We haven't linked to Dr. (LSE PhD) Malmgren much over the years because I couldn't figure out when she was speaking for herself and when she was speaking as a representative of the powers-that-be, what with memberships/positions at RUSI and the CFR and Chatham House and oh hell, let's just say she is about as wired-in as you can get. After leaving extremely high level government service she founded Canonbury Group whose client list was almost ridiculously comprehensive of the very tippy-top of international business and finance.
From Dr. Pippa's Pen and Podcast substack, July 6:
Sunak, Svalbard and Smackers
The British Prime Minister is about to be bounced out by his Cabinet. From President Putin’s perspective, this is welcome news. Anything that undermines decision-making in NATO and destabilizes America and its close proxies gives him an advantage. The British may feel marginalized since Brexit but Putin views Britain as the long reach of America’s defense and offense apparatus. It is not just that Britain is home to American weapons systems. Britain is America’s best supplier of intelligence and intelligent sensemaking about what is going on in the world. But, with the mass shootings, the massive loss of confidence in government institutions, and the massive pressure Donald Trump and Boris Johnson brought to bear on politics, there is little time to listen to stories about what is happening in faraway places like the tiny island of Svalbard in Norway or the Central African Republic. Normally the British would have probably been briefing Washington, explaining how Russia is carefully gearing up to challenge the US in and from both places. How do you explain that very carefully though efforts are underway to give those “Smackers”, the US Dollar, a punch in the eye when they are occurring in ways and places that are too nuanced for clickbait-style summaries? But, with the resignation of the British Chancellor, Rishi Sunak, and the coming reconfiguration of the current government (and eventually elections), nobody will focus on why Svalbard is the next hot spot or why cryptocurrencies in the remote Central African Republic are all about challenging the supremacy of American Smackers. Sunak, Svalbard, and Smackers are all linked together.
*****Let’s start with the commonly held view that President Putin and Russia are running out of money, out of war machinery, and out of international support. This leads to the easy conclusion that it’s just a matter of time before Russia accepts its losses and retreats. Those who think this way measure the impact of the war in Ukraine and the sanctions arising from it on Russian GDP. It was small to start with and smaller now. Game over, right? The US and Britain and NATO work to make sure Putin doesn’t go into a fit of nuclear rage but the core strategy is to just let Putin run out of steam. Poor Ukraine. In this scenario, the Chancellor’s resignation and the reconfiguration of the British Cabinet are no big deal. No one needs to consider Putin’s accusation that Norway and NATO are blockading Russia via the strategically positioned island of Svalbard. In this scenario, anything that might be going on in the Central African Republic with a new cryptocurrency and Gold exports to Russia has nothing whatsoever to do with anything in this story so far.Now let’s look at the world the way President Putin does. While he’s been at war in Ukraine, he has been harvesting rich cash flows and gathering strategic prizes in diverse locations. Sudan has given Russia access to a port on the Red Sea which makes it easier to transport Gold and other raw materials from Africa back to Russia. Russia’s major security constraint is a massive magnetometer system that NATO has installed in Svalbard, Greenland, and Tromso Norway. It allows the US, Britain, and NATO to track the movements of Russia’s Northern Fleet and all their nuclear weapons systems. Thanks to Cassidy Hutchison, the world just discovered that President Trump called for the magnetometers or “mags” (metal detectors) to be removed from the Capitol so that “his people” could enter the building with their weapons. The Svalbard-based Northern magnetometer system means Russia can’t really make a move from the headquarters of their Naval Fleet at Severomonsk in Murmansk and on The Kola Peninsula without being seen. As for missiles, it used to be that the West relied on an early warning system called the DEW line (Distant Early Warning Line), which would alert the US and NATO if Russia tried to deploy ICBMs or nuclear weapons in a Westward direction. The DEW line was a series of 57 radar stations built over 32 months in 1955. It ended in Greenland. But, once the Soviet Union ceased to exist and the Cold War ended, America and NATO expanded their reach by moving to Svalbard and setting up this new system that triangulates on Russia....
....MUCH MORE
