Is my friend my enemy? Could be...

Anyone surprised by the happenings in the world? Especially in Russia? Nah, not really, I am not surprised. Dictators have a limited time-span. They are only in power, projecting their strength, and in the end when they have upset too many sycophants and erstwhile allies they disappear. Putin’s fate was set a long time ago. And if he thinks he will have a lasting epitaph, he can forget that. All that will show on his gravestone will be ‘Here lies Putin, a fool’. Some people have looked at the situation in 1917 with Rasputin (another of the Putin family perhaps?) But all in, what happens in Russia is in some way important. It is a very large country at the moment and as always it is difficult, very difficult to keep a large country together. The real Russia is basically an area that ranges from the old Muscovite grand duchy towards the Baltic Sea, Saint Petersburg. The rest is consisting of empty grass and woodlands interspersed with small towns. Nevertheless these ‘empty’ areas are rich in natural resources. Also some of those areas have ideas about independence. Whatever will be happening it is certainly interesting but also dangerous methinks. As I have mentioned before, the West, in particular the Anglo-Saxon powerblock (USA, UK, Australia, New Zealand and Canada) needs an enemy. If there were no enemies at all there would be no need for the political structures we have built up over the years. To maintain these structures you need enemies. Fortunately if Russia disintegrates, worse becomes a weak democracy, we still have China. It is strange that China rears up its head as Russia’s sinks onto its chest. It is remarkable but the more ordinary people want to live in peace, the more some people stand up who want to lead that effort. Those efforts tend to need a defensive force to ensure the ‘peaceful area’ stays at peace. The problems get underway when resources dwindle because people at peace procreate more (so to say) and soon outgrow their allotted space. Eyes then turn to neighbouring ‘peaceful areas’ and defensive forces turn into ‘offensive’ forces. Bingo, the world political history here in a nutshell. It all hinges on space. You can see this with everything in nature. If an entity outgrows its space, it will need to find more. If it cannot do so or the food supply is no longer sufficient, then a slow decline will commence. If food becomes so restricted that the ‘slow’ decline turns into a rout, fights will erupt as was shown in a rat experiment held in the US some years ago. Followed by a vast decline in numbers of the species or even extinction. As seem now a bit obvious, humans due to their numbers (8 billion and rising), have altered their living space through industralisation and agriculture. That no other species has done on this planet. As such we have lengthened our lifespan but there are still limits. One of the problems we have begun is that of global warming. That will curtail the agricultural possibilities greatly through the drying out of vast swathes of land suitable for growing crops. Also the changing weather patterns in areas that are still fertile will have big changes in types of food being able to grow and having to deal with different types of diseases and insects. Already we are hearing about fauna including insects never before found in our areas. Fish as well are moving north, the seas around the UK have warmed by up to 4 C! Incredible and it all happened over the last 50 to 70 years! Nice work people, just carry on and like Putin’s gravestone our collective one will say ‘Here lies Humankind, the fools’.