US and Germany foiled Russian plot to assassinate CEO of arms manufacturer
cnn.com
cnn.com
You could maybe argue it was incidental rather than intended, like the woman killed in the botched Salisbury poisoning, but it's a natural outcome of these kinds of plots.
Alexander Litvinenko was a russian/british citiizen and killed with polonium poisoning on british soil (journalist).
I have a pet conjecture that they might have actually murdered FDR too, though he was so frail that it probably only took a 'pat on the back' in Yalta [4] (unlike their first try on Navalny [2] and Yushchenko [3].) Unlucky for them, Truman ended up being a much tougher rival than FDR would have been, IMO.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Army_Faction
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poisoning_of_Alexei_Navalny
It is clear that USA remains an economic, cultural, moral and even spiritual powerhouse as other civilizations go through all sort of turbulence. By virtue of this, other "western" value nations like EU nations, Japan, Australia, South Korea etc. are doing well and likely to do well and benefit. Together we beat covid, invented magic pills for obesity, moved towards cheaper and better energy sources and kept our institutions strong. Even the Islamic and north african immigrants did not cause any collapse that our enemies planned for us.
People around the world continue to line up to immigrate to west legally or illegally. It is a huge success for us.
Now, we have AI. With few more gains this can transform our economy and way of life like nothing else.
I see Russia, China, India and Arab world feel depressed about this that there is nothing they can do about this. They will not be able to catch up with us ever. They take pride in being "thousand year old civilization" but they are being outfoxxed by bunch of cowboys and LGBTQ folks at every step
Russia-Ukraine war or Chinese war on Taiwan is not just a local war but rather an act of desperation from these states due to the realization that their culture and society is a loser culture and society.
I expect this sort of assassination attempts to be on rise now.
China does not need to attack India or Taiwan right now to prove that its a superpower because it already is. It is consulted on all major issues and the world engaged with them with respect because they have earned it. China hopes that it will be more powerful in future and hence they are measured in their approach.
Russia is lost. There is nothing else Putin could do to make Russia more relevant on world stage. Russia is staring at slow decline of its human capital which will settle in west. Its former colonies like Ukraine or Poland would love to be part of EU/NATO etc.
This is why Putin needs a war to appear great. At its core it is about western world's victory on the world state.
After war he will assassinate your innovators and business leaders.
- The Russians and Chinese are not natural allies (historically quite the contrary.)
- The only belligerence the Chinese have shown is on Taiwan and the South China Sea. On a pound-for-pound basis, they've been throwing their weight around a lot less than, say, older Western powers like France and the UK.
- By contrast, the Russians are on a world-domination war path, acting like Ivan the Terrible is still alive and the middle ages never ended.
The only way the Russians can hope to win is by locking the Chinese into their camp. This in turn requires the Chinese to completely turn their economy inward. There's just not enough BRICS to buy their current exports. It also means a massive drop of GDP.
The key here is that the Russians cannot lock in the Chinese without our help. So every time you hear someone bashing China in the West, keep in mind that driving a wedge between the West and China only really helps Russia.
I'm no fan of the CCP, but we've been allies with way worse governments, such as Saudi Arabia.
I'm not following this point. They don't need the Chinese to completely align with Russia. They just need the Chinese to provide enough of a way around sanctions that they can continue the war.
The Chinese seem content to engage in the usual economic jockeying with the US, while antagonizing the US in a variety of ways (supporting Russia, menacing Taiwan, trolling, hacking, etc.) The wedge is there, and I don't an alliance with China is happening any time soon. Certainly not in time to help Ukraine.
We can position ourselves better for a less-awful world order if Ukraine can survive long enough that Russians get fed up with Putinism. I can't see the US and China as allies, but I can see us as less acrimonious rivals.
Unless the US decides to go all in with its isolationism, which seems entirely possible. In which case all bets are off.
I agree with most everything you wrote. You closely describe the situation in 2024, while my argument is longer-term and presumes that the Russian goal is world domination in the Roman Empire sense. That's what Sweden and Finland smelled when they joined NATO.
At that scale, our squabbles with China seem petty and minor, and therefore entirely Russian-serving. Chinese hacking is mostly tech espionage and one millionth of the Russian amount. The Taiwan crisis is also intrinsically petty. China basically wants to take it over because the drunken bar fight with Chiang Kai-shek was never really settled. It's a bit like the geopolitical version of "but her emails," like the Turkish/Armenian animus without the genocide event.
> We can position ourselves better for a less-awful world order if Ukraine can survive long enough that Russians get fed up with Putinism.
The Russians have updated the dictatorial model for the 21st century, making uprisings a thing of the past. There's no group or category left whose getting fed up makes a difference. In extreme cases, the experience in Syria and Venezuela is that beating down hard on the population improves the dictatorial position (like in WW2) instead of weakening it (like in Britain's American colonies.) Plotting a coup is hard to impossible too. It just requires so many cogwheels that it gets caught by surveillance before it hatches.
Putin has also updated what it means to take over a country. His first preference was a vassalized Ukraine with Yanukovich, i.e. conquest by any other name. Countries like Hungary are one Big Lie-like claim away from having their elections Rwanda-ized. The Ukraine treatment is a last resort for countries who just plain refuse vassalization.
It's just so damn aggravating because it's making their country poor. China and the US are pushing each other economically. It's kinda ugly but it's not killing anyone, and a lot of people are getting employed out of it.
Russia could play that same game, and they've got the resources and brain power to get rich. Instead they are trying to win by dragging everyone else down.
And I really hate that China knows it gets a leg up on the US by egging them on. Not that the US is any great shakes on the moral high road but that part is genuinely killing people.
Crystal ball says a guy with a full head of hair. [1]
> Russian culture genuinely seems to want a strongman in charge. It's just so damn aggravating because it's making their country poor.
The ambition that selects dictators has no bounds. Once they conquer everything at home, abroad is all that's left. It's never enough. Caesar visited Alexander's tomb and lamented taking 20 years longer to conquer the world. [2]
Maybe Russians are so used to it that they yield the home base ASAP and let the rest of the planet take the brunt. Kind of an inside-out, downhill version of the supply line stretch tactic against Napoleon and Hitler.
> And I really hate that China knows it gets a leg up on the US by egging them on.
I think it's the other way around, Russia is egging us on against China. A certain Russophile started a tariff war, which I promise you the Chinese are not crazy about. About 15 minutes after Covid hit, Putin's proxies were flooding Twitter trying to get the "China flu" nickname to stick.
Globalization is basically a gravity well with "everyone playing nice" at the bottom. This was the theory behind granting China MFN status in the 90s. What people seem to miss is that it largely worked. Russia restructured its economy for war. China is restructuring its economy for... clean energy.
They never got to Western-style democracy, true. But aside from policy speeches, we didn't really push for it much. They have a mechanism for selecting leaders. We could have lobbied for a tweak here, an allowing of dissent there. Over a decade or two they could have surpassed every shitty Gulf kingdom. They still could.
The problem with China is that its internal processes are aligned to be self destructive. I am from India and I understand Indian politicians and ruling class which has deep fetish for Russia and CCP. But Indian public likes American phones and youtube. So despite all the political moves, India remains mostly west aligned.
CCP is immune from such things. It does not have to give much damn about its people or even national interests as long as it can stay in power. Stephen Kotkin on Hoover institution explains this better than I would.
Absolutely. Democracy is ideal against tyranny, corruption and mismanagement. As you said, it has kept the Indian government relatively in check, in spite of India's history of Soviet alignment.
Russia has long sought to exploit democracy's structural weaknesses by corrupting foreign politicians and journalists. Their attempt to incite a race war in the US, for instance, dates back to the early 20th century. One can argue it never ceased.
This century, the efforts became massively more effective with their new cyber capabilities. Even when they can't get an outright puppet elected, they can still put their finger on the scale. At a minimum, they're the new kingmakers.
The CCP is insulated from this. Almost paradoxically, this means it can listen to any deals we propose without worrying about blowback from Putin's local political proxies.
Unfortunately, Putin's proxies here are the reason we're not proposing any such deals.
Covid is beaten by our immune system. Since covid we have also rising overall mortality and total distrust in science, media and governments.
Obesity in wealthy countries, while millions starving in developing countries, treated by magic pills?
Energy prices are much more expensive than ever, many times more then in states with totalitarian regimes.
Institutions monetise everything they possibly could.
- People around the world continue to line up to immigrate to west legally or illegally. It is a huge success for us.
Have you been in UK, France on Germany recently?
-I see Russia, China, India and Arab world feel depressed about this that there is nothing they can do about this. They will not be able to catch up with us ever. They take pride in being "thousand year old civilization" but they are being outfoxxed by bunch of cowboys and LGBTQ folks at every step
Depression in youth in wealthy countries rise since social media consumption started. We have highest suicide attempts than ever.
Also, EU fertility rate per woman is 1.4, in US 1.6. You don't need to be skilled in math to know that wealthy west is dying.
I'm not sure, if your post is serious or not.
At this point, other than China, non western countries have nothing meaningful to offer to the world other than natural resources and basic labor. Even the best parts of the other parts such as Yoga, Vedanta of India is better in west in the land where it originated.
My reading is that German elites are deeply compromised and probably on take from Russians. Either through money or through blackmail or through sheer fear.
When taking a stand against Russia vs caving into Russian demands, I think Germany will fold and cave in to Russian demands.
The new chancellor Scholz is much less Russian-friendly. Perhaps unsurprisingly, his favorability numbers are in the gutter and the AfD is surging.
[1] https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/mar/05/germany-angela...
Uh, yeah, they are literally at war.
Is this the next stage of trying to rope NATO into this?
This kind of thing has been happening for a long time actually. Russia blew up Czech ammunition depots in 2014 (killing two Czechs), tried to poison Bulgarian execs with nerve agents in 2015, etc. But it's getting much bolder and much harder to ignore, as much as Western politicians would like to ignore it.
As sibling comment says, they are bolder because they feel our reactions are lukewarm.
Not to mention they are about to get a Russian asset elected POTUS.