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From North to South this December – Arindam Mukherjee

What’s up guys?

To run quickly from North to South Eurasia about what’s been happening around during this past few weeks, let’s begin with the one squatting in the middle: Afghanistan. Scrooge visited Afghanistan in this weather. And what’s worse - the head towelhead Talib there said we are not yet ready to talk directly with Washington. That did not go well with his ‘I am the king of this universe’ mood. There is also this thing of re-election/re-vote/re-count of that abandoned Afghan election – that is pending since some time. Khalilzad-led reconciliation maintains looking at him and everyone else with a muddy face, and, taking a cue Moscow has announced plans of reinforcing its base in Tajikistan. They are going to suit it up with different kind of electronic gadgets and shit, presumably to counterbalance Uncle’s overstay in Afghanistan. If that is big investment, we can assume that there is a reason behind. Uncle might stay back after all.  

Up north in Europe, Putin is on a full PR mode. Zelensky has established contacts and remains in touch with Moscow. Sultan – I keep sharing his little chitchats with Putin, so you have a rough idea. And now, you have Macron who has gone on record saying that NATO is ‘brain dead’ and that we need Russia; like it or not, Russia has an important role to play for us. Hearing this, Uncle – worried, that left alone the mainlanders might quickly find Russia too charming – has gone back to putting pressure on mainlanders about their commitment to NATO. I don’t blame him; it is but natural. Russia is one huge-ass country there with mega-resources, existing beside a landmass that is THE biggest buyer of stuffs. Destiny. Even if you discount the hard-power and all that jazz, this is like the yearly-bonus-rich average Bong suddenly finding himself wandering in New Market during Durgapuja Sale.  

I am being forced to recall history. Uncle faced a dilemma at the end of WWII. After witnessing the sudden leap-landing of Soviet Union lines inside Germany in the wake of the big war, Uncle had to quickly think of something to prevent a semi-devastated West Europe from further disappearing behind Iron Curtain. Thus, Marshall Plan; thus, NATO. It was a damn good start – top notch geostrategy. But as is the nature of any product life cycle, it all began going bad after a couple of decades of an enviable innings (a separate essay on that sometime). As a result of that we have Macron today, behaving like De Gaulle. The gall!

And that’s another piece of cool history. De Gaulle was one hated man among the deep state guys. This guy got the French forces to withdraw from NATO sometimes in the 60s, criticized the Vietnam War (!!), and made it quite clear that he wasn’t the puppet that Uncle wanted him to be. Why those two exclamation marks there beside Vietnam? Well, Uncle analysts believe it was to assure De Gaulle in some ways, Uncle had to undergo the biggest humiliation this side of the big war: that of being chased naked by small farmers wearing hawai chappals.

[De Gaulle had said it was impossible to trust Uncle; if Soviet Union ever attacked western Europe – they would be left on their own because Uncle won’t bother to send his fight-boys. It is true to this point. He did express this sort of an opinion. The next phase is where Uncle analysts maintain that this opinion of De Gaulle had led to some serious underground debate among the European vassals about Uncle’s credibility. And to prove them wrong, Uncle had decided to wade into Vietnam to fight the northerners there. Interestingly, they don’t mention Gulf of Tonkin. Understand their hatred?] The result of course was about 2.5 dozen assassination attempts on De Gaulle.

I see Macron behaving a little like De Gaulle these days. But I am a firm believer in the progressive degeneration of character in human beings. Therefore, I would expect him to take a U-turn and fall in line with Germany and the rest any day now.

Talking of degeneration, UK is on interesting crossroads. The soon-to-be-minority-white population has finally found its voice, and that voice is overwhelmingly against this forced surrender to radicalism in the name of multiculture. The leaders had sold them a story on primetime: that the West Asians and North Africans would eventually wear bowler’s hat and participate in pumpkin festivals. The natives now realize desperately that they are the pumpkins – ripe, sweet, and fairly useless. What happens as an immediate result is less important. But in the long run this will shade on the ugly. Character degeneration, BoJo’s looks or Corbyn’s idiocy put aside, this is a violent country; it has given the world the SAS. Football hooligans. And Winston Churchill. So, though the mind says that UK would be the first to crumble, I would wait some.

Iran, in between demonstration and counter demonstrations, oil clamp and Israel sorties to Syria, is witnessing commendable solidification in its economy. Experts are calling it ‘resistance economy’, and it is seeing less and less reliance on oil and more on other stuffs that are being exported to areas hungry for ‘Made in Iran’ goods. And that demonstration that was making news a couple of weeks ago? Well that has fizzled out and the state seems well in control.

Travelling further down south in the land of 56ers: Rapists are in vogue; economy isn’t. Economic observers fear that our economy is headed towards a structural breakdown, and that there’s gonna be hell to pay if this isn’t arrested urgently. To tinker with a semi-outdated economy (which by the way was doing just fine banking on domestic consumption) that lags in innovation and intellectual property, just for the sake of it is not wise. I used to think that Baniyas generally understood business, were good with numbers, accounts books etc. Those that did not, had no qualms in taking up a job within a family business till they emerged ready. This business of understanding business was a state of existence – design or default. Wait wait… what am I writing? Is it that India’s sliding GDP is the result of someone trying to ‘learn’ business?

Shit. Bye.

 

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