First up is the final segment of an interview of Alastair Crooke on Deep Dive, then a bit from Dr. Fadi Lama, then some comment on neutrality.
Alastair Crooke is a geo-political commentator, also on ConflicksForum.substack.com Alastair Warren Crooke CMG, born 30 June 1949, is a former British diplomat, and is the founder and director of the Beirut-based Conflicts Forum, an organisation that advocates for engagement between political Islam and the West.
ALASTAIR- Europe is quite clearly accepted to be, if you like, America's proxy in its war against Russia. It's going to be a source a resource, if you like, a source of resources i.e. paying for much of the war, and at the same time the Europeans have understood that a big change is taking place. I see it in this way - in that you know the western security state, and I don't mean just the American security state, but the wider, if you like, supra-governmental security state has come to the conclusion, and you can see this in some of the writings that you get from people like Colby Elbridge. Colby, and so on, that you know, America is no longer never in a position to fight a major war. It's lost many of its instruments of power. Its military, its supply lines, are not in a state for fighting a major war. But more than that, its financial conditions are not such as they were for, if you like, pursuing a financial war. And even, it's if you like, soft power is declining whereas before in place like Africa for example you know it was uncontested but now there are contestants, America no longer has straight answer. China is there offering a different pattern to states and former allies of the United States.
So you know, what is the position? Well, I think the United States' position or at least the security states position is okay, so, let the Europeans fight this war and if it turns into a nuclear, if you like a limited nuclear exchange, as it well might because of the way the Europeans are determined to continue acting in this way against Russia. I mean, you cannot believe it in Europe. I was coming back from Europe. I mean, you know, you cannot discuss Russia with any of the establishment. They won't tolerate it. They won't accept there is even an argument to be made. It's just war, war, war and a huge propaganda exercise suggesting that Russia is continually aggressing against Europe through this hybrid warfare, hybrid war all the time. They talk about that and they put out little videos telling Europeans they have to, you know, stockpile water in their houses. They have to stockpile candles and other material to prepare for a war and they have to understand their children will be required and many of them will die.
I mean these are the videos and they it's concerted. Every state says the same thing and you have these Europeans coming out of their meeting dressed in uniform in camouflage jackets. I mean, they look ridiculous, these sort of elderly politicians posing in their uniform jackets. But it's obviously part of an exercise because Europeans are desperate. They don't know how else to manage. The decisions they've made have been so badly gone awry, so badly that they don't have any alternative except to promote the idea of militarization, what you know many call and I call sort of Keynesianism militarization - in other words the main aim is money and to sort of generate, you know, an industrial structure that people can make money in and to suggest who, well they may end up with it because we saw that very significant statement by Putin at Valdai in the last few days, when you know the Europeans have been continually threatening and saying look the Kaliningrad peninsula, isthmus there, we're doing an exercise, we're doing training exercises around it and we could take it in a day.
And Putin said, "You should just understand that if there is any attack on Kaliningrad, we reserve the right to use our full range of weapons including nuclear weapons. First time Putin has made this explicit and I think Medvedev has said something rather similar.
They are saying that if there is an attempt by Europe, or if Europe goes on, there's talk now again of Tomahawk missiles. Trump has said maybe I'll give the Ukrainians Tomahawk missiles. Well, you don't know whether a Tomahawk missile, there's no way of telling whether a Tomahawk missile which is nuclear capable, whether it has a conventional or a nuclear warhead until it arrives and then it's too late. So the Russian strategy and agreed protocol is if we cannot tell that a Tomahawk missile incoming is either conventional or military, we have to treat it as nuclear and that means we have to activate our nuclear procedures. I mean he said this as plainly as a pike dot. Do you see it anywhere? Is this discussed? Did anyone notice? Look around the room. Was anyone concerned about this? It seems, you know, everyone is, a lot of people are just, you know, half asleep in this process.
It's very, very serious. Russia is preparing for war with Europe. And what is more, is America will not intervene. It will not, it will not intervene on an Article 5 at all. They are not going to lose an American city to save Europeans. So if the Europeans want to get into this war and find that they are attacked in European cities for the security state, that's the decision that's been made. They will leave the nuclear exchange to take place in in Europe, it's expendable, and not else, and will not risk San Diego or LA as Trump said, for the Europeans.
I'm afraid this is, you know, this is the hard facts of the new change in the geopolitical structure. Russia sees it and is preparing for war if the Europeans go on with it. And you know they are going on every day. They go on with this sort of hybrid war. I mean look you know the Russians are not sending sort of drones into Leipzig airport in order to irritate the Europeans. I mean it's ridiculous. Of course not. And then you know there all sorts of other talk. I mean, if it's not Putin and the Russians, then it's Iran. Fairford is Iran and all of these other things. There must be an Iranian link to these people who were arrested near the RAF Fairford in in the UK, which is an American nuclear base.
Dr. Fadi Lama appeared on The Cradle October 7th. Dr. Fadi Lama is an international advisor to the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) and a consultant in geoeconomics, industry, SMEs, and academia, with a PhD in Mechanical Engineering. The topic was:
One interesting statement he made (among others) is that there are over 190 nations in the UN, but perhaps only three are sovereign nations - Russia, China and Iran. All the others are some form of satellite, vassal, colony, branch-plant, etc. A fine example is Canada, long a colony of Britain, then a vassal to the U.S., so accustomed to being in servitude that it is now lashing about trying to find another teat to join to, anywhere in the world - trying out China, and India, and hoping to acquire "Associate" status in the EU - that failing civilizational project. There is of course the (remote) possibility that Canada could declare genuine sovereignty and join that small group of actually sovereign nations, but that requires some serious spine. However, the intermediate zone, genuine neutrality requires no less effort. Such neutrality requires a military for strictly defence of the nation ONLY, and no sales of military supplies except for actually defensive materials to other actually neutral nations. But neutrality for a nation amounts to a thin-film bubble around it, susceptible to both internal and external pressures, in constant diligence to stem leakage. It concerns not just geopolitical issues, but every other world influence including economic, cultural and ideological pressures. Even foreign investment must be questioned, since control of the economy becomes questioned.
Balancing all these factors is brilliantly outlined in Dániel Spollár's article about how Oman navigates these complex issues:
"In classic geopolitical analysis, neutrality is often treated as a static legal status or a posture of non-alignment. For Oman, however, neutrality has never been a passive condition. It is carefully cultivated and actively maintained: a strategy of managed neutrality."
"Managed neutrality is therefore not the end product; it is the enabling basis. Sustained over decades through calculated discretion, non-interference, and a refusal to align fully with unilateral strategies, this posture has helped generate political credibility. That accumulated credibility, in turn, allows Muscat to offer trusted access – the physical, institutional, and political space where adversaries can interact without signaling capitulation to their domestic audiences or international allies. Only at the end of this causal chain does diplomatic facilitation become possible."
"To understand the mechanics of the "Oman Trap," one must first deconstruct what Muscat actually provides to the international system. Oman does not offer external security guarantees, deploy overwhelming financial leverage, or export a compelling ideological model. Its currency is trusted access between actors whose direct engagement has become politically costly, operationally difficult, or temporarily impossible."
Thus, such a neutrality position, a mediatory position, is NOT available to the likes of Canada, since Canada has fully aligned with the EU position of outright hate of Russia, fully employing the Nazi lawyer Carl Schmitt's theme of putting all relationships into "friend or foe." Hate dismantles any possibility of trust, voiding any possibility of dialogue. Thus the die is cast for the final Great War.
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