Category: Tsar-A-Largo

Joe Rogan Is Becoming the Jon Stewart Of The Right — And That’s Bad For Everyone


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

There was a point when Jon Stewart was, by proxy, one of the most influential political figures in American politics. But he always seemed very uncomfortable with taken so seriously. It got to the point where whenever he could not help himself and flexed his political clout, he would crack a fart joke to soften the blow.

Joe Rogan / The Internet

And, so, now, we are in a new era, the Joe Rogan Era, where he is in a similar situation to Stewart, only for the Right. The analogy isn’t one to one, but there’s enough similar to take note of it.

Rogan isn’t nearly as smart or engaging as Stewart, but he has garnered a lot of attention in the “alt Right lite” by having clear opinions that he’s will to defend. Up to a point, of course. Wrapping yourself up in an earnest masculinity will only get you so far. Rogan can be a big fucking idiot.

And that tendency to be an idiot has gotten worse as his political influence has increased. In fact, the case could be made that he is yet another cog in the massive, extensive permission structure that allows Traditionalists to make common cause with the MAGA New Right.

He’s part of the amorphous media blob of non-FOX News, non-OANN, non-NewsMax media outlets that water down and make palatable the putrid bullshit of Alex Jones, et. They do this so Traditionalists, who feel pushed up against a political wall because of negative polarization, are looking for any possible excuse not to make common cause with the center-Left in an effort to defeat the rise of fascism in the United States.

Joe Rogan is a pretty big player in all of this. And, you could plot out a counter-factual in which it was Rogan, not Trump, who ran for president in, say, 2020 if Trump had not run in 2016 (or lost.)

Meanwhile, just like Jon Stewart, if Rogan ever does something that causes a lot of pushback, he simply shrugs and says he’s a “comedian not a doctor” and why is everyone getting so upset.

Anyway, Rogan has a lot — a lot — of very passionate defenders who love his gruff, earnest masculine platitudes. No matter what we end up doing — having a civil war or turning into an autocracy, Rogan is likely to only grow in power until things reach some sort of stability again.

What that New Normal will look like is anyone’s guess.

Why Would Putin Wait To Attack Ukraine After His Toady Trump Was Out Of Office?


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

On paper, it seems as though Putin missed a golden opportunity to achieve his geopolitical goals by not attacking Ukraine while Donald “golden showers” Trump was still in office.

And, yet, if you look at Trump’s recent statements about Ukraine, one gets the sense that Putin had a very specific reason for not attacking Ukraine (or anywhere else) while Trump was in office. If he had, the jig would have been up as to how absolutely weak Trump was with Putin.

Trump was so beholden to Putin — for whatever fucking reason — that had Putin taken advantage of it while Trump was still in power then it would have been difficult for Trump to successfully stay popular enough to become the autocrat that Putin wants him to become.

Or, put another way, one could make the argument that Trump is too weak domestically for Putin to have walked all over the United States while Trump was president the first go round. If Trump had won a second term, then, probably at some point after he got his Constitutional Convention and secured his place as American’s first autocrat, THEN Putin might have attacked Ukraine knowing it would all be a domestic political lulz.

But now that Trump is out of power, Putin can attack Ukraine and pretty much it will be Biden’s problem and there’s nothing he can do in real terms without risking WW3.

At least, that’s all I got. It just makes a lot more sense to me for Putin to be thinking this than anything else.

Contemplating A Russo-Ukrainian General War This Winter


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Nothing has happened yet in any real terms that would lead me to believe Putin would risk everything to wage a general war this winter against Ukraine. He scares the shit out the West every once in a while, but he always, to date, blinks.

For Putin to change his mind and actually start a general war with Ukraine, some long-term calculation would have to change in his mind. He would have to believe that the West is so divided and ineffectual that should he attack Ukraine he could not only get away with it, but survive.

General War.

On paper, however, that is just not viable.

Russia’s economy is tiny. Ukraine has a pretty big population. There is a real chance that after Russia “takes Kiev in two weeks” and the current moderate government is forced to sue for peace, that there will be mass chaos and a new far, far right fascist government based on irredentism.

If a dumb dumb like me in the middle of nowhere can see how obvious is that any Russo-Ukrainian war would be nothing more than the Soviet involvement in Afghanistan but with a bigger population a strategic portion of Europe and, lulz?

What could possibility have changed that would lead him to think he could engage in a major regional war in a huge chunk of Europe and there would not be some pretty severe geopolitical consequences.

If you wanted to be tinfoil hat in your hot take, you might believe that something that Putin learned from his good buddy Trump. Or something. If Putin does, in fact, attack Ukraine, he will either have far more modest war aims than we’re being lead to believe, or he believes something has changed to the extent that he can do it and get away with it.

But there is the possibility that what we don’t know is just as Putin gets ready to attack in a general war in January 2022, Xi in China will strike Taiwan as well. Putin’s thinking would be that two regional wars at the same time (AKA, WW3).

Yet, if that’s not what’s going on, I’m at a loss as to what may be Putin’s change in reasoning.

Any Winter War Between Russia & Ukraine Would Likely Start With The Modest Aim Of A Land Bridge Between Donbass & Crimea


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

First, I have no idea why Putin would pick now of all times to start a war of any sort with Ukraine. But, to date, Putin has proven himself to at least be logical in how he goes about his Ukrainian land grabs. In Donbass, he took some land by force, then ran away, leaving his proxy toadies to manage the mess.

In Crimea, he slowly took it over using “Little Green Men.”

So, it seems as though at least going into things, Putin wants nothing more than to establish a land bridge between Donbass and Crimea. That’s it. It’s meant to be a very fast smash and grab operation that will happen so fast that the Ukrainians won’t even have time to come up with a response.

The Russians get a thin, long land bridge and then they just stop. If Ukraine grows unstable enough, Putin might strike towards Odessa as well just because he can and lulz.

But the key thing that Putin must be weighing is he doesn’t want to stress test the stability of the Ukrainian government. It’s far better to have the current government in power smarting over the loss of some land than a revolutionary far Right government based on irredentism.

As such, I don’t see there being a war and if there is one, it will be relatively modest and quick. It might scare the shit out of people who wake up one morning to some pretty dramatic war footage from Ukraine, but, in real terms, it will be a minor war.

Or, at, least, it will be begun with that intention. Anything could happen once the actual war started. If the Ukrainian government was overthrown by a radical fascist one, then, well, we’re going to the show.

But, hopefully, that won’t happen.

A Major Invasion of Ukraine By Russia This Winter Would Make No Sense


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

While there’s a lot of talk about there being a major war between Ukraine and Russia, for the moment I’m still not buying it. It just doesn’t make any sense. Why would Putin risk everything attacking Ukraine when he could attack Ukraine with the modest war aim of establishing a land bridge between Donbass and Crimea and position himself for bigger and better things later?

Now, if you were to tell me that Russia was going to fight a major war against Ukraine in conjunction with the Chinese attacking Taiwan, then that would make a lot more sense. Then, of course, you’d be dealing with WW3.

And, just today, I saw where Russian troops in the Donbass area have been put on active status, so it’s at least possible that what I think will happen — a limited war with modest war aims — is actually going to happen. It will be a brief smash and grab operation to establish a land bridge and then it will stop just as fast as it began.

That, at least, would be the war aim when the war started. Once you start a war, any number of things can happen to change its direction.

‘Smash & Grab:’ The Russo-Ukrainian Winter War of 2021 – 2022 & Ukrainian Irredentism


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

The idea of any major war between Russia and Ukraine is very, very stupid for Russia. They would be able to take the land, but they wouldn’t be able to keep it long-term.

That’s why I’ve proposed that any war that Russia began against Ukraine this winter would be very limited and tactical in nature. If I was going to make any predictions about the prospective Russo-Ukrainian Winter War of 2021 – 2022, I would suggest the biggest battle would be the one associated with Mariupol. It’s the biggest Ukrainian city between Donbass in the east and Crimea in the southwest.

So, in my opinion, once Putin secured Mariupol, he would re-evaluate his options. If he were to strike from both Crimea and Donbass and take Mariupol from both directions, I think he would stop altogether. Then, about five years from now, he would begin to move troops towards Odessa. That would be his next target.

The reason why he would do the above plan instead of a far broader attack, he knows that if he took “Kyiv in two weeks” as he has boasted before, that he would be sowing the seeds of his own defeat long term. The rump state of Ukraine would be thrown into chaos and it’s very possible that a far, far right fascist state would be established based on irredentism.

Irredentism is, in short, the political movement of “give us back our land.” As such, if Russians took Kyiv, they would be setting up a very 1980s Afghanistan but in Europe with a far biggest population situation. Everyone from the French to the Swedes would throw military supplies and “advisors” at the Ukraine as the new front line began to take shape.

There’s just no reason that I can think of that Putin would throw his forces into a major regional war against Ukraine when he knows as well as anyone that he would likely significantly destabilize his own country to the point of revolution.

The only thing that might save Putin’s ass in this situation is if China also attacked Taiwan this winter in a big way. Then you would, in effect, have WW3 and a whole different dynamic at play.

As such, I think maps like the below are just FUD on the Russians’ part.

I still don’t even know if it’s all that likely there’s going to be any war between Russia and Ukraine this winter. But is something to contemplate.

The State Of Play Between Russia and Ukraine As Of Nov. 15, 2021


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I still don’t think Russia is going to do anything in regards to Ukraine. I think this is just another one of Putin’s occasional demands for attention. And, winter is coming, so it would make a lot more sense for Putin to wait until March -April to attack if he was going to do so.

And, yet, it definitely seems as though it’s at least possible that Russia really is going to strike in some way pretty soon.

All I can say is, if I am surprised and Putin attacks, it’s very unlikely to be a general war. Not only is Russia’s economy very small — about the size of Italy’s I think — but the moment Russia took a huge chunk of Ukraine between Odessa in the southwest and Donbas in the northeast of Ukraine, the fever of irridentism would strike the hearts of Ukrainians.

In other words, all hell would break loose.

Not only would a wave of nationalism rush over Ukraine, but NATO would begin to throw a huge amount of weapons and training at Ukraine. It would be a huge fucking proxy war that Russia simply could not win. And, in the end, the very existence of Putin’s autocratic regime would be put in danger.

Now, on paper, one way that Putin could get both a huge chunk of Ukraine and be able to keep it would be to start such a war in the context of China attacking Taiwan at the same time. It would be far more difficult for the West to help Ukraine if it was also struggling to help Taiwan at the same time.

And, if you really wanted to get dystopian, it’s easy to imagine Xi in China to nudge the DPRK to attack the South Koreans in a big way while all of this was going on in an effort to wear down and overextend Western governments.

All of this would, of course, be marketed at World War 3 and before you know it, India and Pakistan would nuke each other, as would Israel and Iran. I’m of the opinion that any such “Great Reset” would probably happen around the same time the United States has a civil war around 2024 – 2025 because Bannon’s administrative coup works and Blue States grow so enraged that they leave the Union.

Lulz, nothing matters.

Running The Russia – Ukraine Winter War Scenario


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

First, a few things. One, I’m not an expert on this situation, just someone who has been interested in the area my entire life. Also, I just don’t think Putin is going to start any type of major war against Ukraine. It just would not make any sense. But, I love to run scenarios, so let’s run this one and see what we end up with.

From what I can tell, at the moment, the Russian build up around the Ukrainian theatre of operations is exclusively in and around the Donbas area. This would lead me to believe that the Russians are thinking about a quick smash and grab operation that would connect their holding in Donbas to the Crimea that they also control.

That’s it. That’s all Putin wants going into things.

Any additional territory that he was able to secure would be icing on the cake. I could see that happening if, say, something happened so the Ukrainian central government unexpectedly collapsed. Then, maybe Putin might drive towards Odessa as well.

But, in general, otherwise, the actual land that Putin wants to take from Ukraine would be modest. Yes, it would be a big deal — a huge deal — if he attempted to take any additional land by force, but I also we’re talking about a war that was started to be brief and sharp. Putin gets his land bridge and then he just stops.

The territory he would be small enough that he could control it long term and he could use it establish the long term idea of Novorossiya. Putin is a really smart guy. Unless he can see some long-term benefit, he will probably stop at a land bridge and ignore Odessa.

His plan would be that in another five years or so, he starts to keep towards Odessa. He does another smash-and-grab attack to get Odessa and so forth and so on for the next few decades. That, at least, to me, seems Putin’s long term goal at the moment.

The brief, bloody attack on Ukraine by Russian forces would scare the shit out of people all over the world because they would think WW3 was about to begin, but, in real terms, the actual war would be so short that it would quickly fade from memory.

Another reason why I just can’t imagine Putin doing anything too big with Ukraine is there are a lot of nations around Russia full of people chomping at the bit to aid the Ukrainians in any fight against the Russians. And NATO would begin to funnel a massive amount of arms and supplies to the Ukrainians if the war lasted too long or got too big.

Hopefully, however, all of this is just a scenario.

My Hot Take On Russia’s Ukrainian War Aims This Winter


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I still don’t believe Putin is going to make a major land grab in Ukraine. Until something changes, for the time being Putin is all talk. This is yet another one of his occasional efforts to remind us what a massive cocksucker he is.

And, yet, if he were to attack Ukraine, I think his ultimate war aims would be rather modest. All he would want to do is connect Donbas to Crimea. That’s it. If he was feeling esspecially frisky, he might go for Odessa as well, simply because it would make sense for him to take it while he was at it.

Putin would want to take just enough of Ukraine to connect what he already controls, without causing the collapse of the Ukrainian government. If mass chaos struck Ukraine, there’s a really good chance there would be a far Right coup of some sort and some serious irredentism would take hold of the rump state of Ukraine.

If that happened, that would not be a war that Putin, with a very small economy, could win long-term.

Novorossiya: My Hot Take On Current Ukraine – Russia Situation


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Please note: I’m not an expert! I just have a long-time interest in this situation.

Something is going on — again — between the Ukrainians and the Russians. But, what? There has been a years-long “frozen conflict” in eastern Ukraine, to the point where it’s not somewhere one thinks anything is ever going to happen.

For the time being, the Russians like the status quo and, given how small their economy is, even if they were able to take Kiev and and try to establish some sort to Novorossiya, the Russians would not be able to keep it for very long. The one way they might make their Novorossiya dreams come true is swiftly take Kiev, have the Ukrainians sue for peace and then gobble up the land they want strictly through pollical means.

But even that somewhat ideal situation for Russia would be problematic. Eastern Ukraine’s political and ethnic makeup is far from uniform and there would be a lot of nationalists Ukrainians in Eastern Ukraine that would take up arms even if the Russians were able to conslodate power in the region as part of a peace deal.

What’s more, Ukraine signing off that much land to the Russians would enrage nationalists in the rump state and it’s very possible to imagine a far-Right government deciding to do everything in its power to take the lost land back. Which would put Russia in exactly the position was trying to avoid in the first place.

So, it’s very possible that the frozen conflict between Ukraine and Russia might heat up some, but something pretty big would have to go wrong for both sides before we were talking about any sort of general war.

But, having said all that, I am often wrong.