There was a young lady of Niger
Who smiled as she rode on a tiger;
They returned from the ride
With the lady inside,
And the smile on the face of the tiger.
Attributed to William Monkhouse
The greatest happiness is to vanquish your enemies, to chase them before you, to rob them of their wealth, to see those dear to them bathed in tears, to clasp to your bosom their wives and daughters.”
Genghis Khan
The thrill of controlling a large, powerful and potentially dangerous animal is undeniable; to make it your servant and compel it to do your bidding is satisfying balm to the ego. How much more satisfying again it must be to control an entire country, and to bend the collective work and product of its people to your power and enrichment. America has long manipulated great-power politics to its own benefit, and the pleasure of doing so seems to be enhanced when the victim is helpless to resist. At least that’s the way it is consistently portrayed in the government-managed western media, for the enjoyment of the cheering assholes in the international bleachers.
Well, as another parable has it, riding the tiger is the easy part. The hard part is getting off. This is helpfully explained as “Once you have taken this path, there is no way back.”
The west – led, as usual, by The Exceptional Nation – climbed aboard the tiger in 2014, when it decided to initiate and support a coup in Ukraine and turn it into a heavily-armed foil to Russia. Admittedly the second part came later, but perhaps as early as 2015, when the Minsk II Agreements – with the ulterior motive for the west being the arming and strengthening of Ukraine until its army was powerful enough to not only take back the Donbas republics and Crimea by force, but powerful enough to drive Russia back over its borders if it dared to intervene – were signed. As I just suggested, the west took no serious note of the agreement’s provisions beyond opportunities to nag Russia that it was not holding to its responsibilities (although Russia is not mentioned in the accords at all), because the intent was to use the agreement to stall for time while Ukraine’s striking power was built up. Consequently when the time came to set The Great Game in motion once more, Russia massed troops on the border with Ukraine as a visible deterrent – we see what you’re doing, and if you try it, you’ll be sorry. It failed to deter President Zelensky, who ordered an artillery bombardment of the border regions of the Donbas Republics to soften up resistance prior to an armored and infantry attack…and now quite a few people are sorry. Just before the Russian military operation began, the state published a list of demands for the well-known supporters of chaos. The requirements were:
- An end to NATO military activity in eastern Europe, including Ukraine, the Caucasus and Central Asia;
- No expansion of NATO membership, particularly to Ukraine;
- No intermediate or shorter-range missiles deployed close enough to hit the territory of the other side;
- No military exercises of more than one military brigade in an agreed border zone;
- An agreement that parties do not consider each other as adversaries and will resolve disputes peacefully; and,
- Neither Russia nor the United States can deploy nuclear weapons outside their national territories.
The referenced article was published well in advance of any formal reply from NATO, but Deutsche Welle was already confident the west would blow Russia off contemptuously. Why? Because riding the tiger is fun.
“Russia has released a series of security demands to NATO, including a veto on the alliance’s expansion. It is calling for an immediate dialogue, but NATO members aren’t likely to acquiesce to Moscow’s wish list.”
And the west did reject Russia’s demands, stingingly and entirely, because its combined coalition groupthink informed it that Russia would not bother with a warning unless it was weak, and knew it. Strong countries do not offer an opportunity to reconsider your options. They kick ass. And as many of us learned only recently, courtesy of Moon of Alabama, the pretense that nobody could have known what might happen will not be available this time. Because the influential RAND Corporation think tank warned the US government of potential consequences of each of its actions as far back as the Spring of 2019, all of which it took anyway. No longer content to simply ride the tiger, America began to hammer its ribs with its heels, and of course its simpleminded vassals loudly chorused approval. Continue reading “The Smile on the Face of the Dragon.”