#GeoStrategy

[theinitiativechronicle]

📄 Journal Entry 012 – Command Beneath a Foreign Sky

Filed: November 6, 2022 | Strategic Operations Summary Author: Initiative Command

We hold Kenya.

On the morning of November 6th, Initiative personnel successfully secured full executive control over Kenya’s national governance structure. The second control point fell without incident. Phillip Minton’s operation, long in motion, culminated with quiet precision. We now command both the civilian and military apparatus of Nairobi.

Kenya’s strategic value is manifold—proximity to global trade lanes, access to critical mineral routes, and a rising technological infrastructure. Its domestic politics remain unstable, but Initiative alignment has stabilized key administrative corridors.

This is our first nation. It will not be our last.

Kalameet Lund, following a failed outreach operation in Afghanistan, has been safely exfiltrated to Colombo, Sri Lanka. He remains under passive monitoring. His behavior continues to exhibit patterns of focused obsession following his contact with the Tashkent wreckage, but no further irregularities have emerged. He has been cleared for reactivation when needed.

Yiyuan Ai has returned from a second surveillance pass over Tashkent. Her findings confirm what we already suspect: the terrain is not recovering—it is transforming. Vegetation patterns now exhibit non-native density, resistance, and structural geometry. These are not simply alien plants. They are systems. Growing. Shaping. Persisting.

With Skywatch already active, our engineering division has shifted priority toward the Alien Flora project. Early-stage xenogenetic decoding is underway, with targeted probes to isolate metabolic pathways and growth triggers. We do not yet understand if this represents a form of colonization, communication, or unintentional seeding. But we will.

In orbit, the final phase of the Mission to Space research initiative has concluded. The global scientific community, prompted by alien presence, has aligned around the fundamentals of orbital adaptation. Project Exodus contributed the majority of late-stage breakthroughs and now spearheads the Orbital Shipbuilding framework. A series of near-Earth technologies—deep space propulsion, outpost habitation, and crewed transit systems—has been unlocked.

This will alter timelines. It will also alter wars.

Our own contribution to this research was limited. Internal resources remain focused on Earth-based stability, reconnaissance, and factional countermeasures. But we are watching.

One final note: with the Initiative’s influence growing, we have formally selected our internal advisory cadre. After review, we’ve emphasized international aid frameworks—support structures that will allow us to stabilize developing regions without drawing direct fire. This may buy us goodwill, or at least silence, as we expand.

The aliens have not struck. But they are watching. And so are we.

— Initiative Command Strategic Log – Filed November 6, 2022

[nicklloydnow]

“Luce’s book leaves many impressions, but chief among them is that the United States no longer produces many grand strategists like Brzezinski or Kissinger. Some of this may be due to the uniqueness of their generation, which matured in the wake of World War II’s destruction and produced thinkers fixated on problems of world order. But perhaps more has to do with the requirements of success in U.S. foreign policymaking nowadays. The leviathan of the modern-day national security state and even the National Security Council itself—which has grown from a few dozen in Brzezinski’s time to hundreds today—increasingly demands as much operational expertise as strategic depth. At a time of immense global transition, this geostrategist deficit is unfortunate; as Kissinger wrote on the news of his rival’s passing in 2017, “The world is an emptier place without Zbig pushing the limits of his insights.”

(…)

As the Iron Curtain descended over Poland and the rest of Eastern Europe, Brzezinski channeled his prodigious talents toward studying his adversary. He learned Russian and earned a PhD from Harvard in 1953 in the nascent field of Sovietology. Zbig’s 1960 book, The Soviet Bloc: Unity and Conflict, based off of his master’s thesis, was both prescient and enduring: He argued that the Soviet Bloc’s centrifugal nationalities, and even the USSR’s own national patchwork (from Balts to Ukrainians), created an Achilles’ heel that would ultimately be its undoing. In response to claims—popular during the Cold War—that Moscow had successfully created a sense of pan-Soviet citizenship, Brzezinski would often retort: “So do they speak Soviet?”

As a professor at Harvard and then Columbia, Brzezinski’s energies increasingly turned toward Washington. During a brief tour at the State Department during Lyndon B. Johnson’s administration, he advocated for peaceful engagement with Eastern Europe to pull it apart from Moscow. But it was Brzezinski’s turn as national security advisor that put him in the cockpit of U.S. foreign policy. Zbig’s chief rival within the Carter administration, Secretary of State Cyrus Vance, favored stabilizing relations with the USSR, whereas Brzezinski saw detente as a one-sided bargain. In the internal struggle for influence, he ate Vance for lunch, decisively winning Carter’s ear. Part of this was due to Brzezinski’s proximity in the White House, but Zbig was also a wellspring of new ideas and entertaining company. Once, when Carter asked for a capsule history of the USSR, Brzezinski responded that, under Lenin, it “had been like a revival meeting; under Stalin it was like a prison; under Khrushchev it was a circus; and under Brezhnev it resembled a United States Post Office.”

Brzezinski used his influence to bury the knife into a faltering detente. Building on Nixon and Kissinger’s opening to China, Carter fully normalized relations with Beijing in 1979. This was all Zbig: He established a deeply trusting relationship with the diminutive Deng Xiaoping based on mutual antipathy toward Moscow. At a dinner at Brzezinski’s home in Virgina to help seal the deal, they giddily toasted to U.S.-China friendship with Leonid Brezhnev’s favorite vodka. Kissinger had argued that the opening to China created an elegant “strategic triangle” that would bring the United States closer to both Moscow and Beijing. Brzezinski instead operationalized U.S.-China relations against the USSR. With China’s help, the Carter administration aided the Afghan resistance when the USSR invaded on Christmas Day 1979, sinking the Soviet Union into an enduring quagmire that accelerated its demise.

Brzezinski also encouraged Carter’s advocacy for human rights as a way to put the Soviets on the ideological defensive, to the howls of those at State who wanted to preserve a working relationship with Moscow. In this pursuit Brzezinski found a fortuitous partner in fellow Pole Pope John Paul II, a critical historical relationship recalled vividly by Luce, who includes touching correspondences between the strategist and pope.

(…)

Brzezinski was also unduly paranoid about a Soviet hand behind events in Iran. In Kai Bird’s magisterial biography of Carter, The Outlier, Brzezinski is depicted as a reckless superhawk, with a tendency toward “geostrategic gobbledygook” (as Strobe Talbott once put it in Time) and seeing a Soviet shadow around every corner. There’s a grain of truth to this caricature. Zbig was the author of the 1980 Carter Doctrine, which promised that the United States would block any attempt to control the Persian Gulf by an “outside force” (read: Moscow). In retrospect, the threat of Soviet expansion into the region was wildly overblown, as the USSR sputtered into terminal decline.

The fall of the Iron Curtain nine years later fulfilled Brzezinski’s boyhood and professional dreams. Brzezinski had predicted the impending collapse of communism only months earlier, arguing forcefully in his 1989 book, The Grand Failure, that Gorbachev’s reform efforts were doomed. “[It’s] hard to imagine an individual more vindicated by the actual course of historical events” than Brzezinski, wrote Francis Fukuyama. The Soviet Union then dissolved into its constituent nationalities, just as Zbig foresaw in his master’s thesis four decades earlier.

Luce astutely notes that Brzezinski was optimistic about U.S. capabilities during the Cold War yet turned cynical about the ability of the United States to shoulder the mantle of global leadership afterward. Zbig regretted George H. W. Bush’s inability to flesh out a vision for a “new world order” beyond sloganeering and criticized Bill Clinton’s administration for failing to make permanent peace between Israel and Palestine. To his immense credit, Brzezinski was an immediate and trenchant critic of George W. Bush’s Iraq War and dismissed the Global War on Terror as an “quasi-theological” absurdity.

On Russia, which Zbig knew so well, he was characteristically prophetic. Brzezinski predicted that the post-Soviet Russian Federation would soon be captured by revanchism, and advocated for an eastward expansion of NATO to consolidate the West’s gains. In this prophecy, Brzezinski trained his focus on the centrality of Ukraine. He wrote in 1994 that “without Ukraine, Russia ceases to be an empire, but with Ukraine suborned and then subordinated, Russia automatically becomes an empire.” How right he proved to be.

What makes a good strategic thinker? Historical perspective, an ability to intuit political will, and a synthesis of disciplines—from military affairs to human psychology. Brzezinski brilliantly exhibited all of these qualities. His theories pulled together diverse strands of politics, ideology, and societal development, all communicated in an incisive though academic style, epitomized in titles such as Between Two Ages: America’s Role in the Technetronic Era, his 1970 book.

An often underappreciated trait of a good strategist is originality of thought, which Zbig protectively nurtured. Brzezinski wouldn’t be caught dead purveying Washington groupthink; he intentionally refrained from reading opinion essays on subjects on which he was writing or giving a major speech, to avoid unwelcome influence. As his research assistant, I compiled weekly briefs of international newspapers so that he could better inhabit and understand foreign points of view.

Also essential is intellectual fearlessness, which often comes with sharp elbows. Brzezinski could be quite charming, and his commitment to his family over the Georgetown social circuit set him apart from many of his peers. But his hawk-like facial features betrayed his sense of mission and no-nonsense approach to things. He cunningly outflanked his rivals at the State Department and elsewhere—and even reveled in it: He once boasted to me about a book on the Carter years in which his portrayal “made Machiavelli look like a boy scout.”

(…)

The requirements of leadership in U.S. foreign policy have fundamentally changed from Brzezinski’s heyday and make Zbig-like geostrategists more elusive than ever. Brzezinski ran his NSC like a college seminar: 20 or so staffers, each covering a different region, seated around a single table. But today’s national security bureaucracy is so massive, so complex, that deep geostrategic thinking is nice-to-have but insufficient. To handle the sheer flow of material and address cross-cutting economic and national security challenges requires a skillset and attitude that would have been alien to Brzezinski. Gone, too, are the international relations scholar-celebrities—academies, more atomized and specialized than ever, don’t produce them, and the public doesn’t value them as its attention turns inward.

Toward the end of his life, Brzezinski constantly lamented Americans’ ignorance of foreign affairs. He thickened his speeches with anecdotes about how, for example, a third of U.S. high schoolers couldn’t identify the Pacific Ocean on a map. In this way, Brzezinski followed a grand tradition of international relations thinkers like George Kennan who griped about the materialism and superficiality of the U.S. public, to the point of sounding fuddy-duddy. But as the United States now retreats from old alliances and finds itself captured by nativism and populism, perhaps, on this score, Brzezinski was prophetic yet again.”

“But the administration’s broader approach to the region is nothing new. Every U.S. president over more than a quarter century has accommodated Moscow, with consistently bad outcomes. Call it “Russia first”: over three decades and six presidential administrations, Washington has sought to normalize or improve relations with Moscow, accommodating the Kremlin at the expense of other former Soviet states. Time and again, this policy of engagement effectively rewarded Russian revanchism. A series of “resets” with Moscow failed to produce long-term stability and encouraged Russia’s mounting aggression.

Today, Russian President Vladimir Putin has little incentive to negotiate in good faith or to reciprocate any de-escalatory measures taken by Ukraine, as Washington has repeatedly shown itself willing to cater to Moscow’s preferences. Even at the height of the Biden administration’s mobilization of political and military support for Ukraine, a low point in U.S.-Russian relations, Washington opted to pursue a policy of “escalation management,” needlessly holding back material assistance to Ukraine for fear of provoking Russia.

The early actions of the second Trump administration signal not a departure from the norm but an overt and enthusiastic embrace of the “Russia first” tradition. Instead of enhancing U.S. security through stronger alliances and more balanced burden sharing with European partners, the administration is banking that another reset will succeed where previous ones failed. Ignoring the lessons of history, Trump hopes to navigate U.S.-Russian relations and secure international stability by selectively yielding to Putin’s interests in Europe. That approach didn’t work for previous administrations, and it won’t work now.

(…)

By the mid-2000s, Russia’s resurgence, facilitated in part by surging commodity prices, signaled a more aggressive posture toward its neighbors. Moscow stepped up its economic coercion, political meddling, and military aggression to stymie its neighbors’ progress toward democracy and European integration. In 2004, the Kremlin intervened in Ukraine’s presidential election, backing the corrupt prime minister, Viktor Yanukovych. After Yanukovych was declared the winner amid credible reports of fraud and voter intimidation, Ukraine erupted in a series of mass protests that came to be known as the Orange Revolution. A rerun of the election resulted in the victory of the pro-Western candidate, Viktor Yushchenko. Four years later, Russia invaded Georgia, where it still occupies the regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia and exerts influence over Tbilisi, the capital.

The Obama administration’s 2009 reset with Moscow, just months after Russia’s invasion of Georgia, is a striking example of this pattern of accommodation. The reset was meant to mollify Putin and deter further aggression by creating new avenues for economic and security cooperation. Obama’s efforts delivered one significant practical result: a new nuclear arms control accord called the New START treaty. But they did little to stifle Russia’s revanchism. Throughout his presidency, Obama privileged de-escalation and engagement over confrontation. This approach only emboldened the Kremlin and gave Putin a sense of impunity. Even after Russia annexed Crimea in 2014, the Obama administration declined to impose significant sanctions on Moscow or supply military support to Ukraine.

(…)

When President Joe Biden took office in 2021, he made clear that he saw Russia as an adversary but delivered only minimal material support to Ukraine. In the fall of that year in early 2022, as Russia built up its forces along its border with Ukraine, Biden made public U.S. intelligence that revealed Putin’s intention to invade. But he declined to increase the number of U.S. troops stationed in Europe or to arm Ukraine with advanced weapons systems, such as ATACMS missiles, HIMARS rockets, tanks, and artillery—steps that might have changed Putin’s mind.

After Russia launched its full-scale invasion, Biden denounced Putin as a “butcher” who “cannot remain in power” and pledged to defend “every inch” of NATO territory if the war escalated. But the rhetorical flourishes did not translate into practical policies when they were most needed. For too long, the administration accepted Russian rhetoric regarding “red lines” and took Putin’s nuclear threats at face value. By trickling in aid, placing restrictions on the operating range of U.S.-supplied weapons, and designating certain strategic targets as off-limits, the administration allowed the Russian military to gain its footing and move assets out of harm’s way. By the time Biden finally agreed to send Kyiv advanced weapons systems, it was too little, too late.

(…)

But some members of Trump’s national security team know that a weak Ukraine is not in the United States’ interest. A Ukrainian defeat would generate considerable political turmoil in Kyiv and undermine a durable peace in the region. Additionally, it would raise the prospect of Russian aggression against NATO’s Baltic flank. By securing Ukraine’s strategic position in negotiations, the United States can achieve a significant diplomatic victory, end the conflict, and deter future Russian aggression—all of which would serve U.S. interests in Europe.”

[usnewsper-politics]

President Biden Gets US Back Into Global Geo-Strategy, Meets Central Asian Leaders #CentralAsianleaders #geostrategy #globalpolicy #presidentbiden #U.S.foreignpolicy

[dr-amer]

البعد الجيوستراتيجي في السياسة الخارجية الروسية تجاه النزاع السوري

البعد الجيوستراتيجي في السياسة الخارجية الروسية تجاه النزاع السوري   البعد الجيوستراتيجي في السياسة الخارجية الروسية تجاه النزاع السوري الكاتب : جندلي عبد الناصر . حبشي مسعود الملخص: تهتم هذه الورقة بدراسة البعد الجيوستراتيجي باعتباره أحد دوافع انخراط روسيا في النزاع السوري، واستكشاف حدوده التفسيرية وموقعه على سلم أولويات السياسة الروسية في سورية، وهذا من خلال البحث في المنطلقات الفكرية والنظرية…

[alewaanewspaper1960]

البعد الجيوستراتيجي في السياسة الخارجية الروسية تجاه النزاع السوري

البعد الجيوستراتيجي في السياسة الخارجية الروسية تجاه النزاع السوري   البعد الجيوستراتيجي في السياسة الخارجية الروسية تجاه النزاع السوري الكاتب : جندلي عبد الناصر . حبشي مسعود الملخص: تهتم هذه الورقة بدراسة البعد الجيوستراتيجي باعتباره أحد دوافع انخراط روسيا في النزاع السوري، واستكشاف حدوده التفسيرية وموقعه على سلم أولويات السياسة الروسية في سورية، وهذا من خلال البحث في المنطلقات الفكرية والنظرية…

[darkmaga-returns]

18 March 2025, by Eric Zuesse. (All of my recent articles can be seen here.)

On March 18th, Trump and Putin agreed on a deal in which Ukraine and Russia will have a 30-day ceasefire on attacks against each other’s energy infrastructure. The following superb discussion about it by three objective experts on geostrategy — Ray McGovern and Larry Johnson, retired from the CIA, and Glenn Diesen, of the University of South-Eastern Norway — follows here:

Much of the opening part deals with Russian troops having surrounded the around ten thousand troops of Ukraine and its mercenaries, in a “cauldron” inside Russia’s province of Kursk, and Trump urging Putin not to simply eliminate (kill) them all and end the Ukrainian invasion and occupation of the Kursk region of Russia — for Putin to instead allow them to live.

[bopinion]

2023 / 39

Aperçu of the Week:

"I would like to ask you what language the Palestinians speak? Was there a Palestinian coin at some point in history? Is there a Palestinian history or a Palestinian culture? There isn't. There is no such thing as a Palestinian people."

(Bezalel Joel Smotrich, Finance Minister of Israel and Chairman of the right-wing "Religious Zionism" party)

Bad News of the Week:

Serbia and Kosovo. Sadly, proof that the tensions that led to the Yugoslav Wars in the Balkans from 1991 to 2001 are far from over. The conflict over Kosovo is centuries old. The area has special significance for Serbia because it is home to numerous medieval Serbian Orthodox monasteries. Serbian nationalists also see a symbol of their independence in a battle against Ottoman Turks in 1389 in Kosovo. However, the majority - then and now - are ethnic Albanians living in Kosovo. They are mostly Muslims. They regard the area as their country and accuse the Serbs of having oppressed them for decades. Formerly granted special rights have been revoked, for example. In February 2008, Kosovo declared itself independent, and since then the region has been up in the air, with NATO stationing KFOR protection troops there.

Now the situation is escalating again. Already last April, there were clashes when Serbs boycotted local elections in the region. In the process, 30 NATO peacekeepers and more than 50 Serb protesters were injured. The fuse has been smoldering ever since. Last weekend, a conflict broke out between armed Serbs and Kosovar police, ending in deaths. Allegedly, however, this was not an official Serbian military unit, but the private militia of a Serbian businessman. What nobody believes.

Now for days Serbia has been pulling together an unprecedented amount of infantry, tanks and artillery - at 48 points directly on the border. Of course Serbian President Aleksandar Vučić, speaking to the Financial Times, denied that his country was planning military action. But John Kirby, the usually well-informed spokesman for the U.S. National Security Council, confirmed it. "We are seeing a large Serbian military presence along the border with Kosovo," he said. This includes "an unprecedented deployment of Serbian artillery, tanks, and mechanized infantry units."

It is with some trepidation that I currently pay attention when a "news alert" goes ping. For once again, a cold war may become a hot one. In the middle of Europe. Because of the imperialistic claim to power of one nation against another. Geostrategy and testosterone. Frustrating.

Good News of the Week:

"Judge's ruling on Trump financial empire poses existential threat." was a headline on CNN last Wednesday. Donald Trump and his Trump organization had committed "financial fraud for years." Is that a surprise? No. At least not to Europeans. Who never understood that a windbag like Donald Jessica Trump could get away with such obvious lies for so long in a state of law. And then also leads the forecasts for the upcoming US presidential elections. Excuse me?

Finally, on Friday, Trumpist Scott Hall pleaded guilty to multiple counts of attempted election fraud in the Georgia trial. Trump is among the other 18 co-accused. I can't believe anyone could be so naive as to believe a bail bondsman would have completely independently committed the exact acts that were in Trump's playbook - "I want you to find the votes!"

The GOP seems to be unable to break with the 45th president in U.S. history. Various potential opponents, but especially the powerful super PACs in the background, are increasingly disillusioned that the candidacy is unlikely to be taken away from him. His approval ratings seem rock solid. But slowly I'm getting the sense (or the hope) - from across the ocean - that the legal manifestation of his constant misbehavior is having an effect on the American (voting) people. I've lost track of how many cases Trump is currently charged with in which court anyway. And it's all there: Fraud, Porn Star, bribery, Rudy Giuliani, rape, defamation, fixer, tax evasion - you name it. Seriously, a guy like that couldn't even get himself nominated for the Recording Secretary of a flower growers club anywhere in the world. And yet could become president for the second time in the Land of unlimited opportunities? The supposedly most powerful man in the world?

I fundamentally believe in the good in people. But there are exceptions. Trump is one of them. When I think about which personality would put the greater good above personal ego, I certainly can't think of him. So when there are again and again brave prosecutors and special investigators who stand up to Mar-A-Lago, the Proud Boys and Matt Gaetz, I pay them my respect. And in the end this guy is simply unelectable. Now all we need is for enough hockey moms in the suburbs and used car salesmen in the rust belt to realize that. He's not one of you. He's not anti-establishment. He's a notorious egomaniac. He doesn't have your best interests at heart. But only his own.

Personal happy moment of the week:

Hello again! The coronavirus is back: as soon as it gets cooler, the variant BA.2.86, called "Pirola", starts to spread. With new symptoms, an extensive resistance to the previous vaccines and practically without monitoring - because a test regime or even a data collection does not take place (anymore). The shock was correspondingly great when a colleague first called in sick at the beginning of the week and then submitted the information "COVID infection". I am one of the three colleagues who had the most intensive contact with him in the preceding days. Immediately, a colleague got rapid tests, all of which were negative. A follow-up test two days later also confirms that I got away with it once again. Lucky me.

I couldn't care less...

...about the political future of Rishi Sunak. The British prime minister, in office for less than a year, looks pale and erratic. There is no sign of leadership or vision. There are plenty of headwinds at the current Tory party conference: the Conservatives are 20% behind the Social Democrats in polls. The economy is not recovering, there is no normalization after the Brexit chaos. The migration issue is inflated and not solved. Climate targets are being softened, climate measures put on hold. Rail infrastructure measures are being cut, mobility with automobiles is being supported. His party's populism is becoming more and more right-wing, and increasing radicalism is dividing the country. Soon, Labour may adopt the old Brexiteer slogan "taking back control."

As I write this...

...I am glad that a deal was brokered between the Writers' Guild of America (WGA) and the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers (AMPTP). Lasting 148 days, the strike was one of the longest in the history of writers for television and cinema in the USA. So my much liked late night show hosts will soon be able to entertain me with their monologues again.

Post Scriptum

For 40 years there should have been a worldwide holiday on September 26. Because the Russian Stanislav Petrov prevented the third world war in 1983. The computer in a Soviet control center reported an American nuclear attack. However, the responsible officer Petrov believed in a false alarm (in the end, a spy satellite was irritated by reflections of the sun), refused to trigger the nuclear counterattack and thus saved mankind.

[biryukzlodei-artblog]

That's why "peace" was established for in Palestine. One good thing is that NATO can't wage more than 2 wars at a time. It would be nice to set Israel on fire again. Politics is a dirty business.

Funny, Turkey has been a proxy lapdog of England and Europe for centuries. 12 "Russo-Turkish" wars confirm this. The world changes only for those who don't know history. And another good example why it should be no Ukraine on the map because Anglos will never stop using it against Russia.

Btw, last time when France was a leader of Europe and the biggest trade Empire on the continent, they too tried to crash the Russian Empire through Turkey-proxy in a hope to defeat Russians with Turks hands and compensate investments through the robbing of "defeated Russia". It didn't work out, and all ended in revolution in France itself. Just saying.

You are the dictators, West. You are all covered with blood of millions of children and women just that some European bitch could enjoy her life and believe that she is "civilized" and belong to the "God chosen nation". I don’t condemn this; we all want to live well and whatever on the others. But there is no need to lecture Russians about the mythical struggle between democracy and dictatorship. Your hypocrisy is irritating. But if you really believe in your statement then I always despised delusional fools.

France has been lying under the Americans with its legs spread for almost 100 years. How much longer should we wait to see when you will liberate yourselves? In my opinion, you, the French, were good with everything (same like the rest of Europe) and always gladly joined in the pack when US decided to tear up another country "in the name of democracy". You are only unhappy today because your American patron lost to Russia and forcing you to live worse because of it. It’s all unpleasant, I understand. But no need to pretend that any of this have anything with the fight for freedom.

The only thing worse than war with the Anglo-Saxons is peace with them.

(The only thing worse than war with the Anglo-Saxons is friendship with them. – modern time quote from the rus internet. Original quote is: Finally, after its experiences with the English and Americans it’s China’s turn to say: It’s bad to have an Anglo-Saxon as an enemy, but God forbid to have him as a friend! - Alexey Efimovich Edrikhin-Vandam, military intelligence officer, writer, author of works in the field of geopolitics and geostrategy of the Russian Empire.)

[mariacallous]

IVALO, FINLAND—Only 20 miles of forest separate the Lapland Border Guard base in the Finnish town of Ivalo from Russia. From here, well above the Arctic Circle, the Border Guards monitor the activities of their not-so-friendly neighbor. And now, after Finland joined NATO in April last year and Helsinki and Washington decided to further strengthen their cooperation by signing a defense cooperation agreement in mid-December, the United States is officially authorized to position troops and equipment at the base.

The United States has similar agreements facilitating military collaboration with the other NATO members bordering mainland Russia: Norway, Estonia, and Latvia. These agreements also specify which of the hosting country’s bases can be used by U.S. forces. After Finland and the United States signed the agreement, Ivalo became the closest base to mainland Russia immediately accessible to U.S. troops.

“It is premature to assess what will possibly be invested in Ivalo, and the criteria are not public,” says Ville Ahtiainen, the deputy commander of the Lapland Border Guard, “but the overall result will be good, and it will deepen the cooperation between our countries.”

NATO’s new 830-mile-long border in Finland draws the alliance’s attention much more to the north, says Kristine Berzina, the managing director of the Geostrategy North program at the German Marshall Fund think tank. The area, she says, has “not received much consideration in the past, especially from a land forces domain.”

This despite Russia’s powerful forces nearby, which include its crown jewels: the Northern Fleet and its nuclear submarines, held in and around the Russian port of Murmansk. The strategic harbor is so close that road signs point to it in Ivalo’s icy streets.

While Finland is counterbalancing Moscow’s superiority in the high north, the enhanced military presence comes with a trade-off. As Berzina notes, the new border also “increases exposure to Russian threats.” After the signing of the December agreement, Moscow declared that it “would take the necessary measures to counter the aggressive decisions of Finland and its NATO allies,” and it has many tools at its disposal. Whether it is weaponized migration, covert operations against infrastructure, or airspace violations, these hybrid attacks are now not only Finland’s problems, but also NATO’s.

In joining NATO, Finland abandoned the policy of military neutrality it had maintained since shortly after World War II. Despite being a NATO partner since 1994, the Nordic country had never been able to count on the protection of allies. Consequently, for decades it took care of its own defense, developing impressive military capabilities and a society trained to fight. According to military experts and security officials, Finland’s presence in NATO brings to the club a sort of Arctic Sparta, a highly trained force that will move the alliance’s center of gravity to the north. (The missing brick in the anti-Russian northern wall is Sweden, which is expected to join the alliance soon, once Hungary gives the green light.)

“Our biggest asset is the concept of total defense that we have developed in all these years,” says Ville Sipilainen, a special advisor to the Finnish defense minister, who closely followed the cooperation agreement’s negotiations. “As a small country, we had to use the entire society for defense. We have very developed infantry, artillery, and of course, the expertise in Arctic warfare.”

On Feb. 11, Finland will go to the polls to elect its new president. The two candidates, Alexander Stubb and Pekka Haavisto, share a decisive anti-Russian position, and no major changes in foreign policy are expected after the vote.

In Ivalo, dozens of young conscripts (usually between 19 and 21) have just arrived and shaved their heads to start military service. They can be seen marching around the base and learning the basic concepts of discipline in the first days. Finland is one of the few EU countries where military service is mandatory, and with 285,000 soldiers ready to be armed, it has one of the largest wartime infantries in NATO. (Around 900,000 people out of a total population of 5.5 million have had military training.)

The Border Guard in Ivalo trains the conscripts especially in reconnaissance along the frontier, where the atmosphere has recently been tense. Last fall, about 1,300 asylum-seekers from countries such as Somalia, Syria, Yemen, Kenya, Morocco, and Pakistan started showing up at Finland’s border crossing points, including the one close to Ivalo. Helsinki has accused Moscow of transporting the migrants to the border and pushing them to seek refuge on the other side, posing “a serious threat to Finland’s national security and public order.” At the end of November, the government closed the entire border, which will remain shut at least until April 14. Also last year, Helsinki started building a 124-mile fence along its eastern frontier.

Weaponized migration is not the only hybrid attack Moscow has been accused of recently. In October, a pipeline connecting Finland and Estonia was severely damaged by what Finnish investigators think was the anchor of a Chinese cargo ship. Rumors of Russian involvement have inflamed the debate in the media since. In the last weeks, GPS disturbances have also affected Finland and the Baltic region, and many Finns suspect that Russia is the source.

During the migrant crisis, the Border Guard received the support of one of, if not the, most skilled Arctic formations in the world: the Finnish Jaeger Brigade. Located in Sodankyla, 100 miles south of Ivalo, it owes its name to a unit of Finnish nationalists created in Germany during World War I, when the grand duchy of Finland was still part of the Russian Empire. For Finland’s NATO allies, the Jaegers and the winter combat course that they organize have become the go-to guys when it comes to Arctic warfare, and Western countries—including the United States—have been sending their troops there to train for years. Since Finland’s accession to NATO, those requests have increased.

The Arctic section leader of the brigade, Maj. Mikael Aikio, 39, has been an instructor at the winter combat course since it was created 10 years ago. Originally from the region, he is a quarter Sámi—an Indigenous people of northern Norway, Sweden, Finland, and northwestern Russia. He recently helped design the country-cross skis used by the Finnish Army. This year, he’s teaching 14 Finns and 15 foreign soldiers from the United States, United Kingdom, Estonia, France, and Belgium. “One of the strengths of the Finnish army is that there is a lot of initiative even at low levels,” he says in his office in the Arctic section of the base. “Squads and platoons can make decisions themselves and do things independently. That’s the culture.”

But to make good decisions autonomously, you need skills. While preparing for a day with his students, he puts some newspaper in his boots to absorb moisture. “The devil is in the details,” Aikio says while remembering a training day spent with temperatures that reached 38 degrees Fahrenheit (39 Celsius) below zero.

The brigade’s barracks are scattered across the snow-covered spruce of the Finnish taiga. In mid-January, daylight is less than three hours, but the 29 winter combat course trainees can take advantage of the high latitudes’ long twilights. One of them, Staff Sgt. Cameron Daniels, 29, arrived in Sodankyla at the beginning of January from Fort Drum, New York, where he serves in the 10th Mountain Division. The Finns equipped him with many layers beneath a surprisingly light jacket, three different kinds of gloves, and rubber boots made by a Nokia spinoff company, with a means to attach the skis. “They have excellent gear and great skills I’ll bring back home,” Daniels says, packing his bag. “Their camouflage is great.”

Daniels’s division was founded during World War II, after the U.S. Army observed, impressed, the Finnish feats against the Soviet Union. After signing the nonaggression pact with Germany in 1939, the Soviet Union had launched an offensive against Finland to increase the buffer territory around Leningrad in case of a future attack from Berlin. Then, as in today’s Ukraine, Moscow justified the invasion of the old imperial province by pretending to come to the aid of a minority in Finnish territory. Then, as today, the operation didn’t go as expected. The Red Army suffered huge losses against the Finnish troops, which were much more prepared to fight in the harsh winter conditions. The Finns were particularly effective in small units, and they had some good snipers in their ranks. The most famous of them, Simo Hayha, earned the nickname “White Death” after at least 505 confirmed kills, making him widely considered to be the deadliest marksman ever.

“After the collapse of the Soviet Union, there were hopes that Russia would move closer to Europe,” says Henrik Meinander, a history professor at the University of Helsinki. “Moreover, Finland joined the EU in 1995, and it was expected that a common European defense would be created. Nobody felt the urgency of a NATO membership.” A few steps from the campus, the statue of Tsar Alexander II dominates the capital’s main square. But Russian tourists, the most numerous in Finland before the Ukraine invasion, have almost disappeared. “If Russia had not attacked Ukraine, Finland would not have joined NATO,” Meinander says.

Finland doesn’t just bring massive infantry and ski troops to the table. The country boasts a stronger artillery than any in Western Europe, with about 1,500 weapons and substantial heavy ammunition production. In December, the Defense Ministry announced that it would more than double production to build up its own capabilities as well as to keep supplying Ukraine’s forces. Helsinki recently bought the David’s Sling high-altitude air defense system from Israel and 64 F-35s from the United States. The F-35s purchase brought the country’s expenditure on defense in 2023 above 2 percent of GDP, which is the theoretical minimum required for NATO countries but followed by only a third of the members.

Unlike Estonia or Latvia, Finland will be able to take care of its airspace by itself without the support of NATO allies. According to Sipilainen, the Ministry of Defense advisor, airspace violations from Russia were quite common before Finland joined NATO, but there have been none since then: “Clearly, there is respect for NATO airspace.”

On the other side of the border, Finland’s old enemy is struggling to maintain a solid conventional ground force. The Russian counterparts of the Jaeger Brigade, the 80th Motorized Rifle Brigade and the 200th Motorized Rifle Brigade, have suffered hefty casualties in Ukraine.

“There is not much left,” says Col. Kimmo Kinnunen, the commander of the Jaeger Brigade. “But they have a lot of other capabilities,” pointing to air and naval forces as well as the nuclear submarines based near Murmansk.

In Ivalo, the passage to Murmansk is now closed. Along the border, the situation is quiet, but the Border Guard are tight-lipped about the confrontation with Russia. “We don’t know what will happen, but I hope it will be back to normal,” says a conscript. His superior is in the room, and they exchange glances to be sure he is using appropriate words.

Cpl. Topi Kinnunen, in his early 20s, has just finished his first mandatory six months of service and has now decided to start another six months to train and lead the newcomers. “I chose to come here because it is a tough place, but rewarding,” he says while the recruits come to grips with the Finnish-made RK 62 rifles, designed on the model of the Soviet Kalashnikovs.

Over the past decades, Finland has produced enough to arm its entire reserve. Soon, the armory in Ivalo could also open its doors to weapons from the Pentagon.

[helloguydecoupigny]

ELECTIONS EUROPEENNES : SORTIR DE L'EUROPE OU LA REFONDER ? GEOPOLITIQUE ET GEOSTRATEGIE.

Sans faire de géopolitique profonde, évoquons la notion de territoire (puissance et atouts) et consultons une carte géographique.

Qu'observons-nous ?

Un monde multipolaires d'Etats-Continents : USA, EUROPE, FEDERATION DE RUSSIE, EURASIE, CHINE, sans oublier l'INDE et l'INDONESIE. Les, USA , puissance impérialiste hégémonique ne peuvent plus s imposer et soumettre les nations à leur domination. Nous entrons, par ailleurs, dans une phase de dédollarisation et d'extension des BRICS.

Constatons que la Russie occupe une place centrale avec une partie européenne et une majeure partie eurasienne, et, s'étend jusqu'à Vladivostok (mer du Japon). Depuis le conflit ukrainien et l'extension de l'Otan jusqu' à ses frontières, la Russie regarde et se tourne désormais vers l'Eurasie (pièce maîtresse de l'économie mondiale dans les années à venir) et l'Asie, en renforçant ses liens et sa coopération avec la Chine, l'Inde, l'Indonésie et les autres pays qui ont rejoint récemment les Brics (qui ont pour objectif à très court terme de ne plus utiliser le dollar dans leurs transactions).

Le Général de Gaulle avait raison : aucune Europe digne de ce nom, ne peut se construire durablement sans prendre en compte la Russie.

Notre communauté européenne constituée de pays aux intérêts très divergents qui s'alignent constamment et systématiquement sur les USA et l'Otan, s'avère impuissante face aux nouveaux défis et se contente de subir.

Pourtant, nous avons besoin d'une Europe souveraine, forte et unie.

La France, seule et isolée, ne peut peser.

Faut-il donc sortir de l'Europe ?

Ne faudrait-il pas et ne vaudrait-il pas mieux la refonder, la rebâtir avec de nouveaux traités et un autre mode de gouvernance ?

A titre personnel, je ne voterai pas pour un parti ou un mouvement prônant le Frexit comme solution miracle.

Notre mouvement politique "Force Citoyenne Unie" devra se positionner clairement sur cette question.

Le débat est ouvert.

Article rédigé par Guy Decoupigny, président-fondateur de FCU le 15 octobre 2023.

[theinitiativechronicle]

📄 Entry 002 — One Humanity?

Filed: 02 October 2022 Author: Initiative Analyst, Ground Section East Clearance: Internal Eyes Only Subject: Global Psychological Drift Following Uzbekistan Incident

“They saw the sky open—not with fire, but with silence. And in that silence, something ancient stirred.”

In the wake of the unacknowledged descent northeast of Tashkent, a subtle but observable shift has begun to ripple across global civil societies. This is not a political cascade. Not yet. But it is something more than atmospheric.

Across dozens of regions—many of them unconnected by media or language—small gatherings have emerged spontaneously: vigils, silent assemblies, collective stares at empty skies. These movements have no names. No leaders. No hashtags. But they have candles.

In Brazil, Kazakhstan, Poland, and portions of Southeast Asia, our analysts recorded statistically significant shifts in national cohesion indicators—a rise in public trust metrics, decreased factional hostility, and isolated cases of public declarations not of fear, but of unity.

Local media outlets frame these events as spiritual awakenings, moments of “planetary silence,” or existential reckoning. But from our vantage, the trend is more precise: a shared awareness that the world has already changed, even if no one has admitted it aloud.

The Initiative has not made a public statement regarding these developments. It will not. But internally, modeling divisions are now adjusting baseline projections for civil unrest, cross-border cooperation potential, and psychological tipping points. There is growing evidence to support the theory that the Uzbekistan descent event has triggered a species-wide narrative shift—a latent recognition of externality.

Internal Advisory

All field agents operating in media-sensitive zones are instructed to incorporate language emphasizing shared vulnerability, planetary identity, and mutual survival. No statements confirming extraterrestrial contact are to be issued. However, emotional framing that aligns with the emerging “One Humanity” current may be tactically useful.

We do not yet know if this is a brief moment of breath before the scream, or the beginning of something deeper. But humanity, for perhaps the first time, is listening not to its leaders, but to itself.

And something beneath the surface is stirring.

[suraudotco]

Pembangunan Sistem Ketahanan Nasional dan Pengembangan Lemhannas RI Bagi Geopolitik Strategis Indonesia

Pembangunan Sistem Ketahanan Nasional dan Pengembangan Lemhannas RI Bagi Geopolitik Strategis Indonesia dan Dunia.   Konstruksi, substansi, dan narasi Diskursus Kebangsaan dan Dialog Nasional dalam kerangka Geostrategis Indonesia, Kawasan, dan Dunia – pada dasarnya diletakkan, dibangun, dan ditumbuhkan dalam berbagai perspektif (sistem). Khususnya dalam dan dengan perspektif pemikiran strategis,…

[deblala]

List of shame: Here are the Republicans who took Soros funding – World Tribune: U.S. Politics and Culture, Geostrategy, China, North Korea, Corporate Watch, Media Watch

https://www.worldtribune.com/list-of-shame-here-are-the-republicans-who-took-soros-funding/

[dr-amer]

The Geo-strategic Conflict In The Middle East

The Geo-strategic Conflict In The Middle East The Geo-strategic Conflict In The Middle East الصراع الجيواستراتيجي في الشرق الأوسط Authors : Bassemail Abdelkrarim . Abstract In the context of regional studies, the Middle East can be considered a distinct region in global politics because of its geographical and economic characteristics, as well as the nature of local actors and influential…

[alewaanewspaper1960]

The Geo-strategic Conflict In The Middle East

The Geo-strategic Conflict In The Middle East The Geo-strategic Conflict In The Middle East الصراع الجيواستراتيجي في الشرق الأوسط Authors : Bassemail Abdelkrarim . Abstract In the context of regional studies, the Middle East can be considered a distinct region in global politics because of its geographical and economic characteristics, as well as the nature of local actors and influential…

[presidentguadeloupegedinval]

M. Issa DIAWARA, dit le Général, analyste malien géopolitique-geostrategie,

Nous vous remercions pour l'intérêt que vous portez au pays Guadeloupe, Kaloukéra.

Merci de parler de nos efforts pour une autodétermination, une souveraineté et une indépendance reconnue.

La congrétisation de notre 5ème décret présidentiel, par la présidence de notre Assemblée guadeloupéenne, le 9 mai 2025, l'équivalent à une publication au journal officielle, reconnaît en vous et à titre honorifique un géopolitilogue de grande qualité.

https://www.facebook.com/100044665413689/posts/1241520510680118/?mibextid=25jbZY3GVLmlWDIP

Respectueusement vôtre,

M. Gilbert Mathieu ÉDINVAL

Chef de l'État, 

Président de la Guadeloupe,

Kaloukéra 

Président de l'Alliance de la Caraïbe Libre