Dominic Lieven, Napoleon vs Russia, and the eastward expansion of NATO. The Hundred Years Cold War. Mary Sarotte, Not One Inch, James Baker and Mikhail Gorbachev. Totalitarianism and public health.
America
Flowers of the Mind 8.
Beowulf, polyphony and Mikhail Bakhtin. RussiaGate indictments approach the spider. Peter Frankopan and Fiona Hill. Jordan B Peterson. Elena Shvarts. Jonathon Sumption on how fear has undone democracy.
Flowers of the Mind 2. Ochpaniztli (week 4) 2021
Emily Dickinson, Vaclav Havel, Revolution in Military Affairs, the fall of the Anglo-American Ascendancy, Vale Angelo Codevilla, Boris Pasternak
Podcast #18 – After Kabul, the Task Ahead for Australia
The fall of Kabul has raised questions for Australia about the reliability of its alliance with the United States of America. Will the fall of Kabul and the rise of Eurasia provoke the same questioning of foreign policy by Australia?
Podcast #17 – Letter to America: you are not the captain now
The latest episode of The Burning Archive Podcast is out and available on all the usual platforms, including Apple and Spotify. America’s defeat in Afghanistan has provoked an imperial crisis. This imperial crisis is not just a geostrategic or diplomatic game. It is a crisis of the ideas driving the empire - American culture, society and politics - its core … Continue reading Podcast #17 – Letter to America: you are not the captain now
The Looming War of the American Succession
In 1700 Charles II, King of Spain and Emperor presiding over a vast global empire, died without a child and without a clear successor. His death triggered a great war over geostrategic control of the possessions of the declining Spanish Empire by rival dynasties and rival great states. France and Spain were diminished, and the … Continue reading The Looming War of the American Succession
Podcast #15 – Imperial Crisis in Afghanistan and the World Island
The latest episode of The Burning Archive Podcast is out and available on all the usual platforms, including Apple and Spotify. America's capitulation in Afghanistan has provoked an humanitarian disaster, an imperial crisis, and a change in the balance of power between great states in Eurasia. The crisis threatens not only American prestige in the world but some of the … Continue reading Podcast #15 – Imperial Crisis in Afghanistan and the World Island
Podcast #14 – Afghanistan and the end of America’s 43 Year War
I have released a special episode of The Burning Archive podcast on the situation in Afghanistan. It is available on all the usual platforms, including Apple and Spotify. In this special episode, The Burning Archive makes some fast history, and reflects on the meaning of the capitulation of the American Empire in Afghanistan. There are eight quick takes … Continue reading Podcast #14 – Afghanistan and the end of America’s 43 Year War
The World Island vs The Atlantic
This year, 2021, may be remembered as a pivot year in world history. Not because of the pandemic. Not only because of the protracted crisis of the American republic. But because of the changed balance of power in international relations brought about by the decrepitude of the American Atlanticist Alliance and the strengthening of the … Continue reading The World Island vs The Atlantic
The fall of the American Empire’s Potemkin Province
Thus , in a few blitzkrieg weeks, after the Americans declared they would "draw down their civilian footprint" to meet a publicity deadline of the 20th anniversary of 9/11, the Taliban have exposed American power and control in Afghanistan as a projection of illusion, a Potemkin Province of an anxious empire in decline.
America’s Coming Century of Humiliation… begins
A tragic sense of history does not limit the depth of the fall of the mighty and flawed, nor does it pretend that prevailing orders degrade in a slow, controlled and managed decline. Collapse of political orders, institutions, empires and cultures as often comes quickly, almost suddenly, and rarely with expert forecasts pre-loaded. So it … Continue reading America’s Coming Century of Humiliation… begins
Sound and fury told by the American cultural “elite”
There are few funny stories to emerge from American politics over the last two months, especially during the constitutional embarrassment of the latest faux and cursed impeachment. There is, however, one story that stands out as laugh-out-loud funny, and symptomatic of the cultural decay, which has been a constant theme of this blog since its … Continue reading Sound and fury told by the American cultural “elite”
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