David Bennett

Russia’s Foreign Policy?

On 22 Dec, Michael Carpenter @mikercarpenterSenior Director @PennBiden. Former DASD for Russia/Balkans/Eurasia @DeptofDefense, Foreign Policy Advisor @JoeBiden, and Director for Russia @NSC44 published a long thread on Twitter.

I have no way of knowing what axe he may have to grind in this world where everything is hostage to misinformation, but I want to record what he tweeted – and we shall see how things play out. Here is what he tweeted:

1 A military incursion into Ukraine. The most likely target is the canal that feeds fresh water from the Dnieper river to Crimea. Without this water, Crimea’s agricultural sector goes under. Also look for Russia to seek complete dominance over the Sea of Azov and Kerch Strait.

2 A military flare-up in Nagorno-Karabakh if Prime Minister Pashinyan does not cater to corrupt Russian interests in Armenia.

3 Pressure on President Lukashenka to allow Russia to build a military base in Belarus, especially if the US green-lights the construction of “Fort Trump” in Poland. If Minsk resists, the Kremlin will be prepared to execute an Anschluss operation.

4 Russia and Iran take control of eastern Syria as the US withdraws and Turkey engages in cross-border attacks on Kurdish fighters. Over time this guarantees that disenfranchised Sunni Arabs radicalize into ISIS 2.0.

5 A growing Russian military presence in Libya helps General Haftar consolidate control of the country, which becomes a Russian protectorate.

6 Moscow arms the Taliban with more sophisticated weapons as the US draws down its forces and the NATO ISAF mission is stretched to the breaking point. Moscow displaces the US as the chief power-broker in Afghanistan and the Taliban comes back to power.

7 Moscow supports Bosnian President Milorad Dodik’s efforts to separate Republika Srpska from the rest of Bosnia and Herzegovina, risking a renewed ethnic conflict in the Balkans.

8 The Russian-Saudi relationship blossoms as Moscow sends more weapons to Saudi Arabia and coordinates further oil supply cuts.

9 EU sanctions on Russia fall apart as one of the EU member states breaks consensus in return for an undisclosed energy deal with Russia. The most likely candidates: Hungary, Italy, Austria.

10 The Kremlin’s active measures campaign in the US goes into overdrive as Russia seeks to shape the 2020 presidential field. Dark money becomes the main tool of Kremlin influence as Russia concludes that financing organic disinformation is more effective than offshore ops.

The Whole World In A Grain Of Rice

The opening lines of Auguries of Innocence by William Blake read as follows.

To see a World in a Grain of Sand
And a Heaven in a Wild Flower
Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand
And Eternity in an hour

The connection with ‘a grain of sand’ in Blake’s poem is a bit of a stretch. But the very smallness of a grain of anything brought to mind how Bloomberg published an article on October 4th. In it they claim that the Chinese government snuck a chip the size of a grain of rice onto the motherboards of servers built by the company Super Micro.

The ‘infected’ motherboards were sent to foreign customers including 30 US companies, some of which had US government contracts. The report refers to a major bank (not named) and to Apple and Amazon as being unwitting recipients of the boards.

Apple and Amazon have denied it. Bloomberg is a reputable news source. You would think they would not be given to make up a story ‘whole cloth’ as it were, without any evidence at all. So what is the truth of it?

Then, on 30th October Bloomberg published a short article in which it reported that Super Micro had said they had found no malicious software in its products.

It also reported that the U.S. Department of Homeland Security had said it has “no reason to doubt” Amazon and Apple’s denials of Bloomberg’s reporting.

So why do I feel that this story of auguries of innocence has a long way to run? Perhaps it will take years for the story to unfold.

Auguries of Innocence

The word ‘augur’, as you probably very well know, is an omen of what is to come. It can be for good or for bad. The poem Auguries of Innocence by William Blake, describes how the cruelties of man done against the animal life of the world does not augur well for human beings.

Update October 2020

On October 9, 2018, Bloomberg issued a second report, alleging that Supermicro-manufactured datacenter servers of a U.S. telecom firm had been compromised by a hardware implant on an Ethernet connector. The report cited Yossi Appleboum, former Israel intelligence officer and co founder of cyber security company Sepio Systems. He was said to have documented implants on various companies’ boards. How widespread is the problem, if it exists at all?

On a visit to the Dohány Synagogue in Budapest

Our guide, Yoel, pointed out the extent of the ghetto from 1944 after the Government tried to surrender to the Allies. The Government was overthrown by Arrow Cross and the Germans marched in.

In front of us in the grounds of the synagogue are buried 2,281 people in mass graves.

The graves look like raised flower beds in a small area by the wall of the synagogue, marked by some plaques. We stare at the space.

How do you cry when the crying is too big,

When the thing about which you want to cry is so big that your cry is swallowed in your mouth,

When the history is many times more than you,

When many others suffered so much, much more,

When your voice is small,

When the pressure of what is inside you and what is outside you tighten in your chest, in your mouth?

That feeling is the feeling you feel.

A Million People

How not to mix things up in a world full of casual brushes with the truth – uncaring as to what is real and what is not. In principle it has always been the same for at least some of the population. Now, however, we have reached critical mass.

Each uncaring and unthinking person has access to weapons of war. A tweet ricochets off another tweet and spins off into another social media platform. Like a pinball machine full of pinballs, the machine gets hot and melts down.

Anger, frustration, good old-fashioned annoyance – they have nowhere they want to go except deeper into the furnace.

And the furnace spits them out. It doesn’t need them except as examples of persons. It doesn’t care about them except for whatever trace they leave behind in the the social weave.

If they all disappeared tomorrow, their loss would be calculated in loss of engagement, followers, likes, and shares.

Darkness At Noon

I was prompted to write the above to fill in some space to test a new layout in Gutenberg. The words came out and I think they in turn were prompted by Darkness At Noon that I read a few days ago. I read it over about three days in three or four sittings.

That’s unusual for me, as I often have two or three books on the go at once and take weeks, months, or longer to finish them.

That said, Darkness At Noon is a novel, so it has a pace that non-fiction books don’t have. But it is hardly much of a novel. A man is arrested, interrogated, tried, and sentenced.

But it is the arguments back and forth during the interrogation that make it memorable, wonderful and terrible, in fact.

I can’t recite it all, there is too much. But early in the back and forth, one of the characters describes a dictatorship where those in the driving seat see one person as simply one million people divided by one million.

When I say wonderful, I mean it in the sense that it homes in on essential issues. Terrible in the sense that the consequences of taking a wrong turn in these arguments can result, has resulted, in the death of millions.

When will it stop? When will the values we aspire to be carried through to the actions we take so that we, the animals, the planet, all are respected and given space to live and to breathe as befits them?

I spoke to a man yesterday who works at the university here in Cambridge. His department works on understanding the pathways of cancer. He told me that all departments in UK universities are now bottom of the list for European grant funding.

Why? Because no one in Europe wants to be involved in the unknowns of the hurdles to fund UK projects after Brexit.

His department has no idea how they are going to get the scientists to work in the department once those from the EU have to leave.

Why? Because Britain has never trained scientists to do the work.

He said that training programmes that have existed in the EU for years simply do not exist in the UK. Why? Because the UK has been able to choose from scientists from the EU who are eager to work in the UK with its front-line work.

How long will it take to train UK scientists to do the work? It will take years.

Britain is being pushed towards revolution. I don’t care whether it is Left or Right. I care that the balance of the day (to borrow a wonderful phrase from Camus) is not disturbed by deranged minds with grand scheming ideas.