zazen

Same - real protests hijacked by provocateurs as boasted about by Mike Pompeo etc. Very interesting take from Turkeys admiral:

If egalitarianism is a value or principle, socialist principles are just a method of achieving it. I think it depends how everyone is defining socialism and capitalism ie is socialism erasure of property rights/ownership or simply disciplining the market for social benefit. Today we largely have mixed economies but there are leanings where one side dominates. Blueoak is correct to critique the market as the only means to produce or provide something: @Elliott Markets naturally have short time horizons and lean to profit maximization. Some fundamentals / public goods need long time horizons / heavy upfront investment or are too critical to allow monopolistic control over leading to monopoly pricing. Norway has complete ownership or large stakes in many critical industries / public goods compared to UK for example where things have been privatized and prices have increased a lot. Norway also has a sovereign wealth fund - the key word there being sovereign. The main issue in the West and particularly UK/US more so is that they allowed capital to become too sovereign / autonomous and didn't maintain a hierarchy where the state is the apex authority / power center. Capital should be sub-ordinate to the state and national interest / development. The glamorised ''rugged individuals'' who built America - industrialist capitalists - had to be broken up due to becoming to powerful. Capitalists / libertarians attribute the golden era of of the US to them to justify capitalism but in reality the golden era came after them laying the foundation (literally tracks and rail roads). Even that was only enabled by massive land grants by the state so it wasn't just some lone individualist capitalists building the US. It's the equivalent of being given land by the state today - anything you build and the value you add is captured without the major upfront cost of acquiring the land eating into your profits. ''The golden era (roughly 1945–1970) only emerged after the state intervened to rebalance power. The state did three critical things: Broke monopolies (antitrust) Regulated finance tightly (Glass-Steagall, capital controls) Invested massively in infrastructure, education, and industrial capacity This subordinated capital to national development. Capital became productive and constrained.'' That was a anomaly. Things reverted back to extractive, speculative rentier oligarchy. Feudalism just became financialized and hollowed out the nation. The solution obviously isn't to go full socialist either because it messes incentives / pricing etc. Going by your reply to Blueoak I don't think he'd want to have the value of his labor re-distributed to you lol. Families in-fight over inheritance, friends get pissed for not splitting the bill fairly if they ate an extra chip - let alone scaling this to an entire nation. ''Toil for me comrade'' - doesn't work brother. The ego is undefeated and bhuddahood doesn't scale - not even in our era of internet access to gurus or Leo's body of work. Maybe we need state directed enforcement of airlines needing to only show high conscious material like Leo's youtube - but then libs will scream authoritarian for taking away their ''fReEdOM''. ''I wanna watch homeland and Kardashians yaaaas''

In-directly applying pressure to such a degree that once a threshold is crossed and people revolt we see crackdowns by the same regime that’s hardened by the same sanctions - causing them to act brutal to survive. We saw the culmination of that this year. Death counts anywhere from 5-30k+ - not sure what to believe but whatever the number its insane in such a short amount of days. Russia is far more resilient to the sanctions because it’s ''too big too fail'' in a sense. It wasn't sanctioned until much later because EU depends on their energy - sanctioning them hurts themselves. Even when it was, it wasn't fully isolated the same way as Iran was. Iran's been under sanctions far longer and far harsher so the pressures been built over time. They also don't have any exits / options for the people to migrate to as the regions either war torn or impossible borders to cross unlike Venezuela which releaved a lot of the pressure - millions migrating into neighboring countries. NK is a dystopia with fully locked down under a bunker mentality made for isolation. The people are tragically under total surveillance state control. No one can coordinate revolt. If a person steps out of line their entire bloodline gets affected and punished. Wiki, Yeonjwa: ''three to eight generations of a political offender's family can be summarily imprisoned or executed. Relatives are not told why they fell under suspicion and the punishment extends to children born in prison.'' What a shit hole - if there's one case of a country that deserves the entire world to rescue its people it would be NK but the fuckers have nukes.

The most basic stand on Iran is that the government needs to change (reform, not necessarily regime change) and that external actors shouldn’t intervene in counterintuitive un-ethical ways (sanctions or war) that only leads to hardening of the regimes posture under seige conditions and hardship / bloodbath for locals. Confessions of a economic hitman: Lesson learnt for 85% of the globe: participate in BRICS to hedge against this financialized imperialism that the US and West have monopoly over. OG Middle East expert: Liberalising requires surplus, which require stability, which requires at least some coercive capacity to begin with. The West went through internal repression, elite consolidation and coercive state building - externalized much violence through empire, then domestically liberalized. They had slack to do so - which no longer exists for late developers in a post-colonial world. Countries start to deal with human rights and liberal values once they have the conditions for it after securing the human right of survival and stability. The West's very own actions get in the way, sabotaging that sequence. Intervention by empire used to be justified by the “white mans burden” and is now laundered through “democracy promotion”. The same countries being “helped” get judged by countries that themselves went through and are at the end of that developmental sequence.

https://www.justice.gov/epstein/files/DataSet 9/EFTA00090314.pdf “(U) Captioned Confidential Human Source (CHS) was asked by the handling agent about information he/she may be aware of related to improper domestic or foreign influence over the electoral process in the U.S. CHS already provided some of this information documented in previous reports, but he/she expanded on several matters, as described below: (U Harvard Law Professor Alan Dershowitz (Dershowitz). CHS learned that Dershowitz influenced many students from wealthy families. For example. Josh Kushner (Josh) and Jared Kushner (Jared) were both his students. Dershowitz told CHS that if he were young again, he would be holding a stun gun as an Israeli Intelligence (Mossad) agent. CHS believed Dershowitz was co-opted by Mossad and subscribed to their mission. CHS still continues to communicate occasionally for Dershowitz [See previous reporting]. (U) Jeffrey Epstein (Epstein) was represented by Dershowitz. CHS remembered Dershowitz tell Alex Ocasta (U.S. Attorney of Southern District of Florida at the time) that Epstein belonged to both U.S. and allied intelligence services. CHS shared phone calls between Dershowitz and Epstein during which he/she took notes. After these calls, Mossad would then call Dershowitz to debrief. Epstein was close to the former Prime Minister of Israel, Ehud Barak (Barak) and trained as a spy under him. Barak believed Netanyahu was a criminal. Saudi Arabia, Israel and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) are allied against Qatar, Turkey, Iran and Syria. One of CHS' (who presumably worke asked CHS a lot of questions about Epstein. CHS became convinced t t pstein was a co-opted Mossad Agent (see previous reporting).”

Clickbaity title and thumbnail but interesting related vid.

True - if I get it then egalitarianism is a value (reducing unfair disparities), socialism is a property and power arrangement (eliminating ownership to reduce inequalities and classes all together?

Related. MEGA.

This. “The question is whether “True Communism” much like “True Capitalism” can ever be implemented in their purest forms by a human nature that isn’t 100% pure. Communism demands we not be greedy for the sake of community and assumes others will fend for us - capitalism demands we be greedy enough to fend for ourselves and assumes doing so will have a trickle down effect on those less able to compete with us.” Utopianism doesn’t scale - bhudaahood doesn’t scale to where people can and will be egoless enough to work and not see the fruits of their labour - but see those fruits distributed to the community within which some people don’t work as hard or well. Fucks up the incentives. Life is complex and wiggly - any ism trying to force life into straight lines will fail (got that from Alan Watts).

The best video I've come across to understand Epstein: The first hour is mind blowing, even the second. Can skip the last 40 min if short on time. Before and as you guys listen to it - read the following tweet I came across and keep it in mind as to how the world operates https://x.com/matthewstoller/status/2018388941389373748: ''The Jeff Epstein saga isn't a scandal about pedophilia, it's about a Russian word called 'blat,' a Soviet-era word meaning 'the use of personal networks for obtaining goods and services in short supply and for circumventing formal procedures.' It's about a kind of government. As with the large number of 'blatniks' in the Soviet era who made sure their factories got what they needed outside the formal state procurement process, Epstein greased the wheels for the neoliberal state. His job was governance. What does that mean? Well it's clear that Epstein was an entrepreneurial broker across multiple public and private bureaucracies, helping organize 'under-the-table' deals among the legal, business, intelligence, and political elites to allow them to escape the rule of law and traditional conflict of interest restrictions. It's statecraft to allow a superclass to systemically escape the formalized rules. The pedophilia and prostitution were part of it - that is obviously violating the rule of law - but so are the random favors Epstein bestowed. Like Epstein sending Senator Joe Manchin's request for a yacht, a request which came from the First lady of the Virginia Islands, to a random NY financier who might have one. Or working with Joi Ito at MIT and billionaire Reid Hoffman to restructure the Bitcoin Foundation. It's all about matching capital and talent and inputs outside of the restrictions ordinary people are subject to. This kind of governance is particularly important in Soviet-style states, where everyone knows the rules are fake, where skirting the system IS the system. Epstein and his affiliates thrived because of the weakened institutions of the United States, institutions enfeebled in many cases by the men in his network, like Larry Summers. These men adopted multiple roles - advisor, businessman, academic, board member, regulator - and put on the hat that best maximized their self-interest and the self-interest of their narrow network at that moment. The old world, where handing someone your business card meant you represented that institution, disappeared in the 1980s. Over the course of the 1990s, neoconservatives, neoliberals, bankers - ultimately Epstein's network - built this new social order. It was one where you couldn't succeed through the formal rules, but if you were let into the networks of trust by blatniks, you could do anything you wanted. While all the specifics of Epstein's network are not known, and while conspiracy theorists often have crazy views, they have correctly fingered that the world of meritocracy and formalized systems is increasingly a fraud. And that the real government lies elsewhere. In short, when formal democratic institutions like Congress stop governing, the networks of men like Epstein fill the power vacuum. Epstein built what Roy Cohn always wanted to have, but never achieved, because the then-institutions were too strong for him to break.''

Is Putin based then? Thing is pedophilia, corruption and sexual predation are worldwide. What makes it distinct in the West is the systematization and sophistication of the abuses. Like the difference between crime and organised crime. What makes it sinister is the overlay of satanic rhetoric and symbolism we see in the West - that we see more conservative societies and people in the non-West speak against. Perhaps they are conflated and not as linked or coordinated as we think. I was chatting to GPT about it back and forth and came to some explanations: 1. When late stage empires lose a shared moral center, art and culture do three things, in this order: Transgression replaces virtue, Shock replaces meaning, Inversion replaces aspiration - This has happened before: Late Rome (decadent theater, sexualized power, cruelty as spectacle), Late Versailles (mockery of religion, fetishized excess), Weimar Germany (hypersexual, nihilistic art) Hollywood today is textbook late-imperial culture. Ironically, satanic narratives protect the system by making it sound too insane to confront politically. 2. Satanic symbolism is culturally preloaded shorthand for: inversion of norms, rebellion against authority, taboo-breaking, dominance over the sacred. contempt for restraint Artists use it because: it instantly signals “transgressive”, provokes attention, generates controversy (free marketing), flatters the elite self-image of being “beyond morality” It’s aesthetic rebellion, not metaphysical allegiance. 3. Modern culture is governed by attention economics, not meaning. In attention markets: outrage outperforms beauty, shock outperforms coherence, taboo outperforms subtlety So the system rewards: ever more extreme visuals, sexualization, blasphemy, nihilism Not because elites believe in it — but because it sells and dominates discourse. 4. Hollywood sits at the intersection of: extreme wealth. extreme narcissism, weak accountability, performative rebellion, permanent adolescence Combine that with: declining belief in religion, declining belief in nation, declining belief in truth. And what’s left Rebellion without a cause becomes identity. 5. It feels coordinated because: the same incentives apply everywhere, the same social class circulates globally, the same aesthetics signal “elite belonging”. You’re seeing class culture, not conspiracy. Just like: aristocrats once wore powdered wigs, financiers wear Patagonia vests, tech elites wear minimalism, Hollywood elites wear transgression. ** Actual Satanists vs theatrical symbolism 6. Majority of identifiable or perceived satanists use the symbolism as short hand for rebellion and transgression. Not as a metaphysical conviction. It's provocation, not religion. A much smaller fringe group believe in its via occultism, drawing from Crowley and Jung. Still usually non-theistic. More about psychology and identity than power. A even smaller group are actual theistic Satanists. Tiny numbers with no political or institutional power. Just a isolated sub-culture. Why this still feels sinister 1. Because the moral signal is real, even if the metaphysics aren’t. What people are sensing is: A ruling cultural class that openly plays with domination, dehumanization, and inversion of the sacred — because it no longer fears consequences. The imagery is not evidence of a literal satanic priesthood cabal running the world. But it is evidence of something just as consequential: a civilizational loss of moral center at the cultural elite level. 2. The dominant signals in Western elite culture right now are: transgression as virtue, shock as sophistication, desecration as creativity, rebellion without purpose, power without responsibility. That combination tells you something very precise: The culture no longer knows what it is protecting, so it celebrates what it once restrained. That is a late-stage civilizational marker, not a conspiracy. 3. It’s not just that the imagery exists — it’s that it is tolerated, normalized, and platformed. Strong civilizations do not: aestheticize self-degradation, eroticize domination, mock the sacred in mass culture, expose children to nihilistic symbolism, confuse transgression with progress They don’t need to ban it aggressively — they simply don’t reward it. 4. Why this is different from “dark power centers” You’re also right to separate these two things: Imperial intelligence / power networks → cold, instrumental, amoral, strategic Cultural nihilism / decadence → expressive, symbolic, narcissistic, theatrical They can coexist — and they do — but they are not the same phenomenon. Epstein, intelligence networks, informal power, empire: operate through incentives, secrecy, leverage. Don’t need symbolism, don’t care about aesthetics, don’t advertise themselves. The cultural transgression you’re describing is almost the opposite: it’s loud, performative, self-exposing, morally exhibitionist That alone should tell you it’s not the “real control layer”. 5. A civilization does not collapse because it worships evil — it collapses because it stops believing in the good. When that happens: limits dissolve, shame disappears, meaning erodes, power becomes playful, cruelty becomes aesthetic. People reach for satanic explanations because: they’re trying to name moral inversion, they’re grasping for a vocabulary of evil, they feel something has gone fundamentally wrong They’re not wrong about the wrongness — just about the mechanism. 6. If similar symbolism spread elsewhere without resistance, that would indicate moral decay there too. This isn’t “Western evil” as essence. It’s what happens to any wealthy, insulated elite culture that loses restraint. The West just happens to be there now — and exporting it globally. 7. To conclude: The prevalence of transgressive, demonic, and nihilistic symbolism in Western elite culture does not indicate a hidden satanic priesthood or occult governance. It indicates something both simpler and more serious: the loss of a shared moral center. The imagery functions as symbolic inversion — a way for insulated elites to signal untouchability, rebellion, and dominance in a culture where restraint no longer commands respect. The danger is not metaphysical but civilizational. When a society tolerates and platforms such aesthetics, especially in mass culture and before children, it signals not secret belief but moral exhaustion. Conspiracy bro's having a field day though and no one anymore is going to dismiss them outright for probably a decade lol. The danger is in mixing half truths with non truths - or connecting and conflating two half truths to think they got the ''whole Truth''. Certain things should simply not be tolerated even for ''art'' or ''freedom of speech''. This is where liberalism trips up over itself. ''FrEeDoM''. No - ya'll need Jesus, Muhammed, Bhudda and Leo Gura. A mature sense of spirituality is needed without religious dogmatism. None of this childish adolesecnet poo pooing of anything ''conservative'' constraining your precious ''FrEeDoMs'' with all that moral relativism. But that would be ''AuThOriTaRiaN''. This is reflexive libertarian / liberal brain slop propoganda trained to make anything feel like a slippery slope to Hitler. Just like with how right wingers can view any socialist policy as the slippery slope to communism. Liberate those wallets for the oligarchs broski.

I think the Eastern countries were right to join NATO - anyone would have considering the history. Unfortunately no matter how democratic or lawful a countries decision may be - great powers have a red line - which is to not allow other great powers who are seen as rivals that openly want to contain them - park up right next to them either by land (Russia) or sea (China). Just as the Cuban missile crisis was understandably acted upon by the US. If Venezuela had started stationing Russian/Chinese missiles pointed at the US or started creating deep military interoperability (de-fact NATO style as with Ukraine) - US would be totally understandable for acting upon that - even if it would be morally and lawfully illegitimate and bloody. The issue wasn't Eastern Europe's fear but was in joining a alliance where the leaders incentives differ. The US seeks primacy of the globe, containing the rise of any challengers to it (Wolfowitz doctrine) - their logic is imperial unipolarity. Mainland Europe's logic (if not imperial) would rationally be seeking to accommodate and co-exist with a nuclear neighbor within a shared security architecture - which geography will never allow you to escape, so it only makes sense to co-exist. Europe is and has been trapped between Russian security logic and Atlantic hegemonic logic. The Atlanticist empire's of Britain, then passing the baton onto the US - were built off dominating the sea's (trade routes, chokepoints) and finance (reserve currency). Any continental integration happening outside of that control threatens their primacy - including Eurasian integration. That logic has been so institutionally embedded due to the dominance of the prior British Empire, then the subsequent US empire, that the continent has atrophied it's own strategic thinking relating to whats in its own interest ie don't hitch your ride to one power totally but rather play powers off each other and remain neutral to gain leverage. See who does this well - Turkey, India, Pakistan (between China/US). See the result of not doing it well - Ukraine, Europe. That logic now has its own inertia and is now reflexive - even Epstein is blamed as a Russian honeypot operation lol despite all evidence to the contrary. Europe's sovereignty has been constrained militarily (NATO-US), economically (US finance and corporations), and energetically (Nord Stream - US LNG dependence rendering them industrially un-competitive). Continental drift towards Eurasian integration has been geopolitically cock blocked and Europe is further tied to the Atlanticist imperial orbit. Only now with the most blatant actions from the US now has Europe rubbing their eyes awake to the need of hedging against that domination, subjugation and humiliation. The US post WW2 literally backed and installed dictators via coups (school of the Americas). It didn't support democracy by principle - it worked with authoritarians when it suited its interest and toppled democratically elected leaders when it didn't (UK-US coup of Mossadeg in Iran 1953). That lead to the revolution and Ayotallah which Western imperialism is still targeting today. The West supports Gulf Monarchs till today too. The ongoing struggle since WW2 has really been about preventing any independent power center / pole outside Atlantic control - including of Europe itself being one. Geopolitics start to make sense from this lens. It's been talked about since centuries - Mackinder's world island theory, Spykman's Rimland theory, Brezinksi's great chessboard. ''Who rules East Europe commands the Heartland; who rules the Heartland commands the World-Island; who rules the World-Island commands the world.'' Hence why Iran-Russia-China are boogeymen - they share the worlds largest landmass and don't want to bend the knee to that primacy. Hence why Israel was strategically seen as a beneficial outpost and frontier state (from Britain till the US) - occupying space on that same land. Biden said Israel is the best investment - and investments require a return on that investment. That return is not for the national interest but for imperial interest. Hence Greenland's importance - with Artic sea routes opening up trade outside Atlanticist control that would benefit integrating Europe to Asia. That results in Europe gaining future leverage and increased autonomy away from the US orbit - which pre-empts early geostrategic positioning to maintain primacy. Hence Venezuela, a country in the US hemisphere trading outside of the US dollar (reserve currency) needing to be disciplined whilst signalling to other countries not to defect from the financial system that upholds their dominance. BRICS neutralises Atlantic imperial primacy via finance (non dollar settlement) and trade (land based belt and road). This is the ongoing battle and the great game at play. Not so much authoritarian vs democracy. On Authoritarianism vs Democracy Invoking communism no longer holds so ''authoritarian vs democracy'' becomes the new story. But it’s less about regime type and more about alignment - which certain regime types (democratic) are easier to penetrate and coerce into alignment. Communism was for sure a systemic ideological threat because it threatened private capital interests. It's good that communism failed because its genuinely flawed. The issue is that neo-liberalism is too and one ideology failed whilst the other remained to hollow out its own countries leading to financialized feudalism and reactionary populism / authoritarianism. Yeltsin who oversaw the wind down of communist USSR did neo-liberal shock therapy that had terrible results and brought us Putin to hard fistedly stabilise things. Any system that totalizes a particular logic sucks - whether it’s communal logic or capital logic. China is striking a balance today somewhat by using capitalist mechanisms for socialist ends, run by a centralized meritocratic state. The thing with the West using the ''authoritarian vs democracy'' argument is that liberal democracy is treated as a beginning state that needs to be imposed (ironic) or promoted for development to happen, rather than as a end state that comes after survival and stability are secured - something the West had plenty of time to do via colonization that externalized authoritarian violence and coercion so that they could domestically indulge in universalism pluralism. They had the geopolitical luxury of doing so. Liberalising requires surplus, which require stability, which requires at least some coercive capacity to begin with. The West went through internal repression, elite consolidation and coercive state building - externalized much violence through empire, then domestically liberalized. They had slack to do so - which no longer exists for late developers in a post-colonial world. Countries start to deal with human rights and liberal values once they have the conditions for it after securing the human right of survival and stability. The West's very own actions get in the way, sabotaging that sequence. Intervention by empire used to be justified by the “white mans burden” and is now laundered through “democracy promotion”. The same countries being “helped” get judged by countries that themselves went through and are at the end of that developmental sequence.

But I think its flawed to re-categorise them as building the USSR. The USSR at its core was a imperial political project that had shared economic integration (command economy directed from Russia), military (unified command under the Red Army), and ideology (communism). Any presence in ex empire regions doesn't automatically mean making that same empire there - it can simply be exercising influence which all powers do. The distinction between influence and imperialism is intent and coercion - not just presence of bases, troops, economic links. Intent (imperial accumulation or security preservation) + legitimacy (coerced or not) are helpful in understanding. Russia invading Ukraine for example is clearly illegitimate (morally and lawfully), yet strategically understandable from a security standpoint / buffer state logic where a red line was crossed and acted upon. Same with Georgia, Crimea. The Black Sea is like a strategic throat for Russia (warm water access) which would land lock them if taken out through encirclement and containment (as the US has said it wants to do and has done in action). Crimea (Sevastopol) is existential for them - which is why it was taken immediately after Maidan. Georgia is also at the underbelly of Russia and on the Black Sea. They flirted with NATO ascension at the 2008 Bucharest summit - after which Russia launched. Moldova is a frozen leftover and the least justifiable or understandable (security wise) position for Russia to hold. It's only possible value is its proximity to Odessa and to complicate NATO encroachment through there presence there - but it definitely isn't existential. Even the existence of asymmetry or dependency isn't by itself imperial. Strong larger powers naturally create dependency with those they deal with - asymmetries will always exist - just like is happening with China Russia or for example with Pakistan relying on China heavily for its military equipment. What would make China imperial in both cases would be where that arrangement is enforced or coerced by credible punishment or the threat of it for defection ie violent force, sanctions, de-stabilisation and intervention. That is the case with Europe or other countries wanting to play outside the US system by trading outside it (non-dollar settlement). As the title says - internal. No state willingly gives up or allows secession. Britain with Northern Ireland, Spain with Catalonia, US wouldn't allow it either without a fight. China clamped down on Xinjiang for the same reason - their were also Islamist elements designated as terrorists by the West itself (spillover from a radicalized Middle Eastern region). The method was inhumane yes - but they didn't bomb the region as the West did trying to deal with Islamists. Russia had a bloody war to maintain Chechnya also - brutal. The first one was actually launched under Yeltsin who was Western aligned and seen as democratically elected / legitimate. He was literally dissolving the USSR - so why Chechnya? Because it wasn't seen as a separate satellite state but Russia proper - which would be like giving up a room in your own house and lead to a domino affect of others also seceding - which is why states prevent secession to begin with. The world could keep breaking up into ethnic / tribal states till we have a 1000 nations on the planet - including Balochistan in Pakistan for example. Former colonial regions where ex colonial powers used armed force externally = not necessarily colonialism either if seen from the same lens (legitimacy and coercion). In all the cases listed Russia / China / Turkey in (Africa/ME) were invited by the host state and their presence is seen as legitimate and non-coercive. No invasion or intervention is happening - only influence of great - middle powers. The reason France's influence is eroding in Africa and being replaced by them is because they were never initially invited (colonial) and their presence remains as a colonial residue losing legitimacy. They aren't expanding empire but aren't dismantling the neo-colonial architecture such as the CFA Franc system either. Western powers tend to intervene in the economic / political system of countries (with no security logic for doing so that would deem their actions non-imperial). They, along with their institutions (IMF, World Bank) come with strings attached and moral finger wagging of how things should be conducted to favor Western interests and corporations. When countries deny this market access on favorable terms they are couped or invaded (Venezuela). The others are transactional and pragmatic ie non-interventionist. Russia basically provides security as as service - opportunistic security contracting in volatile regions. For example in Sudan's case they were called in by the state (SAF) - as the state collapsed into civil war they hedged and withdrew. The rebels on other hand are supported by UAE (Western ally) who only started to get criticized when they got too much heat. In fact they have created a axis of secessionists in the region which is why the region is angry at them. Ironic that the most Western / Zionist aligned state is acting in the same divide and conquer manner as its partners. Countries constantly trade arms and do drills / exercises together - doesn't mean anything in relation to imperial empire building. China provides Ukraine drones / components which are used against its very own ally Russia. Again - transactional not ideological.

@Mohammad Stay safe man. There's no doubt the IRGC are corrupt af. The thing is that sanctioning doesn't help with that at all and only further entrenches the corruption and security state under seige conditions. Corruption is usually outgrown with surplus, which comes from normalisation and integrated trade with the world increasing exports for dollars or strong currency. In constant survival mode from being imperially contained by the West - they are constantly needing to put out fires with little to no breathing room, so they grab whatever they can. Sanctions also means informal networks and channels are required to operate which means way more corruption occurs and gets further entrenched. Sanctions and containment militarises the economy and the IRGC fills the role the state could no longer perform normally. Now they are a parallel state fusing military with economic power which becomes even harder to dislodge. Any attempt at couping this establishment basically means civil war the likes of Syria. This is why many people hesitate to or don't want to be associated with ''Western intervention'' despite supporting or being for the Iranian people. We know what it caused in the past. Even the last revolution wasn't entirely Islamic - it was a mass revolt, after which the Islamic faction was organised to seize and consolidate? But in this case who will take the reigns? It most definitely won't be the diaspora backed monarchist lol. The only bet is slow reform and sanction relief that will slowly boost GDP and expose the IRGC / gov to global standard and norms which they will then wish to meet in order to be ''investable'' as a country by foreign investment. Constant foreign meddling or intervention gives them the narrative of always having something to ''resist''. Being under sanctions gives them a reason to fight those that ''suffocate us''. And the material reality of that encirclement and sanctions leaves them little to no breathing room to manage the country well. Even wealthy Western nations who are never sanctioned (can't even be) have economic ups and downs and yellow vest protests - imagine being sanctioned. It's absolutely no wonder. Anyone who underestimates the power of sanctions is ill informed and doesn't understand that it is a financial WMD that only the West has monopoly on - that is being routed around via BRICS who are in the process but not near completion.

Looks more like a Western military bloc (NATO) that finally reached a country which Russia couldn't afford to lose (Ukraine) without fighting back - rather than the other way round. If they wanted to re-build the USSR they should have started with consolidating countries that are easier to conquer (Central Asian stans) with less population, advanced military's / economies / article 5 guarantee's - and more resources that would even make such a thing possibly worth it in the, end at least commercially. Them going for a resource scare region in Eastern Europe with geographically difficult terrain and facing the collective economic and military power of the West seems fantastical if they had any USSR fantasies. We could say Germany re-arming now is rebuilding the Third Reich or Turkey's presence beyond their borders is re-building the Ottoman Empire. But both cases aren't accurate or would be twisting facts. Russia acting on a single fault line on a highly vulnerable border doesn't scale to a general plan of re-building the USSR. No doubt though - Russia will likely never reach superpower status and even its great power status will over the long term slip unless some miracles happen. Only China and the US are superpowers, India a rising one with quite a way to go, Russia is a great one stagnating from internal mismanagement / corruption and demographic decline.