OK, I have previously bemoaned the fact that nothing seems to make any difference. Nothing that the modern world seems capable of, or has any intention of doing, makes any difference. Everybody is playing for a system of stasis, or as close to it as can be engineered – and notwithstanding the fact that nothing stays the same for long either. Think climate change. Think global food security. Think the brinkmanship of resource scarcity. Those resources on which modern life depend – which are known, and have been for a long, long time, to have a usable life-term numbered in years, or decades at most – and no-one has a workable plan or even any kind of real plan to deal with the ensuing chaos after that time is up. Think also, the endless stream of global conflicts which, although we all know full well who is responsible for all of them (oo-ess-ay, oo-ess-ay), no-one has the balls to do anything about that. Not even Russia (apparently). Or at least there seems to be a reluctance to actually take that step, with sufficient vigour to ensure its success, even though it is said to be existentially necessary. After almost eight months of to-ing and fro-ing, advancing and retreating (for whatever reason), we are still more or less in the same position as within a week or so of the start of the Ukraine affair. Except, a lot of people have been displaced, a lot more have died, and even more have bits missing from their anatomy they will never enjoy the use of again. Of course some borders have been changed, on paper. But that will do no-one any material good, because everything going on around those people is still the same. Nothing changed. And nothing will change unless a major overhaul takes place. Russia must make a no-man’s land of at least a further 20% or more of Ukraine in order to begin to ensure a situation of material wellbeing for its new citizens. That may well happen of course if we and they don’t die or lose interest, forgetting what the base causes of it all were, in the meantime. I’m not going to predict how that will turn out, although I have some confidence that Russia’s will will eventually provide the right level of determinance – or the west will grow tired or incapable of further participation – which could form a valid component of Russian planning. The principle of “Don’t interfere in your enemy’s self-destructive drives” – or something like that.
None of these things, nor any number of others which could be mentioned, are planned, or have any apparent plan, to alter any time soon. The upheaval to accomplish such a task, in any field you would care to mention, would be too costly and would be obstructed by oppositional forces at every step along the way. Humanity has engineered itself into a state of inebriated confusion and a constriction of movement which is bordering on the term which used to be a common feature of attempts to integrate computer systems, a form of deadlock known as ‘deadly embrace’. At the height of such systems blockage, nothing more can be done, since no part of any of the ’embracing’ systems can move forward (or backward or sideways). Words used in definitions of this phenomena are ‘starvation’ and ‘constipation’ – which kind of sums it up. Are we there yet? It is very similar to, though not as severe as, the finality of the principle of entropy – everything in its ordered place and no chance of further movement. Moving from chaos to entropy (perfectly ordered order) is a one-way street – no way out. We are not quite there yet. There is still a magnitude of chaos in the management of humanity. We need that chaos. We are that chaos. But forces are working to create ‘order’ out of our chaos. These are the forces of entropy, and they do have a human component. If humanity is to have any future – and maybe we have to accept we don’t – since the whole universe, it is said, began as a system of chaos which is moving inexorably towards entropy – we need to maintain our chaotic environs of blissful disorder, and we must root out and kill those forces of entropy seeking to end it all with their imposed uniformity and well ordered ‘sameness’, leading to an entropic prison of solidity where life itself is impossible.
Ok, in a couple of disordered paragraphs bordering on a rant, I have vented my spleen but am no closer to discussing what I set out to talk about in the first place – the no difference a nominally (and that is all that can be expected) European ‘integrated air defence system’ or IADS would make. There is no possibility of the existence of such a beast. Both Russia and China have IADS. Effective and actually ‘real’ ones too. The west knows not the first thing about such concepts. And the ineffective parts (it would take decades to make effective ones) it does have from which to build its own IADS, are simply not designed to be ‘integration capable’. There are a lot of things the west does or has which are not functionally capable, simply because they never needed to be, and the west does not possess what is needed to make such things anyway. They have relied on bluff and bullying, the big stick approach, for so long they have come to believe their own bullshit themselves.
So, a European IADS, eh! I laugh, derisively, at such a concept. Although, maybe, if they were to buy Russian weapons? It’s the only way.
There are a number of excellent articles which would support my view. This one would be the latest – ‘The West is powerless to find protection from Russian missiles’ – VZGLYAD. And it also gives a plug to two of my favourite genre authors – Pepe Escobar and Will Schryver. Unbeatable value, for your delectable pleasure.
Hmm… having now completed this particular mission (at least to a certain level of my own satisfaction), I may turn this into a mini-series of ‘things that make no difference’. The scope for such, is immense. But I am nothing if not, erm… unpredictable, and subject to flights of fancy. So, we will see.
Not Something Else 
Reblogged this on Calculus of Decay .