(BBC) Nord Stream leaks: Sabotage to blame, says EU.

What follows is entirely my own opinion, based exclusively on open-source.

This benefits from the questions of classic homicide investigation. The suspect must have motive and means. It is likely that these actions were committed by someone on the Side of Good, for Good Purpose:

• To obviate backsliding by Germany, which  has been notably slow in providing advanced weaponry to  Ukraine. This shuts down the wistful hope for a return to the past, which could have fractured the Alliance.
• Of equal import, it demonstrates to the Russians that their premise of weak European solidarity,  that Europe could be bought, will continue to be wrong.
• The calls for investigation are quite tongue-in-cheek.

As for the means, the Baltic is quite shallow at the locations. A submarine with a diver lockout chamber is not required. Neither is fancy pipeline repair gear. The depth of 187  feet is reachable by competent scuba divers breathing commercial trimix gas. The dive boat need have no visible adaptations that distinguish it from a fishing vessel.

As to whodunit, I leave it to your imagination.  There must be a lot of  smiling  around office water coolers. As George H.W. Bush famously once said,

Read my lips.

(CNN) CIA doctor hit by Havana syndrome says he was in ‘disbelief’ as he suffered what he was investigating.

I’ve written so much about the (link) Havana attacks, this risks repetition. So this is a brief critique of CNN reportage, in the vein of CNN Editorial, Meredith McCarroll, Anthony Bourdain listened; Appalachia’s Three Percent. In that article, I wrote,

The form and viability of a city depend upon the physical circumstances and imagination of the builders. Lewis Mumford’s The City in History (Harcourt, 1961) may be first to systematize, going beyond title to trilogize the city as the work of man, yet organic, more or less, in relation to the environment.

The problems of the Appalachia have basis in the physical world, not worth a mention in Meredith McCarroll‘s editorial. Only 3% of  Pike County, West Virginia is flat enough to build on, a shortage that extends to Appalachia as a whole. If Appalachia were as flat as Nevada, its social history would be entirely different. Yet the words “flat”or “hilly” do not appear. As well, the Havana problem  is not defined by what officials say and do. It is a problem in the physical world.

My exposure to CNN is entirely through the website, so I cannot refer directly to the televised special. With Sanjay Gupta, they have in-house neurological expertise. It does not extend beyond this. Ignoring the physical world that contains the problem, the “3%”, the print article, CIA doctor hit by Havana syndrome , is no more than a human interest story that declines the real story,  a fascinating technical problem.  It’s not the “truth” about anything except for the miserable victims.

Sanjay, you should have asked these questions:

• Was there any attempt to monitor the radiation environment of any victim before the event? Were there any positives?
• “Dr. Paul Andrews”, pseudonym, retreated to the bathroom and donned headphones. What kind of headphones were they?
• Did the headphones generate any anomalous sounds, indicative of microwaves?
• When he moved to the bathroom, did the clicking sound continue with the same amplitude and cadence?
• Was his bed against the wall with the “chase” utility space?
• Did “Dr. Paul Andrews” experience any sensation of warmth on the skin?
• Which side did he favor while sleeping? Did it expose the symptomatic ear?
• Did any of the affected Havana residences have radios or TVs in frequent use? Even when turned off, a radio typically emits noise in a pulsed microwave field.

For who to consult, to inform your reactions, read down.

CNN is not unique in reliance on pronouncements by officials and individuals with impressive-but-too-often irrelevant credentials. This problem view ignores another “3%”, the vast stores of knowledge  possessed by some individuals about the world that contains the problem.

Within walking distance of CNN, NYU and Columbia are nearby institutions with excellent physics and electrical engineering departments. For Sanjay Gupta, Georgia Tech is the obvious choice. These are people you would go to if you wanted a directed energy weapon. Of all CNN employees, Sanjay is eminently qualified to interface.

They are not officials. Unlike officials, who bear responsibility, often in excess of their knowledge, these academics possess knowledge without responsibility, knowledge that CNN apparently cares not to access, even for use in highly simplified presentation. This is blinkered, like the carriage horses on 57th.

CNN, you can do better.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

(Reuters) Russia’s Medvedev: new regions can be defended with strategic nuclear weapons. Quoting Dmitry Medvedev,

“Russia has announced that not only mobilisation capabilities, but also any Russian weapons, including strategic nuclear weapons and weapons based on new principles, could be used for such protection.”

Going beyond the use of tactical nukes, Medvedev’s statement implies Russia could destroy Kiev.

In The Decline of the West,  Oswald Spengler enumerated nine cultures, which he described as living organisms. Interesting, but overdone and not particularly insightful, I thought — until now.

Four cultures are relevant to the Ukraine conflict: Western, Chinese, Indian “high cultures” and Russian, which Spengler did not then view as a high culture, though it might so develop. Medvedev’s threat indicates this evolution has not  occurred. Russia has taken a wrong turn, away from high culture to a murderous form of cultural narcissism. In consequence, we are in danger of a new dark age.  See Address to Davos; Avoiding the New Dark Ages.

In contrast, there is no doubt that China and India, along with neighboring countries, exhibit culture and civilization to the highest degree. Although there is some friction between China and the U.S., it is vital to  all humanity that China use its considerable influence to prevent the use by Russia of nuclear weapons. If Russia  uses nuclear weapons, there will arise a death cult of revenge in kind.

We are already familiar with such cults with roots in Islamic extremism, who desire nuclear weapons and materials. Thus far, their success has been prevented by

• Self-selection; terror is not attractive to the brightest minds who possess the technical skills required for nuclear terror.
• Vigilance by many people, who, if they agree on nothing else, would not wish nuclear terror on anyone else.
• Since nuclear terror has never happened, there is no desire for revenge in kind, which could attract the very intelligent revenge-seekers who have so far declined terror.
• Absence of a meme. We have seen the power of the meme in social media.

In coming years, there may develop a black market in nuclear weapons.. Those Russians who contemplate nukes in Ukraine must take responsibility for the future, distant or not so distant, of stateless, anonymous nuclear attacks on Russian cities. Mutual assured destruction is a profound deterrent to nation states; not so when the actor  is stateless. In the days after 9/11, there was  in the U.S. discussion of what threat could be made to the Arab world to deter nuclear attacks by Wahhabi extremists. There was no answer. Time is on the side of the death cult.

Perhaps Dmitry Medvedev comforts himself that the above is hypothetical. There is a related threat that can be realized now. I would normally not discuss this; Dmitry Medvedev makes it necessary. Medvedev and Putin should consult their science advisors. There is a radioactive isotope so  deadly that if an amount I leave unspecified were dispersed efficiently in a city like Moscow, the city would have to be abandoned — a second Chernobyl. Remediation is impossible. Decay requires multiple human lifespans. Decontamination would require total demolition of the target area.

This has not happened for two reasons:

• Efficient dispersal requires high level engineering talent of the level that declines terror. It is practical.
• Everyone agrees this should not happen to anyone. Hence vigilance by those who may not be your friends.

Before Dmitry Medvedev spoke, there was such a thing as human decency. That, too, can perish with the Bomb.

As we have seen with other terror, nuclear terror can become a meme. If it does, the problem becomes Avoiding the New Dark Ages. Can mankind survive without cities? Perhaps in a diminished, post apocalyptic fashion, a much smaller number can survive. Spengler’s unfounded theories would be ironically correct. See  Russia, the new Sparta; Putin, Lycurgus & Oswald Spengler.

China civilization is far in advance of Russia. Russia’s rulers are in thrall of a murderous cultural complex which may prevent appreciation of the above argument. Russia needs the help of China to regain what is referred to in China as the “correct path.”

The message must be strict and hard:  China cannot engage with a country that brings nuclear terror into the world for optional  foreign policy reasons. China’s self interest is clear; while Moscow would precede Beijing as a victim, every city in the world is vulnerable to the meme of nuclear terror.

The meme of nuclear terror must see neither the darkness of night or the broad light of day.

 

(CNN) Russia announces immediate ‘partial mobilization’ of citizens for its offensive in Ukraine.

This was anticipated  on 7/12/2022 in (CNN) Generals Wesley Clark vs. Mark Hertling; Are Weapon Stockpiles Sufficient? Quoting,

This applies to a hypothetical high intensity conflict. The unmet near term need is the response to possible Russian mobilization, best served by hot production lines, and additional contracts for long lead-time parts, such as sensors.

Since then, it has become evident from Ukraine casualties that U.S. and Western smart weapon preference has one doctrinal deficiency. While Russian use of low cost massed artillery facilitates avoidance of small-arms combat, the  high cost of smart weapons prohibits symmetric use. HIMARS inventories cannot support routine use that inspires the joke name “grid square removal weapon.”

There are some indications that Ukraine is receiving some supplies of 152mm shells from a third country. Perhaps a gun swap could be arranged as well? Quoting Stalin,

*Quantity has a quality all its own.*

Though Stalin’s faith in quantity brought savage carnage to Russians, a kernel of truth is adaptable to Western thinking.

 

 

 

 

 

This is possible. More later.

Read these first:

• Power Transition in Russia? Revolution? Part 1
• (CNN) ‘I’m smiling’: Ret. Lt. Gen. Hertling reacts to Putin news; Putin takes Command.
• (CNN) Russian security service accuses Ukraine of Darya Dugina’s murder; Dawn of the Russian Insurgency?

In response to the Ukraine debacle, political power, concentrated for the last few years in Putin’s “inner cabinet”,  is diffusing outward. See Exploiting Cracks in the Kremlin; Putin, the New Stalin? Opposition has enlarged with new elements, in addition to the old:

• Security apparatus, part of the extreme right wing.
• An insurgency.
• Extreme right wing populist politicians and idealogues.
• Military hard liners.
• Military pragmatists.
• Oligarchs.
• Genuine political opposition. See (The Hill) Russian municipal deputies call for Putin’s resignation.

Putin’s survival depends upon:

• Balancing  these elements. Until the ascent of the extreme right, with an “inner cabinet” that excluded other clans and factions, Putin displayed political acumen as a balancer. Putin has since attempted to exercise absolute power.
• Deflection of blame.
• Avoidance of triggers that might cause a fulmination in one or more elements.
• Some achievement to justify the spiraling costs.
• Reconcentration of political power in the tight, unified cabal that created the mess, or development of a new, broad, quasi-democratic base.

For more on Putin as the  balancer, see Putin, rodeo bull rider.  There is no opposition consensus:

• The military resents Putin’s meddling, but are themselves incompetent per Western standards.
• The insurgency declares no alternative.
• Exalting militarism as part of the fascist “bundle”, the extreme right wing has  limited appeal to a military who must execute.
• The oligarchs just wish things would return to the way they were.

To the contrary, the opposition  is divided by harsh, lethal fissures. Perhaps the rodeo bull should be replaced by a keg of gunpowder.  The fissures  present Putin with the opportunity and necessity to revive his role as the balancer. They also threaten him with the bane of Russian leadership, violent removal. If he pisses off the security apparatus, there could be Novichok in his coffee. If he meets his generals in Sochi, now indefinitely postponed, they might detain him.

This is why Putin’s dedication of a Moscow Ferris wheel is not crazy. (NDTV) Vladimir Putin Opens New Ferris Wheel As Russian Forces Receive Stunning Setback In Ukraine. It’s the trick of an old pol:

• It keeps him in the public eye, apart from individuals associated with the Ukraine debacle.
• It revives  populist appeal, Putin  as the “caring leader.”
• It enrages some quarters, but is not likely to trigger the powder keg.

Ukraine claims to have discovered a Russian internal social services document that supports casualties of 8000/month. This is the slow poison which will eventually waken the sleeping masses, for exploit by one or more of the above named elements. See also Medical Arguments with CIA Bill Burns (Putin) & CNN (NY Polio).

The mix portends a Russia significantly different from pre-2014 Russia, and pre-2022 Russia.

• Change might be minimized if Putin managed to demote the extreme right and resume his balancing act.
• He could also choose to temporize, in which case he might not be alive to witness the explosion.
• Continuation of totalitarian Putin entails the greatest risk of coup.

Putin should urgently implement this technique for project management:

Six phases of a big project

 

 

A survey of alternatives to the rocket for boosting into space, followed by a new (to me) method. Extant proposals require imaginary super-strength materials, or subject a payload to gun-like extreme g-forces. The new method is much closer to current state of the art. It may actually be doable, and g-forces are moderate.

Caveat: The topic is so popular, I would have expected to find evidence of prior art. I didn’t find any. This method is new to me.

Survey

Artemis represents the culmination of the disposable chemical rocket, unlikely to be exceeded unless metallic hydrogen becomes a practical fuel. Rockets are subject to the tyranny of the rocket equation, discovered independently by William Moore, Konstantin Tsiolkovsky, Robert Goddard and Hermann Oberth. Quoting from (NASA) Ideal Rocket Equation,

From the ideal rocket equation, 90% of the weight of a rocket going to orbit is propellant weight. The remaining 10% of the weight includes structure, engines, and payload. So given the current state-of-the-art, the payload accounts for only about 1% of the weight of an ideal rocket at launch. Rockets are terribly inefficient and expensive.

Though Artemis provides a gentle, hopefully reliable vehicle for humans and scientific exploration, the rocket equation prohibits a role in the commercial exploitation of space, or sustenance of colonies. With Artemis, a bulldozer on the moon becomes a billion dollar bulldozer. See also (NASA) The Tyranny of the Rocket Equation.

A rocket has to lift and accelerate its propellant. If a rocket could perform without the weight of propellant, we’d be vacationing on Mars. But there is no way around this; fuel is part and parcel of the concept.  There are other concepts, which do not employ rockets, which avoid the rocket equation altogether:

• Tsiolkovsky‘s space tower, the ultimate high-rise, 22500 miles high, through which would run an elevator all the way to the top.
• Artsutanov’s space elevator, a cable dangling 22000+ miles from a synchronous orbit satellite, all the way to ground. Cars or crawlers would travel up and down.
• Momentum exchange tethers, a class of devices, some of which can serve as alternative boosts into orbit.

All of the above rely super-strength materials that do not exist, even in nanotechnology carbons. Carbon fiber was one  dashed hope, and carbon nanotubules were actually a step backwards. Evolved graphenes are unlikely to reach the out-of-this world required strengths.

These methods show promise, but involve extremely high g-forces that would crush a spacecraft, let alone a human:

• Gerard Bull’s HARP., a very large artillery cannon.
• Electromagnetic catapult, also known as a mass driver.
• SpinLaunch, a compact  centrifugal device that acts as a catapult.

Beam-powered propulsion is derivative of rocket. Fuel carried by a rocket is replaced by a narrow laser or microwave beam aimed at a ground-to-orbit craft, which uses the energy of the beam to heat and expand a reaction propellant. Freeman Dyson wrote (JASON via Wikipedia),

“Laser propulsion as an idea that may produce a revolution in space technology. A single laser facility on the ground can in theory launch single-stage vehicles into low or high earth orbit. The payload can be 20% or 30% of the vehicle take-off weight. It is far more economical in the use of mass and energy than chemical propulsion, and it is far more flexible in putting identical vehicles into a variety of orbits.”

Beam powered propulsion is very promising, but unrelated to the method described below.

New Method

If a rocket could perform without having to accelerate the weight of propellant, we’d be vacationing on Mars. What if this were possible? It is, by recombination of the old:

• Impulse engine,  a rocket or jet.
• Centrifugal acceleration, analogous to SpinLaunch.
• Momentum exchange tether, 10 kilometers length, more or less. Inspired by but In contrast with the impossibly long  tether of the space elevator, it is barely within reach of carbon, with substantial prospect of improvement.

The tether connects two separate objects to transfer momentum from one to the other:

• The propulsion body contains the fuel and reaction propulsion system, a jet or rocket motor.
• The space body may also contain motors and fuel, but these are not active while tethered to the propulsion body.
• Momentum is generated by the propulsion body, and transferred to the space body.
• The momentum of the propulsion body remains static within a small range. The momentum of the space body steadily increases until the tether is cut.
• The momentum of the fuel does not increase.

This is easy to visualize with a hardware nut and a length of string:

• Tie the nut, the space body, to a foot of string.
• Tie the other end to your finger, the propulsion body.
• Dangle the nut.
• Make small rhythmic movements with your finger/hand.
• Discover what movements cause the nut to swing in increasing circular arc.
• If the nut is swinging fast enough, the nut will orbit your finger in a nearly horizontal plane.  This can be maintained, with almost no finger/hand movement.
• Momentum is transferred from your finger to the nut.
• Imagine how, if the string were cut, the nut would fly off fast, in a direction tangential to its orbit about your finger.

In practice,

• A subsonic jet airplane “mothership”, with high-bypass turbofan engines, is the propulsion body, flying at a comfortable 500  miles/hour.
• The space body is suspended from the mothership via a winched carbon fiber or graphene tether.
• The mothership flies in an expanding circle, limited by maximum tether length. The path is precisely determined to maximize energy transfer to the space body, which can be caused to orbit the mothership at 10X the speed, 5,000 miles/hour, neglecting real-world impediments.
• Released at a precise moment, the space body flies off, having received the delta-v of a large booster from a  reusable vehicle at a fraction of the fuel cost.

This is CTMT, centripetal tethered momentum transfer.

Next, some napkin calculations.

You could be Swinging on a Star.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

(CNN) Head of Russian oil giant Lukoil dies after falling from hospital window, reports state media.

In Exploiting Cracks in the Kremlin; Putin, the New Stalin?, I wrote,

• Pumping oil/gas like crazy, a social safety net for the bulk of the population is maintained, if in a somewhat tattered state.
• Oligarchic wealth begins to dissipate. Members of this class react with anger.
• The  oligarchic side of the Kremlin  conflicts with a new power center, with new ideologues, extending into the military.
• The new ideologues re-legitimize Stalin.
• Borrowing from Stalin, the new power center applies harsh methods against the oligarchs.

There is an opinion that the oligarchs are merely purse holders with no power. The rate at which they are dying is adequate contradiction; the powerless are not killed with such enthusiasm. It’s more like scissors-paper-rock:

• Oligarchs, through whose hands pass vast sums, fund the insurgency with diversions. See (CNN) Russian security service accuses Ukraine of Darya Dugina’s murder; Dawn of the Russian Insurgency?
• The insurgency  attempts assassinations of ultra-nationalists..
• The ultra-nationalists assassinate oligarchs.

In this game, is ordering of power possible? Did Ravil Maganov fund the Dugin hit? The IC may know, but the rest of us will have to wait for the re-reformation of Russia.  Providing a view of how things work in Russia, here is a fiction in the style of Agatha Christie, The Unfortunate Defenestration of Ravil Maganov:

• Central Clinical Hospital is for elites.
• It is heavily guarded by the Federal Protective Service.
• Unlike the Siberian hospital which actually tried to investigate the poisoning of Alexei Navalny,  the staff are under the thumb of FSO, do what they are told, and speak not of what they see.
  
• The official time of the unfortunate defenestration is given as 7 a.m., a sloppy invention that coincides with the nursing shift change. See The Number “7”.
• As the night shift leaves, the morning shift is held back, emptying the corridor.
• Dressed in whites, the FSO employees entrusted with the “special task” enter Maganov’s room. To ensure there will be no struggle, they administer a fatal injection.
• Maganov is dead before he hits the ground.
• In due course, the morning shift discovers Maganov has made his exit. They dare not question.

Who knows? There might be some correspondence to the truth. Exercise your little gray cells on this matter with appropriate order and method. Then call for Hercule Poirot.

Mary, Mary, quite contrary,

How Does Your Garden Grow?

We continue from Mar-a-Lago Secrets — The Plot Thickens; a Spy Job?, which is suggestive:

The purpose of the search-and-seizure was not simply to retrieve top-secret documents. It was also to gather evidence. It indicates that the documents were the center of some form of illicit activity.

Though the redacted affidavit does not list espionage as a probable cause, the affidavit author describes his qualifications:

4. I am a Special Agent with the FBI assigned to the Washington Field Office. During this time, I have received training at the FBI Academy located at Quantico, Virginia, specific to counterintelligence and espionage investigations. Based on my experience and training, I am familiar with efforts used to unlawfully collect, retain, and disseminate sensitive government information, including classified NDI.

The qualifications in red further the impression of an espionage investigation.

Unlawful retention is by itself big trouble; Harold Thomas Martin II was sentenced to 9 years for what may have been obsessive hoarding, with indications merely suggestive of espionage.  The same distinction applies at Mar-a-Lago; former POTUS may have transferred documents in expression of a hoarding instinct without any ideas for exploitation. It is likely that the redactions relate to these possibilities:

• Hoarding without exploitation.
• Carelessness resulting in theft.
• Deliberate carelessness facilitating espionage.
• Espionage.

Is it conceivable that a POTUS would  deliberately remove protections, facilitating foreign espionage? There is an historical analogy with FDR, and Harry Dexter White, who served in Treasury under FDR. In CIA Chief: Trump “Unwitting agent of the Russian Federation”, I wrote,

Has supreme self confidence been our undoing before? Harry Dexter White was Assistant Secretary of the Treasury in 1946, U.S. representative to the Bretton Woods conference, and co-creator of the International Monetary Fund. He had numerous contacts with Soviet Intelligence that has lead to the somewhat debated conclusion that he was a Soviet spy. Robert Skidelsky writes,

“A combination of naivety, superficiality and supreme confidence in his own judgment -together with his background – explains the course of action White took. There is no question of treachery, in the accepted sense of betraying one’s country’s secrets to an enemy. But there can be no doubt that, in passing classified information to the Soviets, White knew he was betraying his trust, even if he did not thereby think he was betraying his country.”

In the period of conflict with Nazi Germany, Communism had many Western sympathizers, who preferred to ignore the monstrosities of Stalinism. An ally crucial to the war effort, Russia had to be our friend. Even as sophisticated a pol as FDR conjured “Uncle Joe” as someone he could befriend on the personal level, resulting in the giveaway of Yalta, the diplomatic basis for the Iron Curtain.

There is striking analogy in the key tenet of Trump’s foreign policy, the necessity of alliance with Russia to balance China. Before the 2014 invasion in Ukraine, and for a period after, this opinion was popular in reputable circles. When it became disreputable, Trump may have been too fixated on China to notice that Russia had become a warlike state.

The ghost of Harry Dexter White lingers around Trump’s meetings with Putin. (Vox) Trump reportedly hid details of his meetings with Putin from his own administration. (WaPo) Trump has concealed details of his face-to-face encounters with Putin from senior officials in administration.

Two sinister bon mots:

You have nothing to fear if you have nothing to hide.

The road to Hell is paved with good intentions.

 

 

 

(CNN) Russian security service accuses Ukraine of Darya Dugina’s murder.

Although a Ukraine splinter group, such as Azov, cannot be ruled out, the weight is on domestic Russian perpetration.

With political philosopher Alexander Dugin the intended target,  this was a philosophical capitation strike. Most governments provide the member participants with enough political experience to realize that decapitation seldom provides the desired result. Most assassinations are the products of twisted logic that can be sustained only in isolation,  by terror groups, or actual insurgencies. The ample U.S. assassination history has only one, JFK, that conceivably might have been the work of more than an individual.

The attempts on Fidel Castro are a big exception,  enabled by the perception that failure had no risk. We continue with the note that the risk for Ukraine, even if they are not responsible, is severe, as it may enable further Russian mobilization.

For a decapitation to work to the benefit of those responsible, a clockwork logic must be imagined. Let’s start with imagined reasoning for Ukraine culpability:

• With the principal advocate of destroying Ukraine removed, the entire ultra-nationalist argument springs a leak, losing all persuasive power.
• The right-wing Russian military lose all enthusiasm for their self-created war.
• If Dugin were still alive (as he actually is), he writes another book, makes a few speeches, and pumps the ultras up again. Since he isn’t available, the Russian army goes home.

This clockwork has three non-realistic, irrational gears that must engage. It is not a believable brainchild of a Western-oriented civil government. Such twisted logic can survive only in the mind of the lone wolf, or a small extremist organization. Even Azov is a little large for this, and it has mellowed out in the past few years. The negative outcome, which has only one gear, is pretext for general Russian mobilization. Russian propagandists are already working this angle.

In contrast, the logic for assassination available to a Russian insurgency is strong and simple:

• Putin is ill. While his projected lifespan is not available to open source, increasing frailty limits his tenure. See Medical Arguments with CIA Bill Burns (Putin) & CNN (NY Polio).
• There will be a power struggle between rationalists and ultra-nationalists.
• As the premier wordsmith of the ultra-nationalists, Dugin has the potential to rally emotions to a degree that  worries the rationalists.
• So removal of Dugin is preparatory to a Kremlin power struggle.

The quality of the second argument in comparison to the first is evident. The rationalists may have a hand in some other recent actions within Russia. They  need only their new name:

The Insurgency

See also Power Transition in Russia? Revolution? Part 1.

As always, slick reasoning can be undone by facts.