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sábado, 4 de fevereiro de 2023
Um número inteiro da Economist dedicado às teorias da conspiração: besteirol, mas perigoso...
How China’s Nuclear Ambitions Will Change Deterrence - Andrew F. Krepinevich, Jr. (The Economist, Hudson Institute)
O mundo será mais instável a 3, ou a 3 e meio (EUA, Rússia, China, UE), do que ele foi a dois: EUA e União Soviética. O desafio nuclear dos três grandes é o de não cair na busca infinita de dissuasão a três, isto é, de um contra os outros dois....
How China’s Nuclear Ambitions Will Change Deterrence
Shifting from a bipolar system to a tripolar one.
China is expanding its nuclear arsenal, from a few hundred weapons to roughly 1,000 by 2030. It may have 1,550 warheads or more by the mid-2030s—the limit agreed to by Russia and America in a deal originally signed between them in 2010. This Chinese buildup is changing geopolitics. The American-Russian bipolar nuclear system, which has dominated the nuclear balance for over half a century, is evolving into a less stable tripolar system that risks undermining long-standing pillars of deterrence and triggering a nuclear arms race.
All this comes as America prepares to modernize its ageing “triad” of nuclear-weapons delivery systems (land-based and submarine-launched ballistic missiles, and long-range bombers). China’s gambit raises questions over how best to proceed, as a tripolar system will erode several critical pillars of deterrence that proved effective in the bipolar system.
One pillar of deterrence, “parity”—a rough equivalence in nuclear forces—has been a cornerstone of all arms agreements between America and Russia over the past half-century. It is rooted in the belief that if neither power enjoys a significant advantage, each is less likely to use its nuclear weapons. As a senior Russian official declared in 2021, parity “stabilizes the entire system of international relations”. The need to maintain parity is particularly important for America, which seeks not only to deter nuclear attacks against itself, but also against crucial allies such as Australia, Germany, Japan and South Korea that lack nuclear forces of their own.
China’s decision to “superpower-size” its nuclear arsenal suggests Beijing seeks nuclear parity with America and Russia. Parity can be enjoyed by both rivals in a bipolar system. But it cannot be achieved in a tripolar system, because it is not possible for each member to match the combined arsenals of its two rivals. Any attempt to do so risks triggering an arms race with no possible end state, or winner.
A similar problem exists with respect to another pillar of the bipolar system, known as “assured destruction”. It holds that deterrence is strengthened when a country’s nuclear forces can survive an all-out surprise attack and still retain enough weapons to inflict unacceptable damage on its opponent’s society in a retaliatory strike. During the cold war one American estimate concluded that 400 weapons would suffice as an assured-destruction capability against such an attack by the Soviet Union.
But what about maintaining an assured-destruction capability against both Russia and China? America will need a substantially larger cache of weapons so that a surviving force could provide an assured destruction capability in a tripolar system. As with maintaining parity, this state of affairs could cause Moscow and Beijing to build up their arsenals too, resulting in an open-ended arms race.
Some argue that maintaining parity and assured destruction does not matter much, noting that China maintained a “minimal” nuclear deterrent of a few hundred weapons for decades. But when it comes to nuclear weapons, it seems Beijing has never been comfortable being a distant third to Russia and America. Others say that half of America’s deployed nuclear weapons could be placed on submarines, which are exceedingly difficult to detect. But this assumes that America’s submarines will remain undetectable over service lives lasting half a century, despite the proliferation of increasingly advanced detection technology. It also ignores the fact that, at any given moment, roughly half of American submarines may be in port where they are not stealthy sharks, but sitting ducks.
Although the shift from a bipolar to a tripolar nuclear system risks destabilizing the fragile balance of power, we have at least some understanding of how things will change. Yet we are only in the early stages of thinking through the tripolar system’s characteristics and their implications. A similar intellectual enterprise early in the bipolar era by some of the West’s best strategic thinkers paid great dividends for America’s security, and that of its allies. This kind of effort is needed now.
Fortunately there is time for this, as it will take the better part of a decade before China reaches the force levels of America and Russia. There is no need to rush pell-mell into new arms-control agreements or to expand America’s arsenal. The first step is to understand the dynamics of a tripolar nuclear system and what they mean for security. Only then should America consider whether or not, for example, to sign a follow-on agreement to the New START treaty (the Russian-American deal limiting each side to 1,550 warheads) when it expires in 2026.
America should keep its options open and its powder dry. This means energetically pursuing the administration’s plans to modernize the country’s triad of nuclear delivery systems until America has a clearer picture of how best to ensure its security in a tripolar system. The modernization program, even in its most expensive years, would probably consume less than 7% of the defense budget.
Modernization creates the possibility for serious negotiations with the Chinese and the Russians, who are already modernizing their nuclear forces. They will have far less incentive to negotiate if America allows its triad to age into obsolescence.
Proceeding with triad modernization will also enable America to expand its arsenal should China and Russia blow past the New START treaty’s 1,550-warhead limit. Exercising this option will require a “warm” industrial base with active production lines. As the Pentagon is discovering after transferring large quantities of munitions to Ukraine, its inability to boost production to meet unanticipated needs risks compromising America’s security, and that of its allies. Hence the importance of triad modernization as the best way to hedge against an uncertain future.
Uma extrema direita à espera de estudo - Fernando Gabeira (O Estado de S. Paulo)
Uma extrema direita à espera de estudo
Fernando Gabeira
O Estado de S. Paulo, sexta-feira, 3 de fevereiro de 2023
Será difícil enfrentar uma direita digital com reflexos analógicos. E mais difícil ainda se houver subestimação e um olhar fixado só nos seus aspectos folclóricos
As invasões golpistas do Congresso Nacional, do Palácio do Planalto e do Supremo Tribunal Federal (STF) já foram intensamente condenadas. No entanto, passado quase um mês, a sensação que tenho é de que foram pobremente analisadas.
Para dizer a verdade, a tentativa de golpe foi um fracasso, o esquema de segurança foi um fracasso, mas a interpretação não precisa também ser um fracasso.
Poucos se aventuraram a explicar por que os invasores foram a Brasília. A revista Crusoé contou uma história interessante: uma lavradora paranaense, com uma baixa renda mensal, participou da manifestação porque tinha medo de que o comunismo levasse um trator que ganhou de herança, sua única posse.
Por sugestão de Michele Prado, tenho lido, entre outros, uma autora americana que criou um laboratório para pesquisar a extrema direita, Cynthia Miller-Idriss. Como estão mais adiantados nas pesquisas, estou aprendendo muito, sempre preocupado com não aplicar mecanicamente o aprendizado no exame da extrema direita brasileira.
Lá, o medo de perder algo está relacionado com a presença dos trabalhadores estrangeiros. Há o medo de perder o emprego, de perder a cultura e até de perder o país, tornando-se uma minoria dominada.
Aqui, este medo de perder algo para estrangeiros quase não existe. A falta de habilidade do governo Lula ao anunciar investimentos no exterior abriu um flanco para a exploração da extrema direita. Como se trata apenas de um anúncio, sem explicar os ganhos que o Brasil poderia ter, voltam os velhos argumentos: o metrô de Belo Horizonte foi substituído pelo metrô de Caracas.
Pelo que observei em entrevistas e discursos populares na campanha, o medo mais forte no Brasil é o de perder algo para o comunismo: um trator, um carro Celta, um pedaço do próprio apartamento.
A extrema direita não trabalha apenas com emoções negativas, como a de perder algo, ou mesmo abrir mão de seus direitos para um povo estrangeiro. Ela explora o pertencimento a um espaço pátrio, aos símbolos nacionais, e transmite às pessoas a sensação de que devem lutar por algo mais alto: a sobrevivência do Brasil e o futuro de filhos e netos.
Ainda no prefácio de um de seus livros, Hate in the Homeland, Cynthia Miller assinala um fator que nunca foi muito estudado: o papel da pandemia na vulnerabilidade das pessoas às teses extremistas. De fato, foi um período de medo, ansiedade, depressão e, sobretudo, isolamento, de sobrevivência nas bolhas da internet.
Graças a um amigo, acompanhei a trajetória de uma presa, por meio do histórico de suas postagens no Instagram. A cada nova manifestação, ela parece mais certa da vitória final de sua luta. Era admiradora de Bolsonaro e, na campanha, mandava mensagens desesperadas para ele: Bolsonaro, por favor, não perca as eleições.
Depois da derrota, seguiu enrolada na bandeira do Brasil e dizia nas suas peregrinações: sei que estou deixando família para trás, muitas coisas, mas sei também que isto tudo é muito maior, é a salvação do Brasil.
De fato, deixou tudo para trás, marido, filho, os bichos de que cuidava nas ruas de uma pequena cidade mineira, e hoje está presa na Colmeia com uma centena de mulheres.
Alexandre de Moraes foi muito elogiado pela sua resposta enérgica. Assim agem os magistrados, dizem. Mas há questões que, às vezes, são complicadas para magistrados. São questões políticas, como esta de prender no mesmo espaço gente com treinamento militar para o golpe e alguns que vieram apenas porque ganharam uma viagem grátis.
Segundo a experiência histórica, as prisões são um excelente espaço de doutrinação. O mais inteligente, apesar de levemente mais caro, seria enviar a maioria para os seus Estados de origem.
Mas uma decisão desse tipo nasce de estratégias para enfraquecer a extrema direita. A ideia que o governo passa é de que entrou numa zona de conforto, em que qualquer desgaste é permitido por umuma boa frase de efeito.
Moeda comum com a Argentina, sem preparação dos espíritos, afirmação de que o impeachment de Dilma foi um golpe – tudo isso fornece munição desnecessária para uma extrema direita que já dispõe, por vocação, de um imenso arsenal de fake news.
A presunção de que ficaram totalmente desarticulados depois da tentativa de golpe não se sustenta. O debate nas redes sociais continua intenso. A extrema direita conseguiu mobilizar milhares de pessoas para a campanha no Senado, na defesa da candidatura de Rogério Marinho, que, por sua vez, promete enfrentar o Supremo Tribunal Federal.
As eleições de 2026 parecem muito distantes. Mas não estão. No passado, todos se acalmavam e voltavam ao assunto no ano eleitoral. Agora, há disputa, cada passo tem de ser medido num outro padrão: quem se fortalece, quem se enfraquece para a luta decisiva.
Será muito difícil, creio, enfrentar uma direita digital com reflexos analógicos. Mas isso até é secundário. Será mais difícil ainda se houver subestimação e um olhar apenas fixado nos aspectos folclóricos da extrema direita. É um movimento social e conhecê-lo melhor é um imperativo de nossos tempos
Da banalidade do mal que acaba de ser extirpado depois de quatro anos de infortúnio nacional - Paulo Roberto de Almeida
Da banalidade do mal que acaba de ser extirpado depois de quatro anos de infortúnio nacional
Paulo Roberto de Almeida
O novo governo, com a eventual ajuda de certo Judiciário, ainda vive no rescaldo dos absurdos perpetrados durante quatro anos de bolsonarismo destrambelhado. O Brasil vai demorar para se liberar de quatro anos de pura loucura, ignorância e vulgaridade no poder. Como foi possível termos atravessado algo tão disfuncional na suprema esfera da governança?
À medida em que são revelados os traços mais grosseiros da Famiglia no poder entre 2019 e 2022, suponho que os generais e outros altos oficiais que sustentaram tamanha loucura comecem a sentir enorme vergonha por terem participado da maior degradação jamais vista no supremo comando da nação. Shame on you!
Se não bastassem as falcatruas na sede do poder, a desumanidade revelada no tratamento de indígenas— que são basicamente seres humanos como quaisquer outros — é algo tão estarrecedor que até o emprego de conceitos extremos como genocídio e nazismo pode aparecer como necessário. Apenas seres cruéis poderiam ser coniventes com as barbaridades agora reveladas.
Parece a banalidade do mal, de que falava Hannah Arendt sobre um mero executor da barbárie nazista contra outros seres humanos, alguns por serem simplesmente judeus, outros por serem apenas indígenas.
O Brasil se descobriu tingido pela mesma enfermidade mental e moral que contaminou no passado um dos povos mais cultos do mundo: a psicopatia no comando da nação produz algumas das monstruosidades que já atormentaram artistas como o Goya da invasão francesa na Espanha ou o Picasso de Guernica.
Por enquanto dispomos das fotos de ianomamis levados ao extremo da desnutrição fabricada pelas mãos de agentes de uma vontade maior.
O que descobriremos doravante, quando registros e testemunhos sustentarão uma visão desimpedida sobre esses tempos tão sórdidos e macabros que acabamos de descobrir?
Precisaremos de um novo Conrad para descrever o horror do parêntese bolsonarista?
Apenas uma certeza: a descrição objetiva e a interpretação circunstanciada do que acabamos de viver não pertence apenas ao domínio da ciência política ou da sociologia. Será preciso recorrer à psiquiatria e às demais ciências do espírito humano para tentar entender o que se passou na mais alta cúpula do poder.
Paulo Roberto de Almeida
Brasília, 4/02/2023
sexta-feira, 3 de fevereiro de 2023
Crônica para um futuro imaginado: por um Brasil desenvolvido - Paulo Roberto de Almeida (ALMG)
CRÔNICA PARA UM FUTURO IMAGINADO
Paulo R. de Almeida: por um país desenvolvidoAssembleia Legislativa de MG, 28/06/2021
"A tragédia brasileira é a não educação". Para o diplomata Paulo Roberto de Almeida, entre outros aspectos, essa condição impede o desenvolvimento econômico e social do país. No episódio que encerrra a terceira temporada de "Crônica para um futuro imaginado", o doutor em Ciências Sociais apresenta um apanhado da trajetória econômica do país e reflete outros motivos que impedem o Brasil de se integrar ao mercado internacional, tarefa que ele considera necessária para a superação dos nossos problemas. Almeida ainda analisa "discursos contra a globalização" e sugere o que é preciso ser feito para o país recuperar o caminho do desenvolvimento.
Baixar vídeo:
https://mediaserver.almg.gov.br/acervo/videos/1568486
Brazil’s Lula Promised ‘More Books in Place of Guns.’ Can He Deliver? - Eric M. B. Becker (NYT)
Brazil’s Lula Promised ‘More Books in Place of Guns.’ Can He Deliver?
In his first terms as president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva expanded the scope of who could get published in the country, and who could access books. His return to the presidency comes with expectations, and hurdles.
By Eric M. B. Becker
Becker is the senior editor of “Words Without Borders,” a journal of literature in translation, and is an award-winning translator of Portuguese-language literature.
The New York Times, Feb. 3, 2023, 5:00 a.m. ET
The dismantling of the Ministry of Culture. The gutting of federal funding for the arts. Proposals to tax books as luxury items. For many writers, publishers, and other literary professionals across Brazil, President Jair Bolsonaro’s conservative government felt like a yearslong assault on cultural production.
So when former President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, in a once-unthinkable political revival, defeated Bolsonaro, promising to deliver “more books in place of guns,” many in the literary world celebrated. The victory came with “a huge sense of relief,” said Eliana Alves Cruz, a Rio-based writer who won Brazil’s most prestigious literary award, the Jabuti Prize, last year.
Many of Lula’s supporters hoped his return would mean a renewal of policies he had supported during his first two terms in office, when he created and grew programs that invigorated the country’s cultural sector. The investments, over years, helped expand the scope of who could get published in Brazil and who could access books; they supported the publishing industry and writers, but also fostered reading and literacy and helped reduce Brazil’s entrenched inequalities, writers and publishing professionals said.
In the years since these federal policies were created, Brazilians were reading more, said Luiz Schwarcz, a co-founder of the prestigious publishing house Companhia das Letras and a writer himself.
Lula’s third term will start amid significant challenges: The economy is sluggish and the nation remains deeply divided, as evidenced by the Jan. 8 attack by Bolsonaro supporters on the three branches of government in Brasília, the capital, to protest what they falsely believed was a stolen election.
Still, in the month since his swearing in on Jan. 1, Lula has reinstated the Ministry of Culture, created a new secretariat dedicated to books and literacy and unblocked nearly $200 million in funds allocated for cultural projects through a federal program that supports the arts.
“I harbor no illusions that there will be some magical change,” Alves Cruz said of Lula’s tenure, but “we’ll be dealing with an administration that listens to us, instead of treating us like thugs.”
Bolsonaro fomented such antagonism early. “The gravy train has to end,” he declared in a Facebook Live transmission a month before taking office in 2019. He was referring to one of the country’s most significant cultural initiatives, the Lei Rouanet program, which facilitates funding for projects from books to literary festivals via tax incentives for donors.
As president, Bolsonaro followed through on his promise. In the final year of his administration, the federal government disbursed less than a third of the support provided to cultural production in the final year of Lula’s second term, according to data from the Ministry of Culture and Siga Brasil, the Brazilian Senate’s budget transparency tool. The reduction hit hard, artists said.
Among the programs suffering cutbacks was Brazil’s premier literary event, the Festa Internacional de Literatura de Paraty. In 2022, Flip — as the literary festival is popularly known — saw its tax-free funding limit slashed by 50 percent over preceding years, to the equivalent of about $780,000. This left businesses that wanted to support the festival in exchange for a tax break through the Lei Rouanet program unable to do so, said Mauro Munhoz, the festival’s co-founder and artistic director.
“The cut was really deep,” Munhoz continued. Long-term funding had allowed the festival to also offer the kinds of programs that grow readers over time: workshops for local teachers, literacy programs and partnerships with local communities, governments, and businesses, Munhoz said.
A Ministry of Culture study also found that the festival’s 2018 activities generated 13 dollars for every dollar of investment it received from the government.
Debut writers like Caio Zerbini know the impact of government support on authors. It was through a state-level program that supports artists and writers that he found the means to finish his first children’s book and find a publisher. In late 2022, he published his first novel, and two more books are in the works. Even with such mechanisms, Zerbini said, it is challenging to survive as a writer.
“Many times, it is other things that come along with having published a book that allow a writer to make a living,” Zerbini said.
Federal programs that supported reading, like the National Plan for Literature and Literacy, which was launched during the first Lula government, also supported publishers, as the government bought books directly from them to stock schools and libraries. Budget cuts to such programs dealt them a significant blow: Revenues generated by government purchases could account for between 15 percent of annual income for a larger publishing house in Brazil to 80 percent for smaller operations, according to Fernanda Emediato, a publishing-sector consultant.
The program has shrunk over the last decade, first because of an economic downturn during the government of Lula’s successor, Dilma Rousseff, then continuing through the Bolsonaro administration. Deep budget cuts and a purchase freeze under the Bolsonaro administration mean that books approved for purchase under the program for 2021 are now expected to reach students only in 2024.
Still, there is reason to believe the book world has weathered the Bolsonaro years. Paulo Roberto Pires, a magazine editor, credits policies developed by Lula and Rousseff, which bolstered the literary landscape and helped bring new voices to the fore through educational programs as well. Rousseff, in particular, signed a significant affirmative action law that many believe helped foster a new, more vocal generation of Black intellectuals in Brazil.
Alves Cruz, who credits Lula-era programs with supporting the research for her first book, agrees. She said there are more prominent writers of color now, and growing reader engagement with them: “People began paying more attention to us.”
But there is still considerable progress to be made, she said. And organizations like the literary festival, Flip, have a role to play.
“Flip has the power to herald new voices,” said Pedro Meira Monteiro, who curated the festival in 2022 alongside Fernanda Bastos and Milena Britto and worked to showcase perspectives from beyond the cultural megacities of Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo. That year, the festival honored Maria Firmina dos Reis, considered Brazil’s first Black woman novelist. The goal, he said, is to “hold a mirror to a different Brazil.”
It remains to be seen what kind of investment in culture the new Lula administration will deliver. A budget deficit and headwinds from the global economy are likely to limit the president’s ability to implement broad changes.
But amid such uncertainty, the literary community isn’t waiting. Fósforo, a publishing house founded during the pandemic, is prepared to weather the coming years no matter what government support for the sector looks like, said Rita Mattar, its editorial director.
“We drafted our business plan with the mind-set that any government program needed to have very little impact on the publishing house,” she said.
Fósforo is unusual in Brazil in that its model relies neither on government support nor a major investor; Mattar and two co-founders leveraged private resources to fund the venture. They’re betting on their own editorial sensibility and that the writers they publish will appeal to broad audiences. Last year, the strategy paid off when Annie Ernaux, published in Brazil by Fósforo, received the Nobel Prize in Literature.
Now, with a supportive government, Brazil’s literary community is expressing hope for the future, and that Lula’s promise to reinsert Brazil in the international arena will extend to its literature.
But there is much work ahead. Referring to the shift between Bolsonaro’s focus on increasing gun ownership and Lula’s renewed push on reading and literacy, Alves Cruz said, “We are going to have double the work to get it out of young people’s head that they must defend life with force and instead do so with the force of words.”
Ukraine: the war that went wrong - Chris Hedges (John Menadue)
Defence and Security, Politics, World
https://johnmenadue.com/ukraine-the-war-that-went-wrong/
NATO support for the war in Ukraine, designed to degrade the Russian military and drive Vladimir Putin from power, is not going according to plan. The new sophisticated military hardware won’t help.
Empires in terminal decline leap from one military fiasco to the next. The war in Ukraine, another bungled attempt to reassert U.S. global hegemony, fits this pattern. The danger is that the more dire things look, the more the U.S. will escalate the conflict, potentially provoking open confrontation with Russia. If Russia carries out retaliatory attacks on supply and training bases in neighbouring NATO countries, or uses tactical nuclear weapons, NATO will almost certainly respond by attacking Russian forces. We will have ignited World War III, which could result in a nuclear holocaust.
U.S. military support for Ukraine began with the basics — ammunition and assault weapons. The Biden administration, however, soon crossed several self-imposed red lines to provide a tidal wave of lethal war machinery: Stinger anti-aircraft systems; Javelin anti-armour systems; M777 towed Howitzers; 122mm GRAD rockets; M142 multiple rocket launchers, or HIMARS; Tube-Launched, Optically-Tracked, Wire-Guided (TOW) missiles; Patriot air defence batteries; National Advanced Surface-to-Air Missile Systems (NASAMS); M113 Armoured Personnel Carriers; and now 31 M1 Abrams, as part of a new $400 million package. These tanks will be supplemented by 14 German Leopard 2A6 tanks, 14 British Challenger 2 tanks, as well as tanks from other NATO members, including Poland. Next on the list are armour-piercing depleted uranium (DU) ammunition and F-15 and F-16 fighter jets.
Since Russia invaded on February 24, 2022, Congress has approved more than $113 billion in aid to Ukraine and allied nations supporting the war in Ukraine. Three-fifths of this aid, $67 billion, has been allocated for military expenditures. There are 28 countries transferring weapons to Ukraine. All of them, with the exception of Australia, Canada and the U.S., are in Europe.
The rapid upgrade of sophisticated military hardware and aid provided to Ukraine is not a good sign for the NATO alliance. It takes many months, if not years, of training to operate and coordinate these weapons systems. Tank battles — I was in the last major tank battle outside Kuwait City during the first Gulf war as a reporter — are highly choreographed and complex operations. Armour must work in close concert with air power, warships, infantry and artillery batteries. It will be many, many months, if not years, before Ukrainian forces receive adequate training to operate this equipment and coordinate the diverse components of a modern battlefield. Indeed, the U.S. never succeeded in training the Iraqi and Afghan armies in combined arms maneuver warfare, despite two decades of occupation.
I was with Marine Corps units in February 1991 that pushed Iraqi forces out of the Saudi Arabian town of Khafji. Supplied with superior military equipment, the Saudi soldiers that held Khafji offered ineffectual resistance. As we entered the city, we saw Saudi troops in commandeered fire trucks, hightailing it south to escape the fighting. All the fancy military hardware, which the Saudis had purchased from the U.S., proved worthless because they did not know how to use it.
NATO military commanders understand that the infusion of these weapons systems into the war will not alter what is, at best, a stalemate, defined largely by artillery duels over hundreds of miles of front lines. The purchase of these weapons systems — one M1 Abrams tank costs $10 million when training and sustainment are included — increases the profits of the arms manufacturers. The use of these weapons in Ukraine allows them to be tested in battlefield conditions, making the war a laboratory for weapons manufacturers such as Lockheed Martin. All this is useful to NATO and to the arms industry. But it is not very useful to Ukraine.
The other problem with advanced weapons systems such as the M1 Abrams, which have 1,500-horsepower turbine engines that run on jet fuel, is that they are temperamental and require highly skilled and near constant maintenance. They are not forgiving to those operating them who make mistakes; indeed, mistakes can be lethal. The most optimistic scenario for deploying M1-Abrams tanks in Ukraine is six to eight months, more likely longer. If Russia launches a major offensive in the spring, as expected, the M1 Abrams will not be part of the Ukrainian arsenal. Even when they do arrive, they will not significantly alter the balance of power, especially if the Russians are able to turn the tanks, manned by inexperienced crews, into charred hulks.
So why all this infusion of high-tech weaponry? We can sum it up in one word: panic.
Having declared a de facto war on Russia and openly calling for the removal of Vladimir Putin, the neoconservative pimps of war watch with dread as Ukraine is being pummeled by a relentless Russian war of attrition. Ukraine has suffered nearly 18,000 civilian casualties (6,919 killed and 11,075 injured). It has also seen around 8 percent of its total housing destroyed or damaged and 50 percent of its energy infrastructure directly impacted with frequent power cuts. Ukraine requires at least $3 billion a month in outside support to keep its economy afloat, the International Monetary Fund’s managing director recently said. Nearly 14 million Ukrainians have been displaced — 8 million in Europe and 6 million internally — and up to 18 million people, or 40 percent of Ukraine’s population, will soon require humanitarian assistance. Ukraine’s economy contracted by 35 percent in 2022, and 60 percent of Ukrainians are now poised to live on less than $5.5 a day, according to World Bank estimates. Nine million Ukrainians are without electricity and water in sub-zero temperatures, the Ukrainian president says. According to estimates from the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, 100,000 Ukrainian and 100,000 Russian soldiers have been killed in the war as of last November.
“My feeling is we are at a crucial moment in the conflict when the momentum could shift in favour of Russia if we don’t act decisively and quickly,” former U.S. Senator Rob Portman was quoted as saying at the World Economic Forum in a post by The Atlantic Council. “A surge is needed.”
Turning logic on its head, the shills for war argue that “the greatest nuclear threat we face is a Russian victory.” The cavalier attitude to a potential nuclear confrontation with Russia by the cheerleaders for the war in Ukraine is very, very frightening, especially given the fiascos they oversaw for twenty years in the Middle East.
The near hysterical calls to support Ukraine as a bulwark of liberty and democracy by the mandarins in Washington are a response to the palpable rot and decline of the U.S. empire. America’s global authority has been decimated by well-publicised war crimes, torture, economic decline, social disintegration — including the assault on the capital on January 6, the botched response to the pandemic, declining life expectancies and the plague of mass shootings — and a series of military debacles from Vietnam to Afghanistan. The coups, political assassinations, election fraud, black propaganda, blackmail, kidnapping, brutal counter-insurgency campaigns, U.S. sanctioned massacres, torture in global black sites, proxy wars and military interventions carried out by the United States around the globe since the end of World War II have never resulted in the establishment of a democratic government. Instead, these interventions have led to over 20 million killed and spawned a global revulsion for U.S. imperialism.
In desperation, the empire pumps ever greater sums into its war machine. The most recent $1.7 trillion spending bill included $847 billion for the military; the total is boosted to $858 billion when factoring in accounts that don’t fall under the Armed Services committees’ jurisdiction, such as the Department of Energy, which oversees nuclear weapons maintenance and the infrastructure that develops them. In 2021, when the U.S. had a military budget of $801 billion, it constituted nearly 40 percent of all global military expenditures, more than the next nine countries, including Russia and China, spent on their militaries combined.
As Edward Gibbon observed about the Roman Empire’s own fatal lust for endless war: “[T]he decline of Rome was the natural and inevitable effect of immoderate greatness. Prosperity ripened the principle of decay; the cause of the destruction multiplied with the extent of conquest; and, as soon as time or accident had removed the artificial supports, the stupendous fabric yielded to the pressure of its own weight. The story of the ruin is simple and obvious; and instead of inquiring why the Roman Empire was destroyed, we should rather be surprised that it had subsisted for so long.”
A state of permanent war creates complex bureaucracies, sustained by compliant politicians, journalists, scientists, technocrats and academics, who obsequiously serve the war machine. This militarism needs mortal enemies — the latest are Russia and China — even when those demonised have no intention or capability, as was the case with Iraq, of harming the U.S. We are hostage to these incestuous institutional structures.
Earlier this month, the House and Senate Armed Services Committees, for example, appointed eight commissioners to review Biden’s National Defence Strategy (NDS) to “examine the assumptions, objectives, defence investments, force posture and structure, operational concepts, and military risks of the NDS.” The commission, as Eli Clifton writes at the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, is “largely comprised of individuals with financial ties to the weapons industry and U.S. government contractors, raising questions about whether the commission will take a critical eye to contractors who receive $400 billion of the $858 billion FY2023 defence budget.” The chair of the commission, Clifton notes, is former Rep. Jane Harman (D-CA), who “sits on the board of Iridium Communications, a satellite communications firm that was awarded a seven-year $738.5 million contract with the Department of Defence in 2019.”
Reports about Russian interference in the elections and Russia bots manipulating public opinion — which Matt Taibbi’s recent reporting on the “Twitter Files” exposes as an elaborate piece of black propaganda — was uncritically amplified by the press. It seduced Democrats and their liberal supporters into seeing Russia as a mortal enemy. The near universal support for a prolonged war with Ukraine would not be possible without this con.
America’s two ruling parties depend on campaign funds from the war industry and are pressured by weapons manufacturers in their state or districts, who employ constituents, to pass gargantuan military budgets. Politicians are acutely aware that to challenge the permanent war economy is to be attacked as unpatriotic and is usually an act of political suicide.
“The soul that is enslaved to war cries out for deliverance,” writes Simone Weil in her essay “The Iliad or the Poem of Force”, “but deliverance itself appears to it an extreme and tragic aspect, the aspect of destruction.”
Historians refer to the quixotic attempt by empires in decline to regain a lost hegemony through military adventurism as “micro-militarism.” During the Peloponnesian War (431–404 B.C.) the Athenians invaded Sicily, losing 200 ships and thousands of soldiers. The defeat ignited a series of successful revolts throughout the Athenian empire. The Roman Empire, which at its height lasted for two centuries, became captive to its one military man army that, similar to the U.S. war industry, was a state within a state. Rome’s once mighty legions in the late stage of empire suffered defeat after defeat while extracting ever more resources from a crumbling and impoverished state. In the end, the elite Praetorian Guardauctioned off the emperorship to the highest bidder. The British Empire, already decimated by the suicidal military folly of World War I, breathed its last gasp in 1956 when it attacked Egypt in a dispute over the nationalisation of the Suez Canal. Britain withdrew in humiliation and became an appendage of the United States. A decade-long war in Afghanistan sealed the fate of a decrepit Soviet Union.
“While rising empires are often judicious, even rational in their application of armed force for conquest and control of overseas dominions, fading empires are inclined to ill-considered displays of power, dreaming of bold military masterstrokes that would somehow recoup lost prestige and power,” historian Alfred W. McCoy writes in his book, “In the Shadows of the American Century: The Rise and Decline of US Global Power.” “Often irrational even from an imperial point of view, these micro-military operations can yield hemorrhaging expenditures or humiliating defeats that only accelerate the process already under way.”
The plan to reshape Europe and the global balance of power by degrading Russia is turning out to resemble the failed plan to reshape the Middle East. It is fuelling a global food crisis and devastating Europe with near double-digit inflation. It is exposing the impotency, once again, of the United States, and the bankruptcy of its ruling oligarchs. As a counterweight to the United States, nations such as China, Russia, India, Brazil and Iran are severing themselves from the tyranny of the dollar as the world’s reserve currency, a move that will trigger economic and social catastrophe in the United States. Washington is giving Ukraine ever more sophisticated weapons systems and billions upon billions in aid in a futile bid to save Ukraine but, more importantly, to save itself.
The Chris Hedges Report January 30, 2023
Brasil não recebeu convite para a 'Parceria das Américas' - Assis Moreira (Valor)
Brasil não recebeu convite para a 'Parceria das Américas'
EUA lançaram a aliança inicialmente com outros 11 países para aprofundar a cooperação econômica na região
Valor — Genebra
02/02/2023 07h15 Atualizado há uma hora
O governo de Joe Biden lançou na semana passada sua ‘Parceria das Américas para a Prosperidade Econômica ’ (APEP, na sigla em inglês) iniciando negociação com outros 11 países - mas o Brasil, a maior economia da América Latina, não está na lista.
Essa aliança para uma 'cooperação econômica aprofundada' já tinha sido anunciada em junho de 2022 na Cúpula das Américas em Los Angeles, onde o então presidente Jair Bolsonaro teve seu primeiro encontro com Biden. A ausência brasileira na iniciativa chamou a atenção, mesmo se as expectativas são muito reduzidas sobre esse tipo de iniciativa.
À coluna, uma fonte em Brasília relatou que, na verdade, o Brasil não foi convidado pelos EUA para a Parceria na época da Cúpula em Los Angeles, e nem depois o assunto foi levado ao Brasil pelos americanos. Há uma nova realidade em Brasília, mas tampouco chegou convite agora.
Em Washington, Ryan C. Berg, diretor do programa Américas do Centro de Estudos Estratégicos e Internacionais (CSIS), levanta duas razões para o país não estar na primeira rodada da APEP. Primeiro e mais importante, os países convidados tem algum tipo de negociação comercial engatilhada com os EUA - na verdade, a maioria deles já tem acordos completos com os americanos. O Brasil não entra nessas categorias.
Segundo, Ryan diz existir uma percepção histórica, que vem da experiência americana nas negociações da Alca (Área de Livre Comércio das Américas), de que o PT, agora de volta ao poder, é anti comércio e por uma economia mais fechada.
O fato é que os EUA atraíram o Chile e a Colômbia, com governos de esquerda, além do México, Canadá, Costa Rica, Peru, Uruguai, Panamá, Equador, República Dominicana e Barbados. Após reunião virtual na semana passada com o secretário de Estado, Antony Blinken, e a representante comercial Katherine Tai, os participantes divulgaram declaração comum destacando que a Aliança será aberta e estendida a outros parceiros do continente ‘que compartilham nossa visão, nossos objetivos e nosso engajamento por um programa ambicioso de crescimento econômico sustentável e de resiliência no continente’’.
Se Joe Biden levantar a questão da parceria ao receber o presidente Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva no dia 10 na Casa Branca, o Brasil vai examinar o tema. AArgentina também está fora, por enquanto.
Embora vários governos latino-americanos continuem a ver a APEP como um artificio diplomático da administração Biden para atenuar as críticas de que os EUA não estão totalmente engajados em seu próprio hemisfério, ainda é melhor estar em torno da mesa do que deixado fora no frio, escreveu o professor Richard Feinberg, professor da Universidade de San Diego e ex-negociador na Alca.
Em Los Angeles, na Cúpula das Américas, quando a aliança foi mencionada, alguns países enfatizaram a importância de mais comércio. Seis meses depois, Washington não demonstra realmente apetite para negociar abertura de seu mercado – e menos ainda antes da eleição de 2024.
A Parceria vem com uma lista de boas intenções, vazias de conteúdo. Como nota Feinberg, o foco imaginado pelos EUA é em quatro áreas na APEP: competitividade regional, incluindo procedimentos aduaneiros e questões regulatórias; resiliência das cadeias de valor; padrões trabalhistas, inclusão financeira; e investimentos sustentáveis, o que passa pelo reforço do Banco Interamericano de Desenvolvimento (BID).
Putin pretende dobrar as apostas: algumas milhares de vidas não custam nada a um ditador - Gideon Rachman (Financial Times)
Putin promete vitória sobre Ucrânia em discurso para marcar batalha decisiva na 2ª Guerra Mundial
Putin funde guerra cultural a geopolítica e encontra pares em líderes como Orbán e Bolsonaro
Presidente da Rússia flerta com setor do Ocidente que alega se defender contra suposta decadência das sociedades
Gideon Rachman
Colunista-chefe de relações exteriores do jornal nipo-britânico Financial Times
FINANCIAL TIMES, 1º.fev.2023
Venho há algum tempo observando as guerras culturais de uma distância segura. Às vezes as questões envolvidas são interessantes. Mas o caráter virulento das discussões, que podem acabar com carreiras profissionais, me dissuadiu de participar delas.
Assim, tenho me limitado à minha seara geopolítica, evitando temas explosivos como banheiros para transexuais e optando por tópicos relativamente não controversos como o brexit ou a guerra nuclear.
Agora estou concluindo a contragosto que meu espaço seguro da geopolítica está se fundindo às guerras culturais. Veja os discursos de Vladimir Putin. Os argumentos que o líder russo apresenta para justificar a invasão da Ucrânia não se baseiam apenas na segurança ou na história.
Cada vez mais, Putin vem caracterizando a Guerra da Ucrânia como parte das guerras culturais.
No discurso de 30 de setembro em que celebrou a anexação de quatro regiões da Ucrânia, Putin acusou o Ocidente de "avançar em direção ao satanismo" e "ensinar desvios sexuais às crianças". "Estamos lutando para proteger nossos filhos e netos deste experimento que visa transformar suas almas".
Esses argumentos não se dirigem apenas ao povo russo, que talvez nem sequer seja seu alvo principal. Putin está flertando com um setor importante do Ocidente: conservadores culturais tão enojados com a alegada decadência de suas próprias sociedades que se sentem atraídos pela Rússia de Putin.
Na véspera da guerra na Ucrânia, Steve Bannon, ex-estrategista de Donald Trump, disse em seu podcast: "Putin não é ‘woke’. É anti-woke". Seu entrevistado, Erik Prince, respondeu: "Os russos ainda sabem qual banheiro usar". Mais ou menos na mesma época, Tucker Carlson, possivelmente o mais influente apresentador de TV pró-Trump nos Estados Unidos, pediu a seus ouvintes que questionassem a si mesmos: "Putin alguma vez já me chamou de racista? Ele está tentando acabar com o cristianismo?".
A chamada "guerra ao pensamento woke" hoje é absolutamente crucial à política do Partido Republicano. Nessas questões, muitos republicanos sentem mais afinidade com Putin que com democratas. Como me explicou recentemente Jacob Heilbrunn, analista arguto da América conservadora, a extrema direita republicana "enxerga Putin como defensor dos valores cristãos tradicionais e adversário dos LGBT+, dos transgêneros e do enfraquecimento dos valores masculinos responsáveis pela ascensão do Ocidente".
Em 2021, Ted Cruz repostou no Twitter um vídeo que contrastava um anúncio na TV russa convocando recrutas nas Forças Armadas, cheio de soldados musculosos e de cabeça raspada, com um anúncio semelhante americano destacando uma soldado mulher, filha de um casal de lésbicas. O senador republicano especulou: "Talvez uma Força Armada woke e emasculada não seja a melhor ideia".
A atuação desastrosa das forças russas na Ucrânia sugere uma resposta possível a Cruz: brutalizar seus soldados e tratá-los como bucha de canhão talvez não seja a melhor ideia. Mas, embora já não esteja tão em voga elogiar a Rússia de Putin, a direita dos EUA identificou outros líderes autoritários estrangeiros como seus aliados nas guerras culturais.
Em maio passado o líder húngaro, Viktor Orbán, discursou na Conferência de Ação Política Conservadora dos EUA e exortou os participantes a travarem uma luta comum contra "progressistas, os neomarxistas embriagados com o sonho woke, contra os que estão a serviço de George Soros". "Eles querem abolir o modo de vida ocidental." Orbán é visto amplamente como o líder da UE que tem mais afinidade com Putin.
A sobreposição de nacionalismo e cruzada anti-woke não é coincidência. As duas coisas têm em comum a nostalgia de um passado mitologizado de grandeza nacional e homogeneidade cultural, um tempo em que "os homens eram homens" e as mulheres e minorias tinham consciência de seu "devido lugar".
Não surpreende que trumpistas, adeptos do "America First", sintam afinidade com nacionalistas na Hungria ou na Rússia. Mas, embora as questões em pauta na Guerra da Ucrânia e na guerra aos wokes se sobreponham, estão longe de ser idênticas. O governo polonês tem uma visão semelhante à de Orbán sobre questões LGBT+, mas muito diferente no que diz respeito a Ucrânia e Rússia.
Alguns dos esforços feitos por Putin para se aproximar de supostos aliados no Ocidente têm sido no mínimo ineptos. Certa vez ele tentou comparar o destino da Rússia ao de J. K. Rowling, argumentando que seu país estaria sendo "cancelado" como a escritora britânica. Rowling respondeu asperamente que "críticas à cultura ocidental do cancelamento não devem vir de quem está massacrando civis".
Israel é um exemplo interessante de um país que tem evitado a divisão, tendendo à esquerda em questões da guerra cultural e à direita intransigente em relação ao nacionalismo. Os israelenses já foram acusados de "pinkwashing" —usar seu progressismo para acobertar a política áspera em relação aos palestinos. A abordagem poderia ser resumida como: "Ignore a Faixa de Gaza. Veja nossa parada do Orgulho Gay!".
Mas o atual governo de coalizão encabeçado por Binyamin Netanyahu está colocando em risco esse posicionamento delicado. A coalizão inclui ministros de partidos da direita religiosa que já sugeriram que médicos devem ser autorizados a recusar o tratamento de pacientes gays.
Netanyahu cultivou relações estreitas com Orbán, Putin e Jair Bolsonaro, ex-líder brasileiro conhecido por atacar gays. Mas ele também sabe que precisa conservar um relacionamento com uma Casa Branca em que os tão temidos progressistas woke estão em evidência. As guerras culturais viraram parte das lutas geopolíticas de hoje. Mas as alianças mistas nesses conflitos estão criando colaborações esdrúxulas.
Tradução de Clara Allain
 | Presidente da Rússia flerta com setor do Ocidente que alega se defender contra suposta decadência das sociedades |
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