What Ukraine Begins and Ends. Middle Nation Podcast (E:17)

This is Shahid Bolson. Welcome to the Middle Nation podcast. This is episode number 17. Now there are so many things to talk about in terms of the war in Ukraine and the ramifications of the collective Western mobilization against Russia that I feel like if I were gonna deal with all of them and all of the things that come into my mind on a daily basis, I would probably have to put out a podcast or a video at least twice a day. But instead of just popping up here and there to discuss a random topic related to this subject, I wanted to try and talk about sort of the totality of the situation as I see it in as succinct a way as possible.

Now for anyone who is following this crisis at all, you will know that the sanctions against Russia combined with the voluntary withdrawal from Russia of company after company, service after service, industry after industry, And I think it's probably fair to say at this point that there are far more companies that are withdrawing voluntarily from Russia than are obliged by the sanctions to do so. This is going to cause massive cascading failures across the global economy. Energy prices, food prices, the price of technologies, currency valuations, agricultural productivity, all of this and more are going to be negatively impacted to a devastating degree, and that is an understatement. We are undoubtedly going to see famines worldwide, and famines predictably create instability, if not outright revolutions and civil wars. As I've said before, Europe will not be spared.

Indeed, I believe that Europe is one of the central targets of this crisis, which is in my opinion, a deliberate destabilization project. But, of course, all of our countries are going to be affected, both in the near term and in the long term. So I wanna touch on a few particular factors here, including Europe, Russia, China, The US, and the Muslim world. First of all, let's talk about this. The European Commission announced this week their plan for reducing EU dependency on Russian fossil fuels, pledging to reduce imports by two thirds by the end of this year across the entire European Union.

But here's the thing, not every country in the EU has the same level of dependence. The Czech Republic, for instance, is about 90% dependent on Russian oil and gas, while say a country like Austria is only 10 to 15%. The effort required or the sacrifice required to meet that two thirds reduction target is not evenly distributed across the EU. It's not gonna be the same struggle for everyone. This is a recipe for division and quite possibly hostility.

Furthermore, some countries are more dependent upon gas than oil and some more upon oil than gas, and replacement options for each of these fuels differs. Never mind the fact that they have not actually outlined any concrete plans about how they're going to replace Russian imports. The core of what they are claiming is a necessary and urgent, quote, solution to EU dependence on Russian oil and gas, unquote, is, in a word, austerity. Energy rationing, restrictions, sacrifice, and deprivation for the public while vowing to grant, quote, aid to companies affected by the crisis, in particular, those facing high energy costs. So in other words, companies will get aid while you just get cold, and you should be willing to endure this, you're told, for the sake of defending freedom.

But here I have to mention an important point. Climate change fanaticism has reached fever pitch in Europe, more so than in America. So much so that more Europeans fear climate change than fear losing their jobs. And in fact, they're more afraid of climate change than they are of terrorism. The media onslaught about the looming threat of climate change has even caused mental health problems in young people with psychologist noting a rise in anxiety among the public over fears of ecological disaster.

This phenomenon combined with basic energy illiteracy caused the EU to commit to the radical goal of net zero carbon emissions by 2050. What all of this adds up to is that European policymakers are not actually that interested in replacing Russian fossil fuels. They are more interested in forced lifestyle changes that will help them reach net zero. Because listen, there is no urgent need to cut dependency on Russian oil and gas. For European politicians, there is just an urgent need to cut dependency on oil and gas, period.

This is even how they're explaining their response to Russia, saying that cutting dependency is part of what we should be doing anyway for the sake of climate change. They see the isolation and shunning of Russia and Russian energy as an impetus for ramping up their plan for reaching net zero. Now I'm not saying that this is why they are doing what they are doing, but it is certainly part of why they are blind to why it is such an incredibly bad idea. They have come to view fossil fuel consumption as literally worse than human suffering, than poverty, than civil strife, than terrorism, or anything else. Now I'm all for renewable and environmentally friendly sources of energy, but there is a rational way to pursue this, and this is not it.

If you were wondering, as many of us are, how the European policymakers could so willingly, indeed enthusiastically embrace a response to the Ukraine war that is so catastrophically against their own interests, There's the explanation. Well, that anyway explains the zealotry of policymakers who are not going to directly profit from these policies. This, by the way, has a striking resemblance to the motives behind the COVID lockdowns among a particular set of policymakers. Because, again, let me repeat, there is absolutely no urgent need for Europe to reduce oil and gas imports from Russia. None.

Ukraine is not a vital strategic interest to Europe for any reason other than Europe's energy security. And the Russian invasion had no impact on that security whatsoever. And in fact, even now, Russia is still pumping oil and gas to Europe. There is no rational justification for this response. We can dispense immediately with any rhetoric about defending freedom and the independence and sovereignty of Ukraine and so on and so on.

We're Muslims. We have a memory and we know better. This talk about freedom, democracy, and even the racist elements in the coverage, like defend the poor white people who look and live like us, and all the histrionics about Vladimir Putin being Hitler, never mind that it's the Ukrainian militias who are flying the swastika, or about how Putin is a madman driven by a desire to resurrect the Soviet Union and all of that, this is all, as I said before, the sales pitch. It is necessary to whip the public into a hysteria so that they do not stop for two minutes to think about what is actually happening because what is happening is the collapse of Europe as we know it. Now as for Russia, there is no real winning option for them.

They will not be able to sustain an occupation of Ukraine, especially since The US will ensure that it can only be a bloody occupation. Look. Prior to the invasion, The US had already alerted Poland to prepare for a steady stream of refugees, and Poland had already been training paramilitaries in Europe's leading private military academy in Warsaw, the European Security Academy, who have already deployed mercenaries into Ukraine. Now it's relevant that The US wanted refugees to be guided into Poland specifically because a refugee population is often one of your biggest pools of potential recruits for fighters to return back to their home country to continue fighting. Self styled militants and contractors from around the world are already being recruited, trained in Poland, and secreted across the border.

The US ambassador to Poland is none other than the son of Zbigniew Brzezinski, the former presidential foreign policy adviser who designed and oversaw America's policy of supporting the Mujahideen in Afghanistan in their war against Russia in the seventies and eighties. It's very reminiscent of the role played by the then US ambassador to Honduras in that same period, the seventies and eighties, John Negroponte, who oversaw the recruitment, training, and deployment of paramilitary death squads in Central America throughout the period known as the dirty wars. So it appears that The US is committed to the idea of a prolonged insurgency in Ukraine, and Russia cannot sustain this, especially combined with the enormous economic destruction they are suffering at home. Russia is already a country in decline, as I've mentioned before. The bottom fell out of their population decades ago, and their days are numbered as a functional state even without the sanctions.

The US plan is to accelerate Russia's demise by means of, as Joe Biden said, a grinding occupation of Ukraine. So what about the possibility of Russia teaming up with China? A lot of people are talking about that. Can China buy Russian oil and gas and keep their economy alive? It's not so straightforward.

Russian oil and gas to Europe flows through pipelines that pump from specific fields. These pipelines do not go to China. Logistically, it will be extremely challenging and costly to try to reroute Russian exports to China instead of Europe. That is assuming that Russia will retain the wherewithal to even continue operating these fields. And it is assuming that China even has a need for more oil and gas than they already import, which is not at all a safe assumption.

Chinese imports of energy have decreased, not increased over the past two years. And with the global economy headed off of the cliff of a cataclysmic recession, it's not at all clear that China will have much demand for extra oil and gas. Furthermore, the truth is that China too is a country in decline, dropping rapidly down a demographic sinkhole at least as bad as Russia's. Decades of a one child policy have had the effect of virtually culling the young generation in China. Xi Jinping knows this and has been incrementally shifting Beijing's stance on global economic expansion, focusing more and more on holding the domestic center in China.

Deglobalization, which is what is happening now, is a process that China will find it very challenging to survive. An alliance between China and Russia might be best compared to the final scene of Thelma and Louise, the two friends holding hands and driving straight off the cliff. So what about us? What about the Muslim nations? The imminent global recession is going to hit us hard more than anything perhaps in terms of our food security.

And when our food security is disrupted, it can get very ugly very quickly. The last time the cost of wheat was anywhere close to what it is now, we had the Arab Spring. We had bread riots. Obviously, oil producing states are set to be awash in money because the price of oil and gas may double or triple in the next few years. This is gonna make Saudi Arabia and The UAE in particular more powerful than they have ever been.

The UAE specifically has exhibited a desire to spread its regional influence, and this will likely expand. Mohammed bin Zayed may well become one of the most important figures in the Muslim world for better or worse. Countries like Indonesia and Malaysia will also grow in importance, and Turkey, despite the many difficulties that they are enduring now and will be enduring over the medium term, is still in a strong position, possibly the best overall position in terms of geopolitical fundamentals. As I've talked about in an earlier podcast, America is going to be turning its attention towards Asia and the Muslim world over the next decade. And it is of the utmost importance that we try to build pan Muslim unity and cooperation to improve our bargaining position with the Americans.

Because, of course, their strategy will be to divide us as much as possible so that they can commandeer our demographic advantage for their own benefit. We urgently need to establish preferential trade between Muslim countries and some degree of uniform travel, investment, security, agricultural policies, and knowledge transfer agreements among many, many other things. We can no longer merely orbit The United States, and we have to strengthen our economic interdependency between our countries. Globalization within the ummah should not be reliant on the US Navy. Globalization within the should not be reliant on the US Navy and should not come to a halt when America stops protecting European trade in our regions.

In my part of the world, there is talk floating in the ether about resurrecting the nonaligned movement of the Cold War period, and this is right. We are in a better position now than we were when that movement began. The collapse of Europe and the process of deglobalization are going to be painful across the globe, but ultimately, one set of hostile and predatory powers will eventually recede as a result, and this will open a door for our emergence as a new rising collective power.