Far East Intrigue or the Elephant in the room ?
The elephant in the room?
Maybe there are several elephants in the room : Ukraine is a big place, it certainly has the space to fit them. But if one boils it down in a big pot, what are the primary issues ? Guess it depends on who you are. If you live in America, "the Ukraine" is just another issue, like fixing the local freeway bottle neck, whether you like/dislike the keystone XL pipeline, balance of trade, State and National budget issues, deficits, drug wars and illegal immigration from/ through Mexico, and it being impossible, demographically to change your congressional district, short of a redraw. The most large ever, Polish delegation to visit Ukraine hit town this week, certainly a prosperous, secure Ukraine is in their best interest. Ukraine ought to have done half as well, at least as Poland since they gained independence. There's Plenty of free advice going around.
If you live in Ukraine, were coping every day with news of a sizable, heavily armed separatist enclave, your borders held wide open by a militarily vastly superior nuclear armed super power, all that being just down the road, an hour or 3 driving distance, you are bound to be apprehensive, where this is going to go ? If Mexico, backed by China were to reclaim Arizona, New Mexico and Southern California grab all that nice beach real estate from San Diego to Redondo Beach (or something like that) in effect, reversing the Treaty of Gaudeloupe Hidalgo, based on concerns of protecting a Spanish speaking "minority" People in America would certainly be in a panic if there were Chinese tanks driving across the border at Tijuana.
Is it possible the Minsk accords will simply collapse, Ukraine and Russia just go at it as a full scale war ? Can Russia take the war all the way to Lviv ? For sure they boasted about it . They are looking at any kind of reason to take more territory from Ukraine, Like the Zaprozhia nuclear power plant incident, they were all over that. There is a limit to what sanctions can do. Russia can still cut the gas deliveries to Europe. In a lot of ways the 50 billion aid package George Soros is promoting, it'd sound cheap if We were asking Ukraine to simply give up Mothballed nuclear warheads Pakistan wouldn't give up it's nukes for that, we already give them that much all the time.
Now I like my president, and didn't dislike Bush on a personal level . I didn't march in the streets when they went to war in IRAQ (although I thought about doing it ) I disagreed with what they were doing.Now we got ISIS (( It was a really expensive war, and they lied about what it'd cost us. Maybe the Obama game plan for Ukraine is about where it needs to be, maybe not. No one knows what they are talking about in secret.
Sure, it'd be fun to play basketball with Obama in the White House gym. If I was really on, I'd try my fade away three point sky hook, but at best, I am 1 in 20 : it's not a dependable shot, but impressive if you can hit it . Anyway, he's on the way out. He inherited problems on the way in, he will leave a few behind : who knows the next president may play ice hockey, that' would make the secret service nervous! For the people in Ukraine, they generally don't know what to think of Obama, he is largely unpopular here, I find little praise, but that's part of mixing in with the pro-business corporate crowd. The local people working for Western companies learn the lingo and thinking of the managers.
SO what is my point here ? For the armed conflict in Eastern Ukraine to be wound down, is it an exigent imperative for Russia to manage it towards some face saving outcome? Ukraine, the government has to decide what it will accept, for instance, why have a DMZ in Eastern Ukraine, and not match that in Crimea ? For sure, everyone wants, needs to show progress, it's been ugly, dirty. A lot of my friends have been hurt : I don't like it, hope it all ends tomorrow, which is in like one hour. Yeah I think some level of face saving for Russia serves America's interests. It'll be a legacy reference point for President Obama, if it actually can ever wind down. One of the worst case scenarios for America could be that it winds down badly for Russia, in such a way that Ultra-Nationalists feel embittered, and feeling like they need to take some sort of extreme action. Religious dogma is often being rolled out by Politicians in Russia ,as they conduct their own internal discourse on the Ukraine issue.
Nuclear arsenals are a hazard and a safeguard. They are embedded into National Psychology. There is a mix in the chain of control and command of both humans and technology. How each side does all the stuff to reduce the potential for accidents versus optimize readiness, for sure it's complicated and dangerous stuff. Nobody really wants to see Russia spinning out of control . If people truly know how the missile system works from the inside out, it can be hacked or corrupted, or the information feeds can be tweaked that lead to launch codes being given out.(the same is true for America ? We are all told the security is the best, most robust, with maybe some sort of analog gear that is a hack proof ) It's been said that life imitates art. A lot of the science fiction of the late 1950's has actually come to be in some form or the other. They have done the movies about stopping nuclear launches) I have little doubt that the Russians can hack some part of their missile defense technology, but who else can hack their missile defense ? Do they have secret hackathons of their networks ? That might not be the best "star pupil status " Can their hackers be bought ? For sure they can be bought, you can hire bot nets through Russia by the hour.... Bit coins are still pretty untraceable.
In the recent WIREDmagazine interview, Snowden clearly finds it a matter of concern, that automated NSA type cyber systems that create a reverse response to a perceived cyber attack, they could cause any matter of unintended consequence. Smaller things leading to bigger ones, cyber warfare is by it's nature rapid and hard to trace during the time it's happening, look at the STUXNET they got into the centrifuges in Iran.
In all of this, China has been playing a masterful hand, allowing Snowden to get on the plane to Moscow, brokering the gas deals with Russia , staying neutral about Crimea where they had set up pre-existing business agreements, allowing them to be both potentially aggrieved, a stake holder and conciliatory. You have to suspect that the Chinese premier was told directly by Putin ( at the Sochi Olympics, in a house / place of choice that Putin built, to impress ) that they intended to seize Crimea or at least hinted there'd be some action. Honestly, I have to admit that they (China ) have "Go" in their game these days (it's really cool )
there is always a short game to strategic superiority in economics and military power.
http://nationalinterest.org/
China is playing the smart game, they are winning the board economically. They want to clean up their environment, not see it ruined by a variant of Armageddon. But they could certainly say it "sorry , those were not our missiles that hit the United States of America , and you still owe us on the bonds...." they could wind up being our friends )))
http://www.france24.com/en/
Regardless of what game China is playing, they are popular to do business with, they are in a win-win situation, with few downsides to their position in Ukraine
http://thediplomat.com/2014/
http://sinosphere.blogs.
They can also play it both ways, help Russia, and marginalize the West, without upsetting the ox-cart of business deals they have in Ukraine, it's a perfect arrangement. They share a mingled start point.
http://www.businessinsider.
This very well written and detailed article shows the business plan is wide reaching and complex
http://thediplomat.com/2015/
There are more deals on the way, it's an evolving, dynamic partnership, and India is maybe not over motivated to lean to the Western business interest, or prop up our power dynamic, they wouldn't be dis- satisfied to see the US get tied into a 2-way relationship with Europe ? India, China and Russia, the three non-aligned Nuclear superpowers, on a "you scratch my back, I scratch your back " dinner date. How special is that ? It's like 2 weeks away now. I am sure, all the hot restaurants are already booked !
http://tass.ru/en/russia/
CHina and RUssia have their own set of likes and concerns about each other. China is starting to populate itself into Russian territory. Russia's population is unsustainable in the long term, they need to grow to survive, according to well grounded population analytics. Without an average of 2.1 children per family, a culture will not survive, 1.3 is near to irreversible.For Russia , As of 2013, Russian TFR of 1.707 children per woman was the highest in Eastern, Southern and Central Europe. In 2013, Russia experienced the first natural population growth since 1990 at 22,700 people. Taking into account immigration, the population grew by 294,500 people.
http://siberiantimes.com/
And Russia's policies are alienating its' most innovative and perhaps smartest business people, they are leaving once again, as they find events socio- political not to their liking : People I talked to in California were shocked when I told them that Israeli citizens are helping the Ukraine Army, and it seems typically naive. Why be shocked about anything counter intuitive to the main stream US press coverage going on about Ukraine ? I think for them , (Russian Jews ) it's a mix of what they feel is good for their business interests here and a bit of compassion for the under dog.
http://www.timesofisrael.com/
While China may also have issues with unhappy minority populations, for the moment, I think they have it under control : their Uighurs aren't currently pushing for an equal rights act. They don't have a Martin Luther King Jr, yet... not that I know of. Will the ruling Han majority keep trending towards easy going and rational, find some contemporary style compassion and understanding ? Or do social trends even matter in Chinese policy ?
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/
But we still live in an era where some random events can combine in the wrong way, that false perceptions can lead to something we are totally unprepared for. It is anyone's guess as to where the situation in Ukraine can ultimately go. That a even something like a false flag from nature can create an incident affecting National security.
http://siberiantimes.com/
the National psychology of China, in my view is not really all that different from the United States in terms of big picture, the timing is different, we are each emerged from revolutionary struggle against a British Monarchy, have big continental land masses, with an agrarian base economy. They are not the enemy, they are in the game and they are in it to win, improve the lives of their people and so on. Just as we are.
The US is seen as the bastion of corporate power, that we want a KFC and a Starbucks on every corner, an AMAZON warehouse in every state and region, an EXXON gas station at every roadside truck stop, and GOOGLE servers feeding everyone's Android handset. The USA is seen as pretty industrious, fun loving, yet unsophisticated , oblivious of good fashion, loud talking, opinionated and heavy handed in a lot of foreign policy matters that don't seem to concern us. But we are who we are, we can't change the truck stop subculture, the rap scene drama, the Hollywood production schedules based on the killer lineup of stars, writers/ directors, we do what's popular, and our government isn't the worst . People in Ukraine admire our constitution, and as they work to change things around they'll pick what they like and reject what they don't.
At the end of the day, CHina could probably just tell Putin it's uncool what Russia is doing in Ukraine, especially if India chimed in on it. It's about the economy now, may be time to start hedging for the ruble to come back, at least gain back some part of what it lost. The state of relations between all these parties is like this wet, mushy , dirty snow in the streets of Kiev, no one can get around without getting their shoes dirty. In all , fixing things it's about good communication.
and also including the seemingly innocuous traffic source when my posting got erased :
http://pisukemama.blog63.fc2.com/blog-date-200904.html
I am certainly not anti China, sometimes, I think maybe I had a past life there. If it weren't that I probably have my home boy, Bruce Lee watching my back, I might be worried....
but maybe it all leads back around to MH370 conspiracy. Maybe it's possible China hired or worked with the Iranians who were traveling on stolen passports in tandem with coercion upon the pilot (he could have been a Chinese agent ), they could have landed the plane at sea, offloaded the persons of interest, scuttled it, the plane , and faked the route and pings off Australia ? it'd be hard to scuttle a plane without any debris, fuel slick or something, they'd have to empty the fuel tanks...the kind of clever stuff submariners know how to manage ? Give the Chinese credit, come on... do you think they
could manage some stealthy maneuver with this type of jet ?
http://thediplomat.com/2011/04/chinas-jump-jet-mystery/
Why wouldn't Iran and China want the same computer chip technology that the semiconductor team on the plane might have had ? And does anyone believe that it was the same technology they say wasn't important ? It all seems too mysterious for it not to be about some high value technology. It might have been an ICBM AI smart chip technology for all we know.
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from BBC : Freescale,
It makes powerful microchips for different sectors, including the defence industry. Twelve employees were from Malaysia and eight from China. It led to speculation that they held important industrial secrets. In one conspiracy theory, the US government feared they would fall into the hands of the Chinese authorities. As a result, the plane was hijacked and taken to the US base on Diego Garcia.
In another variation of the theory, it was the Chinese who took control of the flight to interrogate the Freescale staff to find out the scope of US surveillance. There was yet another theory - that Iran put passengers on stolen passports onboard in order to get control of Freescale's technical knowhow.
Freescale says the employees on the plane were technical staff traveling to the company's chip facilities for a review. A patent frequently cited by the conspiracy theorists does exist. But rather than being military in nature, it covers a system for optimising the number of circuits on a piece of semi-conductor material.
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further , this is my imaginary story line.
What if there were titanium sealed cannisters of experimental viral agents / vaccines or something like that loaded or carried by hand on MH17 ? , possibly a package with a transponder, something so powerful they had to be sealed in explosion proof packaging ? Such things would be noted in airport security logs , but security like that can be bypassed/further , this is my imaginary story line.
if there was a targeted attack on the MH17 plane, based on something to do with the AIDS conference people, and something was retrieved from the Separatist held territory, something incredibly dangerous like a bioweapon : it sounds outlandish, but who knows ? WHO really thinks they aren't researching bioweapons and bioweapon defenses ? There was a show of nonchalance, disbelief, "oh shit, we shot down a civilian plane " but who believes a show of disbelief from anybody involved? Is there a way to adjust the detonation point of a surface to air missile , that is going after a plane, customize it's explosion distance?, to ensure it does comes down , but programmed to minimize the damage to internal components ? Whoever was operating the BUK launcher might have known, more or less where MH17 was going to fall from the sky, and how long they had to search the wreckage before attracting too much attention. It's a half decent Hollywood screenplay. It's obvious that Russia has some of it's best GRU military intelligence agents on the ground in Eastern Ukraine, and they probably have a couple outside the ATO. Movies and books put these ideas in our heads.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0116253/plotsummary Significant parts of the 9/11 story line comes straight out of the 1996 Tom CLancy "Executive Orders" book.
These are more things waiting to come from this year long MH17 investigation. Fact remains, that it came down in separatist controlled territory, dead square in the middle or close enough ?
Maybe Russia didn't want the plane shifting into / entering their air space?
Russia also has it's power point show , ready to go, where they are asking questions and say their hands are clean, it's really got to be difficult for the families of the victims, not knowing for sure, waiting for a certain answer, and a lot of frustrating disinformation.
No one really trusts these explanations, and for good reason. Few governments are really worthy of trust these days.http://thediplomat.com/2014/07/mh17-china-defends-russia-criticizes-the-west/
Why was it that George and Barbara Bush "liked" President Clinton so much ? Was he just a mechanism to get "their boy" into power ?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Wayward_Bus, not thought to be Steinbeck's best work, but a money maker )) Oh Ukraine, rescue me, to visit once again those endless fields of wheat and barley, I love them, yearn for the whispering winds of the summer upon them during these dark days of winter, beautiful trees heavy with hidden stories , their black bark coated in elegant white.
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