*** 9-Nov-14 World View -- Gorbachev warns of new cold war as Germany commemorates fall of Berlin Wall

This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com

• Germany commemorates the 25th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall
• The reunification of Germany
• Former Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev warns of a new cold war

****
**** Germany commemorates the 25th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall
****


7000 illuminated balloons retrace the path of the Berlin Wall (DW)

Some 7,000 illuminated balloons are lighting the streets of Berlin
this weekend, retracing the path of a 15 km (9 mile) stretch of the
Berlin Wall, whose 3.6 meter concrete slabs split Berlin into two for
thirty years. Some 2 million people are filling the streets of Berlin
this weekend, commemorating the fall of the Berlin Wall on November 9,
1989.

When the German Nazis were defeated in 1945, the survivors wanted to
make sure that the Nazis could never rise again to fight another war.
So the four victorious allies divided Germany into four sectors, or
zones of occupation: the American, British, French and Soviet zones.
The city of Berlin, the Nazi capital city, which lay inside the Soviet
zone, was also split into four zones. In the years that followed,
the three western zones were reunited into the country of
West Germany, leaving the Soviet zone to become East Germany.

It quickly became obvious that the two countries were as different as
night and day. People in West Germany had freedom and a high standard
of living under capitalism. People in Communist East Germany were in
poverty and repressed, living under the Stalinist model of a command
economy, found today only in Cuba and North Korea. During the years
1949-1961, some 2.5 million out of East Germany's 17 million people
fled to West Germany, both humiliating the Communists and draining
East Germany's best and brightest.

On August 12-13, 1961, the Communists ran a barbed wire fence down
through Berlin, splitting it into two. When East and West Berliners
work up on Sunday morning, August 13, 1961, they suddenly discovered
that they could no longer cross over to the other side. Families were
split. Neighborhoods were split. The barbed wire was soon replaced
with cinder blocks, and the Berlin Wall was complete. Anyone trying
to cross would be shot on sight. Deutsche-Welle and VOA

****
**** The reunification of Germany
****

Shortly after the fall of the Berlin Wall, I was Technology Editor of
InformationWeek magazine, and I happened to visit the Hannover Fair
CeBIT, the largest computer show in the world. This was the first
time that East Germans were able to go to this show, and their minds
were blown. Like every other Communist country, Communist East
Germany had been stuck in the 1950s. (This is because all
transactions are controlled by government regulations, and you can
easily prove mathematically that that as a country's population grows
exponentially, the number of regulators required to manage the economy
grows exponentially faster. And so communist countries have no choice
but to freeze the economy, allowing no changes. China got around this
problem essentially by setting up a fascist economy -- capitalism and
pricing freedom, but repression and no political freedom.)

One Finanzgruppe manager at the show told me of the pain he felt when
he spoke to visitors from East Germany:

<QUOTE>"They have no understanding for business, and we have
to help them. They visit here and within an hour they have a
blackout -- it's too much for them. Their savings banks have no
electronic devices to do the work. They do all their work with
only mechanical devices."<END QUOTE>

Finanzgruppe was doing its duty willingly, like every bank in West
Germany. It worked by finding a similar bank in the East and forming
a partnership. They give the partner bank an IBM PC compatible
computer, basic software including spreadsheet, data base, word
processing, accounting software, and financial service programs.
Finanzgruppe also provided training and consulting services. "They
don't have to begin making payments for a year, and then only if they
can," I was told.

It was inevitable that the two Germanys were going to reunite, and
many people were frightened, including the French and the Poles and
others that had been massacred by the Nazis. The German national
anthem still began with the words, "Deutschland, Deutschland über
alles, Über alles in der Welt," meaning "Germany over everything.
Germany over the world." I recall a TV interview of Henry Kissinger,
born in 1923 as a German Jew, who said, "I will be able to die happy
if I never live to see Germany reunited."

In fact, reunification happened rather quickly, like the fall of the
Berlin Wall itself. From the point of view of Generational Dynamics,
this was an Awakening era climax, like the resignation of Richard
Nixon. A lot of people keep hoping that the same thing will happen
today in Korea, reuniting the North and South. But this is a
generational Crisis era, and Korea will not be reunited without a
major war.

****
**** Former Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev warns of a new cold war
****

Former President of the Soviet Union Mikhail Gorbachev is in Berlin
this weekend, taking part in the commemoration ceremonies. Gorbachev
is well respect and even loved in Germany because of something he
DIDN'T do -- when the Berlin Wall started falling, he didn't send in
troops to shoot everyone in sight. He let it happen bloodlessly.

So the Germans are likely to listen carefully to Gorbachev's warning
to the West about causing another Cold War.

The Berlin Wall fell in 1989, and the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991.
According to Gorbachev in a speech on Saturday, the leaders of the
western world were intoxicated with euphoria of triumph, and they
adopted anti-Russian policies that eventually led to the current
crisis:

<QUOTE>"Euphoria and triumphalism went to the heads of
Western leaders. Taking advantage of Russia's weakening and the
lack of a counterweight, they claimed monopoly leadership and
domination of the world, refusing to heed words of caution from
many of those present here. The events of the past months are
consequences of short-sighted policies of seeking to impose one’s
will and fait accompli while ignoring the interests of
one’s partners."<END QUOTE>

Gorbachev said the West had made mistakes that upset Russia with the
enlargement of NATO, with its actions in the former Yugoslavia, Iraq,
Libya, Kosovo and Syria and with plans for a missile defense system.
Referring to Ukraine, he said:

<QUOTE>"To put it metaphorically, a blister has now turned
into a bloody, festering wound. And who is suffering the most
from what's happening? I think the answer is more than clear: It
is Europe.

Instead of becoming a leader of change in a global world Europe
has turned into an arena of political upheaval, of competition for
the spheres of influence, and finally of military conflict. The
consequence inevitably is Europe’s weakening at a time when other
centers of power and influence are gaining momentum. If this
continues, Europe will lose a strong voice in world affairs and
gradually become irrelevant."<END QUOTE>

Gorbachev advised the West to tone down its anti-Russian rhetoric, but
then he simply excused the rhetoric of Russia's president Vladimir
Putin:

<QUOTE>"Despite the harshness of his criticism of the West
and the United States in particular, I see in his speech a desire
to find a way to lower tensions, and ultimately to build a new
basis for partnership."<END QUOTE>

Gorbachev's double-standard -- criticizing the West's rhetoric while
excusing Putin's rhetoric -- illustrates the confusion in Gorbachev's
message. From the point of view of Generational Dynamics, he makes
the same mistake that many others make in this generational Crisis
era, by assuming that if everyone makes an effort to be nice and
sweet, then everyone will compromise, just the way they did in the 80s
and 90s, and that isn't going to happen. People in Russia and the
West have become far more nationalistic than they were in the 80s and
90s, and not willing to compromise.

However, recall that before World War II, Russia was our bitter enemy;
during WW II, Russia was our close ally; after WW II, Russia was our
bitter enemy. As I've been saying for years, in the coming Clash of
Civilizations world war, Russia, India and Iran will be our allies,
versus our enemies, China, Pakistan and the Sunni countries.
Generational Dynamics predicts that these alliances are already
determined, whether anyone follows Gorbachev's advice or not.
Russia Today and VOA


KEYS: Generational Dynamics, Germany, Berlin Wall, Britain, France,
West Germany, East Germany, North Korea, Cuba, Finanzgruppe,
Hannover Fair CeBIT, Henry Kissinger, Richard Nixon,
Soviet Union, Mikhail Gorbachev

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*** 10-Nov-14 World View -- Israel raises alert level as protests surge

This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com

• Video of Israeli police shooting sparks outrage and protests
• Israel raises national alert level, as protests continue in Jerusalem

****
**** Video of Israeli police shooting sparks outrage and protests
****


Israeli-Arab protesters clash with police in northern Israel on Sunday (AP)

On Friday evening, an Israeli policeman shot and killed Kheir Hamdan,
22, an Arab-Israeli citizen living in the northern Israeli town of
Kfar Kana. Police said that they shot Hamdan after he brandished a
knife and slammed his fist on the windows of a police van, after a
relative was arrested for using a stun grenade. Police said they
feared they were in danger.

Palestinian witnesses to the event say that the police unit shot
Hamdan dead, for no reason whatsoever, and that Hamdan neither held
any knife, nor tried to attack the policemen.

Subsequent to the shooting, a surveillance video emerged that appeared
to contradict the police story. Hamdan is seen banging with an object
on the window of the police van containing Arab detainees. When a
police officer tries to open the back door of the van to confront him,
Hamdan lunges at him with the object, forcing the officer back
inside. Hamdan begins to walk away, officers emerge from the van and
one shoots him as he retreats.

At least 20 Arab-Israelis were arrested during riots in Kfar Kana on
Saturday, during protests against the killing. Riots were also taking
place in other Arab-Israeli cities.

Israel's prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu took a hard line:

<QUOTE>"We will take determined action against those who
throw stones, firebombs and fireworks, and block roads, and
against demonstrations that call for our destruction. We are not
prepared to tolerate more demonstrations in the heart of our
cities in which Hamas or ISIS flags are waved and calls are made
to redeem Palestine with blood and fire, calling in effect for the
destruction of the State of Israel.

“I have instructed the interior minister to use all means,
including evaluating the possibility of revoking the citizenship
of those who call for the destruction of the State of
Israel."<END QUOTE>

Rioting continued on Sunday in Kafr Kana in northern Israel. Hundreds
of extra police officers have been deployed to the district.

Israeli-Arab officials declared a nationwide strike on Sunday to
protest the killing. Hundreds of students at Tel Aviv University and
Haifa University staged demonstrations, with some changing "Israel is
a terrorist state." Jewish Telegraphic Agency and International Middle East Media Center (Gaza) and Jerusalem Post

****
**** Israel raises national alert level, as protests continue in Jerusalem
****

As one studies world history, one remarkable fact becomes apparent:
Almost every major "world war" affecting the West since Old Testament
times has centered on or been heavily involved with Jerusalem as an
epicenter. Jerusalem is a holy city to the four major religions of
the West and Mideast: Judaism, Islam, Catholic/Protestant
Christianity, and Eastern Orthodox Christianity.

As I've been reporting, there has been a clear trend line of
increasing violence in and around Jerusalem, ever since the bodies of
three Israeli teenage settlers were found weeks after they were
abducted on June 10 by terrorists that Israelis believe were
commissioned by Hamas. This was followed by a spiral of violence, as
well as the Gaza war. Tensions and violence continue to increase
almost every day, and violence between Jews and Arabs is the worst
it's been in over a decade.

Tensions escalated sharply in Jerusalem last week, with increased
violence between Palestinians and Israeli security police around the
Temple Mount, the holiest site in the Jewish religion, which is part
of the Al Aqsa Mosque compound in Jerusalem, the third holiest site in
Islam (after Mecca and Medina). When Israel temporarily shut down
access to the Al Aqsa mosque compound for two days last week,
Palestinian Authority president Mahmoud Abbas called it "tantamount to
a declaration of war."

Israeli police raised alert levels nationwide on Sunday, as angry
clashes and demonstrations took place across Israel.

Jordan's Prime Minister Abdullah Nsur said the ongoing tension over
Jerusalem’s flashpoint Al-Aqsa Mosque / Temple Mount compound was
inflicting a "stab wound" on the peace treaty between Jordan and
Israel. Jordan recalled its ambassador to Israel last week.

There's a growing trend illustrated by the fact that almost every day
there are new stories about international condemnation of Israel for
the "occupation" of the West Bank and the Gaza war. Some of these
condemnations are a revival of popular World War II anti-Semitism of
the kind that led to the Holocaust. Others are genuine expressions of
concern for the Palestinians. But either way, it seems that hostility
to Israel grows every day, and Jerusalem may again be the epicenter of
the next world war. Daily Star (Beirut) and Al Bawaba / Ma'an


KEYS: Generational Dynamics, Israel, Kfar Kana, Kheir Hamdan,
Benjamin Netanyahu, Tel Aviv University, Haifa University,
Jordan, Abdullah Nsur, Temple Mount, Al Aqsa Mosque, Jerusalem

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*** 11-Nov-14 World View -- Palestinian violence increases around Jerusalem

This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com

• China's Xi Jinping snubs Japan's Shinzo Abe at Beijing meeting
• Palestinian violence increases around Jerusalem
• Israeli lawyers file war crimes complaint in ICC against Mahmoud Abbas
• 'Kiss of Love' demonstrations challenge Hindu nationalism in India

****
**** China's Xi Jinping snubs Japan's Shinzo Abe at Beijing meeting
****


Ice cold handshake Monday between Xi Jinping and Shinzo Abe

Pollyannas have been hoping that finally Chinese President Xi Jinping
and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe would resolve their countries'
differences over the islands in the East China Sea when then met on
Monday. Abe had reportedly been looking forward to the meeting, but
any hopes of détente were quickly dashed.

The encounter took place at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation
(APEC) meeting, being held in Beijing, attended by numerous world
leaders. Xi violated protocol by keeping Abe waiting for Xi to greet
him at Beijing's Great Hall of the People. Abe greeted Xi when they
finally met and stiffly shook hands, but Xi didn't say a word, and
ostentatiously frowned.

Japan's chief cabinet secretary, Yoshihide Suga, said wishfully:
"Leaders (from the two nations) met and exchanged views frankly. I
think there was big progress in freshly improving the economic and
various relationships between Japan and China."

There have been private talks between Xi and Abe, but the outcome has
not been reported. Reuters

****
**** Palestinian violence increases around Jerusalem
****

Fears are mounting that Israel may be facing a new Palestinian
uprising on multiple fronts. Violence has been increasing since last
June's abduction and murder of three Israeli teens, launching a spiral
of violence that triggered the Gaza war, essentially in defeat for
Hamas, and further violence after the war ended.

On Monday, a West Bank Palestinian stabbed and critically wounded a
soldier in Tel Aviv. Hours later, a Palestinian tried to run over
pedestrians, and then got out of his car and stabbed three of them.
Islamic Jihad claimed responsibility. There have been several similar
attacks -- stabbings and attempts to run over pedestrians -- in the
last few weeks, and Hamas has been calling for more acts like that.

Israel's prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu once again took a hard
line:

<QUOTE>"The terrorists want to drive us out from here. I
promise they will not succeed. We will fight the incitement of the
Palestinian Authority and we will act with determination against
the rioters calling for Israel’s destruction. ...

To all those [Israeli Arabs] who are shouting against Israel and
demonstrating against it — you are welcome to move to the
Palestinian Authority or to Gaza, Israel won’t stand in the way.

But whoever stays here must know — we will stand in the way of
terrorists and attackers. I have given instructions to use all of
the means at our disposal, including passing new laws, including
destroying terrorists’ homes, and other measures."<END QUOTE>

Palestinian Authority (PA/PLO) spokesman Hanan Ashrawi said:

<QUOTE>"People are beginning to be provoked beyond
endurance. We’ve been against violence from the beginning but
Israel seems to think it’s a one-way street, that they can do it
against Palestinians with impunity and if any Palestinian responds
in the same way it’s called terrorism."<END QUOTE>

There's very much the feeling that the situation is spiraling out of
control. Times of Israel and Foreign Policy and Independent (London)

****
**** Israeli lawyers file war crimes complaint in ICC against Mahmoud Abbas
****

The Israel Law Center (ILC) has filed a war crimes complaint in the
International Criminal Court (ICC) against Palestinian Authority
(PA/PLO/Fatah) chairman Mahmoud Abbas. The complaint states that the
Fatah faction was responsible for numerous rocket attacks on Israeli
cities during this past summer's Gaza war, making Abbas personally
liable for the terrorist groups' criminal acts.

Neither the State of Palestine nor the Palestinian Authority is a
member of the ICC. Nonetheless, the ILC says that the ICC has
jurisdiction over Abbas because Abbas is a Jordanian citizen, and
Jordan became a member of the ICC in 2002.

Abbas has been widely encouraged to have the State of Palestine become
a member of the ICC, and then to bring war crimes charges against
Israel. However, as we reported in July,
Palestinian lawyers are saying that they are on solid grounds
in some areas, but that Palestine would face much more severe war
crimes charges for launching missiles at Israeli citizens. Jerusalem Post and Israel National News

****
**** 'Kiss of Love' demonstrations challenge Hindu nationalism in India
****

A Hindutva (Hindu nationalist) organization is making threats
against sponsors of "Kiss of Love" events, where couples embrace
and kiss in public, which is considered to be indecent behavior
by strict Hindu nationalists. According to the national
president of a Hindutva youth outfit:

<QUOTE>"We are not against love – I am a young man too. But
we oppose any expression of love that goes against our traditions,
against Hindu society. The country also has a law against indecent
behavior in public. These are a few misguided youth who are
affiliated with NGOs and want to attract media
attention."<END QUOTE>

There have been some threats of violence against "Kiss of Love"
participants. DNA India

KEYS: Generational Dynamics, China, Japan, Xi Jinping, Shinzo Abe,
Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation, APEC, Yoshihide Suga,
Israel, Jerusalem, Palestinian Authority, West Bank,
Benjamin Netanyahu, Hamas, Islamic Jihad, Gaza,
Hanan Ashrawi, Mahmoud Abbas, Israeli Law Center,
International Criminal Court, ICC,
Hindutva, Hindu nationalism, Kiss of Love

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Originally Posted by John J. Xenakis

****
**** Former Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev warns of a new cold war
****

Former President of the Soviet Union Mikhail Gorbachev is in Berlin
this weekend, taking part in the commemoration ceremonies. Gorbachev
is well respect and even loved in Germany because of something he
DIDN'T do -- when the Berlin Wall started falling, he didn't send in
troops to shoot everyone in sight. He let it happen bloodlessly.

Great article. It hits home for me. I was a US Army Tanker in West Germany in the latter half of the 1980s. I was in Schweinfurt, W. Germany on November 9, 1989. In the late 80s I spent a great deal of time with the 2nd Armored Cavalry Regiment (2nd ACR). It's primary mission was to guard about 1/3 of the American sector of the W. German/E. German border and all of the W. German/Czechoslovakian borders. I spent all but 3 or 4 days of July 1989 on the Czech border. In August 1989 Hungary opened its border with Austria and people from the East began to flow into the West. First at a trickle, then en mass. By November there were broken down POS Communist-made automobiles littering W. German autobahns. I met two old men who were in there 70s or 80s at a rest stop on a German autobahn who had driven across the old Warsaw Pact from Finland. That was the first time they had been able to make that road trip since they were young men in the 1930s.

It was obvious by July 1989 that the Cold War was just a game that no one was playing very seriously. Warsaw Pact forces were still present, still patrolling, still building tank trails right up to the border and stopping. But attitudes & atmosphere was rapidly changing. It was a party. We and the Communist border troops spied on each other and documented every thing to do with each other. It was our jobs. But they became downright playful. At one point we were watching them watch us and a truck load of them came driving out to the border dressed in their long-johns and waving their rifles, yelling & gesturing. It was a party atmosphere that would have had Khrushchev spinning in his grave had he known.

I submit to you that Gorbachev couldn't have found any troops willing to shoot everyone in Berlin on sight had he wanted to.

*** 12-Nov-14 World View -- European high court clamps down on 'benefit tourism'

This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com

• Vladimir Putin causes scandal with shawl for Xi Jinping's wife
• European high court clamps down on 'benefit tourism'
• African football (soccer) federation expels Morocco over Ebola fears

****
**** Vladimir Putin causes scandal with shawl for Xi Jinping's wife
****


Vladimir Putin puts blanket on Peng Liyuan, Xi Jinping's wife (Reuters)

Russia's president Vladimir Putin grabbed the spotlight on Tuesday at
the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) meeting, when he put a
shawl around the shoulders of the apparently chilly Peng Linyuan, the
glamorous wife of China's president Xi Jinping. Peng accepted the
shawl gracefully, but then took it off and accepted a coat provided by
her assistant.

The gesture appears to have triggered a scandal, because it appears to
show that Xi was being inattentive to his wife, and it also appears
that Putin was hitting on Xi's wife. News of the gesture flooded
Chinese web sites, as well as many international web sites. However,
Chinese censors immediately clamped down, and within hours there was
barely a trace of the story remaining in China. Russia Today and
The Atlantic

****
**** European high court clamps down on 'benefit tourism'
****

As Britain's prime minister David Cameron campaigns to limit freedom
of movement of EU citizens between different countries, the EU's
highest court, the European Court of Justice (ECJ) has made a ruling
that's viewed as undercutting Cameron's campaign. The court ruled
that Germany could refuse to provide unemployment benefits to a
migrant from another country under certain conditions. The case was
brought by a Romanian woman who moved to Germany solely to receive
welfare benefits, and then refused to take any of the jobs that were
offered to her. Furthermore, since the woman didn't have "sufficient
means of support" for herself and her 10-year-old son, she could be
deported back to Romania.

Freedom of movement between nations is a core principle of the
European Union. Cameron has proposed that Britain be permitted to put
a cap on the number of EU citizens from other countries that could
move to Britain each year. As we reported last week,
Germany is threatening Britain with EU
expulsion of Cameron implements the migrant cap. Cameron's opposition
is now saying that Cameron's proposal is no longer needed, because
"benefit tourism" has been curbed.

Cameron says that the ruling is a step in the right direction, and
that he'll unveil his proposals by the end of the year. The Local (Germany) and Daily Mail (London)

****
**** African football (soccer) federation expels Morocco over Ebola fears
****

Morocco had been scheduled to host the 2015 Africa Cup of Nations
football (soccer) tournament from January 17 to February 8, but has
repeatedly asked that the competition be postponed 6-12 months
because of a fear that large crowds of visitors would bring Ebola to
Morocco. The Confederation of African Football (CAF) has just as
repeatedly said that the dates of the tournament cannot be changed.
So on Tuesday, Morocco confirmed that it will withdraw from hosting
the tournament. At the same time, the CAF expelled Morocco from its
membership.

There's been a scramble the last few weeks to find an alternate venue
for the tournament, which is now only two months away. Possible
replacements being discussed are Algeria, Angola, Egypt and Nigeria.
Sun News (Lagos)
and BBC


KEYS: Generational Dynamics, Russia, China, Vladimir Putin, Xi Jinping,
Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation, APEC, Peng Liyuan,
Britain, David Cameron, European Court of Justice, ECJ,
Romania, Germany, European Union,
Confederation of African Football, CAF, Africa Cup of Nations,
Morocco, Algeria, Angola, Egypt, Nigeria

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Originally Posted by John J. Xenakis

****
**** European high court clamps down on 'benefit tourism'
****

As Britain's prime minister David Cameron campaigns to limit freedom
of movement of EU citizens between different countries, the EU's
highest court, the European Court of Justice (ECJ) has made a ruling
that's viewed as undercutting Cameron's campaign. The court ruled
that Germany could refuse to provide unemployment benefits to a
migrant from another country under certain conditions. The case was
brought by a Romanian woman who moved to Germany solely to receive
welfare benefits, and then refused to take any of the jobs that were
offered to her. Furthermore, since the woman didn't have "sufficient
means of support" for herself and her 10-year-old son, she could be
deported back to Romania.

Freedom of movement between nations is a core principle of the
European Union. Cameron has proposed that Britain be permitted to put
a cap on the number of EU citizens from other countries that could
move to Britain each year. As we reported last week,
Germany is threatening Britain with EU
expulsion of Cameron implements the migrant cap. Cameron's opposition
is now saying that Cameron's proposal is no longer needed, because
"benefit tourism" has been curbed.

Cameron says that the ruling is a step in the right direction, and
that he'll unveil his proposals by the end of the year. The Local (Germany) and Daily Mail (London)

Even the US, bastion that we seem to be of border-less chaos and (TL) Friedmanian Freakanomically Farcical Flatworldism, even the US is now getting on board with restricting freedom of movement - of Americans. Try to get a bank account at a non-US-owned bank overseas. Viel gluck!

Bottom line - the Wilsonian Global Utopia (prototype version, Release 1919.1, failed, production version, Release 1945.1, spewing warning messages ... ) is headed for the rocks pushed by a massive and growing following sea.

*** 13-Nov-14 World View -- Russian combat troops, tanks and artillery pour into Ukraine

This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com

• Russian combat troops, tanks and artillery pour into Ukraine
• Turkey's warships near Cyprus threaten Egypt and Israel

****
**** Russian combat troops, tanks and artillery pour into Ukraine
****


Armed personnel and unmarked military trunks arrive in Russian-controlled areas of east Ukraine (Reuters)

NATO says that fresh columns of Russian tanks, artillery and combat
troops have been entering eastern Ukraine for the past few days.
According to U.S. Air Force General Philip Breedlove, NATO’s Supreme
Allied Commander Europe:

<QUOTE>"We have seen columns of Russian equipment – primarily
Russian tanks, Russian artillery, Russian air defense systems –
and Russian combat troops entering into Ukraine.

There is no question any more about Russia's direct military
involvement in Ukraine."<END QUOTE>

Nato is confirming several days of reports by the Organization for
Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) that there were unmarked
convoys in the region.

As I wrote last week in "5-Nov-14 World View -- Russian troops approach Ukraine's border, threaten port city Mariupol"
, Alexander Zakharchenko,
the leader of the Russian anti-government militias in east Ukraine,
has vowed the intention to capture the Black Sea port city of
Mariupol, with the plan for Russia to take control of all of
southeastern Ukraine, putting a huge part of Ukraine from Russia to
Crimea under Russian control. From there, the Russian army can
continue on to Odessa.

Russia's defense ministry responded, "[We have] repeatedly stressed
that there was and is no evidence supporting Brussels’ regular
trumpeting over the alleged presence of Russian forces in Ukraine."

This is a comic statement in view of the events of the last few
months. Russia claimed they weren't invading Crimea, just as Russian
troops were invading Crimea. Russia claimed that they wouldn't annex
Crimea, just before they annexed Crimea, a clear violation of
international law. Russia claimed that there were no Russian troops
in east Ukraine at a time when Russian troops were entering east
Ukraine. On September 5, Russia signed an international peace
agreement (the "Minsk protocols") in which they committed to a
political compromise in east Ukraine, and then supported east Ukraine
elections earlier this week in complete violation of their own
agreement. Basically, anything that comes from Russian state media or
Russia's government should be considered to be a lie. VOA and BBC and Russia Today

****
**** Turkey's warships near Cyprus threaten Egypt and Israel
****

Turkey's Navy has been authorized by the government to implement an
aggressive set of rules of engagement for Turkish warships confronting
Israeli or Egyptian warships in Cyprus's "exclusive economic zones"
(EEZ) in the eastern Mediterranean, where Cyprus, Egypt and Israel
have been conducting joint oil and gas explorations.

Cyprus has been divided into Greek Cyprus and Turkish Cyprus since a
1974 war between Greece and Turkey on Cyprus. Greek Cyprus is a
member of the European Union, and is recognized as the legitimate
government of all of Cyprus. Turkey provides administrative services
to the Turkish portion of Cyprus. Turkey objects to oil and
gas drilling by Greek Cyprus, and has sent warships to monitor
these activities

I've written several articles on the Mideast realignment following the Gaza war
, in particular the
alliance between Israel plus Egypt plus Saudi Arabia versus Hamas plus
Qatar plus Turkey. That realignment is also spreading into Europe.
Because of Turkey's worsening relations with Israel and Egypt, the
latter met with Greece and Greek Cyprus leaders to discuss security
relations, and accused Turkey of "provocative actions" that were
threatening security in the eastern Mediterranean.

However, Turkey is conducting its own seismic survey in retaliation
for the Israeli, Greek Cypriot and Egyptian exploration, and Turkish
Navy officials are saying that the warships aren't meant to be
provocative, but are provided in support of Turkey's own research
vessels. Furthermore, the naval activities were planned long ago.
"The objective of the exercise is to improve cooperation with our
allies and particularly to perform anti-submarine defense operations,"
according to the Turkish Navy's commander. Turkish Weekly and Defense News and Greek Reporter



KEYS: Generational Dynamics, Russia, Ukraine, Nato, Philip Breedlove,
Alexander Zakharchenko, Crimea,
Cyprus, Turkey, Egypt, Israel, Greece

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*** 14-Nov-14 World View -- Russia and Ukraine prepare for war in east Ukraine

This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com

• Russian troops in East Ukraine bring along new advanced weapons systems
• Ukraine and Russia prepare for full-scale war

****
**** Russian troops in East Ukraine bring along new advanced weapons systems
****


1RL232 'Leopard' battlefield surveillance radar system

As we reported yesterday
Russian combat troops, tanks and artillery have been pouring into East Ukraine
for the last few days.

Photos taken by two different journalists indicate that these include
new and advanced weapons systems -- the 1RL232 "Leopard" battlefield
surveillance radar system and the 1RL239 "Lynx" radar system. These
armored and weaponized radar systems are meant to operate just behind
front lines to track the movement of enemy convoys, troops, incoming
artillery fire, and even low-flying aircraft (helicopters or
drones). They also act as a precision targeting system; in fact, the
1RL232 is capable of detecting targets in the air, land, and sea,
which are up to 40 kilometers away.

A former Pentagon advisor estimates that there are currently around
7,000 Russian troops inside Ukraine, backed by "as many as 100 tanks
are inside Ukraine now, more than 400 armored vehicles, and more than
150 self-propelled artillery and multiple rocket launchers." Another
40,000-50,000 Russian soldiers, the same source claims, are positioned
at the border with even more tanks, armored vehicles and
self-propelled artillery. Foreign Policy and Daily Beast

****
**** Ukraine and Russia prepare for full-scale war
****

The conflict in Ukraine between the Ukrainian army and Russian forces
has been intensifying in the last few weeks, and with the infusion of
hundreds of new Russian troops, along with advanced weapons systems,
it appears likely that Russia is planning full-scale war in Ukraine.
The objective would be to annex additional territory in east Ukraine,
and probably to capture the port city of Mariupol ,
and continue to create a land bridge from Russia to
the Crimean peninsula. Russia invaded Ukraine's Crimea earlier this
year, and annexed the region to Russia.

Russia and Ukraine have both been threatening war with each other, and
analysts are now concerned that the threat is going to become the
reality, with the existing conflict spiraling into a full-scale
invasion by the Russians, something that's quite possible, with both
Russia and Ukraine in a generational Crisis era. LA Times and VOA and CNN


KEYS: Generational Dynamics, Russia, Ukraine, Vladimir Putin,
1RL232 "Leopard" battlefield surveillance radar system,
1RL239 "Lynx" radar system, Mariupol, Crimea

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*** 15-Nov-14 World View -- Ebola cluster growing in Mali, hundreds possibly exposed

This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com

• Liberia announces end of Ebola state of emergency
• Ebola cluster growing in Mali, hundreds possibly exposed
• U.S. scaling back troop presence in Liberia

****
**** Liberia announces end of Ebola state of emergency
****


A woman crawls toward the body of her sister as a burial team takes her away for cremation on October 10 in Monrovia, Liberia. The sister had died from Ebola earlier in the morning while trying to walk to a treatment center. (Getty / CNN)

Liberia's President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf announced that Liberia's
Ebola state of emergency, imposed in August, would not be extended.
There is some evidence that the rate of growth of new Ebola cases in
Liberia has begun to level off, justifying the end of the state of
emergency, which was supposed to control the Ebola outbreak by curbing
movement of people in worst-hit areas of the country.

In one particular region of Liberia, Lofa County, Ebola cases have
plummeted. That's because Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF, Doctors
without Borders) developed a strategy where health-care workers
developed trusting relations with people in all the villages in the
county, and were able to change behaviors.

However, it's hard for me, at least, to see any reason for less
concern. According to the latest World Health Organization (WHO)
Ebola situation report, the number of cases in Liberia increased from
4665 to 6878, or an almost 50% increase, in the 17 days from October
25 to November 11. That's still pretty much the same rate of doubling
every month, so I don't see what the difference is. And even if the
number of cases in Liberia is leveling off a little, WHO reports that
the number of new Ebola cases is still surging in Sierra Leona.
BBC and
Washington Post and WHO Ebola Situation Report, 14-Nov-2014

****
**** Ebola cluster growing in Mali, hundreds possibly exposed
****

It now appears that an Ebola cluster is growing in Bamako, the capital
city of Mali. So far, there have been only four cases and four
deaths. However, hundreds of other people may have been exposed.

The chain of transmission was started by a 70-year-old man living in a
town along Guinea’s border with Mali. He was sick, but no one tested
him for Ebola. He traveled by car to Bamako, where he was treated in
a local hospital and died. Because of his religious status as a Grand
Imam, his body was treated with a ritual washing ceremony, and then
sent back to his home in Guinea for a traditional funeral. Hundreds
of people were in contact with the body, and Ebola wasn't recognized
until the nurse who treated him was diagnosed with Ebola.

Health workers in Mali are now doing contact tracing in a panicked
state, hoping to stop the spread of Ebola in Mali, and keep it from
joining Sierra Leone, Liberia and Guinea as entire countries in chaos,
devastated by Ebola. We won't know until at least the end of the year
whether they're successful. NPR and Reuters and NBC

****
**** U.S. scaling back troop presence in Liberia
****

The Pentagon doesn't plan to deploy the full 4,000 U.S. troops to
Liberia as had been previously announced. Instead, the current 2,200
troops will grow to nearly 3,000 by mid-December.

The troops have been tasked with building 17 100-bed treatment centers
for Ebola, and have already built a 25-bed facility for medical
personnel who contract the disease. NBC News


KEYS: Generational Dynamics, Liberia, Ellen Johnson Sirleaf,
Médecins Sans Frontières, MSF, Doctors without Borders,
World Health Organization, WHO, Lofa County,
Mali, Bamako, Guinea, Sierra Leone

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*** 16-Nov-14 World View -- Obamacare and the 'stupidity of the American voter'

This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com

• Vladimir Putin eats lunch alone at G20 meeting
• Jonathan Gruber on Obamacare and the stupidity of the American voter
• Massachusetts health care site finally up -- for $254 million
• The implementation of Obamacare

****
**** Vladimir Putin eats lunch alone at G20 meeting
****


An isolated Vladimir Putin eats lunch alone at G20 meeting on Saturday(Reuters)

Nobody wanted to eat lunch with Russia's president Vladimir Putin on
Saturday at the G20 Leaders' Summit being held in Brisbane, Australia.
It was supposed to be an economic summit, but most other leaders used
the opportunity to blast Putin for Russia's repeated military
intervention in Ukraine, for annexing Crimea, and for supplying the
weapons and training to the Russians who shot down the MH17 airliner
over Ukraine, killing hundreds of innocent passengers. Several
leaders told Putin bluntly to "get out of Ukraine."

By lunch time, Putin was so isolated that no one wanted to be seen
having lunch with him, so he sat at a lunch table alone. Later, his
delegation announced that he would be leaving the G20 meeting early,
calling the meeting "nonsense." Australian Broadcasting

****
**** Jonathan Gruber on Obamacare and the stupidity of the American voter
****

Obamacare supporters have been fleeing in droves from MIT professor
Jonathan Gruber, who was the principal architect of Obamacare. But
there's no getting away from him. A glowing article in the NY Times
on March 28, 2012, made it clear that Gruber was the number one health
care expert in the country, not only because he had been developing
models for decades, but also because he was a prime architect for
Romneycare in Massachusetts, on which Obamacare was based.

Gruber's lectures at MIT are available on videotape, and they've
revealed everything from the contemptuous attitude of Obamacare
officials, and also deception and fraud in the selling of Obamacare.

According to Gruber:

<QUOTE>"This bill was written in a tortured way to make sure
CBO did not score the mandate as taxes. If CBO scored the mandate
as taxes, the bill dies. Okay, so it’s written to do that. In
terms of risk rated subsidies, if you had a law which said that
healthy people are going to pay in – you made explicit healthy
people pay in and sick people get money, it would not have
passed.... Lack of transparency is a huge political advantage. And
basically, call it the stupidity of the American voter or
whatever, but basically that was really really critical for the
thing to pass... Look, I wish Mark was right that we could make it
all transparent, but I’d rather have this law than
not."<END QUOTE>

I'd like to point out that it's not people like me that Gruber is
calling "stupid." The stupid people, in Gruber's view, are the
supporters of Obamacare, who are presumably too stupid to see through
the deception and fraud of Obamacare, as I was and many others were
able to do. Gruber's remarks are an indictment of the Obamacare
supporters, mostly Democrats who, in Gruber's view, were too stupid to
see what was going on.

When I first wrote about the "Obama's health plan, a proposal of economic insanity"

in 2009, I said that this plan would never be implemented because it
would destroy markets and be economically disastrous. I compared it
to President Richard Nixon's wage-price controls which were not as
disastrous for the markets as Obama's health plan, but still wrecked
the economy for close to a decade. I've repeated that many times
since, and I'll discuss if further below.

However, let's turn to another Gruber quote, this one revealing
financial fraud on the part of the Obamacare officials.

Obamacare advocates have repeatedly made statements to the
effect, "Romneycare worked in Massachusetts, which proves that
Obamacare can work across the country." However, another
Gruber videotape says that's not true, because Romneycare was
essentially bailed out by the federal government:

<QUOTE>"We had a pretty powerful senator you may have heard
of named Ted Kennedy. Ted Kennedy had managed to figure out a way
to rip off the federal Medicaid program to the tune of about $500
million a year through a series of strange manipulations.

Here was Mitt Romney’s dirty little secret that we don’t like to
talk about in Massachusetts, which is the way we passed our law is
the federal government paid for it.

George Bush said why am I sending this Democrat $500 million a
year, I’m taking it back. Mitt Romney to his credit went to
George Bush and said, look, can we keep the money if we use it for
universal coverage. And Bush to his credit said yes.

We realized that we can’t do this at the state level anymore. The
feds are going to have to get involved. ...

[Kennedy was] delivering about $400 million a year in slush funds
to our SafeNet hospitals, basically ripping off the federal
Medicaid program."<END QUOTE>

So Romneycare was never self-sustaining, as Obamacare supporters have
said, but was actually "ripping off the federal Medicaid program" to
survive, according to Gruber. We now know that Obamacare was
based on deception and fraud on many levels:

• "You can keep your doctor" was a knowing lie.
• "You can keep your health plan" was a knowing lie.
• "Premiums will decrease by $2,500" was a knowing lie.

Daily Caller and Washington Examiner and New York Times (29-March-2012)

****
**** Massachusetts health care site finally up -- for $254 million
****

It's almost impossible to even imagine the astronomical sums that have
been spent on the greatest IT disaster in world history, the
HealthCare.gov web sites. As I wrote a year ago, this would have been
a $10 million project if implemented in the private sector. (See
"1-Dec-13 World View -- Obamacare: 500M lines of code, $500M, only 60% completed"
from
last year.)

But let's say that it should have cost $20 million. Then triple that
amount because everything the government does is inefficient, and
wastes enormous amounts of money, due to corruption, public sector
labor unions, and cronyism. So that would be $60 million paid to
the government for something that the private sector could do
for $10 million.

According to some estimates, Healthcare.gov implementation costs are
now in the billions of dollars.

On Saturday, open enrollment began, and the Massachusetts Obamacare
web site, known as the Health Connector, came up. The cost for
this one state web site? $254 million. And that was $80 million
over budget.

This is almost unbelievable. Where is all this money going? There's
no way that this is simply IT development expenses. There must be
hundreds of millions of dollars being skimmed off by the contractors
implementing Obamacare, and those contractors are going to be big
Obama supporters and Democratic party contributors. My guess is that
Obamacare contractors skimming off hundreds of millions of dollars and
kicking it back to Obama administration cronies, to pay for the 2016
elections. That's the most credible explanation, until someone tells
me where billions of development costs have been going. Boston Business Journal

****
**** The implementation of Obamacare
****

As soon as Obamacare was proposed, I called it a "proposal of economic
insanity," and compared it to Nixon's wage-price controls, which is
the same kind of proposal as Obamacare, at its core. I said that
Obamacare would never be implemented, and I've repeated that many
times.

Has Obamacare been implemented? It was supposed to be universal
health coverage, and it certainly is not.

Nixon's wage-price controls were supposed to reduce inflation from 4%
to 2%. That didn't happen. Instead, the economy was so screwed up
with shortages and misallocations that the inflation rate rose to 12%.
In other words, Nixon's wage-price controls destroyed the economy, and
not only accomplished nothing, but were much worse than nothing.

Nixon's wage-price controls were popular because they promised
something for nothing. They promised price controls that would keep
prices of everything low. But then the shortages started occurring --
gasoline, heating oil, red meat, soybeans, and numerous other
products. Nixon did everything he could to save the controls,
granting special exemptions and perks to favored people, announcing
frequent rule changes to resolve each new problem as it arose, and so
forth.

Obamacare has followed the same path. People loved the promise of
low-cost health care. But then shortages started showing up in the
form of restricted networks. Skyrocketing insurance premiums are
being ameliorated by federal subsidies that are a clearly in violation
of the Obamacare law, and are being reviewed by Supreme Court, with a
decision to be announced in June. (At least Nixon didn't try to
reduce high prices with federal subsidies. That's an Obama
invention.) And Obama has issued a wealth of rule changes and
modifications to Obamacare to keep it from collapsing.

Obamacare supporters like to brag that there are 8 million more
insured people now. That's a distortion of the situation. There are
millions of "insured" people with deductibles of $5,000-$15,000.
These millions of people are effectively uninsured, because they have
to pay all of their medical expenses, in addition to the Obamacare
insurance premiums. As a separate issue, millions of the newly
insured are on Medicaid, and are unable to find doctors or hospitals
that will accept Medicaid insurance. These people are also
effectively uninsured. It's quite possible that there are fewer
"effectively insured" people today than there were before Obamacare.

The heart of Nixon's wage-price controls were the mandates -- it was
illegal to increase prices or wages by more than a certain amount.

The heart of Obamacare are the mandates -- the employer mandate that
forces employers to provide insurance, and the individual mandate that
forces people to purchase insurance.

Both of these have been eviscerated, for the time being. Because they
were so unpopular, Obama was forced to effectively postpone them until
2015, under the assumption that Obamacare would be so wildly popular
by 2015 that the mandates could be implemented then. Even so,
millions of people with full-time 40 hour/week jobs have been forced
into part-time 29.5 hour/week jobs by employers who can't afford to
pay for health insurance for their employees. These mandates are at
the core of Obamacare, just as wage/price mandates were at the heart
of Nixon's controls, and without the mandates, both Nixon's controls
and Obamacare become meaningless.

Nixon desperately did everything he could to save his wage-price
controls, but in the end they were so unpopular and so disastrous that
Congress forced them to be ended. They did enormous damage to the
economy and accomplished nothing.

Similarly, Republicans are going to control both houses of Congress
next year. My expectation is that some "compromise" will be found to
weaken the mandates so much as to make them meaningless. In that
case, both Obama and Republicans will be able to declare victory, and
the only casualty will be the health care system which has been
enormously damaged by Obama's "Obamacare" ego trip. But no matter.
Obama will have his meaningless Obamacare legacy, and his cronies will
have their hundreds of millions of dollars.


KEYS: Generational Dynamics, Russia, Vladimir Putin, G20, Ukraine,
Crimea, MH17,
Jonathan Gruber, Obamacare, Richard Nixon, Wage-price controls,
Romneycare, Massachusetts, George Bush, Mitt Romney

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*** 17-Nov-14 World View -- Turkey's Erdogan says Muslims, not Christopher Columbus, discovered America

This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com

• Blunt language from Canada's Stephen Harper to Vladimir Putin
• Merger of ISIS and al-Nusra seen unlikely, despite reports
• Turkey's Erdogan says Muslims, not Christopher Columbus, discovered America
• UN committee in Jordan investigates Israeli war crimes

****
**** Blunt language from Canada's Stephen Harper to Vladimir Putin
****


Stephen Harper and Vladimir Putin at G20 meeting on Saturday

As we reported yesterday,
Russia's
president had to eat lunch alone on Saturday at the G20 meeting being
held in Brisbane, Australia, because none of the other countries'
national leaders wanted to be seen with the man who invaded Ukraine.

It's now been revealed that the conversation between Canada's prime
minister Stephen Harper and Putin was particularly blunt:

<QUOTE>HARPER: "I guess I’ll shake your hand, but I have only
one thing to say to you: you need to get out of Ukraine."

PUTIN: "I’m not in Ukraine."

HARPER: "That’s why I don’t want to have a meeting with you,
you’ll just lie to me."<END QUOTE>

AFP

****
**** Merger of ISIS and al-Nusra seen unlikely, despite reports
****

There have been several recent news reports about a possible merger
between the Syrian jihadist groups Islamic State / of Iraq and Syria
(IS or ISIS or ISIL) and the al-Qaeda linked Jabhat al-Nusra (al-Nusra
Front). However, examination of these reports make it evident
that they all come from the same unreliable sources.

Although al-Nusra and ISIS fighters have cooperated in one or two
specific local instances, ISIS would demand full subjugation of
al-Nusra to itself, and that's not going to happen. In fact,
statements from al-Nusra have expressed contempt for ISIS' claim to be
either a "state" ("Islamic State") or a Caliphate, as ISIS leader Abu
Omar al-Baghdadi has claimed.

In the larger picture, al-Baghdadi has asked jihadist groups around
the world to subjugate themselves to his self-declared ISIS caliphate,
and a scattering of smaller jihadist groups from Indonesia to Algeria
have done so. However, neither of the major al-Qaeda umbrella groups,
Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) headquartered in Yemen, nor
Al-Qaeda on the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM), headquartered in northern
Africa, is going to give up its identity and subjugate itself to ISIS.
Joshua Landis

****
**** Turkey's Erdogan says Muslims, not Christopher Columbus, discovered America
****

At a meeting of the 1st Latin American Muslim Religious Leaders Summit
in Istanbul on Saturday, Turkey's president Recep Tayyip Erdogan said
that Muslims discovered America long before Christopher Columbus did:

<QUOTE>"Latin America's contact with Islam dates back to the
12th century. Muslims discovered America in 1178, not Christopher
Columbus. Muslim sailors arrived in America in 1178. Christopher
Columbus mentions the existence of a mosque on a hill along the
Cuban coast. I will talk to my brothers in Cuba and a mosque would
suit the top of that hill today as well. We would build it if they
[the Cuban government] say so. Islam had expanded in the American
continent before Columbus arrived."<END QUOTE>

Various groups, from Malians to Vikings, have claimed to be the first
to "discover America," but there's no archaeological evidence of any
permanent settlements prior the expedition of Italian explorer
Christopher Columbus in 1492.

There is a small Muslim minority in Cuba, many of whom claim that
they're discriminated against. A delegation from Turkey traveled to
Cuba earlier this year to seek permission to build a mosque in Havana,
but the Cuban authorities rejected the request. Today's Zaman (Istanbul) and Independent (Ireland)

****
**** UN committee in Jordan investigates Israeli war crimes
****

The investigation committee of the UN Human Rights Council is meeting
in Amman Jordan to hear the testimonies of Palestinians claiming to be
victims of Israeli violence, to gather evidence of Israeli war crimes
in the Gaza war of several months ago. They're meeting in Jordan
because Israel has denied its members entry into the West Bank and the
Gaza Strip. Likewise, Egypt has denied them entry into Gaza via the
Rafah border crossing.

Israel's Foreign Ministry officially announced last week that it would
not cooperate with the Council's investigation, saying that the
Council has already predetermined that Israel is guilty, and is not
investigating crimes by Hamas. The probe is headed by Canadian legal
expert William Schabas, who previously stated that he believes Prime
Minister Benjamin Netanyahu should be brought before the International
Criminal Court on war crime charges. Ma'an (Bethlehem) and Jerusalem Post


KEYS: Generational Dynamics, Canada, Stephen Harper, Russia, Vladimir Putin,
G20, Brisbane, Australia, Ukraine,
Al-Qaeda on the Islamic Maghreb, AQIM,
Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, AQAP, Yemen,
Jabhat al-Nusra, al-Nusra Front, Abu Omar al-Baghdadi,
Turkey, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Latin America, Christopher Columbus,
Cuba, Mali, Vikings, UN Human Rights Council, Jordan, West Bank,
Gaza Strip, Israel, William Schabas, Benjamin Netanyahu,
International Criminal Court

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The Vikings had a short-lived colony in "Vinland". The location is unclear, but the Vikings kept good records. As elsewhere the Vikings tried to establish trade with the Native population, but they traded the wrong commodity -- cow's milk -- to lactose-intolerant people. They were driven out.

Had the Viking colony been successful, then it would be likely that what is now southeastern Canada and the eastern United States would have a medieval history much like that of Russia, where the Vikings practically created a country in the wilderness in part by exploiting the rivers of the area. In possession of horses and firearms the peoples of the new World would have been far less vulnerable to subsequent European invasions.

Originally Posted by pbrower2a

> The Vikings had a short-lived colony in "Vinland". The location is
> unclear, but the Vikings kept good records. As elsewhere the
> Vikings tried to establish trade with the Native population, but
> they traded the wrong commodity -- cow's milk -- to
> lactose-intolerant people. They were driven out.

> Had the Viking colony been successful, then it would be likely
> that what is now southeastern Canada and the eastern United States
> would have a medieval history much like that of Russia, where the
> Vikings practically created a country in the wilderness in part by
> exploiting the rivers of the area. In possession of horses and
> firearms the peoples of the new World would have been far less
> vulnerable to subsequent European invasions.

Thanks for the correction. My excuse is that I was depending
on the text of the Irish Independent article that I referenced.

A Canadian reader on my e-mail list wrote to me about the same thing,
and he referenced the following map:



John

*** 18-Nov-14 World View -- More Pakistan jihadist groups swear allegiance to ISIS

This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com

• Germany's friendly relations with Russia turn hostile
• More Pakistan jihadist groups swear allegiance to ISIS
• Japan in shock as economy plunges into recession

****
**** Germany's friendly relations with Russia turn hostile
****


Putin wags his finger at Merkel at the 70th anniversary of D-Day commemoration in June (Reuters)

Russia's president Vladimir Putin has long had a soft spot for
Germany, even developing a love for the German language
when he was stationed in the East German city of Dresden
as an office of the KGB in the late 1980s.

For her part, Germany's Chancellor Angela Merkel has always promoted
good relations with Russia, and for solving problems with dialogue.
The business lobby in Germany is both more powerful and more
sympathetic toward Russia than any major European state, and the
German electorate has generally favored a neutral stance on foreign
policy.

But that's changed dramatically in the last few months. Thanks to
Russia's invasion of Ukraine, annexation of Crimea, and the Russians'
shooting down of airline flight MH17, Putin's reputation among the
German public has been plummeting. In a nationwide survey conducted
in August, a German pollster reportedly found that 82% of Germans do
not believe that Russia can be trusted, while 70% called for tougher
sanctions against the Russian economy.

Over the weekend, Merkel said, "Truly, the Ukraine crisis is in no way
a regional issue. It affects all of us." She said that she was
particularly concerned that Russia would not stop with the invasion of
Ukraine, but would go to the Balkans.

She warned that the EU will not yield to Moscow like East Germany once
did:

<QUOTE>"Otherwise, one would have to say: We are too weak, be
careful, we can't accept any others, we have to first ask Moscow
if it is possible. That's how things were for 40 years; I never
really wanted to return to that situation.

And that doesn't just apply to Ukraine. It applies to Moldova, it
applies to Georgia. If the situation continues ... we'd have to
ask about Serbia, we'd have to ask about the western Balkan
countries. ...

After the horrors of two world wars and the end of the Cold War,
[the Ukraine crisis] has challenged the peaceful order in
Europe."<END QUOTE>

With the loss of Merkel as an ally, Russia is now almost completely
estranged from Europe and the West, and further confrontations are
sure to follow. Der Spiegel and Time and
Europe Online

****
**** More Pakistan jihadist groups swear allegiance to ISIS
****

The black ISIS flag is beginning to appear all across Pakistan,
from the south of Punjab province north to Islamabad, and in
Balochistan and in the Afghan-Pakistan tribal region. At least
330 Pakistani terrorists are already known to be fighting alongside
ISIS in Syria and Iraq.

ISIS has been recruiting heavily in Pakistan and Afghanistan,
anticipating a gain of territory as American military forces withdraw.
After meeting a three-man delegation from ISIS, the Jundullah
terrorist group pledged allegiance to ISIS last week.
Lashkar-e-Jhangvi is also considering allegiance. What these two
groups have in common is that they're committed to exterminating Shia
Muslims wherever possible, and have committed numerous bombings of
mosques and marketplaces in Balochistan and Iran to accomplish this.
Analysts say that so far IS has mainly attracted sectarian (anti-Shia)
groups rather than anti-state militants like the Taliban.

In response, al-Qaeda has announced a new umbrella organization,
Al-Qaeda in the Indian Subcontinent (AQIS) that has made deep inroads
into Pakistan. On September 3, 2014, al Qaeda leader Ayman
al-Zawahiri, in a 55-minute video posted on the Internet, announced
the launch of AQIS to spread Islamic rule and "raise the flag of
jihad" across the Indian subcontinent, including Pakistan. South Asia Terrorism Portal (SATP - India) and Reuters

****
**** Japan in shock as economy plunges into recession
****

Economists were expecting Japan's economy to grow by 2% in the third
(most current) quarter, after having plunged a historic 7.6% in the
second quarter. Instead, the GDP fell an additional 1.6% in the third
quarter. And since the GDP has now fallen for two months in a row,
Japan's economy is officially in a recession. The fall into recession
is being blamed on a sales tax increase from 5% to 8% in April, which
caused consumers to stop spending.

Japan's prime minister Shinzo Abe will put any further planned tax
increases on hold, and will dissolve the Lower House and hold a "snap
election" in December.

Japan's economy has been in a deflationary spiral since the early
1990s, following a huge real estate and stock market bubble in
the 1980s, and a huge crash that began in January, 1990. In the
spring of 2013, Shinzo Abe launched something called "Abenomics,"
involving a huge quantitative easing program. Japan's
central bank "printed" hundreds of billions of dollars and used
it to buy bonds. This is similar to America's recent quantitative
easing program which, at its peak, put $85 billion per month into
the banking system.

The objective of Abenomics was to end deflation once and for all.
But instead of stimulating spending, all the money just poured into
the stock market, benefiting only a minority of rich people. The
vast majority of Japanese people have incomes that are stagnant
or falling.

This has also been a criticism of America's quantitative easing
program. In the U.S., the median income has been falling, but the
stock market has been pushed up into bubble levels, with the S&P
Price/Earnings ratio (stock valuations) close to 19, an astronomically
high level, much higher than the historical average of 14. Asahi Shimbun (Tokyo) and BBC


KEYS: Generational Dynamics, Russia, Vladimir Putin, Germany, Angela Merkel,
Ukraine, Crimea, MH17, Balkans, Moldova, Georgia, Serbia,
Islamic State / of Iraq and Syria/Sham/the Levant, IS, ISIS, ISIL,
Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, Afghanistan, Iran, Jundullah, Balochistan,
Al-Qaeda in the Indian Subcontinent, AQIS, Ayman al-Zawahiri,
Japan, Shinzo Abe

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*** 19-Nov-14 World View -- Jerusalem synagogue attack raises Arab-Israeli violence to new levels

This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com

• Jerusalem synagogue attack raises Arab-Israeli violence to new levels
• Spain's parliament calls for recognition of State of Palestine
• Obama could order combat troops into Iraq and Syria
• NATO and OSCE see Russian military buildup on both sides of Ukraine's border

****
**** Jerusalem synagogue attack raises Arab-Israeli violence to new levels
****


Israeli security forces run in front of the synagogue that was attacked on Tuesday

The spiral of violence that began last Spring with the kidnapping of
three Israeli teenagers who were later found dead took a new leap
upward on Tuesday when two Palestinians wielding a gun and butcher
knives attacked a Jerusalem synagogue during morning prayers, killing
four rabbis and a policeman. Three of the rabbis were American,
and the fourth was British.

The extremely brutal attacks have drawn comments from both sides that
are likely to enrage the other side further.

Palestinian Authority (PA) president Mahmoud Abbas, also known as Abu
Mazen, condemned the attack, but blamed Israel for inciting it:

<QUOTE>"It is time to end this occupation, to end all causes
of violence and tension; we are committed to the two-state
solution, and implementing all related international legitimacy
resolutions."<END QUOTE>

Recently, Abbas called for an end to the "contamination" of the
Jerusalem holy sites by Jews.

Israel's prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu blamed Abbas and he blamed
the international community as well:

<QUOTE>"This is a direct result of incitement led by Hamas
and Abu Mazen, incitement that the international community has
been irresponsibly ignoring.

We will respond with a heavy hand to the brutal murder of Jews who
came to pray and were killed by lowly murderers."<END QUOTE>

Netanyahu said that the homes of the perpetrators would be demolished,
an act that Palestinians say punishes innocent people living in the
same homes.

The attack follows a death by hanging earlier this week in east
Jerusalem of Yusuf Hassan al-Ramouni, a Palestinian bus driver. The
death was apparently a suicide, but Palestinians are claiming, without
confirmation, that he was killed by Israeli settlers. However, an
autopsy performed jointly by Israeli and Palestinian coroners found no
evidence of foul play.

A Hamas spokesman call for more attacks on Israelis:

<QUOTE>"Jerusalem attack is a reaction to the execution of
the martyr al-Ramouni and the ongoing Israeli crimes at al-Aqsa.
Hamas calls for the continuation of acts of revenge."<END QUOTE>

There are increasing fears of a so-called "third intifida," a general
violent uprising of Palestinians against Israelis. International Middle East Media Center (Gaza) and International Business Times and Latin American Herald Tribune

****
**** Spain's parliament calls for recognition of State of Palestine
****

On the same day as the synagogue attack in Jerusalem, Spain's
parliament passed a resolution calling on the government to
recognize the State of Palestine:

<QUOTE>"The Spanish parliament urges the government to
encourage the recognition of Palestine as a state... This
recognition should be the consequence of a process negotiated
between the parties that guarantees peace and security for
both."<END QUOTE>

This was actually a version that was watered down at the last moment,
possibly because of the Jerusalem attack.

European Union leaders have been expressing frustration about Israel's
continuing settlement-building program in the West Bank. Palestinians
claim that the settlements are being built on Palestinian land, making
the two-state solution impossible. Israelis claim that the new
settlements are being built only on land that would be part of Israel
in a two-state solution. Reuters

****
**** Obama could order combat troops into Iraq and Syria
****

President Obama has repeatedly said that he would not permit American
combat troops into Iraq or Syria to fight the Islamic State / of Iraq
and Syria (IS or ISIS or ISIL), but on Sunday he said:

<QUOTE>"If we discovered that [ISIS] had gotten possession of
a nuclear weapon, and we had to run an operation to get it out of
their hands, then, yes. I would order it."<END QUOTE>

This is reminiscent of Obama's "red line" promise to attack the regime
of Syria's president Bashar al-Assad if it used chemical weapons.
Obama immediately backed down when al-Assad attacked his own people
with Sarin gas. Al-Assad is still using chemical weapons -- barrel
bombs packed with explosives, metals, and chlorine gas, which he's
using against innocent civilians with impunity. So it seems unlikely
that anyone will take this new red line very seriously.

On Tuesday, the al-Assad regime dropped multiple barrel bombs on a
civilian neighborhood in Aleppo, killing at least 14 people, including
mothers and children. ABC News and AP

****
**** NATO and OSCE see Russian military buildup on both sides of Ukraine's border
****

NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg says that information from
NATO and OSCE (Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe)
and other sources indicates that Russia is in the midst of "serious
military buildup" on both sides of the Ukraine border. According to
Stoltenberg:

<QUOTE>"[We see] a military buildup...inside Ukraine, but we
also see a military buildup on the Russian side of the border.

And we speak about troops, we speak about equipment, and we speak
also about artillery and very modern air-defense systems so this
is a serious military build-up. ...

We see that Russia is still destabilizing Ukraine, we see the
movement of troops, of equipment, of tanks, of artillery and also
advanced air defense systems and this is in violation of the
cease-fire agreement. And we call on Russia to pull back its
forces from eastern Ukraine and to respect the Minsk
agreement."<END QUOTE>

Germany's Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier is practicing
"shuttle diplomacy," traveling between Kiev and Moscow to prevent a
Russia-Ukraine war. RFERL


KEYS: Generational Dynamics, Israel, Jerusalem, Benjamin Netanyahu,
Palestinian Authority, Mahmoud Abbas, Abu Mazen,
Hamas, Yusuf Hassan al-Ramouni,
Islamic State / of Iraq and Syria/Sham/the Levant, IS, ISIS, ISIL,
Iraq, Syria, Bashar al-Assad, Aleppo,
Ukraine, Russia, Nato, Jens Stoltenberg,
Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe, OSCE,
Germany, Frank-Walter Steinmeier

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*** 20-Nov-14 World View -- Jerusalem becomes a city of fear, in a torrent of mutual hostility

This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com

• Global warming and climate change strike Buffalo NY
• Israel demolishes apartment of terrorist
• Jerusalem becomes a city of fear, in a torrent of mutual hostility
• Israel approves construction of 78 new homes in Jerusalem

****
**** Global warming and climate change strike Buffalo NY
****


Buffalo man digs out his car on Wednesday

****
**** Israel demolishes apartment of terrorist
****

On Wednesday, Israeli forces demolished the home of Abdelrahman
Shaludi, who had purposely plowed his car into pedestrians on October
22, killing two people. This was done following a policy revived by
Benjamin Netanyahu of demolishing the homes of terrorists as a method
of deterrence. Netanyahu has promised to do the same to the homes of
the two perpetrators of Tuesday's synagogue attack. However,
Palestinians claim that the policy is a violation of international law
because it uses "collective punishment" of many people for the crimes
of one person.

The Israelis point out that they didn't demolish the entire apartment
building in which Shaludi lived, but only demolished Shaludi's
individual apartment.

A reporter on al-Jazeera on Wednesday described the history of using
home demolishing as deterrence. According to the reporter, the policy
was used during British rule of Palestine prior to World War II in
order to inhibit Jewish insurgents. Israel began using the home
demolition policy starting in 1967, and it was continued until 2005,
when it was ended because it was considered ineffective. However,
Netanyahu reinstated the policy earlier this year after the three
teenagers were abducted and killed in the West Bank. Israel National News

****
**** Jerusalem becomes a city of fear, in a torrent of mutual hostility
****

Following Tuesday's terrorist attack on a synagogue in Jerusalem, both
Israelis and Palestinians are afraid to walk the streets. Israelis
are afraid that any passing car driven by a Palestinian might change
direction and kill pedestrians. Palestinians are afraid of revenge
attacks from Israeli settlers.

Several analysts have pointed out that the conflict between Arabs and
Israelis has shifted. It used to be a political conflict over land,
but now it's become a conflict over religion, and a religious war is
much more dangerous than a political war.

Former Senator George Mitchell, who was President Obama's "Special
Envoy for the Mideast," said the following on the BBC on Wednesday
(my transcription):

<QUOTE>"I think one thing that the parties should consider is
the potential that this could spread and branch out in ways that
were unlikely in the past. There have been two Palestinian
uprisings. at that time, there was a relatively stable and quiet
region around the Israeli Palestinian conflict. That no longer
exists. Syria, Iraq, Egypt, Tunisia, Libya -- you go down the
list of turmoil and conflict, intersecting, overlapping different
routes, different branches, so many competing organizations that
the average person has trouble keeping track of them, and an
outbreak of violence this time could spread in ways that was not
possible in the past, and we may not fully comprehend
yet."<END QUOTE>

This is exactly the kind of point that Generational Dynamics makes.
As I've been saying since 2003, Generational Dynamics predicts that
there will be a new war between Arabs and Israelis, refighting the
1948 war between Jews and Arabs that following the partitioning of
Palestine and the creation of the state of Israel. The mechanism that
all these crisis wars follow is that a crisis war is so horrible that
the traumatized survivors -- both "winners" and "losers" -- vow to
make sure that the same thing never happens again, to their children
or grandchildren. And they succeed, until they all disappear (retire
or die), all at once, leaving behind generations of children and
grandchildren who have no personal memory of those horrors, and
willing to cross any line, even if it risks another crisis war, which
happens sooner or later. Pretty much the only important survivor of
the 1948 war still left is Palestinian Authority president Mahmoud
Abbas, who is undoubtedly well aware of what's coming, but can't do
anything to stop it.

Mitchell continued:

<QUOTE>"And there is a further fact. Of all the difficult
issues between Palestinians and Israelis, none is more difficult
or important than Jerusalem. In part because Jerusalem is not
just a Palestinian issue. Jerusalem is Muslim issue. Today of
the 7 1/2 billion people in the world, 1 in 5 is Muslim, about a
billion and a half. In the middle of this century, when the
world's population gets past 9 1/2 billion, 1 in 3 will be Muslim.
They all have an interest in Jerusalem, and it's in everyone's
interest not to let this get out of control and dominate the
issue. So the dangers are greater. The potential losses on all
sides are greater. And to me the incentives of doing something
about it should be greater. Will that be persuasive to the
participants, I can't say that with certainty, but I believe
that's the case we should be making to them."<END QUOTE>

Mitchell is making a fundamental error here. He was born in 1933, so
he remembers well the horrors of World War II, and would do anything
to keep them from happening again. But he assumes that because he
doesn't want war, then nobody wants war. However, that's patently
untrue, as history is replete with leaders who wanted war, thinking
that they would win easily, and living to regret it. In fact, there
are plenty of people in the Mideast, including both Palestinians and
Israelis, who are itching for a war.

I've been writing for years that Sunni jihadists are doing everything
possible to trigger a war. These groups, affiliated with al-Qaeda and
lately the Islamic State / of Iraq and Syria (IS or ISIS or ISIL), see
one shining event that's guiding their lives -- the 1979 Great Islamic
Revolution that turned Iran from a secular state into a Shia Islamic
state. Al-Qaeda and ISIS would like to repeat that "success," and
they've tried to trigger a war in numerous countries, and are still
trying in Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan.

There are plenty of young radical Israelis and Palestinians who would
like to trigger a war because they hate each other and because each
side thinks they would win. That day is coming, and there will be no
winners. Reuters

****
**** Israel approves construction of 78 new homes in Jerusalem
****

Jerusalem’s municipal planning committee approved the construction of
78 settlements on Wednesday, provoking further fury among the
Palestinians. Jerusalem Post


KEYS: Generational Dynamics, global warming, climate change, Buffalo,
Israel, Abdelrahman Shaludi, Benjamin Netanyahu,
Jerusalem, George Mitchell, Iran, Great Islamic Revolution,
Islamic State / of Iraq and Syria/Sham/the Levant, IS, ISIS, ISIL,
Al-Qaeda

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It may be that Vikings got around more in North America than they are generally credited for.

http://digital.library.okstate.edu/e...s/H/HE007.html

*** 21-Nov-14 World View -- Gulf nations paper over their differences for GCC Summit in December

This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com

• Gulf nations paper over their differences for GCC Summit in December
• United Arab Emirates identifies 86 terrorist groups
• Egypt may be considering release of al-Jazeera reporters

****
**** Gulf nations paper over their differences for GCC Summit in December
****


GCC Summit meeting in 2009

Saudi Arabia has managed to mediate a reconciliation among the members
of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) that very publicly and
vitriolicly split in March of this year, when Saudi Arabia, the United
Arab Emirates (UAE) and Bahrain recalled their ambassadors from Qatar
after a stormy GCC meeting. This year's GCC annual summit was
originally scheduled for November 10, but was postponed to December
9-10. Now, the three countries had agreed to put their differences
aside, at least until the end of the summit meeting, and return their
ambassadors to Qatar.

Since the GCC was formed in 1981, there have always been differences
between the individual countries, but until the explosion earlier this
year, they were carefully hidden from the public. The trigger that
raised tensions among the countries was the army coup, in July 2013,
that ousted Egypt's president Mohamed Morsi and his Muslim Brotherhood
government. Qatar supports the Muslim Brotherhood, or at least is
neutral towards it, and supported Morsi with billions of dollars in
aid, and Qatar opposes the presidency of former army general Abdel
al-Fattah al-Sisi. Saudi Arabia and UAE support al-Sisi with billions
of dollars of aid, and consider the Muslim Brotherhood to be a
terrorist organization.

Relations between Qatar and Egypt have been further complicated
because Qatar is the home of al-Jazeera, which reported on the bloody
army crackdown on protesters following the coup. Egypt got revenge by
jailing three al-Jazeera reporters, who remain in jail to this day,
and have given sentences of 7-10 years.

As I've written several times, there has been a major Mideast realignment following the Gaza war
, bringing Israel plus Egypt plus Saudi Arabia in alliance
versus Hamas plus Qatar plus Turkey. This was, and continues to be, a
sharp and bitter division.

So now, in the last few weeks, King Abdullah bin Abdulaziz Al Saud of
Saudi Arabia says that these differences have all been resolved.
That's not particularly credible. The GCC Summit on December 9-10 may
be extremely stormy, and another bitter split may go beyond shouting
to violence. Asharq Al Awsat (Riyadh) and Reuters

****
**** United Arab Emirates identifies 86 terrorist groups
****

One sign that sharp differences remain is that the United Arab
Emirates (UAE) has announced a list, controversial in the Arab world,
naming 86 organizations that it considers to be terrorist. Some are
uncontroversial, such as the Islamic State / of Iraq and Syria (IS or
ISIS or ISIL), Jabhat al-Nusra, the Taliban, Boko Haram, Al-Qaeda in
the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), and Al-Qaeda on the Islamic Maghreb
(AQIM).

Also named were Iran-supported groups, including the Houthis in Yemen,
and Hezbollah's affiliates in the Gulf states -- though not
Hezbollah's main branch in Lebanon, considered a terrorist
organization by the U.S. and the West.

But two Qatari-supported groups, the Muslim Brotherhood and the
Union of Muslim Scholars in Qatar are named.

Hamas was not named.

Within the United States, the most controversial selection will be the
Washington-based Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR). Also
included are the Muslim Association of Britain and the Islamic Relief
Organisation in London.

Some Muslim analysts complain that the inclusion of these
organizations fosters Islamophobia in the U.S. and Britain. According
to Anas al-Tikriti, the former president of the Muslim Association of
Britain, the terrorist list is "beyond ludicrous":

<QUOTE>"The fact that it piles together terrorist groups like
Boko Haram and IS with think tanks and research centers who aren’t
involved in political work and who espouse democratic principles
belies any kind of rationality or logic.

Some of these organizations represent tens of thousands of
people. Does the UAE mean to suggest there are tens of thousands
of terrorists throughout the world from America, to Europe, to
Africa?"<END QUOTE>

The National (UAE) and Middle East Eye and Gulf News - complete list and Al-Jazeera

****
**** Egypt may be considering release of al-Jazeera reporters
****

Saudi Arabia's King Abdullah bin Abdulaziz Al Saud has been
encouraging Egypt to fix its strained relations with Qatar, and one
consequence is that Egypt's president Abdel al-Fattah al-Sisi may be
considering releasing the three al-Jazeera journalists. In
an interview with France24, al-Sisi said:

<QUOTE>[At the time of the journalists’ arrests, I] did not
have the power to take decisions about their situation. If I were
president at that time, I would have decided, for the good and the
security of Egypt, that the journalists would have to be expelled,
so [it would] put an end to this issue once and for
all."<END QUOTE>

Al-Sisi has said things like this before, but this time, when
asked whether he intends to issue a presidential pardon, he
said:

<QUOTE>"Let me just say, this issue is currently under
discussion so that we may find a solution."<END QUOTE>

This indicates, for the first time, that some kind of negotiation is
going on that might result in the release of the reporters. The
reporters' fates may be in the hands of the GCC negotiations, and
particularly any possible reconciliation between Egypt and Qatar.
France 24 and Al-Jazeera


KEYS: Generational Dynamics, Gulf Cooperation Council, GCC,
Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, UAE, Bahrain, Qatar,
Egypt, Mohammed Morsi, Muslim Brotherhood, Abdel al-Fattah al-Sisi,
King Abdullah bin Abdulaziz Al Saud, al-Jazeera,
Council on American-Islamic Relations, CAIR, Anas al-Tikriti,
Muslim Association of Britain, Islamic Relief Organisation,
Islamic State / of Iraq and Syria/Sham/the Levant, IS, ISIS, ISIL,
Al-Qaeda on the Islamic Maghreb, AQIM,
Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, AQAP, Yemen

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Originally Posted by John J. Xenakis

****
**** Germany's friendly relations with Russia turn hostile
****


Putin wags his finger at Merkel at the 70th anniversary of D-Day commemoration in June (Reuters)

Russia's president Vladimir Putin has long had a soft spot for
Germany, even developing a love for the German language
when he was stationed in the East German city of Dresden
as an office of the KGB in the late 1980s.

For her part, Germany's Chancellor Angela Merkel has always promoted
good relations with Russia, and for solving problems with dialogue.
The business lobby in Germany is both more powerful and more
sympathetic toward Russia than any major European state, and the
German electorate has generally favored a neutral stance on foreign
policy.

But that's changed dramatically in the last few months. Thanks to
Russia's invasion of Ukraine, annexation of Crimea, and the Russians'
shooting down of airline flight MH17, Putin's reputation among the
German public has been plummeting. In a nationwide survey conducted
in August, a German pollster reportedly found that 82% of Germans do
not believe that Russia can be trusted, while 70% called for tougher
sanctions against the Russian economy.

Over the weekend, Merkel said, "Truly, the Ukraine crisis is in no way
a regional issue. It affects all of us." She said that she was
particularly concerned that Russia would not stop with the invasion of
Ukraine, but would go to the Balkans.

She warned that the EU will not yield to Moscow like East Germany once
did:

<QUOTE>"Otherwise, one would have to say: We are too weak, be
careful, we can't accept any others, we have to first ask Moscow
if it is possible. That's how things were for 40 years; I never
really wanted to return to that situation.

And that doesn't just apply to Ukraine. It applies to Moldova, it
applies to Georgia. If the situation continues ... we'd have to
ask about Serbia, we'd have to ask about the western Balkan
countries. ...

After the horrors of two world wars and the end of the Cold War,
[the Ukraine crisis] has challenged the peaceful order in
Europe."<END QUOTE>

With the loss of Merkel as an ally, Russia is now almost completely
estranged from Europe and the West, and further confrontations are
sure to follow. Der Spiegel and Time and
Europe Online

Putin's history in Germany is fascinating. He was in the role of being a go-between linking the KGB, the Stasi and, state owned firm "Robotron." If that name rings a bell with old techies, I am not surprised. Back in the day, Robotron were the PC maker in East Germany (and supplied other East Bloc places). Now here is what is even more interesting. Putin's explicit mission was to facilitate wireless technology development (and theft of Western wireless technology). During the 1980s, "Robotron workers" approached and recruited workers from Cisco and other nascent second generation telecom oriented firms from Silicon Valley for "benchmarking." Think about that, in the context of certain things going on right now regarding Sino-Russian hacking of smart phones.

*** 22-Nov-14 World View -- Britain in nationalistic surge as anti-EU UKIP party gains ground

This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com

• Arab workers in Israel being fired in backlash from synagogue attack
• Britain in nationalistic surge as anti-EU UKIP party gains ground

****
**** Arab workers in Israel being fired in backlash from synagogue attack
****


Israeli border policeman shown during clashes with Palestinian protesters in Rmallah on Friday (Reuters)

Following Tuesday's terrorist attack on a Jerusalem synagogue, Arab
workers across Israel are being fired from their jobs. This came to
light after the announcement that the mayor of Ashkelon, one of
Israel’s leading cities, fired Arabs who were building bomb shelters
in municipal kindergartens. Many Arabs in Israel are construction
workers, and it's believed that one of the perpetrators of
the synagogue attack was a construction worker.

The decision to fire Arab workers is causing outrage and charges of
racism across the Israeli political spectrum. Israel's Commission for
Equal Employment Opportunities said that "a not insignificant number
of requests regarding employers firing or wishing to terminate the
employment of Arab male and female employees, solely on racial
grounds."

Prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu said:

<QUOTE>"The vast majority of Israel's Arab citizens are law
abiding and whoever breaks the law — we will take determined and
vigorous action against him."<END QUOTE>

National Post and AP

****
**** Britain in nationalistic surge as anti-EU UKIP party gains ground
****

The anti-EU anti-immigrant UK Independence Party (UKIP) had a
startling by-election victory on Thursday when former Conservative
(Tory) party MP Mark Reckless won re-election after defecting to the
UKIP. Prime minister David Cameron, leader of the Conservative Party,
had promised to "throw everything" at the campaign in order to defeat
Reckless, but in the Reckless got 42%, defeating the Tory candidate at
35%. This was the second by-election in a month where

Nigel Farage has been gloating about the victory and is warning other
Tory MPs that they should also defect to the UKIP, or risk losing
their seats in next year's general election.

However, it's not just Tory seats that are at risk. Comparing
Thursday's vote to the 2010 election, Reckless stole away
14% of the Tory votes, but also took 12% of the Labour vote
and 16% of the Lib Dem vote. This is only one district, but
the vote could be signaling a rapid surge in nationalism.

According to the UKIP web site,

<QUOTE>"UKIP is a patriotic party that promotes independence:
from the EU, and from government interference. We believe in free
trade, lower taxes, personal freedom and responsibility.

UKIP believes in Britain becoming a democratic, self-governing
country once again. This can only be achieved by getting our
nation out of the European Union and reasserting the sovereignty
of Parliament.

As a party we are unashamedly patriotic: we believe there is so
much to be proud about Britain and the contribution it has made to
the world. We believe that Britain is good enough to be an
independent nation, trading and building harmonious relations with
the rest of the world.

We believe Britain must get back control over its borders, so that
it can welcome people with a positive contribution to make while
limiting the overall numbers of migrants and keeping out those
without the skills or aptitudes to be of benefit to the nation.

UKIP believes in promoting self-reliance and personal freedom from
state interference. We believe the state in Britain has become too
large, too expensive and too dominant over civil
society."<END QUOTE>

From the point of view of Generational Dynamics, the increased British
nationalism is no surprise, as countries around the world, including
China and the United States, including the Israelis and the
Palestinians, are becoming increasingly nationalistic. The survivors
of the horrors of World War II were well aware of the dangers of
extreme nationalism, and how it can cause the most brutal kinds of
wars. That's why those survivors have done everything possible to
promote globalism and racial tolerance. But those survivors have all
but disappeared, and the generations that grew up after WW II are now
in charge and have no fears of nationalism. Mirror (London) and Irish Times and UKIP Web Site


KEYS: Generational Dynamics, Israel, Ashkelon, Benjamin Netanyahu,
Britain, UK Independence Party, UKIP, Nigel Farage,
David Cameron, Mark Reckless

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Originally Posted by John J. Xenakis

From the point of view of Generational Dynamics, the increased British
nationalism is no surprise, as countries around the world, including
China and the United States, including the Israelis and the
Palestinians, are becoming increasingly nationalistic. The survivors
of the horrors of World War II were well aware of the dangers of
extreme nationalism, and how it can cause the most brutal kinds of
wars. That's why those survivors have done everything possible to
promote globalism and racial tolerance. But those survivors have all
but disappeared, and the generations that grew up after WW II are now
in charge and have no fears of nationalism. Mirror (London) and Irish Times and UKIP Web Site

If this theory was true history would have looked far different that what actually ended up occurring; the only major war whose effects followed your template is WW2. In reality large scale wars tend to generate more large-scale wars as former belligerents seek to settle old scores with peace returning only when there is a general realization of the futility of trying to settle old scores. The period from the first outbreak of major war ending a prolonged peace to this realization is usually 2 to 3 generations, not 5 years. I return to the old example of the Peloponnesian war: the war itself lasted 27 years, far longer than the 5 years promoted by Xenakis' theory. 10 years into the war there was in fact a major peace conference that succeeded in negotiating a treaty (the peace of Nicias) it even appeared for a few years that the treaty might actually hold, but that wasn't what occurred in the end. In the end the war resumed and lasted for more than another decade. When the war finally ended, the victorious Spartans did not introduce any meaningful safeguards against the inter-poleis rivalries that caused the war in the first place. Nor did they promote a Pan-Hellenic nationalism that would have facilitated a more united Greece.

If you take the fundamentals of Xenakis' theory, the Peloponnesian war should have resulted in an extended Spartan hegemony that promoted pan-Hellenism that would have been widely accepted by the other city-states as a alternative to another inter-Greek war, any regulations imposed by Sparta should have been accepted by the other city-states as the price needed to keep the peace. The next crisis would have been Sparta vs. either Macedon or Persia or both. But that is not what actually happened; what actually occurred was that the Spartans unwisely went to war with Persia, which allowed the other states to rebel and establish their traditional forms of government in the Corinthian war, this also included a resurgence of Athens. In the 370s and 360s BC the Spartan hegemony was completely destroyed in the course of war between Sparta and Thebes (supported by Athens), which included thebes imposing territorial changes that removed lands that had been considered Spartan for several centuries up to that point. Pan-Hellenic nationalism as a alternative to identifying with the poleis did eventually become popular, but not until the 330s BC when Philip of macedon promoted it as part of his war with Athens in order to weaken the Athenian hold over the city-states.

Xenakis is primarily a neocon ideologue, thus he promotes a doctrine that America should seek global utopia rather than promote specifically American great power interests. Being a neocon, unlike his liberal internationalist counterparts he promotes defense as the only vigilance against foreign aggressor, only in this respect he is more realistic that liberal internationalist counterparts. Yet all of these baby boomer ideologues want Americans to fight for utopia rather than for the American interests within a balance of power system. No America should fight for America, and should serve the interests of Americans. The problem with wilsonian treaties like the non-proliferation treaty is that by keeping the world disarmed, while small countries would be less likely to suffer the worst effects of a war, the US by shouldering the burden of defense is likely to suffer more hits than we would if say we deliberately proliferated nuclear missiles to our allied countries. Yes in a future war this is more likely to increase the devastation in the hot zones of the world but damage to the western nations in a world with proliferation would be considerably less than if a world war occurs with the current arms-control regime. The US by embracing proliferation would cause more damage to current adversaries as well as likely future adversaries, even though some of the hypothetical future adversaries are currently friendly to the US. The romans called the policy divide and rule.

If a strong and competent government was governing our nation, Iraqis would not have run toward US troops to greet them and terrorists would not have been able to disguise themselves a regular Iraqis who then shot down unsuspecting soldiers. Instead Iraqis would have fled en masses fearing horrors worse than those perpetrated by the Mongols. A strong America would have banned Islam after 9/11 and torched the mosques that are in our country. A strong America would have nuked Muslim cities in retaliation against the Muslim attack on the WTC.

Originally Posted by Cynic Hero '86

> If this theory was true history would have looked far different
> that what actually ended up occurring; the only major war whose
> effects followed your template is WW2. In reality large scale wars
> tend to generate more large-scale wars as former belligerents seek
> to settle old scores with peace returning only when there is a
> general realization of the futility of trying to settle old
> scores. The period from the first outbreak of major war ending a
> prolonged peace to this realization is usually 2 to 3 generations,
> not 5 years. I return to the old example of the Peloponnesian war:
> the war itself lasted 27 years, far longer than the 5 years
> promoted by Xenakis' theory. 10 years into the war there was in
> fact a major peace conference that succeeded in negotiating a
> treaty (the peace of Nicias) it even appeared for a few years that
> the treaty might actually hold, but that wasn't what occurred in
> the end. In the end the war resumed and lasted for more than
> another decade. When the war finally ended, the victorious
> Spartans did not introduce any meaningful safeguards against the
> inter-poleis rivalries that caused the war in the first place. Nor
> did they promote a Pan-Hellenic nationalism that would have
> facilitated a more united Greece.

> If you take the fundamentals of Xenakis' theory, the Peloponnesian
> war should have resulted in an extended Spartan hegemony that
> promoted pan-Hellenism that would have been widely accepted by the
> other city-states as a alternative to another inter-Greek war, any
> regulations imposed by Sparta should have been accepted by the
> other city-states as the price needed to keep the peace. The next
> crisis would have been Sparta vs. either Macedon or Persia or
> both. But that is not what actually happened; what actually
> occurred was that the Spartans unwisely went to war with Persia,
> which allowed the other states to rebel and establish their
> traditional forms of government in the Corinthian war, this also
> included a resurgence of Athens. In the 370s and 360s BC the
> Spartan hegemony was completely destroyed in the course of war
> between Sparta and Thebes (supported by Athens), which included
> thebes imposing territorial changes that removed lands that had
> been considered Spartan for several centuries up to that
> point. Pan-Hellenic nationalism as a alternative to identifying
> with the poleis did eventually become popular, but not until the
> 330s BC when Philip of macedon promoted it as part of his war with
> Athens in order to weaken the Athenian hold over the city-states.

> Xenakis is primarily a neocon ideologue, thus he promotes a
> doctrine that America should seek global utopia rather than
> promote specifically American great power interests. Being a
> neocon, unlike his liberal internationalist counterparts he
> promotes defense as the only vigilance against foreign aggressor,
> only in this respect he is more realistic that liberal
> internationalist counterparts. Yet all of these baby boomer
> ideologues want Americans to fight for utopia rather than for the
> American interests within a balance of power system. No America
> should fight for America, and should serve the interests of
> Americans. The problem with wilsonian treaties like the
> non-proliferation treaty is that by keeping the world disarmed,
> while small countries would be less likely to suffer the worst
> effects of a war, the US by shouldering the burden of defense is
> likely to suffer more hits than we would if say we deliberately
> proliferated nuclear missiles to our allied countries. Yes in a
> future war this is more likely to increase the devastation in the
> hot zones of the world but damage to the western nations in a
> world with proliferation would be considerably less than if a
> world war occurs with the current arms-control regime. The US by
> embracing proliferation would cause more damage to current
> adversaries as well as likely future adversaries, even though some
> of the hypothetical future adversaries are currently friendly to
> the US. The romans called the policy divide and rule.

> If a strong and competent government was governing our nation,
> Iraqis would not have run toward US troops to greet them and
> terrorists would not have been able to disguise themselves a
> regular Iraqis who then shot down unsuspecting soldiers. Instead
> Iraqis would have fled en masses fearing horrors worse than those
> perpetrated by the Mongols. A strong America would have banned
> Islam after 9/11 and torched the mosques that are in our
> country. A strong America would have nuked Muslim cities in
> retaliation against the Muslim attack on the WTC.

As usual, mostly gibberish.

You ought to try posting your analyses of historical and current
events without festooning them with moronic and bizarre personal
attacks on me. That would make you more credible, and I can assure
you that you don't have even the vaguest clue about any "doctrine"
that I may or may not have.

*** 23-Nov-14 World View -- Somalia's Al-Shabaab claims responsibility for religion-based Kenya attack

This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com

• Somalia's Al-Shabaab claims responsibility for religion-based Kenya attack
• China creating an island with an airstrip in South China Sea
• Obama expands the U.S. mission in Afghanistan for 2015

****
**** Somalia's Al-Shabaab claims responsibility for religion-based Kenya attack
****


File photo of al-Shabaab

Al-Shabaab terrorists forced a bus in Mandera County to stop carrying
60 passengers to stop. They asked the passengers to recite Koranic
verses, and those who were unable to do so were lined up and then
killed. 28 people were killed, 19 men and 9 women.

<QUOTE>"The Mujahideen successfully carried out an operation
near Mandera early this morning, which resulted in the perishing
of 28 crusaders [Christians or non-Muslims], as a revenge for the
crimes committed by the Kenyan crusaders against our Muslim
brethren in Mombasa."<END QUOTE>

Early this week, police in Mombasa shot dead a man and arrested over
376 others when they searched four mosques in the largely Muslim
coastal town of Mombasa that they said were used to recruit militants
and store weapons.

Kenyans have not yet recovered from the horrific three-day attack on
the Westgate shopping mall in Nairobi, Kenya, in September of last
year. ( "23-Sep-13 World View -- Minnesota link to Kenya shopping mall attack raises U.S. fears"
) 68 people were killed and hundreds injured.

After Saturday's attack, President Uhuru Kenyatta called for calm, as
he did after the Westgate mall attack. Kenyatta's own nephew was
killed in the Westgate mall attack, as was the nephew's fiancée.
Abdikadir Mohammed, a senior adviser to Kenyatta, said:

<QUOTE>"The aim is to create conflict between the Muslims and
the non-Muslims in this country. The aim is to create a religious
war, religious strife, in Kenya.

We have had a lot of the Muslim leaders come out today [Saturday]
and strongly condemn this and call on Kenyans of all faiths and
creeds to stand together against these heinous crimes and
criminals."<END QUOTE>

The perpetrators are al-Shabaab, a Somalian offshoot of Al-Qaeda in
the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP). Al-Shabaab have been terrorizing
Somalia, the country next door to Kenya, for years. Starting in 2011,
Kenya's troops and African Union troops have been fighting al-Shabaab
in Somalia, and have significantly reduced al-Shabaab's influence.
However, since then, al-Shabaab has launched about 135 terrorist
attacks inside Kenya. The Westgate Mall attack was the worst so far,
but Saturday's attack has been a new major shock to Kenya. Standard Media (Kenya) and BBC and AP

****
**** China creating an island with an airstrip in South China Sea
****

China has been using a "salami-slicing" technique of using military
force to annex one portion after another of regions of the South China
Sea historically belonging to Vietnam, Brunei, Malaysia, Indonesia,
Taiwan and the Philippines.

Now China is using an even more aggressive military tactic. China is
building its own island on a reef in the Spratly Islands large enough
to accommodate an airstrip. The island on Fiery Cross Reef, which was
previously underwater, is at least 3,000 m long and 200-300 m wide,
and is being occupied by China's People's Liberation Army Navy (PLAN).
China has previously built new islands at Johnson South Reef, Cuateron
Reef, and Gaven Reefs, but none are large enough to house an airstrip
in their current form.

China has a massive military advantage over the other countries in the
region, and appears determined to annex every other country's
territory in the South China Sea. Building an airstrip in the Spratly
Islands has no other apparent purpose but to further this military
takeover at a more rapid pace. Jane's Defence Weekly and Reuters

****
**** Obama expands the U.S. mission in Afghanistan for 2015
****

President Barack Obama has quietly approved guidelines to expand the
mission of U.S. troops remaining in Afghanistan in 2015, although the
number of troops remains the same at 9,800. According to previous
guidelines, U.S. forces could only attack the Taliban or al-Qaeda in
self-defense, if they were being attacked. The new guidelines permit
attacks on the Taliban if they are preparing to attack American
troops. However, U.S. troops can't conduct offensive operations on
any Taliban forces they locate. Those forces have to be threatening
U.S. troops. The new guidelines also permit additional airstrikes in
support of Afghan forces -- but only when they're in serious trouble.

President Obama has suffered a number of recent setbacks in his
announced plans for fighting the Islamic State / of Iraq and Syria (IS
or ISIS or ISIL), forcing him to escalate American troop involvement
from 300 to 800 to 1500 to 3000.

Now a similar escalation process might be occurring in Afghanistan.
In the last few weeks, the Taliban have been launching a lot more
aggressive attacks, and a lot more successful attacks. As in Iraq, it
may be necessary for Obama either to admit defeat in Afghanistan or to
return thousands of additional troops. Obama has had one foreign
policy disaster after another, and this has to count as an additional
one. CBS and CNN


KEYS: Generational Dynamics, Somalia, al-Shabaab, Kenya, Mandera,
Westgate Mall, Nairobi, Uhuru Kenyatta, Abdikadir Mohammed,
Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, AQAP, African Union,
China, South China Sea, Spratly Islands, Fiery Cross Reef,
Afghanistan, Taliban

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*** 24-Nov-14 World View -- China's military strength and poor civilian control alarm neighbors

This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com

• China's military strength increasingly alarms neighbors
• Fears increase over poor civilian control of China's military
• The disappearance of the 'Long March' generation

****
**** China's military strength increasingly alarms neighbors
****


China's military

China's Defense Minister General Chang Wanquan was forced to respond
to concerns from China's Asian neighbors who are expressing alarms at
China's rapid military expansion and aggressiveness in the South China
Sea and elsewhere. According to Chang:

<QUOTE>"The remarkable growth of China's comprehensive
national power, and the continued progress in national defense
modernization, have become a focus of international attention in
recent years. China has learned a bitter lesson from its wretched
history [as a victim of aggression and the] practical need to
secure its own territory."<END QUOTE>

As we've reported many times, the "practical need to secure its own
territory" means using military power to confiscate and annex regions
in the South China Sea that have historically belonged to Vietnam,
Brunei, Malaysia, Indonesia, Taiwan and the Philippines. Channel News Asia/AFP and Reuters

****
**** Fears increase over poor civilian control of China's military
****

Along with a simmering concern about China's intentions in building a
huge military machine, alarm bells have also been rung over whether
China's People's Liberation Army (PLA) does what it wants with little
civilian control by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). There have
been a number of incidents where the CCP has been caught by surprise
by PLA actions. One that got worldwide publicity occurred when the
PLA ran a surprise stealth fighter test during a visit by then
U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates in 2011. Apparently the PLA
wanted to send a message to both the United States and the CCP. A
similar event occurred in September 2012, during a visit by Secretary
of Defense Leon Panetta.

An analysis by Andrew Scobell finds a "civil-military gap" with two
meanings:

• "There appear to be significant differences ... between the
  culture, values, and attitudes of Chinese soldiers and civilians.
  ... A gap seems to manifest itself in the policy orientations of
  Chinese elites in uniform and those in mufti: Chinese soldiers tend to
  be more intensely nationalistic as well as more hard-line toward the
  United States and Taiwan."
  
• "In recent years Beijing's civilian CCP leaders seem to have
  adopted a hands-off approach to the day-to-day affairs of the
  PLA."

Members of the military are "tougher than ... civilian officials" and
more "hawkish" toward the United States and the international system.
Much of this is related to the preoccupation with achieving
unification with Taiwan, and the US military is the PLA's likely
adversary.

I would modify Scobell's analysis to say that the gap between the CCP
and the PLA is a generational gap, not a "civil-military gap." The
policy-makers in the CCP are survivors of Mao's Communist Revolution
(1934-49), while the military is filled with younger generations. We
all know how, in the United States, many Millennials and Gen-Xers
think that all Boomers are completely full of crap. The same thing is
true in China, with the younger officers in the military thinking of
the geezers in the CCP as hilarious and irrelevant.

****
**** The disappearance of the 'Long March' generation
****

In fact, Scobell himself gives a generational explanation. According
to Scobell, the loss of CCP control over the military occurred with a
generational change in the 1990s, when the generations of survivors of
Mao's Communist Revolution all disappeared. Scobell refers to these
survivors as the "Long March generation," referring to Mao's Long
March that started China's civil war in 1934:

<QUOTE>"The disposition and background of the post-Long March
generations of political and military leaders have altered the
format of civil-military relations and structure of the mechanisms
of control.

A core distinguishing characteristic of the Long March generation
was the substantial overlap of political and military
elites. Former top leaders Mao Zedong, who dominated the Chinese
Communist Party from the mid-1930s until his death in 1976, and
Deng Xiaoping, who was the paramount figure from the late 1970s
until his death in 1997, were the most prominent members of this
famous generation of leaders who had participated in the legendary
1930s trek that ensured the survival of the Communist movement. In
fact, most leaders of this generation were both political and
military elites.

By the mid-1990s, with the passing of the Long March generation,
China's civil-military relations had evolved. In subsequent
generations, civilian and military leaders became more
differentiated and distinct. At the highest echelon, elites such
as retired top leader Jiang Zemin and current [2009] paramount
leader Hu Jintao, while holding the position of head of the PLA in
addition to their formal government and party posts, did not exert
the same kind of influence in, or engender the same kind of
deference from, China's military. In the twenty-first century,
China's Communist Party leaders are civilian technocrats with
little or no military experience or expertise. Twenty-two of the
25 members elected to the Politburo at the 17th Party Congress in
October 2007 have no military experience, and two of the three
remaining are PLA generals."<END QUOTE>

As I've written many times, it's a core principle of Generational
Dynamics that even in a dictatorship, major policies and events are
determined by masses of people, entire generations of people, and not
by politicians. Thus, Hitler was not the cause of WW II. What
politicians say or do is irrelevant, except insofar as their actions
reflect the attitudes of the people that they represent, and so
politicians can neither cause nor prevent the great events of history.

With this generation gap between the PLA and the CCP, we can see how a
war with China could start. We've already seen a number of aggressive
moves by younger, more impetuous PLA members. These include, for
example, provoking confrontations with Japan over the Senkaku/Diaoyu
islands, and provoking dangerous confrontation with U.S. surveillance
planes flying over international waters in the South China Sea. One
of these impetuous acts could quickly lead to miscalculations that
spiral into a wider war. However it happens, the loss of CPP control
over the PLA is a very dangerous situation. Diplomat and Andrew Scobell (2009)(PDF) and Foreign Policy (2013)


KEYS: Generational Dynamics, China, General Chang Wanquan,
South China Sea, People's Liberation Army, PLA,
Chinese Communist Party, CCP, Robert Gates, Leon Panetta,
Andrew Scobell, civil-military gap, Long March generation,
Mao Zedong, Deng Xiaoping, Jiang Zemin, Hu Jintao,
Japan, Senkaku, Diaoyu

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*** 25-Nov-14 World View -- After swallowing Crimea, Russia goes after Abkhazia and South Ossetia

This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com

• After swallowing Crimea, Russia goes after Abkhazia and South Ossetia
• Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel fired by President Obama
• Iran nuclear deal collapses, forcing another seven months of talks

****
**** After swallowing Crimea, Russia goes after Abkhazia and South Ossetia
****


Novoafonsky Monastery Abkhazia

Russia and Georgia's province of Abkhazia signed a treaty on Monday
that will put a Russian commander in charge of all security forces in
Abkhazia. The treaty envisages a gradual, but ultimate merger of
Russian-occupied Abkhazia’s defense, security, law enforcement,
border, customs, economic and healthcare agencies with that of
Russia’s within three years. Many analysts believe that this is a
step along the path of Russia annexing Abkhazia, just as it invaded
and annexed Crimea earlier this year.

In 2008, Russia invaded Georgia and took control of two Georgian
provinces, Abkhazia and South Ossetia. Last week, South Ossetia
declared that it is negotiating a new "comprehensive agreement on
integration" with Russia, which will raise the relationship between
the two sides to a "qualitatively new level," indicating that South
Ossetia is on the same path as Abkhazia.

We now have two countries -- Russia and China -- using military force
to annex territories belonging to other countries. This is a very
dangerous situation that could spiral into a wider war at any time,
just as happened in the 1930s. Russia Today and Jamestown and AP

****
**** Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel fired by President Obama
****

Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel is a Republican, mainly because he's
pro-life on abortion, but he's well on the political left on defense
issues. He and Obama worked together on the Senate Foreign Relations
Committee in the mid-2000s, where they opposed the Iraq war. Obama
selected Hagel in January 2013 to be Secretary of Defense in order to
pursue Obama's goal of reducing the military power and footprint of
the U.S., and to manage the withdrawal from Afghanistan.

Pretty much all of Obama's foreign policy decisions have been
debacles, and those were no exception. The rise of the Islamic State
/ of Iraq and Syria (IS or ISIS or ISIL) has forced Obama to send
troops back into Iraq, and there have been several escalations in
recent weeks. On Friday of last week, Obama escalated the
U.S. mission in Afghanistan for 2015.

Pundits have been giving three reasons why Hagel was fired. The first
reason is that Obama is using him as a scapegoat for his string of
foreign policy debacles.

The second given reason is that Hagel contradicted and indirectly
criticized the President. In January, Obama referred to ISIS as a "JV
team in Lakers uniforms," where "JV" stands for "junior varsity." But
in August, Hagel said that ISIS was "an imminent threat to every
interest we have, whether it's in Iraq or anywhere else," and that
ISIS was "as sophisticated and as well-funded as any group we've
seen."

The third reason given by pundits is that Hagel was an ineffective
manager of the armed forces.

Whatever the reason, Hagel's successor is going to have deal with a
military and foreign policy in chaos. NBC News and Investors' Business Daily

****
**** Iran nuclear deal collapses, forcing another seven months of talks
****

For weeks, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry was saying that a deal
to halt Iran's development of nuclear weapons would be successful by
Monday, the self-imposed deadline. Even as late as Sunday evening,
Kerry was saying that a deal was close. But apparently he wasn't
telling the truth, since on Monday it was announced that the deal
would be postponed for seven months, until June, 2015.

Kerry wants a deal because the administration could tout it as a
success, breaking the string of foreign policy debacles by the Obama
administration.

Iran wanted a deal, because it would mean the end to Western
sanctions. Sanctions have already been eased as an "incentive," and
the remaining sanctions have been leaking badly, but the deal would
remove the sanctions completely.

As things stand, the sanctions remain, and Monday's collapse is
another debacle.

This is a good time to repeat something I've written about
several times. There is no doubt in my
mind that Iran will develop nuclear weapons. Iran was attacked with
weapons of mass destruction (WMDs) in 1988 by Iraq, and Iran would
already have developed nuclear weapons if Saddam Hussein hadn't been
expelled by the Iraq war in 2003. Iran sees itself surrounded by
potential enemies, Pakistan and Israel, both having nuclear weapons.
For Iran, developing nuclear weapons is an existential issue.

However, as I've described before, Iran takes an enormous amount of
pride in not having invaded other countries, even though other
countries have invaded Iran. If you look back at Iran's major wars of
the last century -- the Constitutional Revolution of the 1900s decade,
the Great Islamic Revolution of 1979, and the Iran/Iraq war of the
1980s, Iran never attacked anyone else. This is now part of Iran's
DNA, and even the top leadership would be repulsed by the idea of a
preemptive attack on Israel.

So my conclusion is that Iran will develop nuclear weapons as a
defensive measure, but has no plans at all to use them on Israel,
which is what is widely believed. USA Today and Foreign Policy

KEYS: Generational Dynamics, Russia, Crimea, Georgia, Abkhazia,
South Ossetia, China, Chuck Hagel, Afghanistan, Iraq,
Islamic State / of Iraq and Syria/Sham/the Levant, IS, ISIS, ISIL,
Iran, John Kerry, Saddam Hussein

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