A new Cold War would cripple the American empire

The West, following the lead of the United States, has reacted to Russia's invasion of Ukraine by introducing a "crippling" regime of sanctions. It is a "total economic and financial war" aimed at "caus[ing] the collapse of the Russian economy", the French finance minister Bruno Le Maire candidly admitted. And yet many of the current sanctions appear to be run-of-the-mill restrictions used against several countries in the past. A number of them — including export bans and the freezing of certain assets — have been imposed on Russia since its annexation of Crimea in 2014. Even the much-discussed exclusion of a number of Russian banks from the main international banking message system, SWIFT, is not new, having already been used against Iran, with mixed results.

The most controversial aspect of the new sanctions regime is without a doubt the freezing of Russia's offshore gold and foreign-exchange reserves — about half of its overall reserves — but even this is not unprecedented: last year, the US froze foreign reserves held by Afghanistan's central bank in order to prevent the Taliban from accessing its funds; the US has also previously frozen the foreign-exchange reserves of Iran, Syria, and Venezuela.

Saudi Arabia said on Monday that it "won't bear any responsibility" for a shortage in global oil supplies as it warned that missile attacks by Yemen's Houthi rebels had hampered production.

The official Saudi Press Agency carried a statement from an unnamed foreign ministry official that said attacks by Yemen's Houthi rebels pose a danger to global oil supply and will have "dire effects on the production, processing and refining sectors".

"This will [affect] the kingdom's production capacity and its ability to fulfill its commitments, which no doubt will threaten the safety and stability of energy supply to the global markets," the statement said.

Ukraine on Monday defiantly rejected Moscow's demand that soldiers defending the southern port city of Mariupol surrender at dawn in exchange for their lives as Russia intensified its attempts to bomb Kyiv into submission.


Nearly a month into the Vladimir Putin-ordered invasion of Ukraine, Russian soldiers have turned to blunter methods and upped their attacks on civilians in schools, churches, and shopping centers.

It is hardly vindication of The Post's flawless reporting on the Hunter Biden laptop that 17 months late, the New York Times has admitted the laptop is real.

It is an indictment of the Times and a betrayal of their readers who were kept in the dark about the true nature of Joe Biden before the 2020 election. But now that we are all on the same page, there are some serious questions the administration needs to answer, which go to America's national security at a time of international peril.

Calls for the killing of Russian children or the castration of prisoners of war are absolutely unacceptable and ruin Ukraine's image as a civilized European country, a senior adviser to President Volodymyr Zelensky said on Monday. Responding to two recent public scandals, Alexey Arestovich called on Ukrainians to respect the Geneva Convention and laws of war.

"We must not go beyond the Geneva Convention, which allows the destruction of the enemy on the battlefield, but does not allow us to mock prisoners of war, and even more so to make calls for revenge on civilians, children, and prisoners of war," Arestovich said in a video posted on Facebook.


Such calls severely harm Ukraine's public image, Arestovich added, reminding Ukrainians that they also run afoul of international and domestic laws.

China has fully militarized at least three of several islands it built in the disputed South China Sea, arming them with anti-ship and anti-aircraft missile systems, laser and jamming equipment, and fighter jets in an increasingly aggressive move that threatens all nations operating nearby, a top U.S. military commander said Sunday.


U.S. Indo-Pacific commander Adm. John C. Aquilino said the hostile actions were in stark contrast to Chinese President Xi Jinping's past assurances that Beijing would not transform the artificial islands in contested waters into military bases. The efforts were part of China's flexing its military muscle, he said.

"I think over the past 20 years we've witnessed the largest military buildup since World War II by the PRC," Aquilino told The Associated Press in an interview, using the initials of China's formal name. "They have advanced all their capabilities and that buildup of weaponization is destabilizing to the region."

[WRITTEN BEOFRE THE RUSSIAN INVASION]

The calculus, whether made by Putin or by any Russian, regarding the potential threat NATO expansion poses to Russia, is that there is much reason for concern. Putting aside the fact that Russian history shows that invasions and interference from the West is frequent, history is not stable. NATO may see itself as an alliance of peaceful republics and may indeed be such, but that reality can change quickly. A country that is weak today may be strong tomorrow. A country that is republican today may be authoritarian tomorrow - witness authoritarianizing Canada and America. One that is passive may be aggressive tomorrow. Russians know that even the most self-proclaimed republicans can soon become militarily aggressive imperialists. Poland, bearer of the cross of the king of peace and the banner of representative government, marched into Russia through what is now Ukraine with the goal of making Muscovy Catholic instead of Orthodox. Republican France produced Napoleon's conquests, the invasion of Russia, the detonation of the Kremlin, and Moscow fires. The Weimar Republic became Nazi Germany, Plan Barbarossa, and 27 million Soviets dead. Now a decaying America is flirting with cultural Marxist authoritarianism and throwing a global sissy fit against its own decline, struggling to make the world safe for transgenders' access to girls' bathrooms.

One outcome of this American global imperial derangement is continuing the push for NATO expansion, as if the larger NATO grows the further down the line dealing with the complexities of multipolarity can be pushed. But a funny thing happened on the road of NATO expansion. The powers creating the new multipolarity that NATO expansion itself drove into each other's arms — rising China and eternal Russia — decided to resist the Western plan. Some argue that "(n)o degree of NATO expansion, including to incorporate Ukraine, will threaten the military balance and deterrence stability." They go so far as to claim that the United States "won't gain a serious strategic advantage over the Russian Federation by deploying missiles close to [the Ukrainian city of] Kharkiv" (see full quote in appendix below). While this may be technically true in some generic sense regarding 'strategic advantage', it is not true in terms of overall costs, risks, and contingencies.

Today's zeitgeist is that all politics is but a Manichaean tapestry of the 'good' and those who have failed to 'decolonise' from their past.

The war taking place in Ukraine has been understood on one side - the wider western view - in terms of the secular expression of today's western culture. Typically, it is cast as a struggle of this culture, loosely packaged as 'democracy' versus the authoritarian culture of Russia, Iran and China - cultures that reflect offensive, nativist and repressively 'incorrect' values.

It is believed that Putin is held "to have sensed weak political leadership in America - and like a chess player who sees weakness on the board, and an opening for an attack - takes it".

President Joe Biden on Friday warned President Xi Jinping of the "implications and consequences" if China provides "material support" to Russia as it wages an unprovoked war on Ukraine.

Xi and Biden met virtually on Friday, a conversation the White House said beforehand was arranged for the two presidents to "discuss managing the competition between our two countries as well as Russia's war against Ukraine and other issues of mutual concern." The White House readout of the call said the conversation was focused mainly on Russia's invasion of Ukraine, though Biden also used the time to address U.S. policy on Taiwan, as Russia's invasion of Ukraine has sparked concerns that China could act to take control of the island it has long claimed sovereignty over. The readout of the call said:

"President Biden detailed our efforts to prevent and then respond to the invasion, including by imposing costs on Russia. He described the implications and consequences if China provides material support to Russia as it conducts brutal attacks against Ukrainian cities and civilians. The President underscored his support for a diplomatic resolution to the crisis."

President Joe Biden's deputies are taking $377 million from GOP-run heartland states to aid landlords in four Democrat-run states that use illegal migration to inflate their economies, according to a report in the New York Times.

White House officials have already pressured governors in states to shift $875 million for poor renters into urban districts, the newspaper reported March 16, adding:

Now they are going one step further, pulling back [$377 million in] cash from states with relatively few tenants — like Montana, Nebraska, South Dakota and Wyoming — or localities that failed to efficiently distribute the aid, including Alabama, Arkansas and several counties in Texas.

The money, in turn, is being diverted to four states that burned through their allotted amounts — with $136 million in additional aid headed to California, $119 million to New York, $47 million to New Jersey and $15 million to Illinois, according to a spreadsheet provided by a senior administration official. North Carolina, Washington and other localities will be receiving smaller amounts.

"This is better ... But it's a pitiful drop in the bucket compared to what we need," said Rep. Ritchie Torres (D-NY) told the New York Times.