NATO's Call to War

On November 20, 2024, Dutch Admiral Rob Bauer, Chair of the NATO Military Committee made some rather sobering comments about the current near-World War III state of the world at a European Policy Centre think tank event and how the business world should prepare for all-out war.  Here are some key quotes with my bolds throughout:

 

"Not only our defence industries, but our whole economies need to realise that peace is no longer a given.

 

Because while it may be the military who wins battles, it’s the economies that win wars."

 

Bauer asserts that NATO member states must take serious steps to prepare for war through investments:

 

"We are currently in the phase of establishing the Capability Targets. 

 

Which means that we determine per nation what capabilities they need to develop and expand. 

 

Not just in order to be able to execute our new defence plans. 

 

To be ready NOW.

 

But also in order to make sure that we reach the long-term goals that are set in the NATO Defence Planning Process. 

 

To be ready in the FUTURE. 

 

As a result of this, we will see a more even distribution of capabilities among Allies.

 

European nations and Canada will develop capabilities that now only the United States has. 

 

This is a result of a process that has been going on for years, so it is independent from any national election. 

 

It is a system based on military logic, in order to have as much flexibility as possible. 

 

Some people say it is a form of burden sharing, but I object to the term ‘burden’. 

 

Security is not a burden.

 

Nor is it a cost. 

 

It is an investment. 

 

And a responsibility for all Allies. 

 

The new capability targets are all part of the complete overhaul towards collective defence. 

 

And as a result: the difference between NATO and national is fading more and more to the background.

 

This overhaul will require substantial more investments. 

 

2 percent is a floor… not a ceiling. 

 

In reality, it’s more like a basement. 

 

And it depends per nation how much higher that percentage needs to be. 

 

But more important than any percentage is the fact that Allies need to deliver on every single promise they have made to their fellow Allies. 

 

Every detailed plan of what capability they will provide, needs to be upheld.

 

Because NATO and national defence planning is more integrated than ever before."

 

As such, in the coming years NATO will focus on:

 

1.) implementing their defence plans

 

2.) creating a more even distribution of capabilities 

 

3.) increasing our investments.

 

4.) deepening cooperation with Partners.

 

If we use Bauer's 2 percent of GDP military investment "floor/basement", we find that many NATO member states are falling far short of what is required of them as shown on this map:

 

In 2017, only four member states were meeting their 2 percent of GDP defense spending requirement.  By 2023, 11 member states were meeting that obligation.

 

The 2024 estimate suggesting that 23 nations will meet the target with Croatia (1.81%), Portugal (1.55%), Italy (1.49%) Canada (1.37%), Belgium (1.30%), Luxembourg (1.29%), Slovenia (1.29%) and Spain (1.28%) being the military spending "deadbeats" as shown here:

 

He also states that security and strong deterrence requires active participation from all government institutions, all parts of the private sector and all citizens, not just from the military.

  

He goes on to state that the corporate ecosystem must prepare for war:

 

"For the past 2,5 years, I have been going around board rooms and finance conferences in Europe and America to persuade business leaders to think about two questions:

 

1) Is my company ready for war?

2) And what can my company do to prevent war?

 

That last question might surprise some people… but if we can make sure that all crucial services and goods can be delivered not matter what… than that is a key part of our deterrence.

 

Europe has seen that with energy supply.

 

We thought we had a deal with Gazprom… but we actually had a deal with Putin.

 

Same goes for Chinese owned infrastructure and goods: we actually have a deal with Xi.

 

60 percent of all rare earth materials are produced in China… and 90 percent is processed in China… 

 

90 percent of the chemical ingredients for sedatives, antibiotics, anti-inflammatories and low blood pressure medicines come from China.

 

We are naïve if we think the Communist Party will never use that power.

 

Business leaders in Europe and America need to realise that the commercial decisions they make, have strategic consequences for the security of their nation.

 

Businesses need to be prepared for a war-time scenario and adjust their production and distribution lines accordingly."

Of course, Bauer has to vilify Putin and Xi because they are an existential threat to America's hegemony and they are the nation that controls NATO.  It's all part of the propaganda war against any nation or group of nations that threatens America's failing supremacy.

 

And, here is Bauer's conclusion:

 

"At the heart of NATO is a promise of solidarity. 

 

A promise so powerful, that it now protects 1 billion people on earth. 

 

It grew from 12 nations in 1949 to 32 nations in 2024.

 

It is a promise that people from Norway are willing to risk their lives to protect the people from the Netherlands. 

 

People from Portugal to protect people from Poland. 

 

People from Canada protect people from Czechia.

 

In this increasingly dark world, that is something to be immensely proud of.

 

And it’s something we can all be inspired by. 

 

Together we can and we will prove that democracy will triumph over tyranny.

 

That freedom will triumph over oppression.

 

And that light will triumph over darkness."

It's all pure war-mongering propaganda

Let's close with this quote:

"We now know exactly how we will defend key and relevant places in our Alliance against the two threats described in the Strategic Concept and the NATO Military Strategy: Russia and Terrorist Groups."

Great idea Rob Bauer - let's lump Russia and global terrorism together.  That's a great peacemaking move on your part.

  

If this isn't a call to war, I don't know what is.  While we have to keep in mind that Rob Bauer's views on the world have been coloured by his lengthy career in the military, his views will have Big Defense "rubbing its hands together" thinking about the wealth that this call to war will create for its upper floor corner office dwellers.

China's GDF-600 Hypersonic Glide Platform - A Groundbreaking Development in Modern Warfare

China has recently unveiled its latest foray into the world of high tech weaponry.  At the Zhuhai Air Show 2024, China revealed its GDF-600 hypersonic boost glide concept vehicle that will have a wide range of capabilities as you will see in this posting.

 

The GDF-600 will be designed to have an operational range of between 500 and 1000 kilometres which could theoretically be extended to 6000 kilometres at speeds of between Mach 7 and Mach 10 (5369 mph to 7673 mph) at a maximum altitude of 40 kilometres.  Its design allows it to penetrate modern air defences and can be used for both anti-ship and land-attack purposes.  It has a launch mass of 5000 kilograms and a payload capacity of 1200 kilograms.  One of the key aspects of the GDF-600 is its sub-munition separation system which will give it the capability to release different payload types while in-flight.  These sub-payloads include:

 

1.) supersonic missiles with ranges of between 100 to 500 kilometres at speeds of between 2400 and 6000 kmph

 

2.) subsonic missiles with ranges of between 50 to 100 kilometres at speeds of between 730 and 1030 kmph

 

3.) cruise missiles with a ranges of between 10 and 80 kilometres at speeds of between 300 and 600 kmph

 

4.) aerial bombs with a range of 70 kilometres

 

5.) drones with an operating range of between 2 and 15 kilometres

 

These wide-ranging munitions will allow the GDF-600 to be used for multiple purposes including direct kinetic strikes against specific targets, reconnaissance missions and electronic warfare.  The fact that these munitions can be released at various points along the GDF-600s trajectory allow it to make simultaneous strikes on several targets at the same time which will complicate the defense response of its adversaries.

  

Here is a photo of the mockup GDF-600 showing its multiple payload capabilities:

 

 

Here is a video providing additional information about the GDF-600:

 

 

This very significant advancement in China's hypersonic weapons capabilities stands in sharp contrast to the United States troubled experience with hypersonic weaponry.  For example, the Air Force's AGM-183A ARRW which, as you can see here, is not operational at this point in time:

 

 

Additionally, the United States Army's Long-Range Hypersonic Weapon aka Dark Eagle is also not ready for deployment as shown here:

 

 

The addition of the GDF-600 to China's growing arsenal of high tech weapons will make any intervention against the nation in its ongoing tiff with Taiwan and its territorial claims in the South China Sea more complicated particularly given that the weapon will have a wide range of anti-ship capabilities.  As well, its ability to conduct electronic warfare could disrupt communications and radar which would significantly compromise the ability of the United States and its proxies to defend against the GDF-600.

Escalating the War with Russia - How the Outgoing Biden Administration Could Hobble Donald Trump

An op-ed piece by Ivan Dunaevsky in the Russian newspaper Rossiyskaya Gazeta, a newspaper published by the Government of Russia, provides us with some interesting viewpoints from the Russian government on the soon-to-be extinct Biden Administration's decision to allow its ATACMS longer range missiles to be used by the Ukrainians to send a "message" further into the Russian fatherland , in particular, how this might impact the incoming Trump Administration.

  

Here is a key quote from this article with my bolds:

"Hobble the successor:

 

In fact, it is expected that Biden will look for ways to escalate the Ukrainian crisis at the end of his term. The purpose of the rumor about strikes on Russia and the most possible solution to this issue is succinctly reflected in the headline of the CNN article: "Biden has raised the stakes in the conflict that Trump will inherit. It is a provocative move with special symbolism."

 

Although US President-elect Donald Trump will not take office until January 20, 2025, his election victory has already had a noticeable impact on the tone of the media noise on the Ukrainian crisis. And this is not only a flurry of comments from journalists and experts about what his return to the White House means for Ukraine, but also numerous statements from politicians from different countries, most of which are about the prospects for a peaceful settlement. Trump himself promised to resolve the crisis even before his inauguration, and a number of his appointees to key positions have previously criticized aid to Ukraine. German Chancellor Olaf Scholz recently even allowed himself to break the taboo that has been tacitly in effect in the West and call the Russian president .

  

Biden, apparently, cannot come to terms with this, thereby increasingly openly demonstrating that the Ukrainian crisis is very much his personal creation. He set himself the goal of inflicting a strategic defeat on Russia and invested in it, as the Pentagon recently calculated, not only about 180 billion dollars, but also all his political weight, forcing NATO allies to follow him....

 

Nevertheless, it cannot be ruled out that in the remaining weeks he will try to complicate the possible implementation of Trump's plans. After Trump's victory, the White House stated that by the end of his term they would hastily spend the last 6 billion dollars that Congress had previously allocated for these purposes on weapons for the Ukrainian Armed Forces. Other solutions to escalate the situation are also possible, including those discussed in the American media."

 

If, indeed, the Biden Administration does allow or encourage the use of its medium-range missiles to attack the Russian heartland and Russian President Vladimir Putin does act on his "NATO crossing the red line" mantra, the world could well be headed for a major conflict between two superpowers all because the outgoing Administration wants to hobble the incoming one.  We can only hope that Putin will hold off on any response should Ukraine decide to use America's supersonic ballistic missiles with the hope that saner heads will prevail in the next Administration and put a quick end to this losing proposition.

The Declining Public Trust in the American Government

The 2024 American election coverage proved one thing; Americans have little trust in their own government no matter who is at the helm.  Public trust in government is near all-time lows as shown on this graphic from the Pew Research Center:

The level of trust in government tends to be higher among those who declare their political persuasion depending on who is in control of the presidency (i.e. trust in government among Republicans tends to be higher when a Republican president is in control of the White House and vice versa) as shown here:

A national survey conducted by the Partnership for Public Service which also looks at how the American public views the public service echoes the findings of Pew except that their results show a major decrease in trust in the federal government between 2022 and 2024:

 

 

In addition, Partnership found that only 15 percent of Americans believe that the federal government is transparent, down from 21 percent in 2022 and 66 percent of Americans believe that the federal government, up 10 percentage points over the two year period.  Not surprisingly, only 29 percent of Americans believe that democracy is working in the United States today compared to 68 percent who state that democracy is not working.

  

Here is the results of Partnership's survey showing trust in the federal government for various demographic groups, comparing 2022 to 2024:

 

 

What I found astonishing was the decline in the percentage of Democrats who trusted in government given that their party was in control of Washington with only 39 percent of Democrats trusting the federal government in 2024 compared to 59 percent in 2022.

  

If we look at how Americans view the impact of their federal government, we find this:

 

 

In 2024, only 31 percent of Americans believe that the federal government has a positive impact on the United States as a whole and on them as individuals, down 11 percentage points and 9 percentage points from 2023 respectively.

 

Here is a graphic showing how Americans view the federal government as measured with several key metrics:

 

 

A substantial and growing percentage of Americans believe that the U.S. federal government is wasteful, corrupt and incompetent.

  

Here are the areas where Americans believe that the federal government could improve to become more effective and trustworthy:

 

As a whole, Americans believe that an effective federal government and strong civil service are important for a vibrant and strong democracy with American voters believing that governments should provide for the needs of individual Americans above any political interest.  That said, most Americans believe that they are not getting the government that they want or deserve and that political leaning plays too much of a role in the working of government today.

The Global Jews and their Influence on Global Geopolitics

There is very little doubt that Israel has an inordinate amount of control over Washington's agenda in the Middle East with the nation being the beneficiary of hundreds of billions of dollars in various forms of aid as shown on this graphic from the Council on Foreign Relations: 

Most of this aid support's Israel's military with approximately $3.3 billion in annual funding provided as grants under the Foreign Military Financing program.  These are funds that Israel must use to purchase United States military equipment and services to maintain the Israeli qualitative military edge which allows the nation to "defeat any credible conventional military threat from any individual state or possible coalition of states or from non-state actors, while sustaining minimal damage and casualties.".  This is enshrined in Public Law 110-429 dated October 15, 2008 as shown here:

 

 

With this is mind and given their high level of influence on global and, in particular, American geopolitics, let's look at how many Jews there are in the world so that we can get a sense of how many people are controlling much of America's agenda in the Middle East.  For the purposes of this posting, I am using data available on the Jewish Virtual Library website which you can find here.

  

Here is a table showing the global Jewish population between 1880 and 2023:

 

 

If we use a global population of 8.187 billion people (most recent United Nations estimate) and rounding up the number of Jews to 17 million, people of Jewish heritage comprise a very small 0.21 percent of the world's population. 

  

Here is a table showing the nations with the highest Jewish population:

 

 

I thought that it was rather interesting to see that the United States has more Jews than even Israel, accounting for 44.5 percent of the world's total Jewish population.  If we use a United States population of 346 million and again rounding up the number of American Jews to 7.5 million, people of Jewish heritage comprise 2.2 percent of the American population.

  

Looking at Europe, there are 791,200 Jews in a total population of 445,500,000 people, making up 0.18 percent of Europe's population.  The largest number of Jews are found in France with the 440,000 French Jews making up 0.67 percent of the population.  The second largest number of Jews are found in the United Kingdom with the 312,000 Jews making up 0.46 percent of the population.

 

It is quite clear that the 17 million Jews in the world "punch well above their weight" when it comes to their influence on global geopolitical theatre, particularly when it comes to the United States political system.  In the grand scheme of demographics, the tiny fraction of the global population who identify as Jews is far outweighed by the 2.83 billion Christians, 2.04 billion Muslims, 1.2 billion Hindus and 520 million Buddhists.

Backtracking on the Cashless Society and Strengthening the Right to Pay with Cash

With the vast majority of central banks around the world researching, experimenting with or implementing a new monetary reality as shown here: 

 

....recent developments in Norway are quite fascinating.

 

According to Norges Bank, Norway's central bank, in 2022, only 3 percent of Norwegians used cash when making a purchase at a point of sale (i.e. a physical store) as shown here:

 

In contrast, Norway has the second highest annual use of payment cards among selected nations with an average Norwegian using a credit card or equivalent 531 times in 2022 as shown here (graph data current to 2021):

 

Rather surprisingly, this was announced by Norges Bank on its website slated to take effect on October 1, 2024:

According to the Financial Contracts Act, consumers have the option to pay with legal tender (i.e. physical bank notes and coins) as long as the amount owing is not greater than 20,000 kroner ($1850 US).

 

This is being enacted for two reasons according to Justice Minister Emilie Enger Mehl:

 

1.) as a means of providing security for those consumers who are reluctant to used digital payment solutions.

 

2.) as a means for preparing Norwegian society for emergencies such as prolonged power outages, system failures or digital attacks against payment systems.

 

Here is a quote from Ms. Mehl's press release dated August 3, 2024 when the issue was being discussed (with my bolds):

 

"The government's task is to ensure society's preparedness. Relying exclusively on digital payment solutions increases the vulnerability of society, and in certain situations this can contribute to putting important social functions out of play. Preparedness is an investment to counteract vulnerability and safeguard important functions in society and the needs of the population.

If no one pays with cash and no one accepts cash, cash will no longer be a real emergency solution once the crisis is upon us. 

As a society, we need an alternative if it becomes necessary, and today cash is the only alternative that is easily available if digital payment systems fail. In addition, companies also make themselves vulnerable if they do not accept cash in the event of a crisis, says Mehl."

 

I find it interesting that Norway has taken the approach that cash is a necessary "evil" to ensure the inclusiveness of all of its citizens which is rather ironic given that CBCDs are being sold to us as a panacea for those who are not in the banking system.  As well, given the vulnerability of the digital payment grid as has been revealed time and time again as shown here:

 

....at least one nation is taking the approach that going completely cash-free is one of the stupidest things that a government and central bank can do.