Sailing across the Caribbean, Hector Lynch falls into the hands of the notorious buccaneer, Captain John Coxon. Hector’s two friends, Dan and Jacques, are released when Coxon mistakes Hector as the nephew of Sir Thomas Lynch—the Governor of Jamaica—an error that Hector encourages. Coxon delivers Hector to Sir Henry Morgan, a bitter enemy of Governor Lynch. The captain is expecting to curry favour with Henry Morgan but is publicly humiliated at a Christmas ball. From then on, Coxon seeks to revenge himself on Hector and the young seafarer finds himself on the run again. — Book promo @ goodreads.com
On the North American track, Russia should facilitate the U.S.’s ongoing long-term withdrawal into neo-isolationism, quite natural for it, at a new global level. Clearly, there is no returning to the pre-WWII policy paradigm, and that would probably even be undesirable. The U.S.’s dependence on the outside world provides tools for pressuring it. If its current liberal-globalist elites leave power, the U.S. may even turn back into the relatively constructive global balancer that it was before the second half of the 20th century. A comprehensive strategy for the U.S.’s containment is unnecessary, as it would only waste the resources that we need for internal rejuvenation. There are no intractable contradictions between us and the U.S. The contradictions that currently exist were caused by the U.S.’s expansion, facilitated by our weakness and stupidity in the 1990s, which contributed to the dramatic upsurge of hegemonic sentiment in the U.S. The internal crisis in the U.S., and its present elites’ commitment to post-human values, will further sap Washington’s “soft power,” i.e. ideological influence. In the meantime, a harsh deterrence policy (more on it below) should create conditions for the U.S.’s evolution into a normal great power.
Europe—once a beacon of modernization for us and many other nations—is rapidly moving towards geopolitical nothingness and, hopefully I am wrong, towards moral and political decay. Its still-wealthy market is worth exploiting, but our main effort in relation to the old subcontinent should be morally and politically fencing ourselves off from it. Having first lost its soul—Christianity—it is now losing the fruit of the Enlightenment—rationalism. Besides, on orders from outside, the Eurobureaucracy is itself isolating Russia from Europe. We are grateful. — An Age Of Wars: What Is To Be Done by Sergey Karaganov (Presidential Advisor to both Boris Yeltsin and Vladimir Putin and is considered close to Putin and Sergey Lavrov.)