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The Geopolitics of it all

My people!

Loki Reaction GIF
 

Without that bunch of stiff necked red shanks no bottom up governance, no anti-authoritarianism, no Whigs, no Glorious Revolution, no Scottish Enlightenment, no Masonic Toleration, no American Revolution, no liberalism, no modern democracy.

Sometimes it pays to be a pain in the butt. Especially when the Establishment always seems to mean Illiberal Authoritarianism.
 
Without that bunch of stiff necked red shanks no bottom up governance, no anti-authoritarianism, no Whigs, no Glorious Revolution, no Scottish Enlightenment, no Masonic Toleration, no American Revolution, no liberalism, no modern democracy.

Sometimes it pays to be a pain in the butt. Especially when the Establishment always seems to mean Illiberal Authoritarianism.

You'll have to admit that grabbing random Catholics off the street, and chopping them into hamburger helper, wasn't the best way to convince the people that you'd be great at governing though ;)
 
You'll have to admit that grabbing random Catholics off the street, and chopping them into hamburger helper, wasn't the best way to convince the people that you'd be great at governing though ;)

When you have a history with the neighbours that goes back to this it is difficult to find the right balance somedays

Ulster massacres[edit]​

When the rebellion began, Phelim O'Neill sought to exploit divisions between English and Scots settlers by offering the latter protection, hoping thereby to gain their support. This strategy initially contributed to the rapid spread of the revolt, in part because the Dublin government was uncertain who to trust and thus delayed a co-ordinated response.[39] The situation changed when it became clear the rising had been only partially successful, while the breakdown of state authority prompted widespread attacks by the Catholic peasantry on Protestants, regardless of nationality.[40] [c] They were soon joined by members of the gentry; O'Neill's authority was largely confined to County Armagh and even there was not total, his own brother being one of those who took part in these actions.[40]

A contemporary Catholic source wrote that O'Neill "strove to contain the raskall multitude from those frequent savage actions of stripping and killing" but "the floodgate of rapine, once being laid open, the meaner sort of people was not to be contained".[42] It has been argued the initial purpose of the attacks was economic and killings occurred only when the victims resisted.[43] They intensified as the rebellion progressed, particularly in Ulster where many had lost land in the post 1607 Plantations,[44] while attacks on local Protestant clergy were in part due to resentment at the relative wealth of the Church of Ireland in that province.[45] Other factors included religion and culture; in County Cavan, rebels justified the rising as a defensive measure against a Protestant threat to "extirpate the Catholic religion",[46] reinstated original Irish language place names and banned the use of English.[44]


English atrocity propaganda of alleged rebel attacks on women and children
Following their repulse at Lisnagarvey in November, rebels killed about 100 Protestants at Portadown by forcing them off the bridge into the River Bann, and shooting those who tried to swim to safety.[d] Known as the Portadown massacre, it was one of the bloodiest such events to take place in Ireland during the 1640s.[48] In nearby Kilmore, English and Scottish men, women and children were burned to death in the cottage in which they were imprisoned, while in Armagh as a whole some 1,250 died in the early months of the rebellion, roughly a quarter of the local settler population.[49] In County Tyrone, modern research has identified three blackspots for the killing of settlers, the worst being near Kinard, "where most of the British families planted... were ultimately murdered".[50] Elsewhere at Shrule in County Mayo, Protestant prisoners were killed by their Catholic escorts, despite attempts by their officers to intervene.[51]

Killings of Catholics also took place, including the murder of two dozen at Islandmagee by members of the Carrickfergus garrison in November 1641.[51] The arrival of a Covenanter army in Ulster in April 1642 led to further such atrocities, William Lecky, a 19th-century historian of the rebellion, concluding "it is far from clear on which side the balance of cruelty rests".[38] The Scots executed Irish prisoners taken in a skirmish near Kilwarlin woods outside Dromore, while James Turner records that after retaking Newry, local Catholics were lined up on the banks of the Newry River and killed "without any legal process".[52] On Rathlin Island, Scottish soldiers from Clan Campbell were encouraged by their commanding officer Sir Duncan Campbell to kill the local Catholic MacDonnells, who were related to the Campbells' enemies in Scotland, Clan MacDonald. They threw scores of MacDonnell women over cliffs to their deaths.[53] The killings were brought under some degree of control by Owen Roe O'Neill, who in July 1642 was given command of Irish forces in Ulster and hanged several rebels for attacking civilians. Though still brutal, the war thereafter was fought according to the code of conduct both O'Neill and the Scottish commander Robert Monro had learned as professional soldiers in mainland Europe.[54]

Contemporary pamphlets published in London contained lurid details of the massacres and suggested over 200,000 Protestants had lost their lives.[55] These figures were recognised even then as wildly exaggerated and in November 1641 Parliament jailed a publisher who admitted paying for fictitious atrocity tales.[29] Recent research suggests around 4,000 were killed in the attacks, with thousands more expelled from their homes,[56] many of whom died of exposure or disease, leading to an upper estimate of around 12,000 deaths.[57] This represents around 10% of the total settler population in Ireland, though in Ulster the ratio of deaths would have been somewhat higher, namely around 30%.[58] They were used to support the view of the rebellion as a Catholic conspiracy to wipe out all Protestants in Ireland,[59] a narrative constructed in the Depositions, a collection of victim reports gathered between 1642 and 1655 and now housed in Trinity College Dublin.[60][61] In 1646, these accounts were summarised in The Irish Rebellion, a book by John Temple, [62] in which he urged the military re-conquest of Ireland and segregation of Irish Catholics from British Protestants.[63]

In the long term, the 1641 massacres intensified existing sectarian animosity on both sides, although modern historians argue the killings had an especially powerful psychological impact on the Protestant community.[64][e] Dr. Mary O'Dowd wrote they "were very traumatic for the Protestant settler community in Ulster, and left long-term scars within that community".[65] Contemporary Protestant accounts depict the rebellion as a complete surprise; one stated that it was "conceived among us and yet we never felt it kick in the womb, nor struggle in the birth".[66] Many argued Catholics could not be trusted and in Ulster, Protestants commemorated the anniversary of the rebellion for over two hundred years. According to historian Pádraig Lenihan, this "helped affirm communal solidarity and emphasise the need for unrelenting vigilance [against] the masses of Irish Catholics surrounding them [who] were and always would be, unregenerate and cruel enemies".[67]

That was happening while Jenny Geddes was chucking her stool at a Bishop she never asked for and who had been put in place by a King who explicitly covenanted that he would do no such thing.

And most of the Prods there were not there voluntarily. They had been shipped out as the alternative to being lynched by the Kings men without trial.

The Stewarts! God Bless 'Em.
 

Other names in Thomas Hobbes's world

Merindol, Vassy, La Rochelle, St Bartholomews Day, the Vaud.....

And just in case we think this was all ancient propaganda - like Germans in Belgium - perhaps we can remember Bucha and Srebrenica.

A bit hard to Trust. Especially if you're not allowed to Verify.
 
Macron being accused of being Europe's biggest Nationalist with only France's interests in mind. - True that. Since Pippin was mayor.




Macron's EU masterplan torn apart as he's accused of 'favouring' France over bloc​

Comments by French President Emmanuel Macron over Europe's priorities on Taiwan have raised questions over the EU's relationship with both the US and China.​


By ALESSANDRA SCOTTO DI SANTOLO
10:40, Wed, Apr 19, 2023 | UPDATED: 13:34, Wed, Apr 19, 2023

Emmanuel Macron has been attacked for pursuing a "strategic autonomy" that only favours France's interests over European ones. The French President has come under fire after he sparked fury over his comments about Europe's response to China and the US over Taiwan last week.

The French leader was lambasted after he said the European Union should become a "third superpower" and avoid getting dragged into a clash between China and the US over Taiwan.

In a note sent to Express.co.uk, Italian MEP Marco Zanni blasted: "The events of the last week have confirmed two principles: first, the geopolitical dimension of the EU promised by the Commission in 2019 does not exist or is inconsistent, and today that promise remains in vain; second, Europe's biggest sovereign and nationalist is Macron, who went to China and brought home rich contracts and agreements for French companies.

"Is this the concept of European strategic autonomy that the French President wants to pursue? Autonomy is an important issue for EU states, but there are some topics on which there can be no ambiguity.

"One of them is China: there can be no strategic autonomy, there are credible allies with whom we go side by side in global challenges and there are autocratic regimes like Russia and China from which we must differentiate ourselves.

"There cannot be a third way, the EU must clearly decide who to side with, and without a doubt it must choose Western allies, because China is the greatest geopolitical challenge that the West is facing today and we cannot think of tackling it differentiating us from allies who have interests in common with ours and who have demonstrated that they care about those important values.

"Europe must understand how to approach Beijing and what Brussels is doing is not enough: Chips Act, Net Zero Industry Act, Critical Raw Materials Act are acts that will not concretely allow us to be independent from China.

"Despite what is being said, the EU's dependence on China has dramatically increased in recent years also due to the green transition and we risk repeating another fundamental mistake by tying ourselves hand and foot to a dictatorship. What would happen to the EU tomorrow if China decided to invade Taiwan?

"We must reflect on this, on what tools we have to avoid repeating the same mistakes made in the past and which we are paying for today."
Speaking before China launched large-scale combat exercises around Taiwan, Mr Macron said: “The question we need to answer, as Europeans, is the following: is it in our interest to accelerate (a crisis) on Taiwan? No.

"The worst thing would be to think that we Europeans must become followers on this topic and take our cue from the US agenda and a Chinese overreaction.”

Macron spoke to reporters on his way back from a three-day state visit to China, where he spoke at length with President Xi Jinping, including about Taiwan, according to Macron’s office.

The remarks have drawn wide attention on social media, and experts raised questions about whether Macron’s views are in line with the European Union’s position and whether the bloc of 27 is able to become the “third superpower" that Macron says he hopes to build within “a few years".

Without mentioning Macron, Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki warned that some in Europe were too slow to heed the “wake-up call” on China.

He said: “You could see this over the past couple of weeks as some European leaders went to Beijing.

“I do not quite understand the idea of strategic autonomy, if it means de-facto shooting into our own knee.”

For its part, the White House has sought to downplay Macron’s talk of Europe as “an independent pole in a multi-polar world.”
 
I am angry today. Thoroughly.

I am a Brit. I live in Canada by virtue of the welcome I was given when my parents immigrated here. I do not see myself reflected in the institutions of this country. But that's OK. It is your country to do with as you will.

It is fine that I don't see myself reflected in your current choice of Prime Minister, governing party or civil service or even your government's priorities. I am in no position to complain. That is up to my kids to figure out.

On the other hand - through the Anglosphere, throughout the Western World, throughout the OECD I here the constant repetition of John Locke's 1689 call for Toleration, of Shaftesbury's 1709 call to learn to rub along together. This often voices itself as a call for minorities to see themselves reflected in their institutions.

At which point I find myself feeling sorry for the Unionists of Ulster.

300 years since their No Surrender stand at Londonderry allowed Locke to create his Tolerant government - a government that over the next 3 centuries closed work houses, brought coal miners out of bondage, abolished the slave trade, put the hems on piracy, taught others how to manage themselves and brought their "enemies" into the fold...

300 years from that

The leader of the Democratic Unionist Party, Jeffrey Donaldson.

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The Prime Minister of the UK, The Mayor of London, The First Minister of Scotland, The Prime Minister of Ireland.

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Does he see himself represented in those institutions?

Edit to add Jeffrey's Home Secretary and Foreign Secretary

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334 years ago the fight was against Arbitrary Authority - and the Arbitrary Authorities of the day were the Monarchs backed by the Catholic Church and the Ottoman Caliphate. The Sultan of Morocco was every bit as Arbitrary as the Stewarts and the Bourbons.

You'd be hard pressed to know it now but Ireland used to have a reputation as the most liberal place on the planet - roughly from the era of the Boyne to the rise of the Protestant Ascendancy at the time of the Presbyterian War (as George III called the American Revolution). It was a place where Anglo-Irish Anglicans, Scots-Irish Presbyterians and Irish Catholics learned to debate rather than kill. But like all good things that to came to an end.

Now he is cajoled to accept the only deal he is going to get from interlocutors like

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None of whom share his cultural or religious proclivities.

Is this really the best team of negotiators available to convince Jeffrey Donaldson that they have the best interests of him and his constituents at heart?

I have no doubt about the quality of the people or their ideas. Even as I disagree with them. But....

I find it difficult not to give into the urge to support statements like this.



And then I am greeted with this image on the from page of the Express the British Home Secretary arguing the British Foreign Secretary, both of them Tories about whether the UK should be a sovereignn nation or subject to a Supra-National Court. That is what was on offer as the alternative in 1689.




Am I a racist? I have always considered myself to be civil, accommodating, tolerant even. Never have I considered myself to be chosen, elect or particularly gifted. Certainly not supreme.

But I regret not having a home to go to.

Slainte Mhor (there's a chuckle - even that is a phrase I never heard growing up - Cheers!)
 
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versus



I was just about to come on-line this morning and apologize for my Moan of yesterday.

Then I saw the article about the Canadian historians. It is funny because I had been thinking about giving vent to an opinion on Henry Dundas - the Lord Advocate of Scotland who intervened in the Knight case in 1778 to bring the court to a clear declaration that slavery was not a legal, or moral, option in Scotland. Bringing it up to the same standard established in England with the Somersett case in 1772.

As to the abolishment of the slave trade - Dundas ran the hard yards in parliament crafting a programme that brought enough of the nays over to the ayes to get it passed. And most of those conversions were economic conversions. People that were morally convinced that slavery was wrong but economically couldn't afford to give up large portions of their wealth on short notice. People like, for example, Thomas Jefferson in the States.

Dundas was walking the same tightrope with the coal mine owners in Scotland. The mine owners counted their wage-slaves as part of the mine. The miners, and their families who worked down the pits, were sold with the mine. More importantly they were tied to the mine and couldn't sell themselves to another mine or give up the trade entirely. If they absconded then the Polis would be efter them.

1772 the Scot, William Murray of Perth, Lord Mansfield, decreed that English Law didn't permit slavery.
1778 the Scot, Henry Dundas, Lord Advocate of Scotland, along with the entire Scottish court, decreed that Scottish Law didn't permit slavery.
1775, in between, the parliament of Westminster, determined that Scottish coal miners were being treated like slaves and that that wasn't permitted.

However, the mine owners were given a grace period, until 1799, to get their act together and manage the conversion. It was a long time for the miners, another generation down the pits before their children would be released to work and bargain freely, but it did get the owners on side and allowed the legislation to pass and the slavery of the coal miners to be ended.

So when, in 1794, Wilberforce brought his Abolition act to Dundas he was pushing on an open door. Dundas supported the Bill personally and morally. But Wilberforce had failed to sway parliament two or three times previously. And the principle objection, from my point of view, was practical economics. By giving the West Indian plantation owners a five year grace period, much shorter than that given to the Scottish mine owners, then it permitted enough of them to switch their votes to join the abolitionists in voting down the slave trade in the House of Commons. Only to be defeated in the Lords.

What I find fascinating is that the abolition events in Westminster, 1794 and 1807, were mirrored in Washington, by Jefferson. And slavery only really ended in the British Empire when the government agreed to buy all the slaves from the owners and release them. Even the well known Liberal, Gladstone, withheld his support in parliament in 1833 until his father was compensated for his 2500 slaves.


Nothing is ever simple....

Funny thing - the founding of the West Africa Squadron by the Royal Navy in 1807, to blockade the slave trade, coincided, within a month of the RN creating the conditions for the War of 1812. The Squadron was founded in May. In June the RN boarded the USS Chesapeake and "impressed" her crew into RN service. At the time something like 1/3 to 1/2 of the fleet that had fought at Trafalgar for Nelson were there involuntarily as pressed men.

So my sympathies are with the Historians - and with those Abolitionists that fought to end Slavery, with those educational reformers like the Methodist Egerton Ryerson, and Carnegie and the founders of the Mechanics Institutes, who fought to bring universal education to everyone, regardless of race or religion, and the political reformers like Brown, and MacKenzie, and Papineau and even Gladstone and Peel, who fought to bring more people into the Establishment.


As to the other two articles - point and counter-point. The Public Health types obviously have never read, or have failed to understand, the history that got them to their position. And Adam Smith is a stranger to them. Bjorn Lomborg, on the other hand, seems well acquainted with Smith.


Nothing is ever simple ...

The song Amazing Grace was written by an ex-slaver turned minister. It was written in the year that Mansfield decided that English Law didn't support slavery. 1775. "I was blind, and now I see...."

Is John Newton to be condemned for carrying slaves. Or to be recognized for giving up the trade, working for the next 30 years to end the trade and writing the great anthem that drew millions to the cause?


Nothing is ever simple ...
 
Suppose I were to say this Indo-Pacific thing is not an American thing at all?
Suppose it were, in reality, all about Hong Kong 1841?

This assumes that the Chinese have longer memories than the West and that perceived humiliations are deeply felt.

The Brits forced the Qing dynasty into surrendering Hong Kong in 1841 and held on to it until 1997. The Chinese seem to have taken that personally. The were forced into submission, as they saw it, by a bunch of barbarians. At the time Britain ruled the waves and was profiting from its liberal society and economy.

China epitomized the authoritarian command economy through most of its history. The Communist Party struggles to find a middle road between its authoritarian nature and the obvious benefits of liberal capitalism. Between the chaos of individuals making their own decision and the imposition of order necessary for a harmonious existence.

1841 was a long time ago.... for some.

Britain is not what it used to be.

It is weak.

But it left its mark.

First of all it left its DNA all over the place - lots of MacGregors with brown skins in distant locations.
Second it made a lot of acquaintances - the Commonwealth of 56 states and a fair number of them are friends
Third it created the world's hegemon which usurps the position to which the throne of the Middle Kingdom is entitled - the US

Along the way it, and its American sprig, have secured a major chunk of the goods and materials of the world.

It, and the Americans, control the rules of the game by controlling the flow of money. Hong Kong was the local branch. The real decisions were made in London in 1841. In 1944 the centre moved to New York but London is still the centre of reference for much of the Commonwealth. And judging from the television coverage about passing of Queen Elizabeth II and the coronation of King Charles III it still seems to be a cultural locus for the United States of America.

If this Anglospheric Commonwealth can hang together, and maintain the cohesion they demonstrated in 1944, then they dominate the world at large. Liberal democracy rules the waves, the airwaves, the banks and the treasuries.

The Middle Kingdom is relegated to struggle. Not its entitlement.


Now if I were a disgruntled resident of China and I wanted to put the universe back to rights might I consider doing this - follow the precepts of my favourite strategician - Lanchester.

The Ukrainians are employing Lanchester successfully against the Russians. They opt for the indirect approach. They choose to undermine and isolate. They attack the logistics. They attack the culture. They stand firm in the face of attack. They retreat when they must. They exploit when they can. Lanchester probably read Sun Tzu.

So if I perceived that my enemy was bound by a culture that had its nexus in London but its lines of communications were weak and its outposts were widely scattered with many of them small and in poor repair, would I tackle the strongest of those outposts, New York, or would I opt for something else? Tackling London directly would probably cause all those coronation watchers that support Ukraine to take offense and put the Middle Kingdom at risk just as much as making a direct play for New York.

But if I were to isolate and undermine London. Slowly. Applying the wisdom of Saul Alinsky and his Rules for Radicals.

Then I might be able to cut the lines of communications, undermine the pillars that support the culture, separate the banks of London from the treasures of the Commonwealth and isolate the banks of New York to Turtle Island.

As Alinsky noted ridicule goes a long way in this regard.
Re-writing history is always good. It has a track record that goes as far back as the Venerable Bede in the Anglosphere
Cutting the ties that bind.

The good news for the Chinese is that Britain, although it made some friends over the century or so it was in power it made a lot of enemies. The list starts with The Ancient Enemy - Paris. Since the 1500s Madrid and Rome were added. After 1807 and the success of the ban on trading slaves Britain disrupted the slave based economies of the rest of the world - in particular the economies of the Ottomans and the Arabs. Up until 1962 Britain was still throwing its weight, diminishing weight, around and demanding that places like Saudi Arabia stop taking slaves and using them. Worse. Insisting that they free the slaves they have. It took the Brits 25 years to buy out its slaveholders and release all its slaves - creating the welfare state - but they couldn't buy out everybody else's slaves. They demanded that they finance the emancipation, the destruction of their economies, themselves. London would be happy enough to lend them the money for the emancipation though. They could pay back London in oil and other stuff. Freeing the slaves was great policy. But not necessarily the best diplomacy.

So, if I were to see this world as one

Created by an ancient group of barbarians
Centred in a city on a distant island
Writing the rules of the game
Controlling immense treasures scattered all over the world

But

Scattered
Exposed
Weak
With many enemies

Could I turn the situation to my advantage and reclaim my entitlement?


Part II to follow.
 
The Indo-Pacific focus ultimately settles on the Nine-Dash Line. Taiwan sits on the edge of that.
The area in dispute is apparently 40,000 km2
That in a sea of 3,500,000 km2 - the South China Sea over which China claims hegemony.

But most importantly China is constricted. It is contained by the chain of islands off its coast that defines the South China Sea. It is also contained the northern chain that defines the 1,250,000 km2 East China Sea

For reference Canada has a land area of 9,985,000 km2 compared to China's 9,597,000 km2.
We have 243,200 km of coastline to defend but only 38,000,000 people to do the defending.
China only has 18,000 km of coastline to defend but 1,412,000,000 people to stand on the shoreline.

China also has 23 Trillion United States Dollars of treasure but that doesn't go as far as it might among 1,412,000,000 people.
Canada has 38,000,000 people holding on to 33 Trillion United States Dollars of treasure.
And that treasure is largely held for the use of New York and London.

It would be a great win if that treasure were made available to its rightful owners in the Middle Kingdom.
A lesser win would be to deny it to New York and London by putting it beyond use.
Like the Europeans agreed to do with their coal in 1957.

France and Germany had access to lots of coal in Belgium but they couldn't agree on how to divide it and couldn't allow the Belgians to get rich selling coal to both of them.
So they decided not to buy any coal at all and deny Belgium the right to sell any as well.
They banked on Uranium instead - which they also didn't have.

It turns out that Uranium had its problems so they started buying gas and oil instead.
That still cost lots of money to burn.
So now they are reduced to relying on what their ancestors in their caves had: wind, waves and sunshine.

While the Middle Kingdom waits out the fall of New York it can proceed with a programme of "beggar thy neighbour" picking up some of those exposed properties that London has left lying around.

The Pacific is a great place to start. There are lots of London connected properties that control vast areas of rich oceans with virtually no land mass to defend and very few people to defend them.

The Commonwealth owns, collectively, 27, 571,000 kms of Pacific waters alone. Not including the landmass Australia and the thousands of scattered islands claiming those waters. And there are only 82,000,000 defenders of all that water with 26,000,000 of the living in Australia and 5,000,000 in New Zealand.

Paris holds 5,675,000 km2
New York holds 4,774,000 km2
These are minor stakes and does New York really need the treasure that much? Is it worth the aggravation?
China's play for Canada is probably of greater interest.



CountryPopulationCoastlineEEZCommonwealth
Dispute40
China1,41218,000
Canada38243,2005,600Commonwealth
Commonwealth8259,00027,571
Pitcairns836Commonwealth
Oceania2-8,824
Kiribati03,442Commonwealth
Solomons11,590Commonwealth
Fiji11,283Commonwealth
Tuvalu750Commonwealth
Vanuatu0663Commonwealth
Tonga0660Commonwealth
Samoa0128Commonwealth
Nauru308Commonwealth
Greater Australia3539,00010,549
Australia2634,0006,049Commonwealth
Macquarie471Commonwealth
Christmas463Commonwealth
Norfolk429Commonwealth
Heard McDonald410Commonwealth
Cocos325Commonwealth
Papua-New Guinea95,0002,402Commonwealth
Greater New Zealand515,0007,016
New Zealand515,0004,420Commonwealth
Cook Islands1,960Commonwealth
Tokelau319Commonwealth
Niue317Commonwealth
Austranesia428140,4008,165
Singapore62001Commonwealth
Brunei120010Commonwealth
Malaysia344,600335Commonwealth
Philippines11436,3001,590
Indonesia27499,1006,159
East Timor70
Indochina2488,6001,314
Vietnam983,300418
Cambodia1740063
Laos7--
Thailand722,600299
Burma542,300534
Greater East Asia20238,0004,955
Japan12634,0004,479
ROK522,400476
Taiwan241,600-
Pacifica France1-5,675
Fr Polynesia04,500
New Caledonia0502
Wallis and Furtuna242
Clipperton431
Pacifica US2-4,774
Hawaii2895
Am Samoa404
Guam169
N. Marianas0749
Johnson Atoll442
Howland Baker434
Wake407
Palmyra Kingman352
Jarvis317
Palau - Independent605
4,986
Micronesia02,996
Marshalls01,990
Pacifica670232,40030,685
India1,4087,5002,305Commonwealth

Part III to follow
 
So does this strategy play out elsewhere?

The Indian Ocean?
With places like the British Indian Ocean Territories - Diego Garcia to New Yorkers?
Comorros? Maldives? Seychelles?

The Atlantic?
The Falklands?
The West Indies?

How about the world's biggest island?
Africa?
54 countries.
20 of them in the Commonwealth with financial ties to London
30,370,000 km2 of territory
How much of that is Commonwealth territory?

Zimbabwe used to be a Commonwealth country.
It was separated from London's Commonwealth by Robert Mugabe.

Mugabe's ZANU Popular Front was financed and trained by China.

Zimbabwe sits in the centre of southern Africa and flanks a number of countries including South Africa, a fellow member of BRICS - Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa.

I think Lanchester, and Sun Tzu, would approve.

And if my aggrieved resident of the Middle Kingdom, recovering his entitlement, observed the humiliation of the barbarian ... then that may be a bonus worth having.
 
We tend to see the world from a Canadian / North Atlantic perspective. The perspective of Hakluyt and Mahan.

This is the world as seen from Australia. A bit more Mackinderesque and a great place to send British criminals and dare them to get back home.

An island loosely associated with the rest of the world and surrounded by vast expanses of water with nary a drop to drink

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The map is based on the UN's Feb 23 resolution of Russia in Ukraine.

The colours are

Red for Russia (UN Ayes)
Yellow for China (UN Abstentions)
Green for No Shows (UN Did not Vote)

Blues and Grays voted with Ukraine.

More to follow.
 
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I've attached the same map but shifted to the Euro centred perspective.
It also shows the microstates and how they voted.

The Grays voted with Ukraine.

The Blues are my own personal filter.

It starts with the US.
It adds the Five Eyes (AUKUS and the other two)
It adds JEF
It adds Poland, Czechia, Slovakia and Ukraine
It adds CPTPP
It adds the Commonwealth

I choose to call the amalgamation The Commonwealth of Oceana after a 1656 best seller on strategy.

There are a number of states not included.
I intentionally didn't refer to NATO or the EU.

Having said that my filter is not an exact model. Particularly when it comes to the Commonwealth proper. Many of the Commonwealth countries decided to either join the No Shows on Ukraine or to join China and abstain.

This is particularly true in Africa where China seems to be slowly picking up disgruntled tribes in the old colonial territories. Zimbabwe is a starting point.

They have picked up the Belgian Congo, Portugese South Africa and French Algeria and Senegal. They would probably have targeted German East Africa if the Brits hadn't got there first after WWI. But they are making inroads on Brit turf as well.

A great example is South Africa. And more critically India. Both important members of the Commonwealth but also important to China as part of the BRICS group. And perhaps more important as Russia gets weaker. Although its not losing any of its resources - so there's that.

On balance it would seem that both South Africa are more BRICS than Commonwealth.
Which brings into question Brazil's tendencies. With the new guy I expect them to become more BRICSish.

But enough digression....

The focus is Australia

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And this map shows the oceans with the water pumped out. Light blue is new land - easy to access and to cross and easy to find new resources.


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This map shows the EEZs of all the little island states that have title to that "land".
And most of their flags were on parade in London on Friday. They are important countries for a lot of reasons.

And in many, if not most cases, there is nobody home to defend the claims. Conversely it wouldn't require much effort to convince the inhabitants to sell their title or at least lease it out.

This is the Indo-Pacific battleground as far as I'm concerned.

The other one is in Monroe's backyard.

1024px-Map_of_the_Territorial_Waters_in_the_Caribbean.png


A lot of them were parading in London of Friday. And the Netherlands is also a member of Oceana's Commonwealth as a member of JEF.
 
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The blend of British and Chinese cultures in HK is one of the greatest success stories in history. Unfortunate if some people don't see it that way.

I met someone this weekend who just returned from Hong Kong.

There's not much 'British' left at all, apparently, and the Chinese are cleaning the place up - and building at a great rate of knots - to 'Chinafy' everything.
 
I met someone this weekend who just returned from Hong Kong.

There's not much 'British' left at all, apparently, and the Chinese are cleaning the place up - and building at a great rate of knots - to 'Chinafy' everything.

On the other hand there are a lot of Hong Kongers who have found a home here, in Australia and Britain under the Crown. And no doubt other places as well.
 
On the other hand there are a lot of Hong Kongers who have found a home here, in Australia and Britain under the Crown. And no doubt other places as well.

It's OK because the new HK-Macau bridge, connecting the city state with mainland China, will ensure a steady influx of replacements, I'm sure....

Hong Kong–Zhuhai–Macau Bridge​


The Hong Kong–Zhuhai–Macau Bridge (HZMB) is a 55-kilometre (34 mi) bridge–tunnel system consisting of a series of three cable-stayed bridges, an undersea tunnel, and four artificial islands. It is both the longest sea crossing[5][6] and the longest open-sea fixed link in the world. The HZMB spans the Lingding and Jiuzhou channels, connecting Hong Kong, Macau, and Zhuhai—three major cities on the Pearl River Delta in China.

The HZM Bridge was designed to last for 120 years and cost ¥127 billion (US$18.8 billion) to build.[2] The cost of constructing the Main Bridge was estimated at ¥51.1 billion (US$7.56 billion) funded by bank loans and shared among the governments of mainland China, Hong Kong and Macau.[7]

 










Persecution of ethnic and political groups[edit]​

Amin retaliated against the attempted invasion by Ugandan exiles in 1972, by purging the Uganda Army of Obote supporters, predominantly those from the Acholi and Lango ethnic groups.[43] In July 1971, Lango and Acholi soldiers had been massacred in the Jinja and Mbarara barracks.[44] By early 1972, some 5,000 Acholi and Lango soldiers, and at least twice as many civilians, had disappeared.[45] The victims soon came to include members of other ethnic groups, religious leaders, journalists, artists, senior bureaucrats, judges, lawyers, students and intellectuals, criminal suspects, and foreign nationals. In this atmosphere of violence, many other people were killed for criminal motives or simply at will. Bodies were often dumped into the River Nile.[46]

In August 1972, Amin declared what he called an "economic war", a set of policies that included the expropriation of properties owned by Asians and Europeans. Uganda's 80,000 Asians were mostly from the Indian subcontinent and born in the country, their ancestors having come to Uganda in search of prosperity when India was still a British colony.[51] Many owned businesses, including large-scale enterprises, which formed the backbone of the Ugandan economy.[52][53][54]

On 4 August 1972, Amin issued a decree ordering the expulsion of the 50,000 Asians who were British passport holders. This was later amended to include all 60,000 Asians who were not Ugandan citizens. Around 30,000 Ugandan Asians emigrated to the UK. Others went to Commonwealth countries such as Australia, South Africa, Canada, and Fiji, or to India, Kenya, Pakistan, Sweden, Tanzania, and the United States.[52][53][54] Amin expropriated businesses and properties belonging to the Asians and the Europeans and handed them over to his supporters. Without the experienced owners and proprietors, businesses were mismanaged and many industries collapsed from lack of operational expertise and maintenance. This proved disastrous for the already declining Ugandan economy.[38] At the time, Asians accounted for 90% of the country's tax revenue; with their removal, Amin's administration lost a large chunk of government revenue. The economy all but collapsed.[55]



Insurgencies have been ongoing in Myanmar since 1948, the year the country, then known as Burma, gained independence from the United Kingdom. The conflict has largely been ethnic-based, with several ethnic armed groups fighting Myanmar's armed forces, the Tatmadaw, for self-determination.

Following Burma's independence from the United Kingdom on 4 January 1948, the two largest opposition groups in the country were the communists, led by the Communist Party of Burma (CPB), and the Karen nationalists, led by the Karen National Union (KNU).[16][17]

Initially there was calm during the transitional period after independence, but on 2 April 1948, the CPB fired the first shots of the conflict in Paukkongyi, Pegu Region (present-day Bago Region). At its peak, the CPB had 15,000 fighters in 1949.[18]

During the post-independence period, the KNU favoured an independent state, governed by the Karen people. The proposed state would have encompassed the territories of Karen State and Karenni State (present-day Kayin State and Kayah State), in Lower Burma (Outer Myanmar). The KNU has since shifted their focus from full independence to regional autonomy, under a federal system with fair Karen representation in the government.[19]

After three successive parliamentary governments governed Myanmar, the Tatmadaw, led by General Ne Win, enacted a coup d'état on 2 March 1962, which ousted the parliamentary government and replaced it with a military junta. Accusations of severe human rights abuses and violations followed afterwards, and the cabinet of the parliamentary government and political leaders of ethnic minority groups were arrested and detained without trial.[20] Around this period, other ethnic minority groups began forming larger rebel factions, such as the Kachin Independence Army, in response to the new government's refusal to adopt a federal system.

Many insurgent groups, communist and ethnonationalist alike, became increasingly receptive of the Maoist concept of a "people's war" after failed peace talks with Ne Win's government in 1963. The CPB maintained close relations with the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and replicated China's Cultural Revolution.[21][22] The CPB's imitation of their Chinese allies was perceived by many Burmese as an attempt by China to intrude into Burmese affairs, a sentiment which led to the violent 1967 anti-Chinese riots in Burma. By the time the riots were quelled, 31 Chinese civilians had been killed and several Chinese-owned businesses had been burned down.[23]


When we compare the tales of Uganda and its next door neighbour of Kenya (even with the Mau Mau) and Burma and its neighbours of Malaysia and Vietnam, and even the more current tale of Hong Kong with Singapore and Brunei perhaps we can understand the affection upwardly mobile Asians might have for The Good Old Days of the Raj.

Those days of the Raj permitted Gandhi to travel the world on a British passport.

On 10 August 1888, Gandhi aged 18, left Porbandar for Mumbai, then known as Bombay. Upon arrival, he stayed with the local Modh Bania community whose elders warned him that England would tempt him to compromise his religion, and eat and drink in Western ways. Despite Gandhi informing them of his promise to his mother and her blessings, he was excommunicated from his caste. Gandhi ignored this, and on 4 September, he sailed from Bombay to London, with his brother seeing him off.[74][71] Gandhi attended University College, London, where he took classes in English literature with Henry Morley in 1888–1889.[76]

He also enrolled at Inner Temple with the intention of becoming a barrister. His childhood shyness and self-withdrawal had continued through his teens. He retained these traits when he arrived in London, but joined a public speaking practice group and overcame his shyness sufficiently to practise law.[77]

He demonstrated a keen interest in the welfare of London's impoverished dockland communities. In 1889, a bitter trade dispute broke out in London, with dockers striking for better pay and conditions, and seamen, shipbuilders, factory girls and other joining the strike in solidarity. The strikers were successful, in part due to the mediation of Cardinal Manning, leading Gandhi and an Indian friend to make a point of visiting the cardinal and thanking him for his work.[78]

Gandhi, at age 22, was called to the bar in June 1891 and then left London for India,

In April 1893, Gandhi aged 23, set sail for South Africa to be the lawyer for Abdullah's cousin.[83][84] He spent 21 years in South Africa, where he developed his political views, ethics and politics.[85][86]


Likewise his sparring partners Jawaharlal Nehru, the first Prime Minister of India and the first Prime Minister of Pakistan Muhammad Ali Jinnah

Nehru

Jawaharlal Nehru was born on 14 November 1889 in Allahabad in British India. His father, Motilal Nehru (1861–1931), a self-made wealthy barrister who belonged to the Kashmiri Pandit community, served twice as president of the Indian National Congress, in 1919 and 1928.[14] His mother, Swarup Rani Thussu (1868–1938), who came from a well-known Kashmiri Brahmin family settled in Lahore,[15] was Motilal's second wife, his first having died in childbirth. Jawaharlal was the eldest of three children.[16] His elder sister, Vijaya Lakshmi, later became the first female president of the United Nations General Assembly.[17] His youngest sister, Krishna Hutheesing, became a noted writer and authored several books on her brother.[18][19]

Nehru described his childhood as a "sheltered and uneventful one". He grew up in an atmosphere of privilege in wealthy homes, including a palatial estate called the Anand Bhavan. His father had him educated at home by private governesses and tutors.[20] Influenced by the Irish theosophist Ferdinand T. Brooks' teaching,[21] Nehru became interested in science and theosophy.[22] A family friend, Annie Besant subsequently initiated him into the Theosophical Society at age thirteen. However, his interest in theosophy did not prove to be enduring, and he left the society shortly after Brooks departed as his tutor.[23] He wrote: "For nearly three years [Brooks] was with me and in many ways, he influenced me greatly".[22]

Nehru went to Trinity College, Cambridge, in October 1907 and graduated with an honours degree in natural science in 1910.[28] During this period, he studied politics, economics, history and literature with interest. The writings of Bernard Shaw, H. G. Wells, John Maynard Keynes, Bertrand Russell, Lowes Dickinson and Meredith Townsend moulded much of his political and economic thinking.[22]

After completing his degree in 1910, Nehru moved to London and studied law at the Inner Temple Inn.[29] During this time, he continued to study Fabian Society scholars including Beatrice Webb.[22] He was called to the Bar in 1912.[29][30]

After returning to India in August 1912, Nehru enrolled as an advocate of the Allahabad High Court and tried to settle down as a barrister.



Jinnah

Muhammad Ali Jinnah was born on 25 December 1876 in Karachi into the Isma'ilism family of Poonja Jinnah. Jinnah. He was born in Karachi, City of Sindh. His father’s name was Jinnah Poonja (1857- 1901) and his mother’s name was Mithibai. Jinnah was the eldest of the seven children of Jinnah Poonja and Mithibai. His family had migrated to Sindh from the Kathiawar area of Gujarat, present-day India.

In 1891 (when he was fifteen), Jinnah went to London and worked for a few years for a company. At around that time, his mother died.

In 1894, Jinnah quit his job to study law. He joined the course at Lincoln's Inn and graduated in 1896. While still in London, he also started to participate in politics.

Without doubt they met discrimination in their travels. Gandhi's experience in South Africa.
Immediately upon arriving in South Africa, Gandhi faced discrimination because of his skin colour and heritage, like all people of colour.[87] He was not allowed to sit with European passengers in the stagecoach and told to sit on the floor near the driver, then beaten when he refused; elsewhere he was kicked into a gutter for daring to walk near a house, in another instance thrown off a train at Pietermaritzburg after refusing to leave the first-class.[71][88] He sat in the train station, shivering all night and pondering if he should return to India or protest for his rights.[88] He chose to protest and was allowed to board the train the next day.[89] In another incident, the magistrate of a Durban court ordered Gandhi to remove his turban, which he refused to do.[71] Indians were not allowed to walk on public footpaths in South Africa. Gandhi was kicked by a police officer out of the footpath onto the street without warning.[71]

But....

(Gandhi's) family's religious background was eclectic. Gandhi's father Karamchand was Hindu and his mother Putlibai was from a Pranami Vaishnava Hindu family.[54][55] Gandhi's father was of Modh Baniya caste in the varna of Vaishya.[56] His mother came from the medieval Krishna bhakti-based Pranami tradition, whose religious texts include the Bhagavad Gita, the Bhagavata Purana, and a collection of 14 texts with teachings that the tradition believes to include the essence of the Vedas, the Quran and the Bible

Given the later experience of India, Pakistan, Burma, Malaysia, Kenya, Uganda, Singapore, Hong Kong and Brunei, after the Nationalists had been successful perhaps it is understandable why the London Parliament, sitting in the large metropolitan area that constitutes a "country" the size of Singapore or Hong Kong, with a mayor called Sadiq Khan,

Born in Tooting, South London, to a British Pakistani family, Khan earned a law degree from the University of North London. He subsequently worked as a solicitor specialising in human rights issues and chaired the Liberty advocacy group for three years. Joining the Labour Party, Khan was a councillor for the London Borough of Wandsworth from 1994 to 2006 before being elected MP for Tooting at the 2005 general election

with an ethnic make-up considerably at odds with the rest of the UK


Has resulted in a G7, nuclear armed country with a guaranteed seat on the United Nations Security Council, with a leadership group that looks like this:


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Rishi Sunak

Sunak was born on 12 May 1980 in Southampton General Hospital in Southampton, Hampshire,[2][3] to Southeast African-born Hindu parents of Indian Punjabi descent, Yashvir and Usha Sunak.[4][5][6] He attended Stroud School, a preparatory school in Romsey, and later studied at Winchester College as a dayboy, becoming head boy of the college.[7][8][9] He worked as a waiter in a curry house in Southampton during his summer holidays.[10][11] He read philosophy, politics and economics at Lincoln College, Oxford, graduating with a first in 2001.[9][12] During his time at university, he undertook an internship at Conservative Campaign Headquarters and joined the Conservative Party.[8] In 2006, Sunak earned a Master of Business Administration degree from Stanford University as a Fulbright Scholar.[12][13][14] While at Stanford, he met his future wife Akshata Murty, the daughter of Indian billionaire N. R. Narayana Murthy of Infosys.

Sunak's paternal grandfather was from Gujranwala (present-day Pakistan[15][16]), while his maternal grandfather was from Ludhiana (present-day India[17]); both cities at the time were in Punjab province, British India. His grandparents migrated to East Africa, and then to the United Kingdom in the 1960s.[18]

His father, Yashvir Sunak, was born and raised in the Colony and Protectorate of Kenya (present-day Kenya), and is a general practitioner in the National Health Service. His mother, Usha Sunak, born in Tanganyika (which later became part of Tanzania), was a pharmacist and owned the Sunak Pharmacy in Southampton between 1995 and 2014, and has a degree from Aston University.[10][19]

Suella Braverman

Braverman was born in Harrow, Greater London, and raised in Wembley.[4] She is the daughter of Uma (née Mootien-Pillay) and Christie Fernandes,[5] both of Indian origin,[6][7] who emigrated to Britain in the 1960s from Mauritius and Kenya respectively. She is named after the character Sue Ellen Ewing from the American television soap opera Dallas which was popular at the time of her birth.[8] Her mother, of Hindu Tamil Mauritian descent, was a nurse and a councillor in Brent,[7] as well as the Conservative candidate in Tottenham in the 2001 general election and the 2003 Brent East by-election.[7] Her father, of Goan Christian ancestry (who formerly was an Indian in Kenya),[9][10] worked for a housing association.[4] She is the niece of Mahen Kundasamy, a former Mauritian high commissioner to London.[5][11]

She attended the Uxendon Manor Primary School in Brent and the fee-paying Heathfield School, Pinner, on a partial scholarship,[4][12] after which she read law at Queens' College, Cambridge. During her undergraduate studies, she was president of the Cambridge University Conservative Association.[13]

Braverman lived in France for two years, as an Erasmus Programme student and then as an Entente Cordiale Scholar, where she studied a master's degree in European and French law at Panthéon-Sorbonne University.[14]

Braverman was called to the bar at Middle Temple in 2005.[15][16] She completed pupillage at 2–3 Gray's Inn Square (now Cornerstone Barristers)[17] but did not start tenancy there, beginning practice at the London branch of a large Birmingham set, No5 Chambers.

James Cleverly

Cleverly was born on 4 September 1969 in Lewisham, London, to James Philip and Evelyn Suna Cleverly.[2] His father is British and worked as a surveyor and his mother worked as a midwife and is from Sierra Leone.[3] He was privately educated at Riverston School and Colfe's School, both in Lee, London. Cleverly then trained in the army, but his training was cut short by a leg injury in 1989. He went on to gain a Bachelor of Arts degree in hospitality management studies from Ealing College of Higher Education (now University of West London) in 1991.[4][5]

After graduating, he worked for the publishing company Verenigde Nederlandse Uitgeverijen; he joined Informa as international sales manager in 2002. Two years later, Cleverly joined Crimson Publishing as an advertising manager. He became online commercial manager for Caspian Publishing in 2006. The following year, he co-founded web publishing company Point and Fire.[2][4]

Kemi Badenoch (As Scottish a family name as you are ever likely to find....)

Olukemi Olufunto Adegoke was born on 2 January 1980 in Wimbledon, London.[7] She is one of three children born to middle class Yoruba parents. Her father, Femi Adegoke, is a GP and her mother, Feyi Adegoke, is a professor of physiology. Badenoch spent parts of her childhood living in Lagos, Nigeria and in the United States, where her mother lectured.[8][9][10] She has a brother named Fola and a sister called Lola.[11] She returned to the UK at the age of 16 to live with a friend of her mother's owing to the deteriorating political and economic situation in Nigeria which had affected her family.[12] Although a British citizen and born in the UK, Badenoch stated that she was "to all intents and purposes a first-generation immigrant" during her parliamentary maiden speech.[13]

She obtained A Levels from Phoenix College, a former further education college in Morden, whilst working at a branch of McDonald's among other jobs.[7][10] Badenoch studied Computer Systems Engineering at the University of Sussex, completing a Master of Engineering (MEng) degree in 2003.[14][15] She initially worked within the IT sector, first as a software engineer at Logica (later CGI Group) from 2003 to 2006.

While working there she studied law part-time at Birkbeck, University of London, and completed a Bachelor of Laws (LLB) degree in 2009.[10] Badenoch then worked as a systems analyst at the Royal Bank of Scotland Group,[16] before pursuing a career in consultancy and financial services, working as an associate director of private bank and wealth manager Coutts from 2006 to 2013 and later a digital director at The Spectator from 2015 to 2016.[15][17][18]





More to follow....
 
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