RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/18417/china-taking-over-africa

“America cannot ignore Africa. Africa’s challenges, opportunities, and security interests are inseparable from our own…. Our competitors clearly see Africa’s rich potential. Russia and China both seek to convert soft and hard power investments into political influence, strategic access, and military advantage. China’s economic and diplomatic engagements allow it to buttress autocracies and change international norms in a patient effort to claim their second continent.” — General Stephen Townsend, Commander of United States Africa Command, Senate Armed Services Committee, March 15, 2022.

About 40 out of Africa’s 54 countries participate in China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), the global infrastructure and economic development project that the Chinese Communist Party launched in 2013. BRI aims to build an economic and infrastructure network connecting China with Europe, Africa and beyond, and has already strengthened China’s global influence from East Asia to Europe by making countries worldwide increasingly dependent on China.

“China is dependent on Africa for imports of fossil fuels and commodities… Beijing has increased its control of African commodities through strategic direct investment in oil fields, mines, and production facilities, as well as through resource-backed loans that call for in-kind payments of commodities. This control threatens the ability of U.S. companies to access key supplies.” — US-China Economic and Security Review Commission, 2020 annual report to Congress.

In June 2021, in an extremely belated attempt to counter China’s Belt and Road Initiative, the Biden administration together with the G7 launched a new global infrastructure initiative, the Build Back Better World (B3W)…. The initiative, however, comes across as far too little, too late. Between 2007 and 2020, China invested $23 billion in infrastructure projects in Africa, according to the Center for Global Development, a US think tank. That is reportedly “$8 billion more than… the other top eight lenders combined…”

It will be very near impossible for the US or others to catch up on that, especially with the planned B3W initiative, because that initiative is not focused on much-needed tangible investments. Instead, its four focus areas are climate, health and health security, digital technology, and gender equity and equality.

“More troubling is B3W’s apparent excision of hard physical infrastructure from its remit… In Africa, which lags all other regions of the world in the availability of paved roads and electricity [and rail], that deficit that deficit is set to grow without a massive influx of hard infrastructure investment…” — Gyude Moore, senior policy fellow, Center for Global Development, African Business, February 13, 2022.

In the absence of a serious coordinated international effort, China will go on to fill that infrastructure gap, as it continues to consolidate its influence in Africa while the US lags behind.

China continues to deepen its engagement in Africa on all levels. Recently it engaged in a flurry of diplomatic activity with African countries. In March alone, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi held bilateral talks with his African counterparts in Algeria, Egypt, The Gambia, Niger, Somalia, Tanzania and Zambia. The talks came only two months after Wang Yi visited Eritrea, Kenya and Comoros. Also in March, Chinese President Xi Jinping had a phone conversation with South African President Cyril Ramaphosa, during which the two spoke about deepening cooperation between the two countries. Ramaphosa affirmed that he supports China’s policies on Taiwan, Tibet, and other “major issues”.

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/18420/france-presidential-election

While Macron appears well on his way to being re-elected, it is appropriate first to draw a balance sheet of his actions as president. For five years, his term has been marked by political scandals that all had the same origin: the desire of this president, with his background in investment banking, to make the state work like a start-up — that is to say, to make the state work without the state’s services.

Macron has tried to create a private militia that works around the security organization of the presidency of the Republic… also in the name of efficiency, he has asked consulting firms (such as McKinsey; Boston Consulting Group, Accenture), in place of the large state institutions and ministries, to formulate polices on the environment, health, security, labor and retirement.

Distrust and contempt sparked the Gilets Jaunes (“Yellow Vests”) protest movement in 2019, when an increase in fuel prices provoked months of demonstrations by France’s working class — those whom globalization has relegated to the outskirts of large cities and who need their cars to go to work. This protest movement, despised and misunderstood, was repressed by the police with extreme violence.

Macron did not, however, despise everyone. He has given the greatest consideration to Islam and Muslim immigration. During his five-year term, immigration from Africa, North Africa and Asia was not considered a danger, but an “opportunity” for France.

Despite this catastrophic record, it is likely that Macron will be re-elected on April 24. By whom? Who are his voters? First of all, let us specify that one out of four voters did not even vote. Yet it is precisely Le Pen’s electorate who are suffering from this situation: namely, young people and the working classes.

Macron’s voters are mainly retired people, executives, and inhabitants of big cities. Executives benefit from globalization, and the elderly and retired people do not like what appears to a revolution; they are afraid of the radical changes proposed by candidates such as Zemmour or Le Pen.

The elderly are not the majority, but they vote.

Marine Le Pen and the incumbent French President Emmanuel Macron will face each other in the second round of the French presidential election on April 24. The results of yesterday’s first round, with 97% of the votes tallied, show Macron coming out ahead with 27.6% of the vote, followed by Le Pen at 23.4%.

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/18416/turkey-islamists-bearing-gifts

Then there was what turned out to be a myth about the success of Turkish drones used by the Ukrainian army inflicting “huge” damage on the invading Russian columns. Drones, regardless of their capabilities, cannot be game-changers in a conflict with such vastly asymmetrical military might. The West must send jets, tanks, anti-aircraft, anti-armor and anti-ship missiles, and other weapons to Ukraine to repel Russia’s Chinese-backed aggression — fast — or the US and Europe will soon find themselves enmeshed in wars even messier to fight.

What else does Erdoğan — who is and always has been ideologically anti-Western — think he can win from the West by his hoax charm offensive?

Erdoğan seems to think that just because the madman of Russia did something mad, he, the president of Turkey, can once again fool the West by posing as a pro-Western ally. Let’s do a reality check….

Believing that the TB2 unmanned aerial vehicles could be game-changers in Ukraine is similar to thinking that the Turkish drones could be used to stop a Chinese invasion of Taiwan.

In an op-ed published in the Wall Street Journal, former CIA official Paul Kolbe suggested that “Turkey should send Ukraine the Russian-made S-400 missile defense systems.” Turkey said, however, that it dismissed the idea of transferring those systems to Ukraine to help Kyiv resist Russian troops.

The West’s primary weapon against the Russian aggression is sanctions. Who is in it? And who is not? As Western governments targeted Roman Abramovich and several other Russian oligarchs with sanctions to isolate Putin and his allies — but not most Russian oligarchs or businesses — a second super-yacht linked to the Russian billionaire docked in a Turkish resort. In addition, no one seems to be touching the $700 million yacht docked in Italy and reportedly owned by Putin.

A source in Ankara told Reuters that given the sanctions imposed elsewhere, Abramovich and other wealthy Russians were looking to invest in Turkey…. Another source in Ankara said Turkey was not currently considering joining the sanctions action against Russia and was expecting wealthy Russians to purchase assets and make investments.

Turkey apparently hopes to get all it can from this “Christian-to-Christian” conflict: Let the infidels destroy each other as Turkey cashes in with geostrategic gains and spill-over Russian business from the West.

Few people could imagine that on a cold March day in Turkey’s capital, Ankara, the presidential corps, after more than a decade of hostility to its neighbor Israel, would welcome Israeli President Isaac Herzog by playing Israel’s national anthem, Hatikva, with two presidential guards holding Turkish and Israeli flags on horseback. Pundits were quick to talk about a “reset in relations,” or a “historic visit.” Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan said he now intends to host Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett in Ankara.

https://quadrant.org.au/opinion/qed/2022/04/putin-should-have-brushed-up-on-his-clausewitz/

“The one lesson to be learned from this blatant land-grabbing invasion driven by nationalistic factors is that history repeats itself as both tragedy and farce. Clausewitz, as ever, could have predicted the outcome. Whatever happens, the Free World is behind the Ukrainians in their determination to defend their land. If the axiom that generals are always fighting the last war is applied, it would seem that this has been ignored by the Russian High Command – and to their cost. Whatever is to follow, we are seeing Stalingrad in reverse.”

Everything in war is very simple. But the simplest thing is difficult.
                                                                                   –– Carl von Clausewitz

Six weeks after the Russian invasion of the Ukraine, both military experts and the watching public are more than a little surprised at developments and reconsidering views of fixed certainty that preceded the invasion. Against all odds and contrary to what was expected, the Ukrainians, with a far smaller army and less access to the latest in high-tech weapons, have more than held their own, preventing the Russians from taking any major cities, taking a great toll of their armour and planes and, of late, even advancing from their defensive lines.

None of this was supposed to happen. According to the rules of war, superiority in numbers is essential for victory: “Quantity equals quantity,” Stalin is reported to have said. The blitzkrieg plan was intended to destroy Ukraine’s airfields and air force, followed by an onslaught of armour and infantry supported by drone, artillery and missiles to take the capital Kyiv.

Far from it. Hand-held missiles have contained the airborne onslaught – Russian planes are now rarely seen –  as well as destroying many helicopters. Taking into account that truth is the first casualty, media photos have shown so many shots of destroyed Russian tanks and armoured vehicles that it is clear the armed fist of the invading force has lost its potency. In addition, hordes of soldiers have deserted, surrendered or been captured. Nor have the invaders presented an image of determination or aggression; rather, they come across as frightened and distraught young men bewildered to even be in a war, not having been told before that they were in an invasion. The interviews of tearful lads appealing to their mothers is not a good look in a well-drilled, disciplined and motivated army.