lunes, 29 de enero de 2024

Palestina- Israel, mi observación, parte 2: an algerian model for Palestine-Israel war?

 In the current war between Palestine and Israel, both national entities recognised by Israel's founding act, promoted by the United Nations in 1948, a surprising profile emerges with progressive force that can help to understand not the background but the potential imminent scenarios.

Which group of settlers occupied a Mediterranean land in the 19th century and enriched it through their work, with great effort, especially in the agricultural and commercial fields? Which group of settlers, after more than 100 years of profound socio-economic transformations of the occupied territories, lost a long war against the indigenous rebels, despite having the support of the metropolis and very important Western military allies?

Algeria is where all the answers to these questions are to be found, and I did it such as my egyptologist colleague "Ra Amon" (Ramon Serra) recently proposed to me to observe and think about this territorial analogue for the ongoing Israeli-Palestinian conflict, I have done so, and here I present my main observations to my kind readers: 

1. The Israeli internal political drift prior to the Gaza war marks a conceptual space very rich in "Mediterranean" themes going back to the protohistory of the mediterranean sea, and has strong analogues with Hellenic history during the Peloponnesian War: two factions clash during an external war within the Athenian camp, with the democratic party on one side and the pro-oligarchic party on the other.

2. The French colonists arriving from the metropolis during XIX c in Algeria colonise and establish a strict racial division with the indigenous people whom they subjugate militarily and culturally for more than 100 years. What looked like peace turned into a fierce war after the massacre that started the real Algerian rebellion at the time of festing the active and heroic participation of Algerian indigenous troops in the fighting of the third and final part of the Second World War.

3.... to be continued next week end...


viernes, 5 de enero de 2024

Palestina-Israel, mi opinión, parte 1: lo que observaba en 2014

 en 2014 observé en este blog lo que sigue: 


EL CRONOMETRO EN GAZA


(en memoria adolorida a Mordecai Anielewicz comandante del levantamiento del ghetto de Varsovia)



La guerra en la costa mediterránea oriental, en su sector asiático casi colindante con Africa del Norte, tiene dos focos encendidos en Siria y en Palestina. 
En Gaza-Palestina, observamos una campaña militar israelí orientada prima ratio, a quebrar la espalda, el músculo militar, a la organización Hamas. Los objetivos subyacentes pueden estar vinculados tanto a lograr seguridad estratégica de largo plazo para Israel, como también, muy probablemente, esté vinculado a consolidar una posición preferente en relación a la rica bolsa de combustibles fósiles que se ha localizado frente a las costas de Palestina.
En el conflicto de Gaza hay que intentar dilucidar los actores visibles directos, que se enfrentan en las calles de la ciudad, y los actores indirectos. Es decir, ¿Israel y la organización Hamas en Gaza son peones de otros adversarios que actúan supeditados a intereses geopolíticos macro regionales y/o globales? Quizás en términos generales Hamas represente de alguna manera a una parte de la nación árabe, disgregada en muchos intereses locales inarticulados en el plano estratégico mediterráneo, por esta razón mientras Egipto no actúe de forma decidida en su apoyo esa etérea solidaridad árabe no se podría cristalizar realmente. Un elemento pues de control de la evolución del conflicto militar actual y de sus inminentes consecuencias tanto para Israel como para Hamas será observar atentamente las reacciones político militares egipcias. Por esta razón el cordón umbilical de la realidad contingente une el desarrollo de este conflicto con los intereses estratégicos de los Estados Unidos de Norteamérica: este conflicto hará más necesaria aún la alianza Egipto EEUU, pues los del río Nilo son la clave para evitar un desbordamiento geopolítico no sólo de Israel sino de parte de la costa africana mediterránea, que, lejos de estabilizarse después de la primavera mediterránea, se ha transformado en un territorio donde aparecen simientes dispersas, aún, de los partidarios de un califato islámico a las puertas de Europa y frente a una de las vías marítimas importantes del planeta.
Otro actor invisible es obviamente Irán, pero este país tiene un polo de acción militar mucho más inminente en Siria y no tiene capacidad para dispersar sus capacidades logísticas más allá del Libano-Siria. Es un importante actor indirecto en la medida que a través del Libano, con el concurso de Hezbola, pudiese decidir una acción significativa en la frontera norte de Israel, con efectos propagandísticos notables en el mundo árabe y regional islámico no árabe (en dirección a Turquía).
En un plano más local, esta guerra , o más bien esta campaña militar de la larga guerra entre Israel y Palestina, ¿aportaría más seguridad a Israel? Si tomamos en cuenta el conjunto de la situación en Gaza, vemos que cada enfrentamiento masivo entre Israel y los de Hamás ha terminado con un status quo que ha beneficiado social y políticamente a la organización Hamás. También resulta aparente que se ha producido un salto táctico con efectos estratégicos si se proyecta en el tiempo la tendencia de Hamás a mejorar su artillería misilera.  Esta tendencia es un salto cuantitativo en relación al número de misiles de baja potencia que ahora sobrevuelan partes importantes del territorio israelí. La pregunta que debieran hacerse por esa zona es ¿qué pasaría si a las cabezas de esos proyectiles se les cambiase, en la siguiente o subsiguiente batalla, su carga explosiva por otras de otro tipo? y esta pregunta aplica igualmente a la frontera norte de Israel. 
Es decir, paradójicamente el conflicto entre Israel y los árabes se ha reconducido significativamente a través de organizaciones islamistas locales, no  a través de entes estatales, y esas organizaciones religiosas locales han sobrevivido, en el choque con Israel, ahi donde los estados árabes y la OLP fracasaron.
Hay guerras donde la clave no esta en el triunfo cuantitativo, en el body counting americano en Vietnam. Gana el que persiste, el que sobrevive, y en eso los palestinos de Gaza hasta ahora lo han hecho de forma notable. Quizás no tengan otra alternativa al estar acorralados entre el mar e Israel. ¿No ocurrió algo similar en el Ghetto de Varsovia en abril del año 1943? ¿Que relación hay entre Hamás y las varsovianas y heroicas Zydowska Organizacja Bojowa, ZOB y Zydowski Zwiazek Wojskowy; ZZW? Pues mucha más de la que pueda parecer, y está situada en el plano organizativo y del elemento clave, que explica la resiliencia de Hamás: la voluntad social y política de persistir.
Así de batalla en batalla Israel va perdiendo seguridad estratégica, pues se amplia la probabilidad de sufrir fuego artillero islamista, en el norte y en Gaza, de calidad diferente a la actual.
El efecto de esto sería inmenso en el punto clave de la permanencia del proyecto estatal israelí: el poblamiento demográfico del espacio estatal de Israel. Ese es el talón de Aquiles del proyecto sionista del Eretz Israel concebido por Theodoro Herzel en las tierras de Europa hace sólo 100 años atrás.
Paralelamente a la batalla en el terreno hay una batalla mediática que a pesar de la censura está perdiendo incluso en los EEUU el estado de Israel. Flaco favor le han hecho los pocos cientos de ciudadanos que el 26 de julio se manifestaron en Tel Aviv al grito  festivo de "mañana no hay clases, no quedan niños en Gaza". Esas manifestaciones y gritos son un unicum en la historia de las guerras; incluso los alemanes en medio de su sangriento sueño estatista del Lebenraum, allá por el año 1943 y 1944, no hicieron marchas por Berlin gritando consignas equivalentes. Muchos olvidan pues en Israel, pero no fuera, que la creación del Estado de Israel fue un acto jurídico ex novo por parte de la comunidad internacional, que es la que sustentó el nacimiento de Israel como compensación a los judíos por el Holocausto alemán.
¿Qué compensación hará la comunidad internacional a los palestinos, aparte de las acciones paliativas puntuales de la Cruz roja, de la Media Luna roja y de la ONU? Este tema va más allá de las resoluciones inoperantes de la ONU, y se gesta en los espíritus y conciencias del mundo internacional frente al escenario que el otrora heroico Tzahal está incubando en Gaza.

sábado, 18 de noviembre de 2023

2014 año chileno para mi

 CATABA 

(publicado en junio de 2014 en este blog; igual que refloto análisis geopolíticos que muestran que las cosas de la arena internacional no se improvisan, también lo hago con algún poema como éste que fotografía momentos de mi ya terminada vida chilena, hace justo un año, y que fue intensa...pardiez!)


yo

un late harvest

dulce y frio

chileno

El sol de invierno

daba sombras largas

en este solticio lejano

Y reimos

y sobre la mesa

no puse mantel

no cubiertos de metal

ni de tela

ni de lino

ni encaje

Tu te estiraste

y yo bebi tu piel

y en vez de platos

cabellos rubios

y en vez de cubiertos

tus piernas

y a cambio de vasos

tus nalgas

Y corri a buscar almohadas

y me llene la boca de ti

y tu me dabas 

el vino 

en tus labios

Y la mesa 

y el postre 

eras tu


Y este fue el dia más corto

 del otoño moribundo

y del invierno naciente

Y lo vivi entre tus piernas

Y la alfombra era roja

y tu casi vestida

de verde y celeste

y la música árabe

a orillas del Pacífico

del mar bravío

y tus cabellos rubios

rubios

sobre el rojo

rojo

y a veces relámpagos azules

frente al fuego lento

de la estufa

Mezcla de sangres

la tuya catalana y alemana

andaluza vasca y mapuche

la mia

o quizás diaguita

o inca?

Mezclas benditas

de sonidos eternos

El del mar bravio

de olas largas y verdes

peinado de huiros y cochayuyos

y de la musica que escuché

en Jalab tantos años ya.

Y tu yaces sobre el rojo

y escucho la ola tambor

y veo filas ordenadas de pelícanos

sobrevolando la ola encrespada

y veo el silencio del cielo austral

repleto de luces

reflejado 

en la bóveda de tu seno

en la bahía de tu obligo 

tenue

Cuando muera

y me vaya al occidente eterno

recordare 

rojo y rubio

rubio y verde

y tu boca

y tus dientes

Remolino de emociones

intensas

Un premio inesperado

para quien regresó 

a morir

sin más

Porque todo ya creí

que lo tuve

en la docta tierra

de mi exilio

Y aqui 

donde tiembla cada dia

donde no sabemos si el mar retrocedido

sera solo un artefacto lunar

una marea más


nos será devuelta una muralla de agua

inmensa

destructora

renovadora

de todos y todas

Agua marina

agua nuestra de cada dia

no tengas piedad de nosotros

Si crees que debes inundarnos

con tus algas gigantes

con tus erizos

con tus peces

Ven

Ven y asombranos

con tu verde perpetuo

con tu tronar de dioses

Ven e intenta llevarnos contigo

Ven ahora

y para siempre

Y si lo logras

feliz serás entre todas las olas

que antes de ti lo intentaron

Mientras te decides

mientras te espero

gozaremos

de cada segundo que nos concedes

Oh mar antiguo

oh mar peligroso

oh mar océana

Y lo haré

sobre mi mesa

con mi mantel

y mis alimentos

de piel

Ven

porque me encontrarás

en esa hora

tronadora

feliz

porque otra vez

estoy completo

entero

Piel y alma

seso y sentidos

he reunido

después del largo exilio

y me anclo de nuevo

sobre lo urgente del momento

sobre la nube del norte

y el viento del sur

Sobre tus gemidos

sobre el temblor de la piel 

y del suelo

y me anclo para luchar

y me anclo para entender

Porque en la entrega

dando todo

todo

el alma se carga de razones


entiende mejor que

 viviendo para dar

es la esencia

la lección 

que este océano de vida americana

regala

al que paciente

aprende

a ver mirando

a escuchar oyendo

y a vivir amando

Igor Parra

el reloj ruso (observación del año 2014 en este blog)...

 EL RELOJ RUSO

 (publicado en este blog en Mayo del año 2015)


Igor Parra


A pesar de la distancia, aquí en el hemisferio sur, muy al sur, la gravedad de la situación, en Ucrania, promueve a una observación en voz alta sobre aspectos no explicitados en los medios de comunicación y en los análisis de los gobiernos europeos y de sus aliados.

A pesar de tanta literatura excelente sobre el arte de la guerra, sobre estrategia, gran estrategia, táctica y gran táctica, a pesar, digo, de  instrumentos bélicos excelentes en el campo terrestre, aéreo naval, subterráneo, tanto en balística como en transporte y comunicaciones. A pesar de la capacidad de leer y observar todo o casi todo el tráfico de mensajes secretos. A pesar de tantas cosas que se acumulan cualitativa y cuantitativamente en el escenario...lo esencial sigue siendo lo esencial, y en ese terreno básico tengo la impresión que el señor Putin está haciendo lo que la gran escuela rusa de estrategia hace con mucho arte, nutrida además de las tremendas enseñanzas de los errores del Ejército Rojo en Afganistán.

En la parte más oriental del mar Negro y en ciertos sectores de Ucrania vemos una vez más un juego estratégico que intercambia tiempo por espacio, y según la coyuntura, las presiones externas, las propias capacidades-rusas-, las de los otros vecinos sureños y orientales de Rusia, etc, opera la inversa de ese principio general, es decir se pasa a un intercambio de espacio por tiempo. Flujo y reflujo del arte estratégico. Todo ello combinado con una gran capacidad de ocultamiento de la dirección principal del esfuerzo principal en el lugar principal. Esto lo practican en Rusia desde el siglo XIII, esto es lo que los europeos occidentales no entienden. Si releyesen a Raymon Aron en sus comentarios al "Arte de la Guerra" quizás comenzarían a entender lo que está pasando de verdad. Entenderían que estamos a un paso, sino estamos ya, dentro de la espiral ascendente de una guerra europea, que puede tener derivaciones continentales totalmente ocultas en el horizonte visible del espectador poco avisado.
¿Así fueron de impensables las masacres en suelo europeo hace pocos años atrás, de bosnios a manos de serbios y croatas? ¿Era impensable, después de la derrota catastrófica de la II Guerra Mundial (IIGM), el impulso notable que los alemanes dieron a ese escenario bélico europeo en la zona adriática, a través de su apoyo constante a la consolidación de Croacia rompiendo un país federal como Yugoslavia?
Desde el lado ruso el estrechamiento espacial de fronteras consolidadas antes de la primera guerra mundial, en lucha directa contra ingleses y turcos los pone en una situación de guerra que en Francia se definiría como "defensa del pre cuadrado" (défense du pre-carré) en sus lejanas luchas contra la corona de España en los Paises Bajos.
Porque efectivamente Ucrania es parte de un espacio que los estrategas rusos consideran vital, es su pre-cuadrado absoluto. Miren con detalle otra vez la historia del triunfo bolchevique, recuerden dónde se jugó el destino de la revolución rusa, y entenderán que lo que pasa ahora no es una improvisación o una demostración de fuerza de un autocrata, tal como prensa que parece seria, como The Economist, intentan propagar (casi sinónimo de propalar, y de ahí a propaganda hay poco).
Esta crisis no es como otras, porque lo que está en juego es muy diferente. Esta es una piedra de toque de la expansión euroasiática del modo neoliberal financiero de regir economías aspiradas por el crédito de capitales volátiles, de venta ilimitada y barata de materias primas. En alguna publicación alemana e inglesa recientemente se hacían eco de este malestar profundo de la jerarquía rusa, por la apuesta a fondo que habían realizado por el modelo neoliberal más radical.
Una forma de mostrar el final de un periodo político financiero es acotar los espacios físicos en los cuales hay intereses geoestratégicos, sin importar en primera instancia las consecuencias que sobre el mercado financiero puedan acaecer. Hitler declaró guerras sin importarle las reacciones financieras del mercado mundial, sus objetivos eran los recursos humanos y naturales del espacio ruso-ucraniano. 
Pero en Ucrania estamos viendo al viejo jugador ruso de ajedrez maniobrar, mutatis mutandi, con gambitos excelentes, tanto de dama como de rey, que los poco educados jugadores que tienen enfrente se tragan y aceptan. Y quieran o no quieran entran en la máquina trituradora del intercambio espacio-tiempo. Porque allá se está jugando con el calendario operativo que interesa a Rusia, sutilmente, inteligentemente...a largo plazo.
Ya lo hemos recomendado, romántica y utópicamente, en viejos textos publicados en este blog hace al menos 3 años atrás: en estas materias poco nuevo bajo el sol: todos debieran leer a Tucidides y los discursos de Nicolas de M. a "la primera década de Tito Livio". Nadie debiera privarse, para entender mejor lo que está pasando, de releer las memorias de la IIGM de Wiston Churchill. Repasar a Tolstoi en Guerra y Paz da una visión interior, muy didáctica, de lo que significa para un ruso el espacio y el tiempo.
Porque, queramos o no, en Ucrania estamos ante un umbral al cual se ha llegado por decisiones, consecuencias y repercusiones que están todas contenidas en reflexiones ponderadas sobre el arte superior del uso del tiempo, del calendario propio de eventos, de doblegar la voluntad del oponente, de ahogarlo en sus errores de apreciación temporal.
La vieja estrategia siempre sera nueva, viva, por situaciones tan potencialmente peligrosas como la que ya se vive en Ucrania...a pesar de todo.

porque a orillas del océano Pacífico sur oriental,
 en el sur del sur
recordamos las lecciones perennes
de la humanidad
sangrada
por horrores
y por errores

sábado, 28 de octubre de 2023

Palestine and Israel: a case study for technome geopolitics


 

· Recently, I was the leader of a published paper dealing with my average pro stuff (DOI: 10.3390/humans3030016). At first glance its rationale deals with neuro-physiological human evolution abilities along at least 2,5 Ma (million of years). Herein I would try to relate the main paper´s concept christened as “technome” to a  so-called war´s tecnome.

· First of all, I indebt my self to lay before the readers a certain general definition of technome: I assume that it is  the analytical quantification of both material technical and immaterial technical networks defining every object and/or group of material/immaterial objects acting at a certain discrete given time and space.

· Therefore, this war seems to me a very interesting study object since it allows to observe both at zero time and space the  immaterial and material reasons and consequences for a key ongoing war. I mean “key” as a crux event within our Western contemporary present.

· Whether the kind reader of this unpublicized  blog (observarypensar.blogspot) has followed me or not, during the last 12 years, it appears that in general Israeli-palestine wars are full of super technical, both immaterial and material events:

· Actually, both rivals are related by a very long shared History, we could stress upon it saying that both are using on one hand Biblical memories, and on the other archaeological  and very old memories to justify their “spatial argumentation”. That is: their own very reasons justifying their own standing position on the field. The popular core of the war is immaterial.

· The war between them did start after the strategical error of the Arabs not accepting the UN resolution giving a piece of land to the slaughtered central and eastern Jews after the IIWW. It is worth to say that this move can be observed, at present, as the last colonial move by the dying British Empire a hundred years ago to get remote control on the lands near the Suez Canal.

· The strategical error by the triumphant Jews after many local wars (1949-1973 wars) happly taking as a “greek present” the lands of Judea and Samaria plus the eastern side of Jerusalem as a factual result of their impressive military victories. Thus, they are being intoxicated by them selves.

· Nevertheless, what interest me the most, right now, it´s neither the biblical roots nor the hellenic lectures of the victories on the battle fields of this war, but its ongoing complex intertwined material and immaterial  objects (remember that I´m an archaeologist-palaeontologist and a part-time poet) produced by the war. That is: what could be eventually proposed by remotes colleagues in the remote future just observing and thinking about Gaza´s material and immaterial remains after this very war “en course”?

· The first question would be: can an elephant behave as a mouse? Thus, can the Tsahal behave like a guerrilla movement, really? Why I dare to put this question being asked by a remote archaeologist in a remote future to define its war technome? Because today at the Jerusalem Post newspaper the generous analyst pointed out that it was a smart move by the Jew army to behave in a guerrilla way not entering “avec force” inside Gaza. Mon Dieu...quelle perte de qualité dans la pensée strategique!

· Néamoins l´armée juive s´est rendue compte que ce qui l´attendait à Gaza était un piège stratégique classique, mutatis mutandi, un mouvement sophistiqué equivalent à la bataille de Cannas . C´est à dire: attirer l´ennemi vers un gros piege. Pourtant tout en ayant surmonté dans l ´inmediat une tuérie de soldats du Tsahal l´argumentaire en appuie de la suite de coups innatandues par Hamas dans Gaza est également faible: cette guerre on la fait dans un temps infinie. That is the very point of victorious guerrilla´s war: to exhaust the adversary; since one side, Hamas, has no time boundaries to keep their local war, the Israelis do not benefit of this unbounded threshold: for this reason they are an elephant trying to mask and behave like a mouse in a crystal room. Moreover, the strong American help is finite, and it´s controlled by the same rules acting on the Ukrainian war: the sponsors need to be justified within their own national space. That planely means: put on the table clear and neat triumphs...and this is the core problem in a guerrilla war: there are not clear and neat results, even for an elephant trying to behave as a guerrilla warrior. The inertia of your elephant mass limit your degree of freedom to act as a different kind of object both in space and in time. It could be theoretically possible if you would not depend upon your strategical sponsor. Even when you are autonomous in the amount of guns, ammunition and international help, like USA in Vietnam and Russia in Afghanistan, there is a certain subjective threshold that acts in an independent way to the quantitative results on the battle field; for instance there are a lot of  American, French, Spanish military men that still swear that they were wining their respective colonial wars but...politicians betrayed them.

· That´s the point in Gaza: when the Israelis will get upset  sustaining a rotten Government? And in this way we come back to the initial point: sometimes the material and “objective” reality is  flooded by subjective and symbolic matters. A strange thing that we start to observe all along the human evolution.

Igor nearby El Cid and doña Jimena tombs, in Burgos.

sábado, 19 de agosto de 2023

y mis labios fríos

 Anoche te soñé desnuda 

estabas cerca de una fuente de agua

tu empapada como la piedra del arroyo

tus cabellos adheridos  a tu cuello y espalda

te miré de perfil al pasar

porque yo caminaba 

próximo 

pero no avanzaba hacia ti

frontalmente

Por eso retuve de tu imagen en destellos

 en instantes de luz

tus piernas tus caderas y brazos mojados

Quizás aún impresionado por tus negativas

no me acerqué a secarte el agua que brillaba en tu blanca piel

quizás temí 

aun en sueños

otro no

Después me alejé caminando por el arroyo

aguas abajo

feliz de vislumbrarte

pero con las manos vacías 

y mis labios fríos


Igor en Burgos, avec mes pensées ailleurs



miércoles, 9 de agosto de 2023

Las victimas políticas de la guerra prolongada en Ucrania

 Tal como hemos comentado no hace mucho en este blog, en la guerra la variable que controla la calidad del triunfo es el tiempo, no el espacio ocupado. El triunfo del calendario, de la imposición de los tiempos tanto militares como civiles en el territorio en cuestión es la señal estratégica del verdadero triunfo. Gana el que impone, porque es una imposición del que realmente triunfa, su calendario de prioridades estratégicas y tácticas. 

En Ucrania aún la balanza parece equilibrada en términos territoriales, kilometro cuadrado por un lado o por el otro más o menos. Sin embargo resulta evidente que el lado ucraniano tiene razones poderosas para inquietarse por lo prolongado de la guerra. Sus aliados indefectiblemente le están pasando una factura en la que ellos se han hipotecado mucho no sólo en términos económicos, sino también en términos militares: han disfrutado de la tecnología táctica de punta del bloque occidental, y le están haciendo un flaco favor a los proveedores al no usar más eficientemente su armamento. 

El umbral de eficiencia, según se mide en occidente, cuantifica superficies del territorio ucraniano recuperado. Los rusos miden de otra manera, toda vez ha quedado demostrado que cometieron un error estratégico mayor al iniciar esta guerra sin contar con los recursos militares suficientes. De hecho creyeron, equivocadamente, que en poco tiempo resolverían la guerra de agresión. Es decir usaron un criterio espacial para medir su progresión estratégica...y perdieron la iniciativa militar que pasó a manos de la resistencia ucraniana. 

Este error espacial de los rusos ahora lo están cometiendo también los ucranianos: están esforzándose por controlar espacios y no los tiempos del conflicto. Craso error.  Para la parte rusa esta guerra prolongada la beneficia en el medio plazo, pero hay razones para pensar que el grupo dirigente ruso está incomodo con esta continua necesidad de recurrir a aliados asiáticos para compensar su baja producción militar táctica. Los rusos saben muy bien que Siberia en su conjunto abre apetitos muy grandes a la dirigencia china. Mientras mayor sea la deuda militar y económica con China la posición rusa en Asia central se debilita progresivamente.

Es decir al final de la guerra podemos tener dos escenarios geopolíticos impensables hace dos o tres años: por un lado el espacio geopolítico ucraniano estará totalmente en manos de occidente, y Rusia podría ver comprometida no ya su unidad territorial occidental en Europa, o sea de los Urales hacia el oeste, sino que Siberia entrará en un tiempo de conflicto con el actual aliado chino. A mayor presión americana sobre las líneas de navegación china hacia el Pacifico mayores oportunidades les parecerán abrirse, a la dirigencia china, en ese océano continental que es Siberia para los imaginativos y viejos habitantes del continente asiático oriental.

Y por las noticias que me llegan desde Rusia, la posición política de Putin parece realmente deteriorarse a medida que pasa el tiempo. El también será una victima de esta guerra prolongada que inició sin estar preparado estratégicamente para ella.

en Burgos un dia caluroso de Agosto

Igor Parra


lunes, 17 de julio de 2023

Thronus ero tui

 Me remito a lo amado

me remito tambien a lo que dijeron mis manos

todo era cierto

creelo

El arqueo de tus suspiros

el computo de los kilometros de mi lengua en tu piel

visible e invisible

lo conoces 

El análisis minucioso que practicas de nuestros besos

lo llevo a flor de labios

creo que tu los tienes catalogados

yo sólo los llevo

tu los piensas

El viento no me los borra

el sol no me los quema

Ahi están 

y si después ya no estás tú

ellos permanecerán en un estrato vivido

en la piel de mi boca

No diré nada de nuestros juegos inventivos

las paredes 

la mesa

las sillas

saben de ellos

Aquí sólo vine

a este rincón poético

a glosarme como 

sostén de tu cuerpo

no en la vertical 

no.

Sino en esa extraña y novedosa figura de trono

que me has asignado

contrario a la Gravedad

Lo reconozco

a pesar de tanto trajín de aquí y para allá

de varios puertos y bahías con remansos bellos 

de mi vida

 me sorprendí por la solución infrecuente

que creamos para hacer el amor

He sido muchas cosas en el juego de dos

en la penumbra horizontal

pero nunca fui un Trono

y no me refiero a la categoria angelical

sino al puro objeto vertical

que nosotros hemos elaborado en la horizontal

de sabanas y almohadas.

Parece que ejerzo bien de Trono

La verdad sea dicha

 me place serlo

Es una dimensión tan diferente del espacio amatorio

que me condeno a perfeccionarme más y más

en esta acción en la que creo pierdes el computo germano

que acostumbrabas antes de entronizarte 

en la intersección de dos planos 

perpendiculares

curiosamente

Si un día me faltas

como arqueólogo arrumbaré mis huesos 

tendones

y músculos

en el vacío  de tu espacio ido

y así me quedaré

esperando

 morir


Igor Parra

pletórico de anochecer castellano viejo



 



jueves, 6 de julio de 2023

Critical observations on the summer campaign in Ukrain.

When the Ukrainian war escalated spatially, in 2022, Putin's goal was certainly to conduct a rapid campaign. He misjudged the Western side's ability and interest in supporting and sustaining the Ukrainians economically and militarily.
This error of assessment constitutes a strategic error that would have meant a military defeat for the Russian side if it did not have strategic reserves that do not end in the so-called "strategic" nuclear weapons. This is the main mistake of Western strategists: it is almost the equivalent of the mistake made by the Germans in 1941 in not considering the Asian factor in the military equation. Now the Westerners had not included it either, and the consequences are already evident: Russia not only gets armaments in the far East but also markets that feed what Napoleon called "the nerve of war", that is to say, economic resources.
 In this summer campaign, which has just begun with an Ukrainian counter-offensive, there are at least two aspects that strike me, as a reader of Thucydides, Churchill, Aron and others who knew and practiced the art of grand strategy, which goes beyond the movement of troops and material resources in space, to obtain a victory over the enemy.
In the first place the lack of the equivalent of the Stavka in the Russian military leadership. No trace anymore of that efficient machine of military thought and action of the Soviet period - Stavka Glavnogo Komandovaniya (Ставка Главного Командования Воооруженнных Сил Союза ССР) which knew how to counter the harsh German offensive military action of the years 1941 and 1942. 
The second striking point is the ongoing mistake made by Western, and especially Ukrainian, military men, who are attracted by what Bachelard defined as a "fascination with objects". This fascination translates into a blind and absolute confidence in the quality of weapons to achieve victory. However, like the Germans in WWII, the Ukrainians do not have sufficient quantities to transform the small quantity of excellent new Western weapons into a critical mass sufficient to break the Russian front. The total amount of V1 and V2 directly hitting London was quantitatively significant, but it did not change the very steam of the Western strategy. It seems to me that the  "Wonder" Western guns, at least right now, are just containing but not winning the ongoing Ukrainian war.
Russians have an absolute line of defense in their nuclear artillery, nevertheless they could be defeated in the Ukrainian space itself, being difficult to foresee if they would accept losing Crimea. But this is not the critical point in itself either: the key seems, again, to be in their temporary ability to fight with the half-gas intensity of the Ukrainian counter-offensive. 
In the West we tend to do sums, body countings, which for the Russians are not significant. Comparing today's Russia with the Soviet Union is a very significant error, because the fifty thousand dead in the Afghan war had a different social value in relation to those killed in Ukraine. Therefore, at the end of the day, we are back to a chessboard where time is a major factor that plays, at least for now, in favor of the Russians. And this is so because they have a significant and larger demographic and natural resources factor in relation to the Ukrainian resources.
On the latter, we have to subtract from Ukraine's demographic potential the millions of people who had already left their country years before the open war with Russia. To that we have to count those who have left during this open war, and the final calculation is that Ukraine is losing a strategic critical mass. Perhaps this is quite more important in absolute terms than the Russian brain drain to the Asian republics of the former Soviet Union, to Germany, Israel or the States.
We are close to a critical point where the huge Russian mass seems to win the timing of the war. The Ukrainian need to impose their own time schedule to Russians, this is the very core of the strategic victory.

Igor Parra 
en Burgos no lejos de las tumbas del Cid y Doña Jimena

domingo, 7 de mayo de 2023

Rimini

 Rimini d'estate Rimini di notte

vicino alla barca che galleggia illuminata

vedo il tuo corpo nudo il tuo corpo italiano

morbido come la seta che i tuoi antenati

attraverso i continenti hanno portato fino qua


Ti ho visto così triste così triste, così italiana così bella

che non ho resistito a invitarti per una nuotata notturna

al mio fianco


Il tuo silenzio sorridente era un'immensa affermazione

grande come il mare che ci rinfrescava

Poi mi hai chiesto di spegnere le luci della barca

e mi hai aspettato sdraiata sul ponte


Ti ho asciugato la schiena e i capelli

poi i tuoi baci i miei baci

le tue mani e le mie

si sono intrecciate intorno a noi

una rete che ci ha trattenuto

fino all'alba dell'estate

un'alba calda e umida di agosto


Rimini d'estate Rimini di notte

Ti ricorderò sempre anche se riderai quando lo dirò

So che è così e così sarà

fino a quando tornerò a Rimini e non ti troverò più


Voglio solo dirti

che l'unica cosa importante è la felicità

Sono felice di averti regalato

 un momento

intenso di essa

e di riceverla da te

costruendo sospiri e frasi che solo tu e io

ricorderemo


Raccogli questa esperienza, ragazza italiana

e non dissolverla in altra inutile tristezza

né angoscia né catene immaginarie

perché tu sei il mattino e la notte

tu respiri e la terra vive

e quando dormi le stelle respirano appena

mentre mi trascini in catene

ai tuoi dolci fianchi


Sei stata per qualche giorno e qualche notte il mio centro

la mia pace


oh lontana Rimini


igor parra

Pondering and wondering before the spring-summer campaign in Ukraine

 

MASKIROVKA

strategic masking is a complex art, articulated by multiple prior actions whose purpose is one and only one: to divert attention from the main objective in such a convincing way that even this or that aspect of what is producing the strategic masking is debated, discussed and pondered by its potential enemies while the operational bases of the main action are built with a very low profile.

If someone were to ask me what in my opinion is the best example at the present time of strategic masking, I would not hesitate to point to China's action in relation to the island of Taiwan. 

Besides, in the conflict generated by the Russian invasion of Ukraine, there was no such masking during the first phase of the conflict. It seems that during the second phase, which is ending now, in a very classical way, with a spring-summer campaign "ad portas", we have on the Russian side a very advanced strategic masking that is acting on the main vector of the Grand Strategy: time. 

If there is no internal coup in the Russian leadership, and the spring-summer campaign turns into the bogging down of the Ukrainian-western war effort, then we will be facing a clear example of successful strategic masking on the Russian side. 

If so, it will have done so by clouding Western reasoning with the spatial projection of its temporal feint, that is, by generating more discussion about space than about what really counts in any kind of war : time, king and master throughout history, redundant though it may seem.

Let time pass by some days  before the next modest piece of observation and thinking, always enlightened by our western and eastern classical masters many times here mentioned during the last 12 years.


to be continued sooner rather than later


Igor Parra 

Burgos

martes, 2 de mayo de 2023

Ukraine, the second moment

 Ukraine, the second moment


Analysing, observing and thinking about a significant event requires a certain perspective. I have let a year of the war in Ukraine pass, as the situation obviously got complicated for Putin already in the initial phase of the game. 

But in Russian military history problems of this kind are recorded in the strategic memory of this people who proficiently cultivate the art of the use of time in space. They are good chess players. And as we all know, chess is a problem machine that relates spatial control...in terms of available time to solve complex game situations.  

So I refer back to my earlier observation and thoughts on the Ukrainian issue of 12 February 2022 and repeat myself: it is likely that the Russian objective is not the one we can imagine in the West. Both Putin and President Xi use strategic time scales that are not the ones we use. 

I am therefore surprised that British intelligence reports almost as a triumph that Russian troops are defensively entrenched in the territory of the Donbas. Perhaps that is a major objective of the Russian move south... not the only one, but a very significant one. 

At the present time we are waiting for a Ukrainian counter-offensive to develop. Perhaps we are on the verge of surprising things, perhaps the business of reconstruction of the Ukrainian territory has begun prematurely. The Russians have flattened cities and infrastructure, now a period of reconstruction should begin.

 Whoever benefits from this will be the winner of the ongoing war. In this way we continue to witness the dilution of nation states, at least in the West, and their consolidation in Eastern Eurasia. In the West, the relationship between war and corporate business is growing, but we cannot say that it has only recently been invented. The great failure of Athens in the Peloponnesian War was to gamble strategically in terms of business on the conquest of Sicily. That thunderous failure (we still hear it from those of us who study these matters) permanently blighted its performance in the war against Sparta. The strategic gambles being made by the West bring us closer to a dangerous zone where a possible scenario would be precisely a scenario analogous to the failure of the Athenian expedition to Sicily. The Athenians did not lose the war the day after the failure of the expedition, the consequences of that defeat caused them to lose the confidence of their allies, the operational capability of their fleet and they were finally defeated by the Spartans in the military field in which they, the Athenians, were strategically dominant. 

For now, these are the observations that, as an archaeologist and palynologist interested in the present and the future, I am making to the kind readers of this unpublicised and very modest blog.


Igor Parra

en Burgos a 240 metros de la tumba del Cid y doña Jimena



viernes, 28 de abril de 2023

Per dieci anni

Tus lindos labios


 Non conoscerò mai il sapore della tua bocca

Non camminerò lungo le tue gambe o le tue braccia

non mi addormenterò sulle tue ginocchia

e tu sulle mie spalle

Non ti vedrò mai dormire serenamente dopo il dialogo amoroso dei corpi 

Durante anni

Ho guadato fiumi pericolosi

Ho attraversato mari profondi di vita intensa

con altre donne 

ma tu sei stata fino alla terza lettera

il mio nord

nella prima

 anni fa

 hai detto che Dio ti stava aspettando

poi che non potevi abbandonare tua madre

e ora hai recentemente dichiarato di preferire lo stato di ambiguità in cui ci troviamo da trent'anni a questa parte. 

Me voy pues

pero

 recordare tus labios


Igor 

Vitacura


martes, 1 de marzo de 2022

What Thucidides said about the war between two equipotencies such as Sparta and Athenes?

  

 

Saco a colación un antiguo texto del mes de abril de 2021 publicado en este modesto Post, porque los eventos en curso en Ucrania lo ameritan, y además lo menciono en el texto precedente, y así ahorro al gentil lector a excarvar mayormente

Classical readings of the asymmetric conflict in the Pacific Basin and Eurasia





A recent publication makes a classic military potential count of different countries to reach the conclusion that in the air the United States of America would win an eventual conflict, Russia would win on land and China would win at sea (https://www.military.direct/blogs/news/which-world-military-would-win-in-a-war).

These types of comparisons lack, in my view, predictive capacity, as they do not incorporate fundamental factors in the strategic equations that, on occasion, allow us to glimpse a winner in armed conflicts of different scales. Thucydides, whom I have mentioned several times in this blog since 2010, enlightens us with his detailed description of the Peloponnesian War, when at the very beginning of his narrative, in the magnificent chapter entitled "Archaeology" he explains why the war between Athens and Sparta was so prolonged: both powers had a decisive capacity in the military sphere in which the other did not. That is, Sparta was omnipotent in land combat, as Athens was at sea.

However, as kind readers will remember, at the end of the war the victory of Sparta was not in "its sphere of power" but precisely in the maritime sphere, where Athens had an overwhelming superiority not only in numbers but also in the quality of human resources, from the seamen to the strategists who directed the naval operations. The decisive factor of that final naval battle, at the mouth of the river Egospótamos (Chersonese) was the tactical surprise originated in a tactical error of the Athenian strategist, added to a factor as important as random that the strategist Lysander, commander of the Spartan fleet, knew how to take advantage of: the coincidence that his fleet sailed in the vicinity of the beaches where the enemy fleet stranded to rest. I leave to the reader the pleasure of the brief and forceful description that Thucydides makes of the final event of this very long war, which exceeded the initial calculations of the contenders. Something similar happens with other initial moments of wars that are prolonged beyond the horizon foreseen by military strategists. I am referring for example to the First World War, or to the Second World War, where Barbarrosa's mistake is only equivalent in the European West to Napoleon's miscalculation both in the Iberian Peninsula and in Russia.

From a current perspective of firepower, and of the doctrines of use of the vectors of that power, we can say that there is not at the present time a technical advance such as to allow a victory in the Pacific basin in an overwhelming way of any potential adversary. The potential major contenders, both in the Pacific and in Eurasia, have sufficient nuclear capability to escalate at any time a direct conflict through even minimal fractions of their respective nuclear arsenals in such a way as to cause decisive damage. That is, damage to demographics and environmental resources of such magnitude that even an eventual winner in such an exchange would see its own socio-political and economic structure profoundly altered.

From this point of view, a conflict simulation exercise takes us back, as Henry Kisinguer is warning, to cold war scenarios, where the outcome of the nuclear conflict was described in the acronym of the scenario that generated the direct nuclear conflict: Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD).

So, can we locate the asymmetry of a direct nuclear conflict today in the Pacific or in Eurasia? Indeed, having reached the point of no return of the spiral towards extremes- sensu Clausewitz commented by R. Aaron- the use of  nuclear fire could hardly guarantee a complete annihilation of the opposing force in its entirety. Once again Mao's strategic intuition emerges forcefully in the sense that the demographic factor in such a conflict becomes a significant variable: the largest surviving population is the population that in the long term would gain the use of the territory, which is the central core of wars.

My personal impression is that the power or strength of the United States is far superior to that of China and Russia combined, but it is not an overwhelming superiority, like that of the Spaniards, English, French, Dutch or Belgians when they confronted and conquered immense colonized territories with few troops and weapons systems infinitely superior to those of the original inhabitants, whether native Americans, Asian or African. Thus, in the rapid course of an eventual confrontation, an asymmetric response on the part of Russia or China would be enough to generate a change of political regime in the American Federation, and ,or conversely, mostly in Russia than in China.

This potential asymmetrical tactical surprise can have profound strategic consequences, as has already occurred in the universal historical drama. For the German command, for example, there were two significant surprises during the war against the Allies: one purely military: the Russians were able to build huge numbers of tanks and had very important Western assistance at key moments. The other was purely geopolitical at two points in time: at the beginning of the war they miscalculated the reaction of France and the United Kingdom to the invasion of Poland, and at the end of the war they also failed to predict the time it would take for the Soviet Union to confront the Western bloc. They intuited it correctly but they were wrong in the fundamental matter of the Grand Strategy: the real, operative time of the events.

For the fundamental matter of the Grand Strategy is time, not space. 

Although, some military men have a tendency to think that the exercise of the strategic art is space, we think that there is already enough experience and knowledge to think that only time is the essential engine of the art, and this explains then that the asymmetric action has fundamental consequences in the definition of all strategic conflicts.

But we will continue with this in the near future because the times we live in are fertile for those of us who observe the events that precede human actions.

Igor Parra

un dia ventoso y oceánico oriental en Lebu y Vitacura

martes, 15 de febrero de 2022

 Alejandría te recuerdo claramente

desnuda mientras avanzas hacia mi luminosa

aunque esa habitación egipcia fuera penumbra

y no tropezabas porque mi mano guia tu cuerpo

mientras espero en el borde del lino arrugado

tus piernas tus suavisimas piernas 

y mis manos se juntan a tus manos decididas

ansiosa tu por explorar con tu cuerpo algo nuevo

educada por cientos de años en la pasividad que aburre

hallas en mi un sacerdote que te adorará sentado

mirando tus muy inteligentes ojos

 antiguos bellísimos  y sabios

mientras te acomodas sobre mi con una sonrisa de luz

mientras enciendes nuestros labios

con tu suspiro de sorpresa 

quizás de asombro

mientras reacaes en mi y tu boca exhala

aquel sonido tan dulce como tus hombros y cuello 

pero no sé

no quiero saber con precisión que dijo tu primer gemido

porque saldría del ensueño en que me embargas aún 

linda y lejana Alejandría

 

Igor Parra en Vitacura

 una tarde egipcia de estudio y recuerdos

sábado, 12 de febrero de 2022

Ukraine, which is the most interesting move: the Euroasiatic (Russian) or the Western one ?

Ukraine and the next russian move

People interested in strategic games, at "grandeur nature", must rejoice and enjoy the particular Ukrainian stage, where many actors are playing what has been christened as an imminent war by some American analysts. My personal interest is centered on the most eastern region, that of China. Nevertheless, some common strategic lines seem to link the Ukrainian actors to those of the far eastern front .

Many times through the last 11 years of this very modest post, I have pointed out that from my very personal quarter the most important variable of strategy, with capital S, is Time. And from this particular point of view, the strategic world tale, being performed by USA, Russia, China, the EU and their corresponding satellites, is following multiple tension lines marked by the conscient use of time by both the euroasiatic and the asiatic players. 

Meanwhile the western side of the strategic equation concentrates merely on the control of spaces by Russians and Chinese, they are, quite probably, strategic worlds and times apart, working in a clever way on temporal lines of action. If I am not completely wrong we are witnessing a real big "classic" indirect approach, being the spatial channeling and  the temporal dilution of the American might the main goal. In this way it is possible to endure the asymmetrical difference between americans (and their western allies),on one side, and russians and chinese on the other. Actually, with a third of the american military strategic strength, the chinese and russians cope that clear power difference, at global scale.

 In this game, at these temporal and spatial scales, the most important thing for the non western side is the control of time, on the contrary the most important thing for the western side seems to be the control of space. A classic and conceptually close strategic paradox has been  explained already by Thucidides, commenting on the cause of the long conflict between Sparta and Athens, during the Peloponnesian War, some 2450 years ago. 

Some time ago I have written on this but I would let the kind readers to find it out by themselves. Again, at a closer scale the Ukrainian conflict seems to be a russian temporal-strategic exercise to accomplish a very limited spatial goal: to keep the control of the Donbas region where many ethnic russians live. The way to obtain this is throwing to the "air" a complete set of military desinformation, which always can bear in itself a dual life: to be or not to be true, and  whether it is true finally, the spatial prize could be a mere fraction of that imagined by the western side. 

This masking game using military electromagnetic signals is matching spatial movements which let the russian HQ to escalate at more than one main axis of progression the military forces. Whatever the final decision would be, they have installed in a notorious way a conceptual fog in the minds of both Ukrainian and western allies. This is in itself a previous nice prize, because they are not going toward the obvious goal: a massive russian attack.

 We will see in a short time the partial end of this very dangerous but interesting move.

 Igor Parra 

 en Vitacura Santiago de Chile

sábado, 4 de septiembre de 2021

How to interpret the Marxist re-indoctrination of Chinese society right now? (Part Two)

 How to interpret the Marxist re-indoctrination of Chinese society in the 21st century?

Igor Parra

This commentary could occupy several chapters of a political-military essay, however we will limit it to the essential and the concise, the practical and the urgent. At some point, some of the kind readers, who read me in different countries, will realize what this hypothesis I am presenting below means in the short and medium term.

First of all, the stage has been set by Chinese President Xi Jinping himself and has been reported in the international press. Indeed the president declared the reintroduction of Marxism in the national education plans at different levels and grades. In some Western press it has been interpreted as a step towards the arteriosclerosis of the regime of the eighty-year-old leaders of the Asian country.

However, in the Asian press, in the countries neighboring China, there have been no excessively negative comments. What is most interesting from my point of view is that it is in the Vietnamese press where there is no trace of negative commentary, only a relative vacuum since they limit themselves to reproducing summaries of press agencies. At least in the newspapers and journals that we can access from the West via the web.

From a purely Asian, and especially Vietnamese, military strategy point of view, this reindoctrination could only mean that the Chinese leaders are deeply convinced that they will be attacked by a US-led alliance in the not too distant future. Perhaps no more than 5 years (the latter is a derivative of the main hypothesis).

Indeed, when the functioning of the communist armies is known, an aspect that has never been well understood in the West is the utmost importance of the political indoctrination of the troops at all levels of the military echelon. Otherwise it would be difficult to explain the Soviet Russian triumph not only in the Second World War but also in the civil war against the interventionism of all its near and remote neighbors. It would be equally difficult to understand the Vietnamese triumph over the Americans, and along the same logical line, that of the Vietnamese against the French and Japanese colonial power. Likewise, it would not be possible to understand the triumph of the Chinese communists over the Japanese invaders and the direct and frontal confrontation against the Americans in Korea.

The communist ideological component goes far beyond the classic indoctrination and morale of troops typical of Western armies, which has been practiced for several centuries, especially as a moral religious component, for example the text engraved in metal on the belts of German soldiers in various wars: Got mit Uns (God with us).

Who has written best about this in depth is the Vietnamese strategist Vo Nguyen Giap. The titles of his works clearly indicate the fundamental role given to Marxist ideology in the organization of anti-imperialist guerrilla warfare, whether Japanese, French or American. These texts on the one hand summarize the military writings of Marx himself, as well as those of other revolutionary thinkers, but they contribute a very characteristic vision of the relationship not only of the corps or combat echelon, whichever it may be, with coordination and strategic movement, something that Mao succeeds in synthesizing and improving in a notable way, but he adds a particular accentuation to the political relationship between the military political cadre and its own instrument of defense and attack. It is perhaps the best operational compilation of the enormous importance of the political education of a military cadre; its conclusion is that without deeply assimilated ideological content the enormous difficulty of modern warfare from the revolutionary camp cannot be executed in spite of any technologically superior military instrument or complex. Only political superiority operationally projects sufficient willpower to the body of combatants armed no longer with material weapons, but with conceptual weapons.

Having said the above, which is known to scholars of the political indoctrination of modern armies, it is worth proposing that we can interpret as a clear sign of readiness for war the fact that Chinese society activates its Marxist political indoctrination in a transversal way. This has several operational implications far greater than incorporating this or that aircraft carrier, or developing this or that super sonic missile system. 

If we read Mao and his best pupil Vo Nguyen Giap carefully, the Communist Party of the People's Republic of China is preparing for a new kind of revolutionary war. We will continue to comment on this in future posts. In the meantime, readers who lack a Vietnamese revolutionary military education would do well to start reading Vo Nguyen Giap very carefully.

miércoles, 4 de agosto de 2021

pregunto por preguntar

 a flor de tiempo 

¿significa acaso a flor de piel?

que estés lejos

como lo siente mi piel encendida

y en mi alma la flor del tiempo impacienta

¿implica que estás ausente?

si el corazón del camino

que en el pecho llevo

 no se agita

¿quiere decir que morí

o que llegué ahí donde la flor del tiempo

florece?

cuando no respondes

es que me olvidaste

o el tiempo que pasé en los caminos

me enterró fuera de tu piel

y de tu hermoso corazón

que fue tantos años

los caminos

que caminé

con el alma en flor?

entonces 

¿aquí se quedará tu lozana presencia

en este recoveco de mi ruta

que es tu corazón?

¿seguiré queriendo caminar

a través de las claras auroras

tu presencias 

ya ausentes?

Quizás ya lejano

mi recuerdo mustio

se murió hace tiempo

incluso en la memoria

del siglo

Quizás ahora 

siga feliz

a pesar del olvido

¿Quizás gracias a él?


Igor Parra, entre Vitacura y Lebu



The Chinese Clock (Part One)

 The Chinese Clock (Part One): Mao's super synthesis

 I.

In line with my a-periodic commentaries on this blog about the situation in Egypt, the Middle East (Syria, Israel, Palestine, Turkey), I accentuate those sporadic analytical visits even further east. 

When we approach China we are imbued with a sense of entering a space where strategic thinking has been not only conceptualised but efficiently put into action, over several groups of hundreds of years summing up millennia, almost in a continuous way through time and space. There, the greatest strategic change emerged at Mao's death with the development of an unprecedented and far-reaching action, which was not initially understood in the West: the operational synthesis of successful Western capitalism with a local form of war communism, in fact a variant of the one triumphantly imposed by the Bolsheviks around 1922 on the ruins of the defeated Tsarist Empire, and on the defeated Western alliances to wipe out communism militarily.

II.

Mao conceived years before his death the fundamental theoretical principle used by the political-military leadership of the Chinese system during the post-Mao transition. This Maoist concept, his main contribution to political theory, is based on how to overcome the "classical" Hegelian, Marxist and Leninist debate on "reality". Until Mao, the highest level of the socio-economic historical process of thesis, antithesis and synthesis ended with "the change of reality" which arises from an organised political will, oriented towards the seizure of power in order to precisely "change the reality" of the living conditions of the population. Mao proposes something radically different, going beyond the classical synthesis, which he criticises as "weak": it is no longer enough to interpret reality, nor to change reality... but: a new reality must be created.

Thus, the successors of the "great helmsman" did not deepen the errors of the war communism practised by the Soviet Union and its satellites, for they did as their leader had written: the chinese did not reinterpret or change reality... they created another reality. They made the most innovative strategic synthesis since the Council of Nicea, 1694 years ago, when the Roman Empire converted to Christianity. The Maoist synthesis can be called the Super Synthesis because it surpasses the previous level of strategic analysis and practice. It was Mao's political adversary, Deng Xiaoping, who launched the experiment, but conceptually it was totally in line with the political-theoretical line that Mao had created. Thus, all political-military and civilian cadres of any rank were perfectly familiar with that part of Mao's theoretical legacy. In the West, only the few communists who had seriously read Mao understood the profound meaning of this concept, of this Super Synthesis, when the profound economic transformations in China began 10 years later. What was mistakenly seen from the West as the partial or complete westernisation of a communist regime, for millions of senior cadres, Chinese communist party militants and ordinary citizens, it was actually the creation of a new singular reality , not a mere change of reality. The gang of 4 belonged to the past with their criticism of this radically new policy for a new reality, they still were  about changing reality, thus they totally lost their ticket to the big scenario.

In the Western we tend to operate under pre Maoist rationales , just doing a simplistic kind of taxonomy when we say that the Chinese are just summing up capitalist market concepts and practices within a communist formal dictatorship. I dare to say that this is a weak analysis of what is really happening in China.

Igor Parra, Vitacura-Lebu 2021