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Sunday, Feb 06, 2022 - 21:24 SGT
Posted By: Gilbert

How Cold This War (Prelude)

Mr. Ham: Hooman being, happy Cake Day and Ethnic New Year to you! I have been a very good boi!

Me: You have, haven't you. Yeah, been doing fine.

Mr. Ham: Definitely! For example, I have not pooped in your shoes yesterday!

Me: ..."yesterday"?

Mr. Ham: ...and it depends on what you mean by "poop".

Me: *sobs softly*

Mr. Ham: Hey, I'm doing you a favour here, those shoes were like, wayyyy out of season. Uh, how about we change the subject? Say, to the Cold War II thingy from a fortnight ago?

Me: Well, fine. Not too many surprises yet, with China and Russia having just released a joint statement, about their new "no limits partnership"; I was frankly wondering whether the poker allusion was intended, and come to think of it, it might be quite appropriate. Perhaps I should write up that piece on the language of the Cold Wars someday soon too. This has had The Guardian etc. warn of the looming Cold War II, with the usual accompanying nonsense. For example, China's been freshly accused of hacking* the publisher of the Wall Street Journal, and the U.S. State Department is warning of a Russian false flag as pretext for invasion, but it seems that the administration's credibility is so low that the warning is being suspected as a false flag itself, all the more given Iraq previously.

[*About hacking, it looks like our government may be doing some of it themselves - but it's one of those things that everybody expects everyone else to do, and nobody to admit. Anyway, given all the concern over SMS-based scams recently (with OCBC finally doing a full goodwill payout), it may be informative to read about how such exploits are implemented, with some not even requiring the user to click any included links. Anyway, just the threat of such hacks can substantially affect productivity (i.e. TSA security theatre), if the shift towards a closed ecosystem at my org is anything to go by.]

But in any case, it's not like the vaxx acceptance map presented last week should have been much of an eye-opener, for dabblers in international relations. For example, one could have readily guessed that Switzerland would likely be non-aligned, if nothing else - whichever bloc wins or loses, their elites will need a safe hidey-hole to stash their cash anyhow. Note, also, that were "public health" or "science" the overriding concern, the acceptance map would be quite rightly expected to be fully-grey, since the WHO Emergency Use list alone - the pinnacle of establishment-accepted science, one expects - already includes vaccines from all sides. Again, this is not even about application on one's citizens, but just for visitors. And yet, there we are, in basically the Cold War I configuration.

Staying with Europe, Spain's acceptance of all the Top Six vaccines other than Sputnik V has them perhaps the most-prominent European nation to take the neutral stance, recalling the Francoist regime's relative aloofness to both major blocs in Cold War I, but that would probably be a semester by itself. This is far from a hard rule, though, with Hungary and Croatia for example okay with Sputnik V (but not with the Chinese vaccines, in Croatia's case), while Ukraine is (perhaps not entirely surprisingly) for Pfizer, Covishield and Sinovac, but not Sputnik V. As it is, Russia has their own (internal) narrative, with Ukraine having to settle for a trilateral partnership with Britain and Poland for now. Whether or not partly driven by BoJo's own troubles, it remains that the U.K. (and perhaps the U.S.) drawing Eastern Europe into its orbit in preference to the continental powers of Germany/France etc. always made the most sense, as expounded upon in January 2020.

As pointed out, most of the "Alliance of Democracies" group remains unchanged from before, upon comparison with classic Cold War I maps - it might be noted that this includes eight of the top ten countries by nominal GDP, exceptions being China (in second) and India (in sixth; Russia is eleventh). The biggest standouts amongst the formerly-First World (or allied) states would to me be Turkey, Brazil, and the Philippines, in that order; Turkey for their nigh-unparalleled strategic position at the crossroads of (Eur)asia, Brazil for being by far the most significant power in South America (covering roughly half the region's population/land area), and the Philippines for being the keystone of the First Island Chain containment plan. Considering all this, it might perhaps explain why Erdogan, Bolsonaro and Duterte have gotten so much outsized flak from the Anglo AoD media - it's not as if there aren't a bunch of possibly rather-worse authoritarians (or outright dictators) running around; it's just that they simply aren't as significant in the bigger picture, or have bowed to the globohomo**.

[**homogeneity, not homosexuality.]

Of course, if you're de facto allies with Uncle Sam, you can just murder journalists and amputate limbs as punishment with some tut-tutting, as can be readily observed in the Middle East. The current situation given America's (overdue) washing their hands of the region appears to be a standoff between Israel and Saudi Arabia on one side (wait, what about religion?), and Iran on the other (wait, what about democracy?), which suggests that for all the high-minded blathering about ideals, it's usually realpolitik all the way down. Qatar has just been designated a major non-NATO ally some days back, and yep, they take Pfizer, Moderna and AstraZeneca exclusively.

On that, one supposes there aren't too many sleepless nights at the U.S. State Department over parts of Africa being nominally red as of now, though Nicaragua seems about to get coup-ed for drawing too close to China, with the denouncements in the Anglo mainstream media already on - but they should be used to that sort of thing by now. If it happens, I gather their reporting of it versus, say, Myanmar, would be rather different - most probably by muted silence. On a sidenote, the CCP-mouthpiece CCTV line against the Uyghur accusations seems to revolve about such - and minority incarceration in U.S. prisons - from my house visits. Perhaps their propaganda style may remain less than persuasive to outsiders, but from the recent precipitous decline in the credibility of the Anglo media (to be explored next), I gather the U.S. and pals are fast losing their advantage on that end.

There are then curiosities such as Mongolia being seemingly non-aligned despite being sandwiched by Russia and China (which does make sense if one thinks about it), and Cuba apparently returned to the blue fold (although this seems largely due to a lack of data, with the widget returning only Yes for Moderna, and No for Sputnik V) - in reality, however, they seem to be busy creating their own stuff, which should be applauded, I guess. Given all these patterns, it's tough to claim that the "science" of vaccines hasn't been co-opted as a Cold War Power Play, and the most interesting development to me would be: what if China releases their own mRNA vaccines? One gathers modest efficacy having been an easy diplomatic excuse for passing on Sinovac/pharm previously, and their development of mRNA vaccines may not be going all that swimmingly, but what happens if they claim a 98%-efficacy product a couple of months down the line? All the more as they shouldn't have a problem rustling together a test population on the latest variants, this time around?

Well, what's life without making a bold punt or two, and so I'll stick to my line from last December on this - four jabs to be it in most places, and the landscape of the Game to change, before they get to bring their new tech into the arena.

[To be continued...]



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