the subtlety of its intelligence that’s masquerading itself as rank stupidity; see point 2 above as to why.
4. If the mighty Western Empire appears to engage in what seems like a never-ending sequence of spectacularly dumb and self-destructive moves, then that iteratively reduces to a repeated application of point 3 above.

But then there is the radical, extremist viewpoint: that the mighty Western Empire has already collapsed and continues to exist merely by physical and mental inertia while its leaders try to keep up appearances and postpone the inevitable in order to more thoroughly feather their individual nests. These conspiratorially-minded extremists have the gall to imagine that there is no astoundingly brilliant and subtle strategic master plan beyond individual players’ efforts to keep getting while the getting is good—or something equally radical and extremist along these general lines.

What is Pax Americana, defined in a single sentence? Pax Americana is a globalist parasitic regime that attempts to extract wealth from the rest of the world through the imposition of a transnational financial oligarchy backed by a system of worldwide military bases and an expeditionary force that exacts obedience through financial oppression and military violence. Its parasitism rests on two pillars: a monopoly on printing money and the ever-looming threat of horrible military violence.

The US dollar monopoly (of which the rapidly declining Euro is a mere concession) was at first (right after World War II) backed not just by military might but by a large industrial base, huge fossil fuel reserves and more than sufficient gold. Over the intervening decades the industrial might has been whittled away and what now remains is a raw materials-based and agrarian economy with an overgrown services sector, all of it operating at a large and constant loss and accumulating debt at an ever-increasing pace.

Oil production peaked around 1970, a run on the dollar followed and its gold backing had to be removed at around the same time. All that remained was a system of global banking backed by the threat of unspeakable military violence. This has worked well enough: the Washingtonians would figure out how to profit from foreign resources and labor and make their demands known. If these demands were not met, there followed economic and political sanctions. And if the sanctions didn’t work, then it was time to do some bombing and some genociding. Civilian casualties, a.k.a. collateral damage, were not even counted. What’s half a million Iraqis here, half a million Libyans there, a few hundred thousand Syrians, an unknown number of Afghanis?… but it all added up to quite an appalling act of genocide spanning many decades.

But the era when the Washingtonians could threaten the whole world to compel obedience from it has come to an end. Its unsinkable aircraft carrier fleet is now very much sinkable using an entire array of modern weaponry that can be launched from a stand-off distance that is greater than the reach of an aircraft carrier’s on-board aircraft. This makes the US aircraft carrier fleet, once the pride of the US Navy that cost more than the entire defense budget of most countries, almost completely useless: still used for political posturing and showing the flag, but forced to scud off if there is a threat of military action nearby. The other pride and joy of the US military—its air defense systems—have been rendered useless by the newer and more advanced hypersonic missiles, while the new air defense systems that Russia has developed and sold around the world can knock down pretty much anything that the US has.

And then there are the heroic North Korean rocket men. In September of 2022, DPRK has pronounced itself a nuclear power. Its nuclear doctrine is as follows: KNDR will use nuclear weapons in response to a nuclear attack, an attack with analogous weapons of mass destruction, and also when threatened (!) with such an attack. Reactions around the world ranged from quiet amazement (a reasonable reaction) to turning away while scoffing. Note to the Pentagon chiefs: do not threaten North Korea or they will nuke Guam, Kadena (Okinawa), and perhaps even California. And then what would they do. The surprising answer is: not much, really!

Could the North Koreans pull this off? Most likely, yes. After announcing its new status as a nuclear power, DPRK conducted five launches of various rockets, including a ballistic rocket that flew over Japan and came down somewhere in the Pacific. According to Japan’s military sources, who were watching nervously, the missile flew 4.500km with a maximum altitude of 970km. The reentry speed was… wait for it… Mach 17! That’s hypersound—much too fast for any air and space defense system to intercept. The altitude is impressive too. Satellite generally orbit between 160 and 2.000km. The ISS hangs out at 420km. Comrade Un’s rocket touched the sky at 1000km. Not too shabby, eh?

But Western mass media would prefer not to discuss such details. Instead, they prefer to recycle tired old fakes, such as the one about Putin handing out viagra to his troops, for them to better rape Ukrainian virgins (Whoa! Where did that come from?) previously used against Qaddafy in Libya.

Instead of paying attention to such nonsense, let us tackle this question head-on: Could DPRK carry out a nuclear attack against the United States and survive? In response, most people scoff: “That would be suicide! The North Koreans have something like a dozen nuclear bombs. Even if their rockets do work as advertised, the US, with its huge nuclear arsenal, would wipe them off the face of the earth…”

Not so fast! In the game of geopolitics, the DPRK holds an ace of trumps: geography itself. The Korean peninsula is relatively tiny and is parked right between China and Russia, which are two of the mightiest nuclear powers. Zoom out a bit, and DPRK is just a marker on the Russia-China border. This makes a nuclear strike on North Korea very difficult to distinguish from a nuclear strike on China and/or Russia. And that would be, to put it extra-mildly, a dangerous thing for Americans to do.

Russia and China have integrated their early warning systems, and to them a US launch against North Korea would look very much like a launch against Northern China and/or Russian Far East. To be on the safe side, both Russia and China would respond by executing a launch-on-warning retaliatory strike against the US. This is why North Korea can launch rockets that fly over Japan and over US military bases. Air defense systems are activated and sirens sound, but nothing happens, because the US doesn’t have anything that can shoot these rockets down.

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Via https://boosty.to/cluborlov/posts/caee778c-7cee-4dbb-a6b1-593ec56f8c4c